Fictionally Stunted,

 Okay, so it's true to say that my head is not in the fiction right now because there are two things coming up which are stealing my attention. 

This weekend is the first All Night Lock In in person even since 2019 and it's a lot to organise and a lot to do. The following weekend I have the last camp of the year with my Explorer Scouts (teenagers) and I want to make sure it's really special, because whilst we have done a lot this year, or even in the last six months, I love the idea of making this one special. I know it's going to be a tough one, because any cold camp is tough, but they are also amazing. It has happened before that it has snowed when the winter camp has been on at the site we are going to, so I'm kind of hoping that happens. It would be cool to be able to have a snowball fight... 

I wonder though if it is partly because I started this month trying to replace a novel that my laptop ate that I had loved and unfortunately, it was just another failed attempt to revive it. It wasn't going well, partly because I couldn't remember how one of the characters gets from where she is to somewhere else where she meets one of the other characters. Honestly, it went straight out of my head. Actually, that makes it sound like I've known recently, but I lost that novel about five years ago I think, and even when it first happened I couldn't remember that particular bit of the story - maybe that's because it sucked - so it's been gone for a while. 

I have a lot of other ideas of things I would like to write or things I need to re-write because I abandoned them in a huff, but trying to get myself to sit down and focus on one has been testing and I don't know whether the best thing would be to figure out which one is annoying me the most and work on that one. 

Anyway, if nothing else, I decided on a new phrase for writer's block and that is Fictionally Stunted. 

NaNoWriMo Might Be a Thing, But This Year Is Different,

 So something weird happened this year and I don't know how to explain it. NaNoWriMo is still important to me, so don't think of this as me bowing out disgracefully, but this year has been a bit, I don't really have the words for it to be perfectly honest. 

I knew from early on that this year was not going to be a competitive year because for one thing the way that the calendar fell was completely pants for the idea of super competitive, person best record setting days early in the month. Having a ten or twenty thousand word day relies upon a couple of things, one of those things is freedom from the responsibilities of work and everything else. Scouts would have had to take a backseat, and so would work, and that just wasn't possible. I am a civil servant which normally means I get a lot of leave to use throughout the year, but I've been camping a lot this year so I've been using days to go to site early and also to spend Mondays recovering from the lack of sleep and running around after numerous young people. I didn't have enough days to take the full week, or even the four first days of NaNoWriMo off, and still have leave for other plans until the leave year renews. I couldn't just skip out on one of my Scout nights because there was no one to cover for me. 

Although I didn't expect it to be a competitive (with myself) kind of year, I didn't expect the slog that it has been. Next weekend is ANLI, and with the move that I made a few years ago now that means driving down to London and back over the course of the weekend, which will take out a lot of writing time for the travel, so I was hoping to have finished this weekend and honestly, I'm not even close. I struggle to find time to write on days I'm writing. In previous years I have squeezed in some time during lunchtimes, but work is busy at the moment, it's draining and honestly, even when I can log out of one laptop and into the other to write, well, I sit and stare at the screen and think, what do I even want to write? What do I want to say? I don't want to write a load of old poo, but I don't feel invested in what I'm writing at the moment. I committed to re-writing the novel I lost a few years ago, but I just wasn't feeling it. I remember the feeling I had back when I wrote Fairies and that electric buzz that ran through my body when I finally decided what I wanted to write and fell instantly in love with it. That hasn't happened this year. I've been waiting for it to happen, but it just hasn't. 

In some ways, that is not surprising either. I've been really struggling mentally the last few months and that is partly because the world is a hell of a lot right now, like it is for everyone, but also because I take on too much. One of the reasons I do it is because I want to be involved in things that make the world even a little bit better of a place, and another is because I'm trying to distract myself from how horrible the world can be. When you head is so full of everything else, it's hard to give yourself the place to be creative. It's hard to focus on something and it's hard to emotionally commit to something else, because it's very easy to feel completely rung out.

In previous years I've done all sorts of things to get the words done, and it's been things like emailing myself when I've been commuting, or writing on my phone whilst I'm on the loo, in the bath, before going to sleep, or using speech to type whilst doing something like cooking. I've batch cooked food before November started so I can throw something into the microwave or eat it cold and keep typing one handed, or type between bites. This year, that did not happen. 

I will still finish the fifty thousand words and I have still loved NaNoWriMo as a way to refocus my attention of writing and remind me that when I kick myself into it, I can do things I think are impossible, however it's also reminded me that sometimes the things we love we do need a rest from. 

