Actually Yes, I Am Still Alive
To anyone who follows this journal and reads my stories (particularly Sanctuary), I sort of feel like I owe it to you to at least post an I'm-alive entry and promise I haven't stopped writing. Stress has just eaten my brain and all of its creative processes whole. A brief snippet of the last six months: Temporarily laid off while restaurant moves, promised two weeks. Two weeks gradually becomes a month. Two months. Boss offers to give me what sounds like a retainer fee when I say I'm going to have to find work elsewhere (small business, the loss of one employee is hard, so a retainer fee is worthwhile). Boss and owner are on different pages, owner treats it as an advance. Get back to work FOUR MONTHS later only to realize the owner is expecting me to pay all of that back and takes some out of every paycheck, to the point where I'm scraping by. Hours get cut. Hours get cut again. Hours get cut AGAIN. Health is getting worse from living in this moldy state and up to six asthma attacks are not uncommon in one day. Am shortly facing a 2000 mile cross-country move with my very small car and whatever I can fit in it (because my job is not getting better here, I might as well find one there) to be closer to my amazing girlfriend, which is going to necessitate coming out to my parents, who are very conservative Christians, and whom I love very much. They've had hard lives, I don't want to add any more stress to them, like the kind where you learn that your child is in a lesbian relationship. I honestly fear losing their support and respect and love. So I could write for you, I could put words down on a page, but they would be complete crap because they are coming from an overstressed brain. And I am so very, truly sorry about how I've left Sanctuary. It was never my intention to stop like that, and I have every intention of finishing.