"Life is change; how it differs from the rocks."
Would you look at that? I am back after less than six months! Who knows if I can keep up this incredible momentum?
The best time seems to be to do this from work, even if the mighty and mysterious firewall doesn't like Dreamwidth. I need to try to remember to import my entries to DW later.
Anyway, enough of that. It's been a whole week since I posted, and it kind of feels like I have nothing to say. That's not entirely true, but I don't want this to become a space in which I only complain. I know, that's what I've used it for 90% of the time, why change? But in the immortal words of Jefferson Airplane: "Life is change; how it differs from the rocks," which apparently is inspired by a quote by John Wyndham in The Chrysalids. Trivia, ahoy!
My mother is going to her first radiology appointment on Monday, which she tells me is just a measurement/fitting appointment rather than actual radiation therapy, which she will start a week later. We have agreed to Skype on Tuesday if she's feeling up to it, so I will know more then about how things are.
Speaking of change, that's what I've been trying to do. Whether I've been successful is a matter for debate, for sure. I'm a little depressed at the thought that my life took a downturn after I turned 35, after nearly seven years of progressive improvement. My only serious and stable relationship tanked, I had to sell my house at a loss (and ended up in some pretty serious debt because of the relationship, from which I'm still recovering), and had to abandon my hopes of having children of my own (which I thought I'd have somewhere between 36 and 38). Then I got forced out of my home by the aptly nicknamed Cruella de Froot Loops (thank you to blackmare for that, which still makes me giggle), and that set me back financially quite a bit, plus vet bills for my beloved but extremely expensive Sergent. Combine this with some regression in my mental and physical health, and you also end up with a house that is, in terms of housekeeping, a goddamned embarrassment.
In short, my life right now looks nothing like what I wanted it to look like, and it's honestly pretty hard to take. I try to console myself with the idea that I am trying my best, but to quote Supernatural: "Well, do the best of somebody better!" So that's what I'm trying now. I am revising a few of the goals I had set for myself, and trying to come up with a plan that's realistic but without setting the bar too low. It's a tricky balance for me, because my brain really enjoys dreaming up things that are basically impossible for me to do, and then convincing me that no, I can totally do them! Brains lie, y'all. It's a problem.
Anyway, since I like to put my ridiculous plans on LJ, I feel that there is no reason not to do it again. Maybe this time I will break the pattern of "post plans on LJ, proceed to then completely fail at plans." (:::ETA::: This turned into something that was less plans and more "thinking out loud and processing stuff.")
Let's make a bullet list! I love those, they make me feel organized and productive!
Housekeeping (no, literally)
Holy Hannah that got long! YIKES. Don't bother reading that, I rambled a lot and it's mostly for my own benefit. Here is the tl;dr:
I hope everyone is having a fabulous weekend. Catch you on the flip side!
The best time seems to be to do this from work, even if the mighty and mysterious firewall doesn't like Dreamwidth. I need to try to remember to import my entries to DW later.
Anyway, enough of that. It's been a whole week since I posted, and it kind of feels like I have nothing to say. That's not entirely true, but I don't want this to become a space in which I only complain. I know, that's what I've used it for 90% of the time, why change? But in the immortal words of Jefferson Airplane: "Life is change; how it differs from the rocks," which apparently is inspired by a quote by John Wyndham in The Chrysalids. Trivia, ahoy!
My mother is going to her first radiology appointment on Monday, which she tells me is just a measurement/fitting appointment rather than actual radiation therapy, which she will start a week later. We have agreed to Skype on Tuesday if she's feeling up to it, so I will know more then about how things are.
Speaking of change, that's what I've been trying to do. Whether I've been successful is a matter for debate, for sure. I'm a little depressed at the thought that my life took a downturn after I turned 35, after nearly seven years of progressive improvement. My only serious and stable relationship tanked, I had to sell my house at a loss (and ended up in some pretty serious debt because of the relationship, from which I'm still recovering), and had to abandon my hopes of having children of my own (which I thought I'd have somewhere between 36 and 38). Then I got forced out of my home by the aptly nicknamed Cruella de Froot Loops (thank you to blackmare for that, which still makes me giggle), and that set me back financially quite a bit, plus vet bills for my beloved but extremely expensive Sergent. Combine this with some regression in my mental and physical health, and you also end up with a house that is, in terms of housekeeping, a goddamned embarrassment.
In short, my life right now looks nothing like what I wanted it to look like, and it's honestly pretty hard to take. I try to console myself with the idea that I am trying my best, but to quote Supernatural: "Well, do the best of somebody better!" So that's what I'm trying now. I am revising a few of the goals I had set for myself, and trying to come up with a plan that's realistic but without setting the bar too low. It's a tricky balance for me, because my brain really enjoys dreaming up things that are basically impossible for me to do, and then convincing me that no, I can totally do them! Brains lie, y'all. It's a problem.