My plan for next year, when I will be very old, very grey and possibly even less able to function on little to no sleep, is to make sure I have enough leave left to take at least the first weekend of November off, and let the keys fall as they may. I am hoping to give myself the headspace to do something wonderful, even if it is just another of these stories that I write for myself and is for my eyes only, and hopefully go back to the point where other people look at me and think I'm slightly mad. Until then, I have words to finish. 

Mate, Fuming Wasn't Even the Word,

 I have a couple of little detours before I actually get to the start of this particular blog, but I think they're worth it. First, is it just me or did I suddenly get a bit more Northern? Has it happened slowly since I came back up here? I'm not sure, but occasionally I catch myself and think, yeah, this is a thing that happened whilst I wasn't looking. The second thing is that I have a terrible joke. I used it for the first time when I volunteering at the women's football Euros tournament and honestly, I think it takes too much explaining to actually be funny, but I still love it. One of the proper Northern things I've started doing is saying, mate, I'm fuming, A LOT. I don't get p*ssed off anymore, I'm just fuming. All the time. That's how I term it. Anyway, my daft joke is, if I were French I'd be smoking. Because the French word for smoking is Fumeur, so it makes me think of fuming. I did warn you it was terrible.

Anyway, writing that last blog post was feeling like a victory and I went to copy and paste it from 4thewords (there is no better accountability partner for writing in my eyes) and I pressed something stupid and it disappeared. I'm there clicking back, undo, and all sorts, and the damn thing is not coming back and I thought sh*t, really, again? 

Sidenote/ third random tangent, I've tried, for the most part, not to swear in this blog before because it's not like it's age-restricted or anything like that, but at the moment I'm focusing on just writing. I am still ****ing letters so it's not the full thing spelled out, but at the moment, the most important thing is getting on with the writing side because of how long I spent not writing and how much that has an impact on me. 

If you've been reading the blog for a while you'll know that loss of words is a thing that has happened to me before, during NaNoWriMo, outside of NaNo and honestly, it seems like I never learn, but I do learn, because the next time I lose something, it's in a different way. I learn a lot from it, but something else goes wrong the next time and there are the same results. Every time it happens it's frustrating because I'm not often a person who writes with a plan, so when it's gone, it's gone, and it's not like I can just look through my notes and recreate whatever was there. It would be particularly difficult because, as you can see from this blog, my mind wanders off at will, and sometimes the things which "trigger" a wander at one point won't do the same again, or if I think too hard about a word, it's like something is blocking it. I've been describing it recently as my brain handing my crossword clues, I'll be having a conversation with someone, half think of something and not be able to "get there" to the point of finding the word, and be saying things like 'it starts with a B', 'it sounds like Heffalump - it very rarely sounds like the thing I think it sounds like, but my brain has inextricably (and sometimes inexplicably) linked the two things together - 'that place I lived in London' (I lived in many places in London, and this doesn't narrow down was it a town, a street, a house, a flat...) Thankfully, I spend quite a bit of time with my mum, so when this particular brand of cerebral paralysis strikes, I say these clues to my mother and she reminds me of the word after not too much unpleasant mental gymnastics with me trying to fiddle my way through knotted neurons and navigate a new pathway to what I'm trying to say. Granted, even when she reminds me what it is, I'm relieved, but also vexed, because this little phenomenon is pretty new, and I don't like it.

I think it's because I've been struggling to write for a while or to find the words to express what I'm thinking, losing blog posts can feel less emotionally charged than losing a novel draft, but it also feels quite silencing, even if it's not that someone has intentionally done something to make it disappear. It's more vexing than devastating. I was annoyed and I wanted to throw something, though that might also be that I have some pent-up energy and frustration that I once channeled into running, the desire to run has eluded me for a while now. Though as writing has also been a struggle and I've been finding a few other things difficult, I wonder if it's just been a general mental struggle and I'm only just starting to process that, which is challenging because one of the reasons I write is for the benefit of my mental health and one of the reasons I run is exactly the same. Anyway, the blog survived, I'm surviving and in the background of it all I have actually started work on a new project which is humming away to itself and the cogs of the idea machine are whirring again, instead of just grinding and spluttering and refusing to pop anything out at all (which means that the ability to come up with anything of merit or anything interesting is literally nil.)

