The Happy Accident of Being Called Charlie,

Fourteen years ago, I decided I was a bit sick of being called Charlotte, because being from where I am from people don't pronounce it properly and it has annoyed me for longer than I can remember. For reasons that have never been known to me I've never been much of a fan of because called Chaz or similar and I got to the age where Lotti felt a bit infantile on me. (No judgement for any older teens or adults called Lotti, Lottie, or any other spelling, it was just how it felt for me.) I decided I was going to try out Charlie, and if I hated it, well then, it was two years of college and then I was moving to London, so it didn't really matter. Yes, I had already decided I was going to London at that stage, even though I had never even heard of the university I went on to attend. 

When I use my actual name online or I talk to people in public, I've found people have a tendency to use pet names that drive me crazy. It was particularly bad when I worked in a DIY store and there was a tendency to call all of the guys mate and then single me out (I was usually the only girl in the store as there weren't that many of us in the company) by calling me either darling or sweetie (or something similar) and it winds me up. In that particular context, it was because the guys doing so looked at me sceptically when I gave them answers to the questions they were asking, and that was if they got over the reluctance of asking a woman in the first place, they would look at me sceptically and then try and locate the nearest male member of staff and then be satisfied by the same answer from them. One of the things I have always taken pride in is that if I don't know the answer to something, I will say I don't know, because I would rather do that than anything else. Whilst most of the people I met in the store didn't know me or know anything about me, I still took it personally (joys of ADHD, particularly when it's undiagnosed) and it's also really sexist. Assuming someone doesn't know something because of their gender is actually properly sexist even when you're not doing it intentionally. To be fair, I should have expected it a little bit, but really it wasn't a good job for me, and one of the reasons I got it was because I was a woman. I think the company were catching shade from somewhere about their diversity figures and the lack of women in the business, or they were trying to anticipate that it was going to happen eventually, so they were looking to recruit more women. 

Although I have never changed my name officially, I have considered it a number of times but I do occasionally go back to using Charlotte, though very rarely. My online name has been CharliesWrite for long enough that for things like emails, Charlie is ambiguous enough that a lot of people assume I'm male and have a tendency not to talk down to me, assume that I don't know things, and also tend to call me mate instead of the sort of pet names that make my skin crawl a little because they're a little too much like terms of endearment from someone that I don't know. It wasn't the reason I actually chose to use Charlie, but it was a happy accident. Honestly the decision to use the name Charlie was such a quick one, that the only thing I thought about was not being Charlotte, that Lotti had T's in it as well and that always caused a problem, and I wasn't that big of a fan of my middle name to start using that instead. (It's not horrendous or anything, but I just didn't fancy being called Elizabeth, because it didn't seem to fit me, and neither did Liz, Lizzie or Eliza, though if I had decided on Lizzie I would probably have spelt it was Lizzi because I really had something against the letter E, though I don't know why.) 

There are times when that ambiguity has caused a problem. My ex partner took great exception to the fact that my name was unisex, because he used to be 'accused' of being gay and dating a man called Charlie. He liked having photos all over his Facebook of the pair of us because at least then he could show people photos and 'prove' that he wasn't gay. It was something I never really challenged him on at the time, but it was always something he was pretty sensitive about and looking back on it I really wish I had asked him why the hell he cared. The idea that anyone would think he was gay was a really touchy subject. Then again, it did seem like when the conversation came up it was more that people were making fun rather than getting genuinely confused and in all honesty, I find it disappointing that people still think it's something to be joked about, or that me being called Charlie was such a big deal to some people. Anyway, being the stubborn person that I am, when he asked me to change my name for that reason or at least let him use a different version of it, I said no, but it made me realise I had become somewhat attached to the name, and what it represented to me and about me. I had kind of adopted it into being a part of my identity, and it's something I'm no longer quite sure how to put down, even if I wanted to. Even if my screen name confuses people when I'm trying to tell them how to spell it. He still tried to get me to use either Char, Charl or that one I've always hated of Chaz (God, I don't know why I hate that one so much but I really, really hate it on me) and I was just too stubborn to respond, or I would just ask him what my name was. Whether it is thankfully or sadly I don't know, but I was the more stubborn one, so the name Charlie stuck. 

What The Fudge Does Preptober Even Mean?

It's been over a week since the calendar flickered over into the dreaded month of October and for most people it means the world gets colder, the days get darker, and everyone has a mostly unneeded excuse to watch scary films. I say mostly unneeded because if you like it and you want to watch it, I think you should go ahead, but people like me need someone with them to be convinced to watch most scary films and a few of my friends won't even watch them then, but saying 'But Hallowe'en is coming' seems to be enough enticement. By the way, yes, I do know that Hallowe'en is considered to be an archaic spelling, but I don't care. If you don't know why it's Hallowe'en, click here. 