Anyway, since I like to put my ridiculous plans on LJ, I feel that there is no reason not to do it again. Maybe this time I will break the pattern of "post plans on LJ, proceed to then completely fail at plans." (:::ETA::: This turned into something that was less plans and more "thinking out loud and processing stuff.")
Let's make a bullet list! I love those, they make me feel organized and productive!
Housekeeping (no, literally)
- I really, really need to de-clutter the house. I need a plan for my plan, here, in order to break it down into manageable chunks, but if I break it down into too many chunks I tend to feel overwhelmed and then not do it. It's a real Catch-22, right? But I want to downsize by quite a lot, and the first step is de-cluttering (both getting rid of stuff that is just junk, but also the not-junk that I just don't use anymore). I had started last spring, and then let myself get derailed when I got Peggy, because she has to stay downstairs and I hate leaving her in her crate when I'm home, but I can't leave her out unsupervised. So I will un-derail myself and try to get some momentum going. I actually cleared out two kitchen cabinets' worth of stuff that I wasn't using, and I will be donating it to Goodwill sometime this week. I have more counter space now!
- I am seriously considering hiring a professional organizer to come and help me clear out the garage, which is where 80% of the "junk and stuff I don't use" is currently being stored. It's a big job, and I could use someone who knows what they're doing and will nicely kick my ass until it's done.
- Once the de-clutter is done, the house is going to need a deep clean. It is impossible to truly clean around clutter, did you know that? (Yes, I know you know, the question was rhetorical.) I may get some professional help there too, we will see.
- Once the house is de-cluttered and clean, I need to get the basement finished. Long-time readers will recall that back in September I finally got people in to unfuck my basement, which reeked of cat pee because, well, the cats had peed all over the wall to wall carpet out of stress after I was forced to move (thank you, Cruella de Froot Loops!). The basement is now free of all that grossness, but there is no more carpet and they had to cut out some sections of drywall. I need to save up some money and find a contractor willing to take on a really tiny job (for a contractor), and then have new carpet put in *right* before I move and not a moment sooner, just in case the cats decide that the new carpet is really a great place to go pee, really! If I can't find a contractor willing to do what I think is probably a half day's job at best (replace the drywall and panelling on four sections of drywall), then it's likely I'll have to figure out how to do it myself, God help us all. I am not exactly gifted in the manual labour department.
- Speaking of moving, I want to move by the end of the summer, and I'd like to move into a house that I will own. I think this is doable, even though my credit currently isn't top notch (see above, debt incurred during relationship and afterward during financial spiral), it's still creeping up into "decent" territory. My workplace is moving across the city, and from where I live now it would be a minimum 45 minute commute one-way (that's in clear weather with no traffic). Combine that with 12 hour shifts, and the fact that I routinely arrive half an hour early and leave half an hour late from work because I'm the watch supervisor and there are extra things I need to take care of before and after shift, and you end up with 14-15 hour days, which, no thank you. So I have been squirreling money away on top of trying to pay down debt, and I have enough for a down payment on a modest house. The approval for a mortgage will hinge more on my credit rating than my savings or my yearly earnings, at this point.
- The other part of buying a house is that I am considering moving in with a co-worker, KK. She and I have become very good friends in the six years I've been here: we're both like-minded geeks, we're both single women in our 40s with little interest in forming long-term romantic attachments at this point (oh, I don't think I've talked about that here. Maybe in the next post.), and we each had the idea of living together independently of each other. We are taking the process slowly, to make sure we are compatible as housemates, and we are planning to do a "test drive" by travelling together at some point this spring/summer. If you can travel together, you can usually live together. Ideally we want to get a house with an in-law suite so that we each have a separate living space, but we can also share space and invest money to enlarge the building later. Having someone with whom to share household expenses and to take care of pets and to have company around (we're both introverts and we agree on what constitutes acceptable levels of hanging out) would be pretty nice, I'm not going to lie. If I could, I'd get a whole bunch of friends together, buy a huge chunk of land and have everyone live in separate houses on the land, so we could be together or apart as we choose but also have a built-in support system.
- Luckily for me, KK is totally on board with my long-time dream of having a tiny hobby farm. She has no interest in the farming aspect, but she is happy to live further out in the countryside with a bit of acreage. Since my original plan was for me to manage the farm stuff by myself, this changes little for me in that respect, and I'd have a little more financial leeway and maybe an occasional extra pair of hands to feed the chickens or something if I'm running late one day.