Before I know what is happening, the next few months of business will be over and it'll be NaNoWriMo kind of business, and I may or may not be looking again at breaking my own records, writing too many words in too short a space of time, sharing my love of writing with my Scout-y youngsters and also be driving down to London at least once, because I prefer my car to a train, and I much prefer being able to just get in and get going, as opposed to the bus, walk, train, change, walk, stairs, tube, change, walk, etc that the journey is every time I visit London without having my car with me. Hopefully, this year won't mean any lost words and may mean writing something else I actually want to commit to editing. It's been twelve years (well, it will have been by the end of November) since I wrote Fairies and I struggle getting my head around the fact that I haven't written anything else I liked that much since. Oh to be seventeen again and not overthink what the world may think of the thing which I am putting out for them all to see. 

This Is a Blog I Will Actually Post

I know it very much looks like I've not been writing recently, or not for the blog at least, but I have. The problem has been that between writing it and posting it, I've had the most wracking self-doubt, that it's either the sh*test thing imaginable, or that no one cares, but would read it anyway, and inflicting it on anyone is something equivalent to a crime against humanity. It's a wonderful little brain I have.

The other thing I was going to name this post was 'Reasons I'm No Longer Using Charity Shops'.

Okay, so this is not me dragging charity shops because I love them. A lot of my books are from charity shops, I've had clothes from charity shops and a lot of things I love have come from them. The concept is magical to me because it's essentially here is a thing that someone else no longer needed, that you want and love, or perhaps need for less than you would have had to pay for it in another shop, and it also helps financially support a charity. Honestly, there is nothing better than that as a concept!

In previous years - actually probably since I was very little - a lot of the times I was doing any sort of clear out, everything went to the charity shop, partly because it does make you feel good to make donations, partly because throwing stuff away that still had/ has use is a difficult thing for me to get my head around, and also, and this is a big one, the idea of being able to rock up to somewhere, empty your boot and then walk away within twenty minutes is magical. Yes, car boot sales are great, but I don't like getting up early, I don't like bartering with people and I absolutely hate asking for money for things, so I am rubbish at them.

Some of the reasons above are reasons I love Facebook marketplace, eBay and Vinted. The expectations are set out very clearly and if I have to say something that would be uncomfortable in person, the anonymity of the internet helps me to be able to handle it. Saying no to cheeky offers no longer involved trying not to say 'You cheeky b*tch,' after the no. You can say it, just don't type it. The problem with these sites - and it's not something of their creation - except maybe eBay and their hugely unnecessary list of required details - is that it can be cumbersome to get things listed and things can take a while to sell. If you're having a clear out because you want some spare cash, you have to suck it up, but if you're doing it because you want or need the space freeing up, a charity shop can still be a really attractive option. (Granted, we still seem to be in that post-pandemic era where charity shops are turning down donations due to being inundated, and that can be really frustrating when you've made a special trip to drive there.

Now, the cost of living crisis is forcing many to re-evaluate things they would take to the charity shop, and instead turn to these sites as a way of making extra money.

Okay, so these might not be the people that we've head about having to choose between 'heating and eating' and if charity shops are still in the predicament that they have more stock than they can take in it might not truly be a bad thing, but the funding streams of charities were hard hit by the pandemic, and the loss of things like summer running programs and other major events, as well as the loss of revenue from their charity shops as they were closed during lockdown. People tend to be creatures of habit, so if this new era - created by the inability to drop off donations and also the need to make a bit of extra money or a desire to swap unneeded things for something new instead of donating it - not only catches on, but persists, because people enjoy it, it works for them, and they have access to a whole lot more choice for things like swaps or buying from the same platform, charities are going to be hard hit again.

One of the reasons I've been selling things isn't just the idea that I want the space (I mean, I do want the space because my house is full of far too much stuff!) but also because I worry about things like having enough savings for if something happened to my dog or my car. There are times when I think, ooh, I've sold a few bits, that can go towards the [insert whatever camping gear is next on my list] because I want it for Scout camp and it's a bit pricey. It's not like I'm using the extra money for essentials, but even as a civil servant who is somewhat privileged, with decent job security (yes, even when certain politicians seem to be trying to change that) I still have to look at what impact taking something to the charity shop could have as opposed to listing and selling it independently.

