Well... So much for the possibility of getting more writing done over the winter, huh.
Happy spring everyone, I am finally leaving my dark winter cave, emerging from my well to shame mankind, and so on. What a year this week has been dot png and whatnot. I don't think I need to reiterate to any of you how much shit has hit the fan since the last time I wrote to you. I had to go and look back at my last blog post to remember what the hell I even wrote about four months ago that I should report back on today. Needless to say, I've been in a bit of a haze like everyone else.
Things didn't get as bad for me as they have in the past, though the SAD still absolutely got my ass, which certainly wasn't conducive to getting things done. But instead of trying to fight against it, I mostly just learned to live with it. I've done a ridiculous amount of learning since we last spoke in November. Most of it was a long time coming, and some of it I had to learn the hard way, as I suspect will probably always be the case. A lot of it was about learning how to shut the fuck up and listen more, which doesn't exactly inspire one to write much, as I'm sure you can imagine. I've been forced (to varying degrees) to reconsider a lot of things, which has led to some pretty significant changes (at least to me, they're probably unnoticeable to everyone else).
One of those being wanting to treat this blog more casually, rather than as a platform to soapbox from, if that wasn't obvious yet. I've run out of steam and energy to care about most of the gripes that were plaguing me when I originally started this blog. Most of my opinions on those things are still the same, but they're just not really my battles to fight anymore, I don't think. And in hindsight, I don't think that writing from a place of emotional upset was ever really the move to begin with. But you know how hindsight goes.
Above all, though, going full hermit for a few months was incredibly good for me all around. That's not to say that I still didn't feel pretty shitty for a lot of it, but regardless of that, it was a self-retreat that I really, sorely needed. I wasn't as strict or regimented with my routines and studying and everything that I'd probably originally aimed for when I first set out, but pulling waaaaaay back helped me reassess a lot of shit, including with myself and the way that I was living my life, and how a lot of it was just completely counterproductive to the goals I had. Along with that, a lot of the creative ideas that popped up occasionally ended up getting canned. I do still have some new-ish essay ideas kicking around in my head, I'm just giving them a lot of time to cook, instead of unleashing half-formed ideas before I've even gotten my own brain around them yet. But look out for those sometime soon-ish.
In a sense, this winter felt like a metamorphosis, and now I'm emerging on the other end as a real human being for the first time. Not just in the "I'm a real adult with real adult problems now" way that pretty much everyone my age is facing right about now, but as I've briefly mentioned elsewhere, I'm realizing that I don't think I really felt like much of a person at all until pretty damn recently. Maybe the two realizations are more interconnected than I realize, I don't know. But what I do know is that I've had a pretty radical shift in what stuff is important to me and what I want to prioritize in my life, which has opened up a lot of new avenues for knowledge.
The biggest thing that I had to learn was to stop being afraid of the constant change. I guess that's probably the natural progression of the fluidity that's been building itself up in my practice recently anyways, but it really came down like a hammer on me and all parts of my life during hermit time. I can't be afraid of the winter and the dark season anymore--it's a change, and not entirely a great one (for me), but it's an inevitability, and it will pass like everything else. Things, people, opportunities, and everything else are never permanent, and that's okay. The ones that have already passed don't need to be harped on forever, and the ones that are yet to come don't need to be stressed over when I can't even predict if or when they'll show up. I've had no choice but to own up to the fact that the only thing that I can control is the present, and that's fine.
It's all fine.
I don't really have a thesis or a lesson or anything for this post. I mostly just wanted to confirm for everyone that I am indeed Not Dead and am getting back into the swing of writing again, even if I've got quite a lot of rust to shake off after several months of nothing. As the days get longer and warmer, I can feel the creativity trapped in my body slowly begin to thaw and flow again, and it's a great feeling, I'm just not positive on what direction it's gonna take yet! I do want to write more here again, and I want to prioritize writing and thinking and creating over a lot of the other bad habits I've succumbed to. Maybe I'll actually be able to stick to my word this time, instead of just saying shit and then disappearing. Who knows! At this point you should probably know not to take my at my word.