One of October's other names, at least if you are in the NaNoWriMo world, is Preptober. Preptober is the month before the biggest month on the calendar - NaNoWriMo - and it is when we get ready for November and the start of NaNo. For some people that means planning out their novel and what they are going to write, for some it is a scribble of an idea on the back of a postage stamp, and for others it is no different than any other month in the calendar in terms of writing. They write or they don't write, but they don't plan because writing is more fun by the seat of your pants. No prizes for guessing which camp I pitch my tent in! Preptober means different things to different people and often for me it's about nesting. Everything that I can do to make where I'm living more comfortable, and then also things like making ready meals for the early days of November, considering that otherwise I would either forget to eat, live on take out or I would just be having snacks that I could grab quickly. (Originally I just thought that this was being a full indoctrinated WriMo, but it's definitely more of an ADHD thing.) When I lived in the flat in Sutton, I did manage to convince myself to go to Morisson's a few times and get things from the salad bar, and even convinced myself to eat a banana once in a while. I think that that was the year I finished really quickly as well, though that was after I had finished the initial fifty thousand words and I was carrying on to see how far I got. I intended to write until about a hundred and fifty thousand but then I pretty much ran out of steam and decided to finish on something like a hundred thousand and one words because I quite like palindromes, but then realised that if I finished on a hundred and one thousand and two words, because that meant that I finished the last day with the exact same number of words as I finished on the first day, so whilst it wasn't the sort of perfect and obvious palindrome I was going for initially, it was still something like one. It made for a pretty graph anyway. 

This year Preptober is more about me putting myself back together a bit so that I can actually function through NaNoWriMo since I'm really struggling with executive disfunction and a few other things at the moment. This year it is even more important for me to use Preptober to get myself ready for November because otherwise November is going to be a rough one. I don't know what I will be writing by then, I have no concept of whether I will be struggling to write then or not, if it's going to be a little bit of a slog or if it will be something a lot easier like it has been before. When I was writing 'Fairies' I didn't know what I was writing until about day three and then I enjoyed the process of writing the rest of the novel, because it felt like it fell out of my head through my hands, and it was beautiful. I still love that novel like the day I wrote it, which is far more than the day I edited it. 

What's strange to note is that this is the first Preptober in a long time that I haven't been an ML. I decided to step down, and it was a decision I was somewhat torn by at the time, that I'm still torn on now, but ultimately I knew that it was the right decision to make. There were a lot of things going on that lead to me making that decision but none of it was not wanting to lead the region. I loved the London region. I love the people, I love the city and I love the community and events that have been years in the making, and it wasn't really something I ever thought I would be ready to step away from. Although it's not even close to being the reason I decided to step down, I'm actually glad that I'm not having the responsibility of MLing this year because it means that I can focus on looking after myself and making sure that I'm okay, or at least getting there. As much as it feels selfish to say it, I feel like it's actually quite important for me to do that right now.

What I have considered though is, given the issues with Twitter and my personal dislike of Discord, I wanted to think of a different way of being involved in the community. I've previously used Twitter a lot and also my blog, and whilst I'm still happy with one of those, I have been tempted by the idea of using Twitch particularly with 4thewords, but also potentially for a few other things, though saying that I'm not sure that NaNoWriMo would be the best time to do that because the kind of interactions which make a stream actually work aren't really the sort of thing that most people have time for during November, because some people are trying to juggle with their lives and their novel and other people are able to be intensely novel focused, and neither type of person is in the place to be involved with a Twitch stream, even if it would be a good platform to run an overnight event on, alongside Discord, which I really wish that we had thought about before, because during COVID we could have really used it, though I'm not sure that their co-hosting feature was available during that time. Whilst I'm considering it, I am thinking that it might be something that I need to work on for next year as opposed to trying to do it for this year, given that I'm not in a good place at present and given that it's the sort of thing that would take a bit more setting up than I have the time to devote to right now. I'm also not amazingly familiar with the system and again it's not the sort of thing that I think I can remedy as quickly as I would need to. Which is a shame, because it's the sort of thing that could be really cool. 

This turned far more into a stream of consciousness than I originally planned it to be, but sometimes that is what actually gets me to focus enough to write, so it's not a bad thing. Expect more babble as October goes on... 

