Helens De Lyonne (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
helenarasmussen87) wrote2020-03-01 02:45 am
helenarasmussen87) wrote2020-03-01 02:45 am
Entry tags:
I need to get back here and do stuff
So it has been far too long and I am up too late due to sleeping for most of the evening and processing things. I've written a lot out about where I am at the moment and I admit that it is a bit discombobulated, but this is kind of like the screaming into the void and working through a lot of stuff that has been popping up here and there in my mind.
The more I let go of things about my past realtionships, the more I realise that things weren't right and I was being manipulated and getting my self-esteem being beaten down to a pulp so I'd be easier to keep close. Basically, my ex used all his family's tricks (They are still those obnoxious fundies) to keep me clueless and miserable. I didn't know any better and now I am realising what a shitshow that was.
I've been at a crossroads lately in regards to writing. I mean, I like doing it as a hobby, but I feel this immense pressure to produce work that will sell. Maybe get a patreon or actually start selling some original stories. The problem is that I've been going sort of dark in my writing and it feels like a producing thing. I have to up the ante. BUt the stuff that used to motivate me just kind of feels meh. I haven't gotten ideas that I want to do just for the fun of doing it. I'm always thinking of underlying messages and how this will be received and if it can be monetized or if I can have a career. So I'm seeing the atmosphere and I am getting lost in it, rather than actually writing because it helped me work out stuff and becasue I had weird niches that I wanted to explore.
Yet I'm worried you know. My province (Alberta) has decided to go down the tubes and I haven't been working since the disastrous position. I am starting to look for work at the moment and as much as I hope to get a posting in the city, I have a suspicion that I will need to leave and go elsewhere. And I know it's a thing, but ever since I turned 40, I feel so adrift and at a loss at what to do and I am aware that's part of what is feeding into this shift in my writing and thinking.
This wasn't what I thought would be my life at this age. I honestly had hoped that things would have worked out differently and I would have settled down somewhere to work in a place longer than a few years and raise a family or something. Very pedestrian hopes, but hey, they were all I knew. I mean honestly, things have worked out well. I'm just kind of trying to figure where to go from here. If this is not my life, I'm trying to figure out what else to do for the rest of it.
I love teaching. I know that. I hate the bullshit with the position, but when I get a chance to tutor someone or I get papers to proofread or I get former students thanking me or telling me they remember something I mentioned in class. Or they send me a meme, it's my vocation. I'm not my job, but when I find myself stepping away from it, I realise that I like doing it and I am good at it.
I love to write and draw. I create weird little sculptures and I paint and I knit and I think I have been moving far away from that and being wrapped up in the mechanics, rather than what I liked about doing those things. Like even writing my own book reviews and just commenting on random weird things. Everything is so loaded and a statement and I think that I have lost sight of just creating for the sake of creating.
I'm trying to get back to that to start from the beginning. Especially since I know that my life has worked out differently, but better than when I was in bad relationships or pushing for things to work out with people I wasn't as compatible with. Or forcing friendships. It's not that I have isolated myself, but I am honestly tired of being the one to always check up on people. Especially when I live in the same city as these people. It's not that I am being selfish or self-centered, but if I can make time, and if friends from all over the world can make time, surely people in the same city can do it as well.
Argh. A bit long in the introspection and thoughts, but I had to write it all out.
The more I let go of things about my past realtionships, the more I realise that things weren't right and I was being manipulated and getting my self-esteem being beaten down to a pulp so I'd be easier to keep close. Basically, my ex used all his family's tricks (They are still those obnoxious fundies) to keep me clueless and miserable. I didn't know any better and now I am realising what a shitshow that was.
I've been at a crossroads lately in regards to writing. I mean, I like doing it as a hobby, but I feel this immense pressure to produce work that will sell. Maybe get a patreon or actually start selling some original stories. The problem is that I've been going sort of dark in my writing and it feels like a producing thing. I have to up the ante. BUt the stuff that used to motivate me just kind of feels meh. I haven't gotten ideas that I want to do just for the fun of doing it. I'm always thinking of underlying messages and how this will be received and if it can be monetized or if I can have a career. So I'm seeing the atmosphere and I am getting lost in it, rather than actually writing because it helped me work out stuff and becasue I had weird niches that I wanted to explore.
Yet I'm worried you know. My province (Alberta) has decided to go down the tubes and I haven't been working since the disastrous position. I am starting to look for work at the moment and as much as I hope to get a posting in the city, I have a suspicion that I will need to leave and go elsewhere. And I know it's a thing, but ever since I turned 40, I feel so adrift and at a loss at what to do and I am aware that's part of what is feeding into this shift in my writing and thinking.
This wasn't what I thought would be my life at this age. I honestly had hoped that things would have worked out differently and I would have settled down somewhere to work in a place longer than a few years and raise a family or something. Very pedestrian hopes, but hey, they were all I knew. I mean honestly, things have worked out well. I'm just kind of trying to figure where to go from here. If this is not my life, I'm trying to figure out what else to do for the rest of it.
I love teaching. I know that. I hate the bullshit with the position, but when I get a chance to tutor someone or I get papers to proofread or I get former students thanking me or telling me they remember something I mentioned in class. Or they send me a meme, it's my vocation. I'm not my job, but when I find myself stepping away from it, I realise that I like doing it and I am good at it.
I love to write and draw. I create weird little sculptures and I paint and I knit and I think I have been moving far away from that and being wrapped up in the mechanics, rather than what I liked about doing those things. Like even writing my own book reviews and just commenting on random weird things. Everything is so loaded and a statement and I think that I have lost sight of just creating for the sake of creating.
I'm trying to get back to that to start from the beginning. Especially since I know that my life has worked out differently, but better than when I was in bad relationships or pushing for things to work out with people I wasn't as compatible with. Or forcing friendships. It's not that I have isolated myself, but I am honestly tired of being the one to always check up on people. Especially when I live in the same city as these people. It's not that I am being selfish or self-centered, but if I can make time, and if friends from all over the world can make time, surely people in the same city can do it as well.
Argh. A bit long in the introspection and thoughts, but I had to write it all out.