My 2019 creative resolutions mostly boiled down to “be kinder to myself” but after the utter trainwreck that was January I need to remind myself of what I said because I’m not applying it..

This was an actual line I wrote:

forget what I ‘should’ be working on and rediscover my joy in just working on what I please 

and this one

.. to forgive myself when things don’t go according to plan

You see it’s the old ‘I know it intellectually but utterly fail at putting it into practice’ dilemma.

Now half the problem is that I wrote these resolutions during christmas break and even when I try and be reasonable I always underestimate how much of a toll university takes. I hate it, I literally do, there is nothing about it which I like but I’m committed and I wish I knew how to shut off. How to partition my life better so that the negativity about uni didn’t spill over into absolutely everything else making me feel awful all the time. I don’t know if it’s because of my mental issues that I struggle so much at this, or if it’s this hard for everyone (it probably is and I’m just being a wimp).

But anyway, it is what it is and I can’t change the uni part of the equation. I need it too much. I need the student loan and I need the time that loan buys me to get my shit together, which is terrifying me beyond measure because what if I can’t? What if being this utterly miserable and stupid means I don’t, what if this is just a wasted exercise? I feel sick just thinking that. I need to not think about that because it’s too big, it’s too scary and I can’t deal.

Moving on – back to the point of this post which wasn’t to indulge in a pity party, it was to find a solution – “rediscover my joy in just working on what I please”

I was explaining ideas to my friend Marie last night, and I used the words ‘shouldn’t’ and ‘can’t’ several times. I’m still limiting myself, still denying myself, still saying no and it’s logical for me to do so but it’s not working. I’m not working on what I’m supposed to – I’m doing nothing – and so at this point is something – anything – better than nothing?

2012 NaNo comes to mind. I didn’t want to work on Perfidy, I wasn’t feeling it, so I just started typing what was in my head. I wrote 5k of a story which I then abandoned because I went back to Perfidy and wrote the first draft (of that version anyway). So a diversion doesn’t have to be a bad thing, it can lead back to the main road, and if it helps at the time then maybe that’s ok? I can’t even convince myself here.

I still don’t know what to do.