November's End

I feel like I've forgotten how to blog.

This has been an extraordinary few months, from my pre-meeting-Max jitters and nerves to this year's Burning Man and meeting and falling in love with Max, and coming back and don't talk about work, but work, and things feeling like they were spiralling out of control emotionally and then physically and then work, and health and bad and then Max and as I look at the date I remind myself that most of this has happened over the span of a month or two.... September, October and then the aftermath and coping all through November.

I look ahead into December with something akin to dread.  This last week turned from dreary dark rainy days to bright, sunny cold days and I know seasonal affective disorder is a thing and man oh man if that sunshine doesn't help make it all feel that much better, but I know that there's no predicting what December will look like physically.  Weather wise.  But I also have a hard time with the push of Christmas and consumerism and forced togetherness and the semi-unconscious wildness that so many people seem to dive into.

And I have a hard time because I have a pattern of wanting to please.  And with family that can get complicated because now there are more people to consider and my brain gets twisty.  So going away for the week felt like a relief to not have to even try to navigate any gatherings.  And now I will possibly need to, again.

Never mind no one really wants to hear that I'd rather opt out of the season and I'm having to repeatedly shoot down thoughts in my head like "Max and I were going to go away this week.... and I'm sad that we're not."  It's easier for me to not dwell on those thoughts when people aren't asking me about my plans for Christmas. 

Not to mention the work I'm doing internally.  Which is overwhelming and tiring and like I can't see whatever progress might be being made but I don't know what else to do but keep trying... on the good days at least.

I'd like everything to go back to how I felt the week of Burning Man and the week or so after I came home.  Content.  Happy.  Calm.  In love.  Loved.  Hopeful. 

I guess I can remind myself that this too shall pass.  That it won't always be or feel like this.  That may not mean it's perfect again, or it may, but even the dark days of winter will start getting longer... eventually.

I'm lucky, I'm thankful, I've got support in all sorts of ways, I am safe, and healthy, I am richer in so many ways than so many people, I know this.  I am grateful for this.

I don't know where I'll be an equal amount of time from now.  Where I'll be come February.  Perhaps I'll make a mental note to myself to check back in with myself on Valentine's Day. 

Maybe nothing will have changed.  Maybe a few things.  Maybe a lot.  Maybe I'll still miss Max and I, maybe I'll have moved on.  Maybe I'll be somewhere in between. 

But, yeah.  I feel like I forget how to blog, and so I'm trying to sit down and write things.  Because I have eleventy billion or so posts that say I do know how, and I guess I just have to remind myself of that.

Or something.

You know?