- I mentioned before that I gave up on the idea of having kids, and that's not 100% true. If I'm able to get settled into a permanent home, rather than renting, I want to start fostering kids. Specifically, I'd like to foster teenagers (13-17). The more I think about it, the more this seems like the right choice. For one thing, I am not in a position to foster very young children because of my job (yay shift work: it's why I can't have nice things). With teenagers, though, I'd have KK there on days when I'm not (we don't work the same schedule), and even though she wouldn't be *responsible* for them, she'd be there as an emergency contact if something goes wrong. So there would be stability there, and I think it's easier for young children to be placed in care: a lot of people don't want to take on the responsibility of a teenager because of all the extra difficulties that come with being that age. Being a teen is a tough time even if you've got a stable family environment.
- Hoo boy. I have quite a bit of debt. Not the kind of debt that you hear about on television in those reality shows where people have somehow racked up $300,000 in credit card bills or anything like that, but I have more than I feel comfortable with, both personal debt and now a not inconsiderable student loan. The goal is to get myself to 0 debt (apart from the mortgage I will end up with if I buy a house).
- The first thing I need to do is set up a repayment plan for the student loan. This is something that I think can be easily managed.
- The second thing to do is seriously re-vamp my budget (budget? What budget? Exactly.) so that I spend less money each month and instead put that money toward paying down my debt. I'm already putting much more than the minimum payment down each month, but when several expenses go onto the credit card, it tends to nullify all that effort. At least I'm not accruing debt, but that is a low bar to set.
- In this context, I am trying (and failing these days, but I'm working on it) to live more simply. Less waste, less mindless consumption, less stuff in general. I want out of late stage capitalism, and even though I can't escape it entirely, I feel like an effort on my part could result in some very positive changes. There's a whole movement called "slow living," and even though some of it is New Agey bullshit, there's still a lot of value to be found in there. I've been listening to a podcast called The Slow Home, and it's been giving me some ideas on that front. This dovetails with the de-cluttering and downsizing I mentioned before.
- It's weird to be at a point in my life where I can actually talk about having a career, but here we are. I am trying to make changes, again with variable levels of success. It's time I sat down and clarified what I want, which is easier said than done, because I don't really know what I want, or rather there are multiple avenues for arriving at the kind of life I want.
- I'm pursuing my Masters, at a slower rate than expected (I learned my lesson last semester), but that's 100% for me and my own edification. It's not really going to help me, career-wise (except that sometimes having a Masters looks good on paper).
- I finished my 160 hours of mediation training in November of last year, which is a requirement for going into conflict management of any kind. Unfortunately, all the positions opening in conflict management want someone with experience in mediation or coaching, and I have none. It's the old conundrum of needing experience in order to get experience. I've reached out to a local organization to ask if I can volunteer with them, but so far communicating with them has been like sending my emails into a black hole, so I am not super optimistic. I therefore need to cast my net further out, and see what other opportunities I can snag. Otherwise I am never going to be able to get out of my current job.
- Speaking of my current job, I am doing my very best not to be miserable here. It's a challenge. It really felt for a few months like there was going to be some positive and meaningful change, and it's been a huge blow to my morale to find out that, no, that was an illusion. I truly wanted to believe in the sincerity of our new management, in their commitment to change, and in the past eight weeks it's been nothing but disappointment after disappointment. Still, the only person I can control is me, so I am trying hard to identify what my role is in the dysfunctional relationships I have here. It takes two to tango, after all.
- I have identified a few of my issues: I am not assertive enough and I don't like to rock the boat because I'm conflict averse. I am reacting defensively with my direct manager because it feels as though she considers me incompetent (I am trying to use "I" language here, but I do have evidence that this is indeed what she thinks), and I also am having a lot of trouble accepting her as an authority figure because she's younger than me, has far less experience than me, has shitty people skills (even she admits that), and I generally think she's a poor choice for the job. There are a few assumptions in there that I am forcing myself to re-visit: I have received promotions over people older and more experienced than me in the past, and I expected them to act professional about it. Youth and relative inexperience do not automatically make someone a bad supervisor or manager, and I owe her the courtesy of taking her seriously on that front: many of these skills can be learned. I just wish she didn't have to learn them at my expense. It's a work in progress, but I want our unit to succeed, and that means I must work willingly with her.
- One of the reasons I really want to get to 0 debt really quickly is so that I can have the luxury of taking a pay cut in the future in order to get a job I like better. Right now I can't afford a pay cut, but I won't mind one if I don't have debts to pay.
- Mostly I want to move to a job that will let me have regular hours, so that I can have a normal routine and start improving my health again.
