//11:30am
I like being in my 40’s so far. I have just enough experience to know when to nope out of a wide range of situations before it’s going to cause me problems (mostly learned the hard way) and I’m mostly invisible to the kind of attention you get when you’re seen as a trophy or accessory. The people who chase status and appearance become fewer and farther between in my circles, and more and more people assume that if I’m there, I earned the right to be. Small talk and trying to impress people stops almost entirely – there is an urgency and intensity in this second half, and none of us trying to do something that matters to us want to waste the time or energy we have on meaningless-to-us exchanges. (Sometimes we have to deal with it, and it irritates.)
There is this feeling of being an exposed wire carrying a live current, and no longer being willing to flip the switch and turn it off to preserve the status quo, to avoid disrupting the comfortable paradigm people assume is the only option.
Don’t grab the wire if you don’t like the current, stay out of the water if you can’t swim.
//1:19pm
It’s odd at first, the things that actually feel like I’ve accomplished something? They are the small, hidden from public sight things, like cleaning the kitchen and doing a complete change of the cat litter. It’s finally getting email invoices requested from my ISP after years of them not sending them to me. Or laundry put away or floors swept or more than one meal a day eaten.
What feels like accomplishment is taking care of myself and my environment after a lifetime of being told I only deserve care once everything else everyone else wants is done and everyone else is cared for.
Being able to change the cat litter tells some part of my nervous system that I have done enough to deserve care – even if it has meant keeping the people who can claim access to my time and care to an absolute minimum. To feel like I have done enough to deserve care and comfort feels like freedom and accomplishment.
I haven’t finished healing the shame that goes with it – this feeling that I need to hide my self-care because it’s selfish to think of yourself when someone somewhere might need something or someone else might be suffering more. I still feel guilty for it, and then I get furious about how I still have to justify self-care and maintenance as a support for Productive Work, when Productive Work is support self care, not the other way around.
I’ll get there.
//3:01pm
I know I know I know I know I KNOW I need to make new inks. I KNOW. I also have a dozen new casts to turn. And soap to make. And those painting scans to edit. And pen designs to make. And Patreon. And 3D printing to do. And art to make. And messages to reply to. And seeds I haven’t started. And Fusion classes to work through. And laundry to do. And books to read. And music to practice. And research to do. And self-care. And orders to ship. And words to write. Rollerball points to make. Cores to make. Saturn components to redesign.
One task at a time. Still have gotten a lot done already. It’s not necessarily high visibility work, but it’s work done.
Cooking lunch bacon with and celebrating my Youngest’s achievements over coffee together in the kitchen is important, too. The ink can wait – that won’t.