life update
Oct. 24th, 2013 05:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
red_lasbelinRealized I hadn't updated my lj for weeks, figured maybe I was due for an update so no one thinks this space is abandoned. It's not, I've just always had bad lurker tendencies and sometimes it shows more than others.
This summer was very big for me - I ran the Sultry in September swap and made two international trips within six weeks of each other. For never being out of the country before this point in time, that was a pretty big deal. I'm glad I did all of these things, but it was a lot to do on top of working a 9 to 5, dealing with low level depression and worrying about a health scare (turned out to be okay, so that's great).
I've always wanted to travel, and this was my first opportunity to see places outside of the States. I empathize much better with that Bilbo Baggins quote now: "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to." I left, and leaving was hard, but what I didn't anticipate is that coming home would be much harder.
I live in a very small town of Midwestern USA, with a population of 7,000. I moved here as a very young kid. My family didn't have strong ties to the town, so while I've been here for as long as I can remember, I still don't fit in here like the people born and raised here. I've always known this is not home for me. I've traveled some domestically, but not as much as I want. Having the opportunity to go to Russia, France and Haiti and see more of the world was and is very exciting for me. But coming back made my home a whole lot smaller, left an itch under my skin and added to that low level fog of depression.
I am also an thinker and I can tend to run a little bit towards anxiety and self doubt. So while the obvious solution might be to find a city, throw everything in my car and somehow find a job after I get there - that kind of approach is difficult for me. I envy the person who can just throw themselves out there and not think of all the ways it could go horribly, crushingly wrong. I also currently am in a living situation that is not ideal for me, but it's a practical, economical choice right now. This is what I keep reminding myself.
Living in a small town, you also tend to grow up in communities (and families) with specific values and ways of thinking. I've been taking a hard look at some of these things and realizing how strongly I disagree, but I don't enjoy confrontation, I don't want to argue with someone who thinks they are right so passionately and can out yell you and somehow that means they win the argument. And I'm still trying to figure out what I DO believe, which makes forming a coherent argument somewhat complicated. So I'm quietly reading, thinking and trying to deal with the uncomfortableness that is outgrowing beliefs and changing values. It's made me slowly feel more and more isolated, and I'm not using my voice as much as I should. I know that needs to change, I think I just need to give myself some time and space.
Also - I love my job, most days, and it is very location specific, which has been another reason not to move. But right now the funding is tight, and the next six months are incredibly liquid - I don't know if I'll have my job by March. And I'm in that awkward position of trying to figure out if I should be tying myself to the mast and riding out the storm or if I should be preparing myself to jump and move onto the next thing.
I feel like I'm getting close to a crossroads, and I'm not quite sure where the road is going to go next. What I try to remind myself is to be flexible and not afraid of failure, you can always pick yourself up again after. It's also an uncomfortable thing to look in the mirror and realize that I'm anxious, I never thought of myself as someone who was anxious or had to deal with some depression. I'd really like my depression to go away, as it makes everything just look rather grey and feel pointless, and the hurdles to jump so much higher.
So far, 2013 has been both the best and worst year I've had for a while, lol.
The long and short of it is that I'm still here, still around, still love LoTR, though I have conflicting feelings about the Hobbit movies. In November I'm going to work through the technical aspects of getting the Slashy Valentine swap running for another round. It always makes me excited, I love fandom getting together. I'm also (finally!) working my way through the Sultry in September fics I didn't have time to read. There are some great, great fics and it reminds me how much I love Tolkien (and makes me feel totally inadequate about my own writing, but that's okay! :P).
This summer was very big for me - I ran the Sultry in September swap and made two international trips within six weeks of each other. For never being out of the country before this point in time, that was a pretty big deal. I'm glad I did all of these things, but it was a lot to do on top of working a 9 to 5, dealing with low level depression and worrying about a health scare (turned out to be okay, so that's great).
I've always wanted to travel, and this was my first opportunity to see places outside of the States. I empathize much better with that Bilbo Baggins quote now: "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to." I left, and leaving was hard, but what I didn't anticipate is that coming home would be much harder.
I live in a very small town of Midwestern USA, with a population of 7,000. I moved here as a very young kid. My family didn't have strong ties to the town, so while I've been here for as long as I can remember, I still don't fit in here like the people born and raised here. I've always known this is not home for me. I've traveled some domestically, but not as much as I want. Having the opportunity to go to Russia, France and Haiti and see more of the world was and is very exciting for me. But coming back made my home a whole lot smaller, left an itch under my skin and added to that low level fog of depression.
I am also an thinker and I can tend to run a little bit towards anxiety and self doubt. So while the obvious solution might be to find a city, throw everything in my car and somehow find a job after I get there - that kind of approach is difficult for me. I envy the person who can just throw themselves out there and not think of all the ways it could go horribly, crushingly wrong. I also currently am in a living situation that is not ideal for me, but it's a practical, economical choice right now. This is what I keep reminding myself.
Living in a small town, you also tend to grow up in communities (and families) with specific values and ways of thinking. I've been taking a hard look at some of these things and realizing how strongly I disagree, but I don't enjoy confrontation, I don't want to argue with someone who thinks they are right so passionately and can out yell you and somehow that means they win the argument. And I'm still trying to figure out what I DO believe, which makes forming a coherent argument somewhat complicated. So I'm quietly reading, thinking and trying to deal with the uncomfortableness that is outgrowing beliefs and changing values. It's made me slowly feel more and more isolated, and I'm not using my voice as much as I should. I know that needs to change, I think I just need to give myself some time and space.
Also - I love my job, most days, and it is very location specific, which has been another reason not to move. But right now the funding is tight, and the next six months are incredibly liquid - I don't know if I'll have my job by March. And I'm in that awkward position of trying to figure out if I should be tying myself to the mast and riding out the storm or if I should be preparing myself to jump and move onto the next thing.
I feel like I'm getting close to a crossroads, and I'm not quite sure where the road is going to go next. What I try to remind myself is to be flexible and not afraid of failure, you can always pick yourself up again after. It's also an uncomfortable thing to look in the mirror and realize that I'm anxious, I never thought of myself as someone who was anxious or had to deal with some depression. I'd really like my depression to go away, as it makes everything just look rather grey and feel pointless, and the hurdles to jump so much higher.
So far, 2013 has been both the best and worst year I've had for a while, lol.
The long and short of it is that I'm still here, still around, still love LoTR, though I have conflicting feelings about the Hobbit movies. In November I'm going to work through the technical aspects of getting the Slashy Valentine swap running for another round. It always makes me excited, I love fandom getting together. I'm also (finally!) working my way through the Sultry in September fics I didn't have time to read. There are some great, great fics and it reminds me how much I love Tolkien (and makes me feel totally inadequate about my own writing, but that's okay! :P).