Something Doesn't Feel Right,

 Something I have always noticed about myself is I need a reason for things; well, for everything really. When I'm struggling, emotionally, mentally and all that sort of thing, I want a reason for why I'm feeling the way I am feeling. I want to know what prompted it and what caused it and all those sorts of things. When I sat down to write this I started thinking, was I in denial all of the time that I thought I was okay with my diagnosis? Was it the calm before the storm and this is the storm? Is that the really simple thing to look back on and say, hey, that's where this started? There is more to it than that, of course. 

I've always had panic attacks, and they got a lot worse three and a half years ago, or just over that, before the pandemic started and then I was pretty lucky, because as much as the pandemic was anxiety inducing, I was of London, living with family and away from a lot of decisions I used to have to make. I just did my job, hung out with my parents, watched a lot of TV and went for a walk once a day so we didn't go completely mental. They've come back with a vengeance now and it's been a while that they've been back. They're interrupting my sleep, they're affecting me on increasing more days than they're not and they're making me feel broken all over again. I'm not saying that I was fixed, but I thought that I was getting better, and now I'm not so sure.

Emotional regulation isn't my strong point, obviously, but I just feel like I'm really struggling at the moment, more than I have for a while. I always hoped that by the time I hit thirty I would be different. I thought I would be more in control of my life and that my life would be very different from what it is right now. 

I wish there was something I could put on here as like a happy ending or something, but the truth is I'm not sure when things will get better and I'm not sure how to make myself feel better anymore. Things that have worked for a while, things that I have done for the whole of my life to make myself feel better aren't working, and that is really uncomfortable at best, and terrifying at worst. I don't even know if writing makes it better anymore, or if it ever did, because I have been writing even when I haven't felt great, but I just haven't been able to bring myself to post the things I have been writing.

Sometimes I Can't Decide What to Write About,

There are a few things I could have decided to write tonight, but I decided to write this, because writing about things which have made me happy make me happier, because it's something I always believe should be shared. That's not to say the debate was write something that made me happy or something that made me unhappy, but this was kind of my Tigger bounce, super happy moment of the week. 

A few years ago I decided to buy myself a really old typewriter, because it was the sort of thing that just made me happy, and whilst it still does, I tend not to write on my typewriters anymore because the majority of them hurt my wrists, and also there's a whole space issue that even in the 'new' house, I can't fix. In a similar way, I got really excited when my dad mentioned there was an old Singer sewing machine in a charity shop nearby and honestly, I just wanted to see it. I think they're really cool, partly because of how ornate they are, but also how simple, and they're such a powerful machine as well. I went to see it, and I just fell in love with it, so decided it needed to come home with me. I told myself it was fate, because I had just cleared a space that was the perfect size for the cabinet it came in, in the room that is, at least part time, my sewing room. I had to ask to collect it the next day because we couldn't have fit it in the car otherwise, but when I finally got it home - with a lot of assistance - I found a letter had been dislodged inside of it, and that made it feel even more like fate. 

So this letter, it was addressed to someone named Charlie and it was written in typical old lady hand writing that made me think of my Nana even though the name at the bottom was wrong and love was spelt wrong. It was strange because it was about the water, and I've just started paddle boarding and the lady said something - some of the letter read like coded nonsense - about telling the coastguard they would know who this Charlie was, because he was the little boy with the grin and the big gob. Meatloaf says two out of three isn't bad, and I have to agree...

Whether I can get the machine to run perfectly well is up for debate. Whether I just mend it to use the table side of it for my other sewing machines - because it's really well designed for being a sewing table - is more possible, but not preferable, but it is already something which has brought me immense joy, except for the moment where my mother asked whether I was planning on 'doing it up' in it's current colour, so just repairing the damage to the cabinet, or painting it with chalk paint, and I wondered how she could know me so little. I'm not against chalk paint on furniture, but I feel like some things are sacred and this is one of those things.

I'm currently on annual leave and keep planning to get on with some sewing projects, though I'm already a couple of days in and I have done literally none of them, so we'll see if it happens or  if sewing is just another of those hobbies I took up, got a little bit obsessed with and a little bit good at, and then got not even bored of, but just couldn't find the motivation or the time to keep up with. I'd love to say it doesn't happen that often, but that would be a total fib.

Today Didn't Suck, Too

In writing about days which were difficult, I had a quick scan back over things I have written in the last few months and I read over the blog I wrote when the paddle boarding session I was booked to join got cancelled. For the second time. Whilst I was epically frustrated there were a number of reasons that they had to be cancelled and whilst I was being a grumpy goose about them, I also completely understood that, but then somehow completely forgot to write about the day that the paddle boarding session I went to that DIDN'T GET CANCELLED! 

