Why Change The Habit of A Lifetime,

 For several years this blog has been a list of excuses and reasons I haven't been writing, sometimes because I've been working through stuff, working on something or for a number of reasons, so why break the habit of a lifetime?

I've expressed a number of times that life in what has become, to a lot of people, post NaNoWriMo, has been difficult. I haven't had the same motivation to write and during November, I didn't pick up a pen or sit at a keyboard that wasn't for my day job, something that even last years would have felt unthinkable!! but that is not to say I have been sat unhealthily wallowing in self-pity. Far from it, in fact. 

Although I haven't been writing - not even thinking about it much really, and truth be told I won't go back to it consistently until I feel that "pull" to again - and I haven't been reading much, if anything, either, I have been doing other things. This year I got out on the paddleboard more, bought a kayak and took that out on the water too, trashed the garden thinking I was going to take up the grass, level it and then pave it, then stopped because I got bored of the idea... I have spent a lot more time going to live music events, went camping, went on holiday in Northern Ireland and Wales, and most importantly in all of that, I met my partner. 

Life changed a lot because we're a we rather than me just being a me and only having myself or myself and Chai to think about. She's been adjusting because instead of her world just being my family and I, her world is now my family and I, plus him and his family and his family includes a couple of children (niblings) and children weren't something Chai previously did well with. His family also includes cats and from Teddy's reaction to cats I wasn't exactly sure that was going to be good either, but Chai has realised a couple of things - one, the cats will either run away because they're more nervous of her than she is of them or if she annoys them they will fire a warning shot (not sure if claws were out for said warning shot, but no one was injured, feline, canine or human), two, small children don't know what limits are, so they will keep feeding you crisps, sausages and digestive biscuits (the non-chocolatey ones!) until they've been told to stop circa a hundred times and three, young children have a much shorter attention span than she does, so if she watches for long enough, the opportunity to steal sausage rolls is literally! as easy as stealing candy from a baby. 

The last few weeks have been filled with tidying, organising and boxing things up and honestly, I feel like I've barely had time to sleep or breath, but hopefully we're on the tail end of it now. The months that my partner and I have been together have rolled by - that's not to say there haven't been hiccups, because there always are - and we're hoping that some time soon we can both get to the stage where we can pick up some of the things we did in our pre-us days, but one good thing is that we haven't dropped into a pattern where we've forgotten our friends since getting together. 

For once in a long time, writing will not be featured in my new year's resolution list, because I don't want to try and force it. When I try and force myself to write it feels like the metaphorical gears in my mind are jamming and the pressure doesn't help me to get anything out at all, let alone with any measure of ease or fluency. I'm not even sure I'm going to commit to trying to read, whether more or at all, because there is so much else going on that I don't want to try and demand some of my own time be focused on something that in that moment that I'm thinking about it might not even matter at all. 

So there it is, life is busy because life is full and that may or may not change a little or a lot. 

A Year On,

T'was the night before NaNo and... 

The truth is it doesn't feel like it at the moment. I don't think there was a single moment I could point to where I decided I wasn't going to complete NaNo this year, whether it was NaNo itself or by another name, but the only thing I feel towards it at the moment is a real and complete sadness. 

There has been a lot of things floating around the internet about the accusations and about things which did happen, about things which can be proved and others which can't, and there's been at least some discussion of what MLs feel towards it. I would normally say MLs, both current and emeritus, but I don't know of a single person who has been accepted as an ML by the organisations new order... There has been a lot of people expressing how they feel about a lot of different viewpoints and different actions by the current and former HQs, but the only thing I find myself wanting to say about it is this: 

We've lost something. 

What we have lost is something which can be quantified - we've lost a truly global community that connected people over a passion in a way that I've not seen any other single organisation do in this space - but also not quantifiable, because we've lost a community, we've lost a space, we've lost a feeling and so much more. 

A lot of the messaging currently coming out of NaNo HQ is about how everything is getting back on track, but something feels missing. It's not like a small piece crumbled away; it feels like someone punched a section out and everything that's left is still reeling and trying to figure out how to function without it. 

Personally I have not been writing a lot for a while. Part of it is one of the slumps I get into when something like this happens, though granted the last time 'something like this' happened it was the loss of my novel, not the loss of the whole organisation and community etc. Part of it is my life moving on in a very sudden and somewhat unexpected direction. (No, I'm not talking about it. Possibly that's more of a yet than a not ever, but for now, I'm not.) Part of it is the fact that work has had me spinning like a top and the last thing I want to do when I put my laptop down for the evening is pick up another laptop, and hand writing makes my wrists cramp up. 