After what has been a hard few years, predictions on the energy price cap, interest rates, and other situations are making everyone a bit more cautious, whether that's rightly or wrongly, and whilst I'm glad that there are tools there to help people to help themselves, and places like Vinted that can help us as a community or a country or however we want to term it address issues such as fast fashion and the vast mass of textile trash that we face each year, I worry about the potential impacts it could have and the people behind the profiles, and I wonder if we would think differently about the items we were purchasing if we knew the real reason that they had decided to take to the marketplace. Then again, it's also not really anyone else's business, is it?

When Writing Gets Complicated,

  I woke up in the night last week, not long after I had gone to sleep, but long enough that I hadn't been asleep for long, and I was able to bash through a synopsis of that story I was muddling through in my mind. It's strange, because I've felt for a while that I was going through the motions with writing and it was almost like I had fell out of love with it, again, and I wasn't really sure how to bring myself back around to loving it the way I have before. I mean, it's not November, and it's not NaNoWriMo, and I never feel quite the same about it outside of that, but there has been a few times recently where I have genuinely felt like it was a slog, a complete and utter uphill battle, and that is how I know, or it is one of the ways I know, I have been mentally struggling recently. It was a great feeling when I woke up, even if it stopped me from sleeping for a little while, because spontaneous ideas like that are actually a sign of recovery, or that I'm doing better than I thought I was doing. For a little while I was of the opinion that everything had gone to hell in a handbasket, so it was nice to know that it wasn't all as bad as it seemed.

Sitting here now I'm thinking I just need to hit the writing, or particuarly the blog writing bit, with the same energy that I do everything else. Today at lunch time I knew I just needed to go right ahead and sew together the outfit that I wanted to make into a dress, and I did it. I did it wrong the first time, but then I took it apart again and I was able to get it together. There was an issue with my carpet in the living room, and so I went ahead and ordered replacement flooring, because I was going to get it anyway and the last thing I wanted was to wait with the issue that it currently has for any longer than I reasonably had to. When I throw myself into the solutions for my problems, it seems to go better than if I let myself panic about it and try and think myself to a solution for it. Who would have imagined that thinking would be the part that causes the issues!? 

Anyway, I am recommiting myself to trying to write every day, and accepting that that will not always go well, and it won't always be pretty, but most importantly that the world isn't ending if I can't do it. Struggling a little bit for a short amount of time, or a longer amount of time, is a part of life. Even when it is uncomfortable, it is a part of life, and the best thing is to just get on with it. 

When Your Brain Says You Failed, Part 2,

 I meant to post the first part of this just after returning home on weekend one of Camp NaNoWriMo but then I didn't because there was a feeling of my whole world falling down and I wasn't sure I was actually going to be doing any writing what so ever. In my life, there are a pair of Shih Tzus, Teddy, who has been around for what feels like just short of forever, even if it is only five years, and Chai, who arrived just last year (with me, though she is nearly six years old). The idea of them not being together for playdates or for when my parents are away or I'm away (they swap houses so they're with whoever is around) is unthinkable, but the worst, or one of the worst things, imaginable happened and when Teddy went into surgery for the removal of two lumps that we thought were giving him problems pooping, we found out they were cancerous. 

In a way, it's a good thing that they were where they were. He has had lumps since the day we got him because he has these cysts on his skin that fill to a point and then, essentially, burst everywhere and are a bit bloody, a bit chalky, but ultimately no harm at all. Anywhere else on his body lumps would not bother him at all, and we and his vets would just assume that they were more of the same and leave them be. It was only because we were not sure if that was creating some bum related issues that we decided to go for them being excised, and then the pathology on them was a huge shock. 

Having had the shock of it's cancer, we were pretty relieved to know that the lumps were gone which meant the tumours were gone, but that was short-lived as the vet told us it was a nasty and aggressive tumour, and it's location would make it very tricky if it came back because removing tissue on what is essentially his buttock can affect the motor function of the back legs and the tail as well as continence, particularly for his bum. None of us wants to lose him, but doggy diapers aren't the sort of thing that is conducive to a good life for a dog. The only option we really had was for him to go back into surgery, to have the margins on the tumour widened from almost nothing to as much as they could (although with this sort of tumour it's supposed to be an inch either way and that was simply not possible) in the hopes that it would prevent the regrowth of cancer and give him his best chance to be happy, healthy and cancer-free. 