One of the biggest differences - okay, scratch that, it was just one of a long list of differences - was that instead of being a class which was teaching paddle board technique at the same time as doing some environmental work (litter picking), it was a social meet up of people who would fit into the middle of a Venn diagram of owns a paddle board and doesn't want to paddle board alone. It was a BYOB in the sense of Bring Your Own Board - though someone did also bring beer and I have to say, I was impressed he stayed on the board, because I couldn't even san alcohol - it was far more local to me and it was organised by a person who wanted to go out on her board rather than a charity organisation. And it happened. And it was great. 

I wasn't great, I fell at the first hurdle. And the second. And the third. I'm not sure which hurdle is which but I left home without a towel for the human, though I had brought my changing robe, which is kind of towelling inside, and also a towel for the board, so that once I got it out of the water I could dry it down again. I pumped it up, and I thought the pressure gauge on my pump was broken so just had to do the best I could with it and guess. Here's a tip, never do that. It wasn't pumped enough when I first tried to get onto it in the water, but one of the others helped me and got it to where it needed to be. I nearly fell on my a** because the ramp into the water - which is supposed to be the easier access point - was mossy at the bottom and I didn't expect it, though I managed to turn a stumble into a rather graceful slide and was able to laugh about it as soon as I was in the water, and then I got onto the board okay in the end. 

I was really proud of myself for trying to stand up. And falling in. Then getting back up. And then falling back in. And then listening to what some of the more experienced (it's not hard to be more experienced than me at this) people and having another go, standing for long enough for someone to have taken a photo from across the lake, and then... you guessed it... Falling. In. Again. 

Despite feeling like a tit for not getting stood up and for not being able to paddle in a straight line and for a few other things, I was blissfully happy, because for one thing it meant I hadn't spent a lot of money on equipment for something I hated, but also because I am a total water baby and despite the fact that there were points I was scared - because I am a water baby with a fear of deep water - I got on with it, and I enjoyed it and I spent time chilling out, and making friends and doing something different and it was completely needed. It made me feel like myself, far more than I have been in a good few months.

I've been again since and still haven't got the knack of pumping the board up properly and I still can't stand  up overly well, but falling in isn't scaring me anything like as much, I'm getting good at knowing what I need with me, and also I've been to a couple of places now and I always think seeing different places to do the same thing is good. I'm thinking I need an electric pump and to go back to the shallower lake to give myself the best chance of figuring out the standing up part of it, and then I think I will be flying. Well, paddling. 

Anyway, I guess the point of all of this is, I'm not miserable all the time and although some things have gone wrong recently - A LOT of things have gone wrong recently - it's not everything. There have been some really good moments, too. And I also bought Chai a lifejacket so that she can come on the board at some point, and that is something I cannot wait for.

Don't Worry, It's Not Just The Blogs That Get Stupid Titles,

 When I bought the house a little over two years ago - yes, it was that long ago and yes, I struggle to believe it was that long ago - I wrote myself a list and named it after a Barenaked Ladies song. Thankfully, it wasn't Tonight Is The Night I Fell Asleep At The Wheel or the Big Bang, but If I Had a Million Dollars (The House). 

I can't remember if it was the very first night I stayed over in my own house or a little bit later, but it was back in the very early days of living here, and the things that are on it range from the, oh, that's for next week, or that's after next payday to being, okay, we need to do a few things before that, or that is going to need more than a little saving up for... It was very aspirational. 

The last few months has rendered me quite nostalgic and I do end up sitting and thinking about how much things have changed in all of that time, because a lot has changed and things have changed a lot (and yes, that is two different things).

One of the things that was on the list was DOG =D and I feel like that was an amazing bit of foreshadowing, because it's a small word with a big meaning and it brings me lots of big smiles, just like the little fur ball it refers to. If I wrote the list in around June then it really didn't take a long time for that to change because the 28th July was the anniversary of the day Chai and I met. She wasn't fond of me then, but now she definitely is. The next thing on it was Car - Any f***ing car. Well, that changed a bit more slowly, but it certainly changed and my attitude towards cars has changed as well, though I seem to change my mind pretty regularly as to what I actually want for my next car (and when I want it seems to change quite a bit as well though that might be partly because I have revised the budget a couple of times.) 

My feelings towards the house have changed a few times as well, whether it's towards things like the parking outside, my office upstairs (which has formally become a junk room) or the loft that I was going to store everything in. Sadly, I despise ladders and it's not getting any better from trying to force myself to use them, so I tend to not put things up there unless I'm sure I'm not going to need them for an extended length of time because it means I would have to go back up there gain to get them and I know I will just keep putting it off. The plans I had for the house have changed, too. There was a point over the last couple of years when I considered applying for an overseas post and so would have had to clear it and rent it out, there was another when I was thinking I needed to sell it and move to the sea (I think everyone goes through that pretty regularly), there have been points where I thought it was my forever home (fleeting points, but they have existed all the same) and points where it has been the bane of my existence. 

