So, New Year, New Me, right? No. Not accurate, for me. New year, yes. And certainly I’m not planning to stay stagnant (quite the opposite), but that doesn’t necessarily indicate a whole new me. I’ll just be modifying the same me that I already am.

There are many reasons that I haven’t written in months. 1 is a lack of a working laptop. That has been remedied. Another reason is the multitude of deaths that have occurred in the past few months. A lovely friend and ex-coworker succumbed to an illness she had been battling for a long, long time. A few days later, one of my clients completed suicide. We had met for a few hours just 4 days before. Then I had to have Bella put to sleep right before Christmas and the day after, my brother passed away. In and around all that, my work performance declined again. (Not to mention my general productiveness as a normal human being). I came to the conclusion that despite loving my job and doing exactly what my heart wanted to be doing, there were aspects that I just couldn’t reconcile. Things out of my control to change on my own, and I don’t feel anyone was willing to even think about entertaining the idea of making it a point of contention with the higher ups. Because, ultimately, it might just be something no one can change, because insurance companies and payees are giant douche canoes. But, my point is, I was no longer able to handle the stress and anxiety that came along with trying to conform my ethics to make my numbers work. Don’t worry if that makes no sense- the details are not essential to the plot! Of course, my mental health played a role, too. It’s really, really difficult to do the job that I was doing while trying to surf my own ocean of grief. Which wasn’t fair to my clients, but also wasn’t fair to me. And I tried really, really hard this year to get my mental health to an acceptable level of functioning, and the last few weeks of work I could feel all of that progress circling the drain…

So. 2020 finds me trying to process the loss of 2 beloved critters, 2 immediate family members (not to mention several non-immediate family members),  several friends and acquaintances, and 2 former clients (both of whom completed suicide). Not to mention having to say goodbye to all of my clients from my last job. Now I have no steady income, I’m back in the welfare line so to speak, and I just came home from funeral services for my brother. It all feels very surreal

But there’s a flip side. 2019 brought the strengthening of many new and amazing, wonderful, supportive friendships- some of which may not have occurred if tragedy/trauma/grief hadn’t struck with such force.

It brought the opportunity for ECT treatments, which I truly believe added a buoyancy that my life was severely lacking and increased/enabled my ability to keep my head above water despite the near constant tsunamis I’ve been experiencing. Let’s face it, a year ago- had I suffered the same losses in such a short amount of time- or even spread out over a longer amount of time- I would’ve ended up hospitalized again, best case scenario. So. There’s no doubt I’m in a more stable place than I’ve ever been. However, just cuz I’m steady on my feet doesn’t mean the ground under me isn’t still buckling and breaking apart, let’s be clear about that. My grip is still pretty tenuous on many days.

2019 also brought the realization that doing what I love career-wise doesn’t necessarily mean I’m able to maintain a healthy work-life balance, unfortunately. It brought a lot of realizations, actually, both professionally and personally. I’ll spare the details but suffice to say sometimes even when we win, we lose.  

But. The show must go on. I have so much more to write, but if I try to fit it all here, I will never publish this. Hopefully I will be able to accomplish all that I want to over the next few days/weeks and will then have time, tools, and energy to write more. I’m also toying with the idea of redesigning my website, since I need to update most of it at this point anyhow. Suggestions, topics, constructive criticism always welcome of course!