Before he went in for surgery, I wanted the pups to spend time together and honestly, I wanted to spend some time with him, too. He's been my baby since we got him, not as much as he is my mum's baby, but he's my baby, too, and he's considered an older dog now, since he's eight, and older dogs and anaesthetic isn't something you mix for fun. I was concerned about the anaesthetic but also concerned about what happens if the surgery doesn't cure him? What happens if we have weeks of recovery only to find out he's not fully recovered and he won't be? I wanted to get in some good days with him in case they were Chai's and my last good days with him, so that had to be before surgery, and then when he had surgery I knew my mum was going to need some help in nursing him back to health, so I decided to just move - temporarily - back to my mum's. 

Generally, being back at my mum's is really good for me writing because my mum takes her mum-ing seriously. She does all of the cooking, she cleans, she does the laundry and she even makes me regular brews when I'm working so that I can just keep cracking on. I guess what I'm saying is I'm massively spoiled when I'm here. This time though, with worrying about Teddy, caring for Teddy and the lack of sleep and general tiredness affecting the whole house, I've been skipping more days than I have been writing, because it's just not happening easily, and I don't have it in me at the moment to grind through writing a few hundred words a day without a particular reason to. 

Caring for Teddy is meaning carrying him up and downstairs at the beginning and end of the day (he's also spoilt and sleeps on the bed), picking him up to put him outside for toilets and picking him up to get him back in, cleaning his wound regularly (especially when he's been sat on it outside with no concept of the kind of germies he could pick up out there!), giving him his medication, of which there is quite a lot!, and also trying to stop him from getting stressed out. It was a big operation and a lot of trauma for the poor guy, and he's still not really come to terms with what happened. He keeps whipping his head around trying to look at it, and probably bite it, but he has a big inflatable collar on so he can't get to it to bite or lick it, and he can't see it either, and even if he could, there is no way for him to understand what it is and why we have done it to him. He cried a lot the day we brought him home (and so did we if we're being honest) but being at home seems to have settled him and he's been to a wound check with the vet where they said he was doing well.  Whilst things are looking up for him, it does mean that during this Camp NaNo, I haven't dropped everything to just get some writing done, I haven't been trying to plough through and finish in a couple of days and honestly, it's made me realise again that Camp does not have the same sort of effect on me that November NaNoWriMo does. And that is fine because I can plan for November being super busy with NaNo, but letting it take over three months of my life just doesn't work. 

The upshot is I'm writing when I can, but that's not much at the moment, because the doggies come first. 

When Your Brain Says You Failed,

 Once upon a time there was a Camp NaNoWriMo that started when a Charlie who Writes was actually on camp. The unfortunate thing about that was that there was no way I was ever going to start writing, because I had too much to do with the kids, supervising them and doing things for them, as well as a complete lack of internet access, well, other than on my phone, but I can't operate 4thewords from my phone, so no writing was going to get done over that weekend. I've not been back for very long, but I feel like my brain has been screaming, especially when all I have been doing is sleeping off the tiredness, telling me that there is a NaNo event going on and I'm failing. I don't like failing at all, so it is hard to hear even when it's only in my own head, that there is something I am failing at. 

Writing is the sort of thing that I love to do, have pretty much always loved to do, but also feel very guilty when I don't give it the time that I think I owe it. It's stupid because it's a sort of self-care thing I do for myself and it's not a feeling guilty because I'm not taking care of myself, but feeling guilt as though it's a task that I need to do and that means that I start feeling pretty pressured about it. 

The difficulty at the moment is finding the time to do anything. I am working and Scouting, driving, running to the store for the things I need, looking after the dog and trying to keep the house in order. The last one of those hasn't really been getting off of the ground at all, so trying to get away from the guilt of that to write has effectively been a lost cause. However, it's NaNo and I can't get through a NaNo without doing any writing whatsoever, so hopefully this is the turning point. Not that I know what I am writing at the moment, but I never really get that figured out before I start, do I?

Don't Seal Up Just Yet,

  Yes, the title for this is a random quote from my favourite movie and no I will not apologise for that. 

This weekend was my 29th birthday and to say that the actual day itself was rubbish would be an understatement. I had said that I was going to go for a run at ParkRun in the morning but the truth is that months of having been on the bench, for no real reason, I realised I wasn't really up to a 5k and definitely not at the speed that the local run is. Really, I wanted to be back in London. I wanted to be with my friends at the park that I love and spending the run with them and then maybe going for a parkrun cake afterwards since you basically run off all the calories first (I mean, you really don't, but let's not even think about that). 