Earlier this year, in a time that I could refer to as The Bad Beginning in the same way as a Series of Unfortunate Events because it was the first, or one of the first dominoes to fall, something went wrong with the paperwork for my new mortgage deal and I was convinced I was going to lose the house for the whole time until it was sorted. I was proud of myself because I handled it exactly how I needed to handle it, but it was horrible, because it wouldn't have just been losing this house. I knew it was an admin error, the mortgage company knew it was an admin error, but it was the scary sort of admin error that felt like it was going to ruin my life and something I was really proud of. I didn't love the house for a while after that and I didn't love it when I had issues with one of the utility companies causing damage to it by works they were doing locally. I'm not sure I've loved it anything like the same since either of those to things happened. 

I've talked about having struggled with 'stuff' in the last couple of months, and this isn't even the tip of the iceberg, it was just the start of things and really, one of them I look back on and think, it was so easily solved it no longer matters and I almost forget it happened, and the other is still rumbling on, but I'm not alone in it, because it affects so many of my neighbours as well, and everything feels less crap when you're not on your own, but this is the stuff I can bring myself to write about. These are the things I can commit to a page, even if it's a virtual one, and these are things that the person writing that list would never have even thought of, but now I've done it, and I'm through it, and I'm just not going to think too hard about whether I feel stronger for it or not. I have to keep looking at those things and thinking, it was hard, it was horrid, but you got past it, and this too shall pass. Eventually.

Why is ADHD Paralysis Such a Nightmare?

At the moment, I'm on a waiting list for an assessment to confirm a diagnosis of ADHD for me. I know there's been a lot of noise about how it's over diagnosed these days and that there's no point in getting a diagnosis if you're no longer studying, but firstly, it's definitely worth it, and secondly, no, not everyone has a little bit of ADHD. You might experience momentarily lapses in focus or forgetting what you are doing once or twice a day, but I literally forget to drink. I ended up so severely dehydrated during the hot weather a few weeks ago I had to call my parents to come and collect me and my car from work over an hour away because I was in agony, I was throwing up and I didn't know what was wrong. It's the reason why I tend to have a bottle of something or one of my flasks permanently in my hand - because that wasn't the first time I have ended up so dehydrated, but I am hoping it is the last. 

Somehow, that's not even the most annoying part of the way my brain works. 

There is a feature of the 'condition' (God, I hate calling it that) which is called ADHD paralysis and it's the reason a lot of people who are eventually diagnosed in adulthood spent a lot of our childhood being told we were lazy. People think of ADHD as the tiger bouncing (which even now my mother is struggling to see was probably due to ADHD), lack of attention or hyper focus, and a need to be constantly busy, but it's also the fact that it's not the body that can't sit still - my body would be exhausted and broken if it could keep up with the speed that my mind runs at. The best it can do is fidget to try and expend some of the energy that I don't know what to do with. There are also times where my mind is racing with a million and one different things, and writing itself a to do list, whether that's an immediate one or things I want to do 'eventually' to the house, the garden, places that I want to visit and things I want to try, and when I have a list all I can do is sit on the sofa and feel exhausted by the idea of everything that is on the to do list and trying to choose one of them to do. Overcoming that exhaustion is really hard, and it is like trying to put a firework up your own butt. It's the total opposite of when I wake up with too much energy and throw myself at every task I can think of and either exhaust myself really early on, or I keep getting distracted from the original task by finding lots of other bits and pieces that need to be done.

The ADHD paralysis thing has been bothering me more the last few weeks because I have been working parts of the weekend and I find that once I'm done with work, I really struggle to get myself out of work mode and into getting something else done, or going out and doing something fun. I'm affected by it a lot, and I know that part of the reason it is able to run my life is because I can be very sedentary, working from my sofa and only really getting up from the laptop when I want a brew (but, flask) to get food or a few other reasons. That's the nature of my job though. 

Anyway, rant over. And since writing a blog was on my list of things to do, hopefully that was enough of a kick to get my brain out of paralysis mode and get to doing something else before it gets too late in the day for me to reasonably do something. Unfortunately I always seem to get restless about this stuff on a Sunday evening, likely because I'm looking down the barrel of another week at work where I know that I just wake up, work, and sometimes forget to log off until so late in the evening that it's dark outside even in the middle of summer, which is just another habit that I need to get out of.