Change is in the air...
Over the last few months I’ve done a lot of soul searching. In that time, I’ve had to reassess a lot of friendships, a lot of relationships and look at where my life is going and what direction I want to take it in. I’ve also had to look at a lot of my creative endeavours and associations, including those in fandom.
After a tremendous amount of soul searching I have come to realise that I really feel stretched too thin. As many of you know, I have numerous health problems that have plagued me for a number of years and I have been working to get them under control and to one day get off many of the meds I’m on for them. This is a time consuming effort and one that takes a lot of energy. I have already made significant lifestyle changes and that has made a big difference and it’s a great start. I’ve already lost some weight and my asthma is much better (I can exercise more vigorously than a slow walk now). Still, I have a long way to go (IBS issues, skin issues, and of course the ever present OCD and perimenopause).
I have made the decision to leave fandom as well, with two exceptions - Tower Mountain (the Elfquest club I belong to and now help run) and the local Lord of the Rings group (it's because I’ve started a weekly RPG and want to keep that going in this group - if and when it does expand beyond the group, I may leave then). I am actually extracting myself from just about everything else. This was especially a really hard decision because fandom has been a huge part of my life for a very long time. Thing is, I find fandom to be too political, too cliquey and too aggressive. It was a hobby for me, not a lifestyle, not an all consuming mess of personalities butting against each other and staging coups and trying to one up each other. I just don’t have time for that and, to be honest, I don’t give a rat’s posterior. I am no longer interested in conventions - not at all, not one, not any. I’m conned out and have been for well over a decade now. Many of the local groups I find have closed down entirely or have stagnated so badly that even getting a "hello" from folks is like pulling teeth. Besides, at this point, some of the local personalities have just made local fandom distasteful and unpleasant for me. I feel that sometimes I get caught up in all of it and I do not like the person I am becoming as a result. It’s a poisoned environment to me, especially locally, and I really don’t want that in my life.
But hey, I’ll always love science fiction, fantasy, television, cartoons, movies, etc. I’ll always love Lego, action figures and stuffed animals, and things weird, morbid, slimy and creepy crawly. The geek/dork/dweeb/fangirl will always be there - and who knows, if I ever do get published, it could be very well be in the fantasy genre. I write in many genres and contemporary works too. I don’t like to limit my options.
And this leads to one of my own personal goals and dreams. I want to become a professional author. This is a dream I’ve had since I was very young and have been working towards for my entire life. I have had extremely positive feedback on my writing and this has encouraged me a great deal. I love to write, I need to write and it is something that I want to devote as much time as I can to. One of my other dreams has pretty much been taken from me, and I have been mourning that. My health issues won’t allow for me to continue to pursue it and I have had to decide what to do about it, that is of course, my dream of being an archaeologist. While lab work and research I can still do, field work at the moment, is completely out of the question, and to be honest, without the field work, there is not much point in the rest of it (not to mention it is required). The great thing is, I have a lot of interests and there are two excellent universities and several wonderful colleges locally that I can attend once I’ve decided which direction I want to go in.
Some of my friends I have had to let go too. Some of those friendships have been very hard to let go, trust me, but I have had to do it for my own sanity, for my own care. I’m saddened by this, but I’ll get over it and hopefully I’ll stop remembering the bad things and remember all the good times and fun we had prior to going our own separate ways. I also have missed several old friends who I have lost contact with and want to change that. In many ways I feel like I’ve lost my perspective.
Some folks here are going to see that they’ve been removed from my LJ flist. It’s part of the cutting back on fandom ties. For those I shared a lot of laughs with and good times and observations in those fandoms we had in common, I treasure those. I really do. And I love many of you dearly, but as with many things, it’s time to move on. If anyone who ends up off my flist would still like to keep in touch, especially if you do care about my life on mundane things, I’ll be more than happy put you back on my flist. Just post here.