I didn't want to write this today because it feels like it's making me more sad, but I also feel the need to acknowledge that sadness on the eve of the anniversary of where it all started to go really wrong. At this point last year I was still hopeful that there was something that could be done to rescue what we as a community once were, but this year I realise that there is no going back.

For only the first time since I was sixteen I have absolutely zero intention of trying to write fifty thousand words in thirty days, and honestly, there are zero words that adequately express how gutted I feel about it. 

The Last Month Has Been Rough,

How It Started

I'm not talking about June - I'm talking the last thirty days, four-ish weeks kind of month, and honestly, I don't think even that covers it, but man it has been rough. 

With one thing and another I have barely been at my own home, which has meant that my house is even more of a disaster area than normal and I need to do something about it, but what I can actually do, when I can actually do it, and also how I can do it, when there is zero motivation for me to actually do it, are all questions which actually don't matter to me too much at the moment, because I have too much else to think about to even get to that. 

Some of it I absolutely bring on myself. I was away camping for some of the time my parents were away, I drove to Wales to collect a kayak and then haven't found the time to take it out, which is annoying and I also now need to find a more permanent storage method for the thing because it's currently back in my living room after it spent MAYBE three days outside, but as I said, I've not been there, and I'm not willing to leave it less than secure, so it's dominating my living room.

How It's Going

This month? This month! It has been a lot more than a month at this point, I am telling you!

As I'm writing this, I still have not "moved" properly back into my own house and though I have been able to spend a little more time there over the past two weeks I can't say that I have always wanted to because of the aforementioned mess. Despite being a miraculously unorganised person at the best of times, it is the sort of thing that escalates quickly when you're just not in the house. How? Because things and tasks accumulate and there is no one to put them away or do the tasks. I realise that things like laundry and washing up need to be done only when there is someone there to cause the mess in the first place, but it's things like cutting the grass. Whether I'm there or not the grass is going to grow and actually I think it grows more when I'm not looking and when Chai isn't there peeing all over it, so now it's at a stage where it is wild, it is full of weeds and my hay fever makes the idea of strimming it back so I can cover and kill it (all part of the plan for the garden) feel like a really horrendous idea. 

Granted the weather not being great isn't helping get anything done. There is a whole plan around the garden now, and for the kayak to be stored (thinking about that has just reminded me that I forgot to put the cockpit cover on it before the last time I left my house and now it has rained like the days of Noah, so I can't do it until the boat is at least SOMEWHAT dry!) but all of those things require the weather to be dry and not the kind of baking hot that means I burn almost the second I walk out of the house. 

The good thing is that I did manage to find the time to take my lovely kayak, Jellybean, out on the water for a 'quick' inaugural paddle, and because the person who was helping me get her back onto the top of the car is not a kayak person (not that I consider myself a kayak person - way too early for that) she went up there still full of water, which meant when I braked going down a hill it all got thrown all over my windscreen in a way that was ridiculous enough to make me laugh like a hysterical person. 

So this month has been more 'balanced' but has also brought about more time in the office, more family issues to be dealing with and the unhappy development that when I gather my things to be leaving my mother's house, Chai doesn't even try to follow me which is pretty heartbreaking. I know she's learnt I'm leaving and she's generally not able to come with me, but it somehow makes me feel guiltier than the earlier version where she would run to come with me and then look at me with her big, sad eyes when I was telling her to go back in the house. I'm really hoping that some time over this week and weekend I can just get us back into our own home and she can realise I do absolutely adore her. If it weren't for the fact that I have no idea if she would even like it I would be planning a holiday for just me and her for 'when this all blows over'. 

It's a Cutlery Problem,

Except its not.

You may or may not have heard of Spoon Theory and how it is used to describe life with a chronic condition or disability, and honestly, I think it's brilliant, but at the same time there is such a lack of understanding of it that means it fades into being less useful than it should be. 

