Getting Back Into the Groove

Some of you may know that when I quit my job this past summer and packed up to move across the country to be with my partner, I fully intended to NOT get another job. I wanted to remain unemployed, occupying myself as a homemaker in taking care of my partner and our home. This had been a dream of mine for a long time, which I was thrilled to my toes to pursue. 

Unfortunately, dreams are not always attainable. Under the constraints of a tight budget and the stress of financial pressure inherent in living as a single income family, however, was trying for both of us, so here we are. I am now getting back into harness and seeking employment as a writer/editor... and dog walker. (Don't judge me, 'kay? I love them doggos.) 

I won't say it's easy. I won't say it's not disappointing. But here's the thing - it's not a Bad Thing. I am not angry or upset or righteously enraged about the call for extra income for comfort's sake. I might even go so far as to say that I'm glad for the motivation to write again. I have been struggling with writer's block for a few months now, and the ability/desire to write 1-2 articles in a day is refreshing. 

So... here I am. I'm writing again. I'm excited to be back in the game. And my partner is encouraging me (openly and vigorously) to prep for NaNoWriMo, which starts in 5 days. 

Wish me luck. I'm happy to be back. 

Recovery is Not Linear

A lot of people are struggling right now. A lot of us found ourselves suddenly robbed of our routines, our social lives, and our support groups as the world floundered its way through a pandemic and an ocean of "I told you so"s from talking heads on the television. 

You might be thinking that it's getting tiring to hear about it all the time, and you'd like to leave it all in the past. Just move on with life and rebuild as much as we can. No need to focus on the negativity when things are opening up again, right? 

Wrong. 

Because recovery isn't linear. 

Just because the government-mandated isolation is mostly over doesn't mean that the effects are going to evaporate without a trace. And just because 2020 ended more than 9 months ago doesn't mean that the ripples it caused aren't still rocking the boat. 

I want you to consider for a moment. How have you changed over the last year and a half? No? Let's try again. 

What if it was someone else? If they were in jail for 18 months, would you expect them to be the same person when they came out? 

Tension, fear, and isolation can all have big, negative impacts on a person. These can be exacerbated if Family Issues are added to the pile, and mental health can deteriorate, even for someone who feels like everything is still under control. 

I know that I thought everything was fine, since my routine basically didn't change. I was an essential worker, I could still see my best friend, and I was living with my family so I wasn't alone. But that didn't stop my support network from falling apart, my mental health from going sour, or my future plans getting turned on their heads. 

Going into 2020, I had five excellent friends I could trust with anything, a handful of plans for my future, a supportive family and high hopes. By the time summer 2021 hit (also known as 2020 2; Electric Boogaloo) I was down to one close friend, my plans were all in a jumble, and my family and I were at odds over my newly discovered sexuality. 

I am still recovering from this. I'm taking medicine for my depression, I've moved in with my partner, and I'm working on getting my cat certified as an emotional support animal. But that doesn't mean that I'm on a straight path "back to normal." Things will have changed, and there will still be days when things feel like they're falling apart. 

As Molly Burke says, "Recovery is not linear. But I learned that even though life has ups and downs, it's about riding the downs, knowing that they'll end. I don't really like roller coasters, but life is a roller coaster worth riding." (Paraphrased from It's Not What It Looks Like.) 

Too Much

Have you ever been reading a book or watching a show, when a scene comes up that makes your insides clench up like angry eyebrows and you just have to walk away for a bit? Congratulations, you've been triggered!

Now, that might seem like a really obvious thing to some people, but for the longest time, I just had no idea that I was or could be "triggered." The internet had assured me in many situations and on several different sites that being "triggered" was an outwardly unreasonable and often violently angry reaction to something the person found objectionable. Being "triggered" was when you rage-quit or frothed at the mouth or ranted (probably very loudly and at length) at people who had nothing to do with the situation that had triggered them. 

Being "triggered" was, therefore, a childish and outlandish response that no reasonable person would partake in. 

I was wrong. The internet was wrong (or at least it was exaggerating). 

Being triggered is a legitimate and valuable unconscious response to stress, usually involving mental connections forged by trauma or long-term discomfort or fear. It's a survival response, your brain identifying something it has pinged as dangerous in the past and encouraging you to avoid it. 

Note that I am NOT a medical professional of any caliber, and that if you find yourself triggered in such a way that it interferes with your life, you ought to seek out professional help. I highly recommend the website BetterHelp for those of you that don't have someone to talk to about this. It's easy to sign up and you can start talking to a therapist within 48 hours, with unlimited text messaging between sessions. It's what I used for my therapy needs when I was unwilling/unable to see someone in person. 