- Mental health wise, I am struggling. A lot of it is due to work: I have the aforementioned stresses, plus the shift work is sort of wreaking havoc on me. I'm not sleeping as well as I used to, I'm constantly sleep deprived and exhausted, and this in turn exacerbates the depression/ADHD/anxiety trifecta. I got my Wellbutrin dosage increased last October, and it helped a bit. I am going back to my doctor next Wednesday to discuss either increasing the dosage again or find something to add to my brain cocktail to see if we can keep me a bit more functional. Right now I can't drag myself out of bed for hours on days off when I don't have an external appointment to keep me "honest," and that's a real problem because it means I'm not getting anything done. Short of a proper 40 hour week schedule, I need a chemical crowbar to get me up and moving, because I live alone and no one else is going to do my stuff for me.
- I'm still in therapy for help with managing the ADHD/attendant executive dysfunction. It's nice to know why I'm failing at things, but it would be nice to stop failing at things. My therapist is desperately trying to teach me to be kinder to myself and be more forgiving, but it's an uphill battle on that front. Some of this is because part of me sincerely believes that if I just work hard enough or find the right system, then I will be able to just FIX everything about me forever, and of course that's not how it works. I keep looking for that one life hack that will change everything, and it's a constant disappoinmtent when I get reminders that it just doesn't exist. My doctor keeps resisting putting me on actual ADHD medication (I think she doesn't actually believe I have it, since I'm the one who brought it up, and doctors hate it when you self-diagnose), and I'm a little tired of fighting her on this.
- My physical health hasn't been all that great lately either. The Menière's has flared up, which sucks a lot, and there are mystery symptoms that I am sure are pretty much due only to stress (throwing up in the car on the way to work is prooooobably stress). I haven't been getting nearly enough exercise, which is also a large component of keeping my mental health afloat, too.
- Mostly separate from my physical health is the weight issue. I have gained a lot of weigh since I got to Ottawa. I lost all of the gain back in 2015, and then gained it all back and then some in the 4-ish years following that. I'm not super proud. I am fully aware that, for me at least, my weight is 90% a cosmetic issue. I have occasional very mild hip and lower back pain, and I am heavy enough now that it feels uncomfortable, but really most of it is that I hate what I see in the mirror. Do I believe that fat is terrible and gross and ugly? Nope. Am I a hypocrite who tells people they need to be thin in order to be "healthy?" Nope. But you don't spend 30+ years of internalizing society's fatphobia and then suddenly turn around and decide that you're fine with being fat. Also, the world just isn't designed for people who weigh what I do: everything is now ever so slightly too small (public seating especially). So I do want to lose weight. I don't want to get down to ridiculous measurements, but I want to lose weight.
- So essentially there are three separate goals that will kind of dovetail: improve my mental and physical health, and lose weight. They are not really related, but the solution is the same: change my eating habits and my overall nutrition, and get more exercise.
- I've already started changing my eating habits a little. Part of the problem is that I was going for convenience over everything else, and so I was generally eating food that wasn't nutritious and was conducive to weight gain (I am trying to steer clear of words that attribute morality to food). I'm not perfect at this yet, but I've been making an effort to eat more veggies and better protein and to lay off the processed sugar a bit, as well as to cut back on salt. The issue of convenience was tied into the fact that I'm constantly exhausted, and so even if I bought ingredients to cook, I just wouldn't cook them because just the thought of making that effort was tiring. So the food would go bad and I'd still eat the convenient food that wasn't good for me. So since December I've been subscribed to HelloFresh, which does meal kits delivered to your door once a week, and I've been relatively successful with that. I'm still not perfect, but I have improved quite a lot in terms of actually cooking and consuming said cooking. The recipes are generally delicious, and even though it is quite expensive, it still adds up to less than what I was spending before (convenience food, plus all the stuff that was going bad in my fridge), so I'm willing to take that financial hit.
- As for exercise, well, that's on me. I just need to get over my inertia and get out the door to take more and longer walks. It will be good for me and good for Peggy. It's just easy for me to talk myself out of going (my house is cozy, I like being in my pajamas, just one more episode of Criminal Minds, one more day in Stardew Valley, one more chapter of this book, whatever).
Holy Hannah that got long! YIKES. Don't bother reading that, I rambled a lot and it's mostly for my own benefit. Here is the tl;dr:
- I want to de-clutter, downsize my stuff, and fix up the house I'm renting.
- I want to buy a house by the end of summer, and might be doing so with my friend & coworker, KK.
- I'm considering fostering teenagers in the future.
- I want to eliminate all my debt.
- My job is stressing me the fuck out.
- I am looking to change careers, both to get away from my management, and to work in an area that interests me more and has a more reasonable schedule.
- I want to improve my mental and physical health, and lose weight. I don't believe that health is directly correlated to thinness, but for me better health will be achieved in the same way that I will achieve weight loss, which is diet changes and exercise.
I hope everyone is having a fabulous weekend. Catch you on the flip side!