Why am I talking about this? Because I just found my holdall from when I stayed at my mum's last weekend. It's part of the floor-drobe in my room, and sadly the pyjamas I took with me are still in the holdall, so they have not been washed. There is laundry in the machine that has been washed at least twice, but my pyjamas are not in there, and the set I have been wearing is going to need to go into the laundry soon, too. How does this relate to spoons? Because I need to do laundry and make sure I have a clean and dry set of pyjamas, and that is going to steal a lot of my spoons tomorrow, and I still can't guarantee it's going to happen. 

I've finally found pyjamas that I love. They've by Oddballs, they're funky patterns and colours and they're comfortable. The pants are a bit long and I am yet to convince myself to rehem them, but they're comfortable and I love them. They're also expensive, so I have two sets and that should be adequate - I'm doing slightly better at this limiting impulsive spending thing - but only if I keep on top of chores. Which I never do...

So these fantastic dopamine giving pjs are not able to make me happy and give me a boost to do other things because I don't have the spoons to keep them clean and available, let alone the presence of mind to get through the process of collect the laundry, put the laundry in the machine and set it going, turn it off at the end of the cycle AND empty it into an appropriate receptacle, then hang the laundry somewhere that it will dry, so it sits in there for days then needs rewashing with something to make it smell better, or if it gets hung outside I forget about it and it either rains on it, and then it smells bad and needs rewashing, or I have to take it in when it's dark, or there are spiders or bird poop on it, and then it either needs rewashing or I just hate it because it has spiders on/in it, and that makes me want to puke... and then it either hangs on the airer until I need to wear it, until my mum comes around and folds and puts things away for me (that doesn't happen that often to be fair) or until I have another wet load of laundry that made it to the same room as the dryer and it needs to find somewhere else and more often than not, that is not the wardrobe! 

Basically, I need more spoons, or another person to come and help me do things. Or a decent laundry service in the area which takes away the dirty things, brings back clean, folded things and then all I have to do is take it out of the bag and put it into the wardrobe. Though of course, that still will not happen. 

I Need More Time,

 I realise this is a thing that a lot of people say, but my God, I feel like I need more time. 

I spend however many hours a week working, whether that's in the office or at home, and then outside of that I'm involved in a Scout Troop and a Cub Pack at two separate groups and have all of my own hobbies as well, I have my dog, I have family to spend time with, I have my friends to try (mostly fail, but still try!) and keep up with and somewhere in all of that find time to do things like cooking and cleaning and laundry and all the other gumpf that people have to do and sometimes I feel like I'm meeting myself coming backwards. I get that most people would say drop some of the hobbies or the Scouting or other things, but I don't want to because at the end of the day, that's my life. 

I like my job, I enjoy it, but it's not the sort of thing where I think 'this is my absolute passion and if I did nothing else, that would be fine'. Being completely honest, I go to work to do my job, earn my money and then come home and do everything else. I know that's most people as well, and unfortunately that's just the way that life works out; not everyone can spend their life working in a field that they are passionate about, because ultimately there are some things that not many people are going to have that kind of passion for that still need to get done. I accept that completely, but it means that I need all the time I can have outside of work to make me feel like I'm actually having a life. Without it, it's just eat, sleep, work, repeat, and that sounds awful to me. I realise that might sound privileged, but it doesn't sound like much of a life at all to be forced into that pattern. However, I also know that when I'm doing as many other things as I do, other things fall by the wayside, as they have to, because everyone only has a limited amount of time. 

I mentioned about working towards a qualification in yesterday's post and I am working towards it and doing what I can for it, but somehow I have to magic up a lot of free time out of seemingly nowhere to practice the skills I need for it to have any chance of passing and the thing I'm working towards right now is only level 1, with the potential for a few more levels after it if I decided I wanted to go for it. I've not really made a decision that far just yet, but that's partly because I want to get through this bit first before I even let myself think about anything further. Trying to find the time for myself, and it be time when other people are available, is more than a challenge and honestly, it's a bit infuriating. I almost regret moving out of my flat in London only because there were services to keep up with some things (like laundry services) just on my doorstep and honestly there are quite a few tasks I would love to be able to just pay someone to take off of my hands. There's this whole theory of how it's not just money that means different things to different people but it's time as well. If you're a person who can afford a cleaner, to pay for someone to wash your car, tidy your garden, walk your dog and do all those sorts of tasks that take up time but might not bring you joy (I mean normal poop walk kind of dog walks, not big walks where you get to have a bit of an adventure - my dog can't do those every day since she only has little legs) an extra hour goes straight to either something like wellbeing or hobbies or something you want to do, but if you have all of those things to do, an extra hour disappears in a flash to all of those jobs and little things, and honestly, it's maddening! And the best answer anyone can give to it is, that's life. Well, I get that, but it doesn't make it any less irritating knowing that when I take time off of work a lot of it goes onto either errands or jobs in the house instead of things like sitting in a kayak and going on an adventure. 