So next time you find yourself overwhelmed or upset by something, give yourself a little space to process that. It's okay to be triggered, and it doesn't make you weak. You've got this. 

Couples' Clashes

Every couple fights (or argues, disagrees, etcetera).  It happens to all of us, especially as we first start to learn how to live together. Sometimes, though... I have that nagging little worry that how often we fight might be unhealthy. We bicker about the budget and snarl at one another about what defines "clean." We clash over how often to indulge in ice cream or whether or not brownie mix is a necessity in the kitchen (they're very persuasive about this one). 

So the question becomes "how often is too often," when it comes to lovers' squabbles? Am I just being difficult? Or is this normal? Is there even a "normal" amount of fights for a new couple to have? 

I did not ask Dr. Google about this. 

I did not scroll through Reddit for the answer. 

Instead, I asked my partner. "Do you think we're fighting more frequently than we used to, and is it too often?" The answer might surprise you. Instead of telling me I needed to get over myself (which was justified, by the way - I take things far too personally) or enumerating the fights we've been in and whose fault they were, my wonderful, intelligent, amazing partner thought for a minute, then said: 

"We don't usually fight about the same things more than once, except for money. I think that's just us learning how to live together." 

Did we have a short discussion about money after that and why we tend to fight more often about that? Yes, of course we did. But I think the important point is that we identified not who was at fault but what we were actually fighting about. 

And they're right. Usually we have one "big" argument about any given topic, and then it's set to rest. One or the other of us changes something small about the way we approach the topic and from there on, it's either not a problem or a problem that's already been dealt with. We have several such solutions in progress, including me learning how to clean things thoroughly enough to suit my partner's allergy needs. 

So all that considered, I think the answer is that we do not fight more than is healthy or normal. We're just more aware of it than some, and are actively working toward addressing the issues we clash about. 

And this pleases me. 

Rebuilding Routine

Have you ever discovered that the tasks you used to do without thinking are not getting done, and that you need to reconstruct your routine after a vacation or holiday? Have you ever gone through the trouble of rebuilding your routine, only to find that there are things that have been left out of it for one reason or another? 

Is anyone else disappointed in this? 

When I moved across the country, there was a lot of driving and packing and unpacking and planning involved, so for several weeks before and several weeks after, my morning and evening routines were completely wrecked. I've spent the last month trying to put my routines back together again, but I'm still having trouble finding both the time and motivation to write, which is driving me mad. 

I think this really boils down to a matter of intentionality. I know generally what I want to get done in the morning and evening, but I've made no conscious effort to write down a list or make a real schedule of what I want my routine to look like. 

Now I want to be clear on this: scheduling your "standard" morning in time blocks to get thus-and-such done will almost never work as planned. Something will happen to throw off that schedule at least once a week, maybe more often, and trying to count on that regularity only to have it yanked out from under your feet time and again can be purely infuriating. 

With this in mind, I'm going to do my best to be a bit more intentional about things - about what I'm doing and about what I want. 

What about you? 

Staying Grounded

Couples are going to find things to disagree on. That's just the way couples work. Eventually, two months in or six months or a year, one of us was bound to find something that lit a match under us and made us upset. 

Yesterday, I discovered that one of our disagreements is games. 

For context, my partner has a lot of games. Tons of games. Bookshelves full of games. And they still want more. Games played with cards and games played with tiles and games played with dice and games played with miniatures on a fully customizable, three-dimensional board with interlocking hexagonal pieces. We have a LOT of games. 

But here's the thing - competition brings out the worst in me. I know it does, and I actively avoid competition when I can. Most of these games are highly competitive. Games that pit you against standards and goals that are difficult to meet or that pit you against your opponent while you actively attack or sabotage them. 

When I was younger, I learned that I could play games with the intent to have fun, rather than with the intent to win. If I played to win, I just got unpleasant and then got upset when I lost (as I am not very good at games in general). This is a problem. 

My partner plays to win. 

So this was the discussion that we had yesterday over an incomplete game of Unstable Unicorns (a very quick and fun game that I recommend to people who like games like Munchkin and Exploding Kittens and Psychokiller). 

Now, I'm not a relationship expert, and I can't tell you what will work best between you and your SO. I can say that the key for us was in admitting where changes needed to be made and trying to find a different way to approach the problem. I cannot properly explain what I mean by playing with the intent to have fun, rather than the intent to win, so instead we chose a game with a solo mode and decided to play it as a team. 

No competition, no sabotage. 

I'm hoping we can keep doing things like this in the future. Not disagreeing, but finding ways to solve our problems together.