We cancelled a half planned family lunch thing because one of the dogs is feeling out of sorts after a vet trip, but it was fine because I was going to be going out for a few drinks with a mate in the afternoon, so in theory, I had more time to get ready, but then when I text him to check what time we were meeting up and where he cancelled on me after some confusion over dates or something. I wasn't so much gutted that the plans I had had gone down the drain, but more because I then had no birthday plans at all, and that kind of last-minute meant that all of my friends were then busy so trying to figure out any other form of plans was impossible, so I spent the evening on the sofa with the dog that's not feeling rubbish. 

Thankfully today was considerably better, spending it with a friend and their child, who is the best thing since sliced bread. 

One of the reasons it made me feel awful is because I've been feeling lonely recently. There is some relief to that when I catch up with people at work or when I speak to a few friends on Twitter or catch up with a few other friends, but trying to date makes me feel even lonelier than ever. Partly because I get chatting to someone and as soon as we come off of the app we began speaking on, something always happens that makes me get the ick, generally before even meeting up with them, though I have managed to meet a couple and then realised that it's still a giant no. Maybe I'm too picky, but I don't think I am. Besides, the occasions where I've decided to break my own 'rules' haven't exactly turned out any better than when I stick to them absolutely. And it's not like there are no reasons for them and most of those reasons stem from previous bad experiences. 

Anyway, things are feeling better today, though to be honest, I couldn't have felt any worse than I did yesterday, so I am glad that things are looking up. And finishing the day with another viewing of Man Up is always sure to make me feel happy. Ish. 

What Money Means,

   I don't want to write this and sound like a parrot or make anyone think that I think I'm Martin Lewis or anything because I definitely do not, but holy hell on toast, it feels like the world has gone completely mad. 

My mum told me when you buy a house you never have money again, and honestly, I haven't really felt that at all since buying my place six months ago. I've done a few jobs that needed doing, though not as much as I have wanted to which might be the reason I haven't really felt "the pinch" of homeownership. 

I'm pretty spoilt (well, no, privileged but I hate that word) because I have a decent job, I recently found out I was retaining an allowance I got for being in London and I've been helped by family to afford learning to drive, but as these changes to bills have been coming around, as all the bills seem to be increasing!!, I've been making massive financial commitments like buying a car and paying out for my insurance. I would be really naive if I said it wasn't affecting me. 

Okay, so I'm not saying it's affecting me how it's affecting others. Obviously, it is not. I do look over at the smart meter before I throw the heating on and I live in my hoodies with two-plus layers of clothing underneath, but that's not because I'm having to be conscious of what I spend so that I know I have enough money to eat for the rest of the month or have the money to feed my dog, but because I'm trying to be more conscious of what I spend on energy. I find that the kind of meter I was left with by the previous owners of the house makes me struggle to really understand what my energy bills look like, but I have been really struggling with anything that feels like life admin recently, so changing over to monthly bills is something I'm going to look at, but only when I feel well enough to do that, but also only when the weather warms up and I don't need to use the heating every day. 

The impact it is having on me is anxiety. I have a formal diagnosis of Generalised Anxiety Disorder and when it is bad like it has been recently, it permeates into everything and everything triggers it. Being worried about money means I bulk buy dog food even though I have nowhere really to store it properly. Being anxious means I struggle with food, because I'm too anxious to spend time planning and cooking, but also what I can happily eat changes because a lot of things make me want to be sick. Sometimes it's even before I actually eat though - the thing that I've made gives me the ick and trying to convince myself to eat it is almost pointless. 

Whilst it's completely right that there is a lot of discussion about the impacts that these increases are going to have and are already having on the poorest in our society, there are impacts across a larger section of society. I'm sitting here thinking I need to pull the motivation to apply for and get a promotion out of nowhere or I need to get myself a decent side hustle going, but I know there's a lot of people in that sort of position, and a lot that are working themselves into the ground with nothing more to give, and they're still not getting by. 

It's all just a bloody mess. 

Title Was Longer Than I Wanted It To Be,

 I was going to name this blog post "Today I Made Some Decisions That I Would Make Again, Despite The Outcome Not Being What I Wanted It To Be." 

Since moving back to Manchester, whether we are classing that as two years ago or six months ago when I bought this house, I've been trying to reconnect with friends I haven't seen for a long time, and people I haven't spoken to in a long time as well. 

