Sunday, December 30, 2012

Rebuilding for 2013

I have been falling apart the past few months.  I'm still broken.  I'm still afflicted with this fatigue/illness.  When I have it, I tend to feel hopeless and lonely.  Sometimes, by taking good care of myself I can stave off the sadness, but there is no cure for the fatigue.

As 2012 comes to a close, how do I put the pieces of my life back together for 2013?

Here are the pieces:
  1. I'm tired.  I don't always feel as bad as I have in the past few weeks, but I'm never going to be able to do everything I want to do.
  2. Basic taking care of myself: eating, sleeping, resting, and exercising are things I've long been bad at.  In the past few months, as I've fallen apart, even more things have slipped, like flossing my teeth.
  3. Chores: bills and sorting through all the clutter are the ones I have the most trouble with.  I seem to pull off some other ones, like laundry and groceries.  
  4. Druidry.  I've lapsed in the past few months.  I skipped things I was supposed to do -- meditation, time outdoors, seasonal rituals.  I skipped them more and more, until I was not doing them at all.  As of yesterday, I'm back with my druidry.  I think I need it to help me get through.
  5. Earning a living.  I've been unhappy with my job.  To a certain extent, I think I really am unhappy with it.  But also, I'm really tired.  I don't have the energy to work full-time.  That makes me like my job less, both because it's hard to be excited about doing something when you are too tired to do it, and also because my lack of productivity causes me to fall behind, which makes it more stressful.  There are actually some things I like about my job.  For now, I have to keep going to my job until I find a better way to earn a living.  As long as I have to keep going to it, how do I survive it?  
  6. Finding a new way to earn a living.  I have a lot of ideas.  Applying for jobs, going to conferences, taking classes, networking.  But I just can't do anything more than I'm already doing.  I'm already doing more than I can take, and therefore, I'm falling apart.
  7. I'm involved in three activities.  They all have their place.  I can't bear to quit any one of them, and yet I don't have the strength to do more.

    One is fun, brings me joy, and is with a good community of people.  It's not job-related, and yet the people I've met there have given me some leads on jobs.  I think just being out in the world with people doing something that I like with people I like helps with networking for jobs.

    The second activity is more job related.  It's a chance to do administrative tasks outside of my job.  I think it's really important for my jobhunting, because it restores my hope that a) there are tasks that I like to do, b) there are tasks that I'm good at, and c) there are people who value my skills.  I was feeling quite hopeless in those areas, and you can't really get a new job when you're feeling like there's nothing you like to do and nothing you're good at.

    The third activity is more solitary, and there's value in that too.  I really like that I have a chance to implement my own vision, unhampered by other people.  It's a way of being creative.  It gets me immersed in something larger than myself, takes my mind away from fretting about my life.
  8. I yearn to be doing so much more with music and dance.  

I can't see how to build my life.  There are just too many things I need to do, and I can't do them all.  One thing I think I should work on is getting help.  Sometimes it seems like the only way I know how to relate to other people is to offer to help them.  I need to be better at articulating needs.  I feel like I need help, and yet, I can't really think of any specific things that I want people to help me with.

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