Not long after I took this photo in November 2022, the weather turned very bad indeed. Yes, I said I was not going to post any more selfies, but allow me a tiny one to show that it was a lovely day and I had been for a long walk. I was even listening to Spotify, enjoying myself, taking photos of colorful trees, and I was very healthy, feeling like I could conquer the world. I was happy and content and working on the NANO project which I pushed up to 52,000 words in four weeks. And they were very good words. I had completed other assignments, yes, by sheer will.Then it started raining. November 17th was the last day I bought groceries until this month which tells you something went amok in November. While things were going amok, I was focused on the writing and getting to the end of November. I did go to my son's house for Thanksgiving dinner late in the afternoon and stayed about three hours.
It started raining around the 10th of November and it did not stop really. (It hasn't stopped but for a day or two, here and there.) It was terrible storms and above average rainfall. Water even came down the chimney once. (Hasn't since). I did not even have a chance to clean up the yard for winter for all the rain. The yard was/is soaked and I would cough a bit off and on, not enough to notice or worry.
After NaNoWriMo was over, I began decorating for Christmas and focusing on all the good cheery stuff. I love Christmas shopping, even if I don't buy much. I just like the atmosphere, the people, looking in windows, seeing all the stuff. I am not an outrageous, obsessive consumer of anything but books, so the little shopping I did was mainly walking around big department stores and looking. I am a list and deadline person and very consistent (since John died) at my work, which is a lot of writing, sometimes for other people. I also do art projects, and read a lot. By the second week of December I was falling behind with work, all of it, my own, others, everything. The weather was terrible and every time I did go out, I would end up with a runny nose and slight congestion and a strange cough. Call it a tickle in the throat. I was also slowing down. Now I worked very hard in November because writing 52,000 GOOD words on a big novel is exhausting. I probably slept less, ate lousy, and didn't drink enough water or take enough exercise, because my last walk outside was November 8th according to my camera and this is the photo I posted. I am no "spring chicken," I don't bounce back like I used to from any illness and I felt a little concerned.
Since I get seasonal depression, I was alarmed at how each day I did less and less. And it was moving toward Christmas. I usually have all my shopping done early, by the second week of December. I usually have gifts wrapped and under the tree. But none of that had happened. I told myself it was because I was still writing on the novel, but I noticed that I was watching a lot of TV (not me at all), that I was sleeping too much at the wrong time of day, and that I was writing things in my diary like "Felt bad. Read. Slept." It was the 20th before I wrapped the gifts and put them under the tree. Any gift. One entry in diary says, "Woke up in the middle of night with terrible anxiety. Is it writing so much or Christmas stress or is my body trying to tell me something? I don't know. Maybe it is the winter storm that is forecasted." ( It was all of this.) I wrote one more diary entry on when the winter storm arrived on the 22nd of December and after that, most pages say one word — SICK! I was so sick on Christmas Eve, that I called my daughter-in-law at the hospital and asked her if I should go into the emergency room. She said yes, but strangely I fell asleep after suffering through the entire night. I went to the doctor, the first time, on December 27th. I had acute Bronchitis, was given an injection of "Dex," some Cipro for 14 days, and a narcotic cough medicine. This is not new for me. There are no diary entries until the 12th of January when I returned to the doctor and got the same treatment and was told to rest completely. Laughing. I had not been out of bed since before Christmas except to walk to the bathroom or kitchen. I felt well enough to write a long entry on the meaning of love, taking down decorations, and writing on the 15th of January that I had a fever. I was even posting on Twitter, but then I got Covid. Both my son and I were really sick and I could not even walk to the kitchen this time around. For four days, I struggled and then I decided, what the hell, I have to do something or die. And I was not going to die. I started writing again, on the book, in the diary, I turned on the TV to PBS and watched Jane Austen series in the background. I thought, I am to survive but what about all my well made plans. I did not recover from Covid and Bronchitis until the 8th of February when I wrote in my diary. "First day without any medication of any sort since the second week of December 2022."
Laughing. I had been sick over 8 weeks and literally two months on the calendar. But I had been going downhill since the day after my walk in November.
It is now nearly ten days later from the 8th of February, and I know that what I had once planned as work projects for 2023, will not happen, at least not how I thought. I also realize that I did work too hard last year, mostly because I had planned a vacation (that didn't happen) and had rearranged my work and it took a lot of effort and time to get that work done, along with what I wanted to do for myself. It is not the first time I had overworked, ate and slept lousy, forgot to walk or drink water. But it was the first time in years and years and I was older. The thing about getting older is that...well, I knew it and then I didn't. Example. I had to sleep more than six hours a night, I had to drink water (I suffer from easy dehydration and have to drink 60 ounces of water a day no matter what). I had to go to sleep instead of waiting on calls at 2 in the morning or watching a movie late at night after writing for six hours, or cleaning house until midnight and taking baths afterwards. All because I wanted to write and do art projects and then read psychology books. It was maddening and ironic. Terribly ironic because I knew better. I knew in December that I was winding down and then I got sick.
So now I know I have to choose what projects I want to do and how to do them. I have to decide how much time I spend on social media and watching films or even reading good books. I have to choose between French and Latin this year. I have to choose what I want to do on Brian Molko and how. Research and data is finished. I have to choose what novel will come after this novel is finished this year and why it's the best one to follow. I have to choose how I want to work on both Francesca Woodman and John Kennedy Toole. How much gardening? What plants? What about painting the house and building a greenhouse? How much artwork on the canvas. AND IN ALL THIS. HOW. HOW. HOW.
Artists, people like me, work all the time. If we are not working, we are thinking about how to work. Our relax times are something like reading or sketching or watching some TV, but mainly it's all related to our own ambitions. Artists are very self-absorbed people. I am a pretty happy person but push me against the wall and cause me to have to sacrifice my artistic desires, and I will push back. I will go missing if I have to. I will ghost the world. I have been like this since I was eight years old. I am not likely to change even though I do think I am a kinder, better person now because I have worked at it. I have learned to be responsible and make plans and yes, even hit the middle sometimes, in my head.
Choosing is an art form. Mainly we learn how to choose like we learn how to be decent people, from making mistakes. The saddest and yes , the wildest and most maddening thing about choosing is we have to "move ourselves into a future." I am not a person who likes to do that. Such an action is like creating a miracle. Because futures don't really exist and living under a future weight is both confusing and exhausting. But artists must do it to create and finish projects. And I want to finish projects. Some I want to finish this year. But look at what happened to me in 2022. I predicted , gambled, and lost. However, since my husband died in 2016, I have become a planner, a list maker, and a pragmatic worker. Be consistent.Be consistent. That's good advice. Don't overdo. Laughing. Do what you planned and stop. And wow, I can do that. But making plans, choosing in advance, has helped me live my life better, no matter what the child in me feels or believes or once practiced. No matter how I hate to predict or live under that weight. That said, choice is complex. It takes research, experience, and information. And because our lives are still moved by unexpected things (me deciding to do Nano; me getting both bronchitis and Covid) bad things happen, life goes amok. And yes, I made mistakes.
However, what I once saw in my head as the end game is now unclear. My wishes have gone amok, too.
I have to make "rearranged wishes" and yes, I have to slow down.
I have to focus.