Despite the fact that plans went awry today, I don't regret making the plans I made to meet up with one of my friends. I don't regret that, in order to get a lie-in, and have more time to spend getting ready, I decided I was going to take an Uber to get there, despite the fact that the cost was something like three times what it would have cost on public transport.

The thing is, I was investing my money and my time into myself just as much as someone else. It was good for me to get out to a place I knew and hopefully with someone different. I spent today feeling safe outside of my home and outside of the environment I've spent the last two years in, but whilst my mum did need to come to the rescue so that I didn't need to get an Uber home or face a 35-minute walk and then two buses with an anxious dog, she did better than I imagined that she would have done. 

My dog spent today saying hi to more people than she normally does and not freaking out when the other doggies barked. She sat on my knee in the Uber and was so brave. I am so thrilled that she's as brave as she is. 

Then later on in the day, I learned that I woke up this morning to a world without a friend of mine, and I honestly can't say that I can put my finger on how I feel right now about that. Yes, I'm sad, I'm devastated really, and I'm angry because it shouldn't have come to this, but other than that, I'm still in a stage of utter disbelief. But knowing he's not here makes me even more glad that, even though I didn't get to spend the time with the friend I was trying to spend time with today, I put in the effort, because my friend knows I put in that effort, and he knows we need to try again to meet up, and losing one friend makes me realise even more how much I need to hold onto the others. We all need to hold onto each other. 

Happy New Year (Oh, Here We Go Again),

  I honestly thought that when I took the time to sit and count up the number of blog posts I wrote in 2021 the number was going to be smaller than 14. I had thought I had basically taken almost the whole year away from writing, but it would appear not. A lot of it was about running, a bit about dogs (standard practice for me, of course) and a couple were mentioning the new house. 

2021 was a good year for some things because it was the year I met my fur baby and fell truly in love with the girl, even though she weed on my carpets a lot. It was the year I found and bought my first house and started to realise how damn expensive getting everything I wanted done to it would be, though that's also been exciting because getting stuff done to the house just is exciting. It's also the year that I went back to Scouting and that has been an utter gift, even if at times I have wondered what on Earth, what manner of lunacy, made me think I wanted to work with kids, even if it is just for a few hours a week. It has been the thing which has got me out of the house, got me teaching and got me learning as well as socialising with the kids, the other adults, parents and just a whole other community that I feel really lucky to be a part of. 

Obviously, in other ways, 2021 sucked. Whilst COVID wasn't in as much control of our lives as it was in 2020, it was still hanging around like a foul smell and it has been sewing seeds of discord between friends, families and communities, with arguments over testing, masks, vaccines and who broke the lockdown rules however many months ago. We never really got back to the point where we could meet with other people freely and easily in the long anticipated return to normalcy, and that was bloody hard. As a family, we lost my granddad and at the funeral promised that we would meet again as a family as soon as we could. We'd lost one cousin (well, second cousin for me) before we lost my granddad, and then before we could plan the get-together we were all waiting on, we lost another cousin, and a smattering of other relatives and friends, and then we lost Akela. 

Obviously, there is no point trying to quantify all of those things and figure out if, on balance, the scales tipped in favour of 2021 being a good or bad year. There were points where it was amazing, there were points where it was terrible and there were others where it was awfully middle ground, and most of it is from these external events that are kind of beyond anyone's control. If it comes out as a good year, what does that mean? Does it mean I can sit and rest easy this year because last year was good? Obviously not. If it turns out it was to be considered a bad year, does that mean I have to 'try harder' this year to make good things happen? How do you even do that? I spend my life running around in a tizzy, always doing something, forever busying myself with something and it is utterly exhausting. I have started giving myself some time to relax and have a break as well, but if I'm supposed to be 'trying harder' what more can I do? Honestly, not a whole hell of a lot without splitting myself down the middle. 

I'm going into this new year feeling hopeful for a lot of things - driving, relationships, camping, all that sort of thing, but I'm also trying to be cautious to not overhype the things I'm hoping for in case this virus means some of them or all of them don't happen. So I'm not doing resolutions, I'm not going to get overly anxious about the run that's coming up at the end of the year - though I am going back to training for it in the next few days - I'm making no goals about my weight because if I stay chubby, I stay chubby, and I'm not going to make any real goals about what I want my career to look like in the next few months, because more than anything, I just want to be able to breath, get through each day and keep putting one foot in front of the other. Things will come together (or they won't) and this year I'm just going to try and let that happen without getting super wrung out over it.