You're Being Rather Quiet For Someone Who Can't Shut Up,

Usual reference to ADHD because yes, I'm still talking about it... 

I've spent a long time not knowing that was the thing that was different in my brain than a lot of people around me so people have made a lot of comments about me talking too much, or repeating myself, interjecting into conversations and my general lack of patience when other people are trying to get to the point and seeming to take the longest way around possible, and honestly, I think that all of that has probably added to the feeling of RSD (Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria) that I think is the biggest reason for me not posting things on the blog as often as I write things. Through March I either wrote or started to write a few different things and either stopped in the middle or didn't post them because a little bit of my brain with a very loud voice said 'Urgh, no one cares Charlie!' It's frustrating, but other than keeping fighting against it when I can, I don't really know what else I can do. 

In the time since I have been away from writing this a few things have happened, and honestly, it's been a bit brilliant. I've managed to get through a couple of courses that I have wanted to do, which has been fantastic because there is nothing worse than me getting bored and sadly things at work have been a bit quiet so I've been really bored with that and it's been driving me a little bit crazy. Trying to find things to do has been challenging, but it has allowed me to do a couple of things during the day which I have needed to and has been encouraging me to take a proper lunch break, go out for a walk or go and get certain errands done.

But in true ADHD style I've picked up a new (well, kind of) hobby and I've been getting all of the things for it, which include the qualifications I'm doing, and that has meant a few trips around the country to be picking up kit, and until yesterday, I haven't been able to actually take part in said hobby since about last October.

The upshot is, still here, still me, still writing, but only posting when I can get past the negative voices in my head.

Why Did You Call Your Dog Something So Stupid?,

 I can imagine that a big question from the last blog post would be "Why Did You Call Your Dog Something So Stupid?" and honestly, I would a hundred percent understand why anyone asked that question, because it is a really dumb and ridiculous name, but I guess the first answer is it's not actually her name.

Chai wasn't Chai until she met me. Her name was China, and honestly, I like the idea of changing a rescue dogs name as something of an ending of a chapter and to try and help them partition in their mind that when things were like X I was called Whatever... I know that that is way too over complicated for a dog, but I kind of hope calling her something different she associates with something good, if that makes sense. Honestly, the intention was just to call her Chai and that was that. 

Except for sone reason, I called her Chai Pants once, and it stuck. And then a couple of weeks later I was packing a bag to go *somewhere* can't remember where, it's not like it matters, and she was on my bed (must have been a few months later because I wasn't worried about accidents at the time) and I was putting out things on my bed that I needed to pack and that included pants. And I'm setting them out on my bed and I go back to the drawer, turn around and see she's toddled across the bed to the pile of pants and she has a pair on her head. I honestly couldn't stop laughing. I don't know if it was something in the universe saying, well if you're going to call her something loopy she's going to have to earn it, but it was brilliant.

Then another time, I called her Chai Bean. And I have referred to her as just Bean a few times and she knows I mean her. Maybe it's just my tone or something, but she will occasionally answer to Bean, although I have also called her Chai Banana before and she doesn't answer to Banana in any tone. 

I picked her up at one stage and was playing around and jamming all of the names together and one of the things that came out was Chai Banana Vanilla Coca (I think I'm spelling that right, but I'm spelling it phonetically to how I was saying it so it doesn't matter) Bean, and it amused me, so it stuck. What helps with that is that she didn't care. I mean, obviously she didn't care, she's a dog, but some dogs get upset if you laugh at them, particularly if you dress them up for Hallowe'en and then laugh at them, but Chai isn't like that. She has this incredible expression that is like, what on Earth are you doing to me now you weirdo, but when I dressed her up in a dog safe doctor (or dogtor) costume and laughed, she wasn't fussed, and I honestly think her Percy Pig hoodie is her favourite thing in all the world, and honestly, it's mine, too, especially with the hood up. She's not a dog, she's a living ball of fur that I make ridiculous, but she's the light of my life.