December Reads and Adventures

December started off with me struggling to get a job and heal my knee. HURRY UP ALREADY AND GET BETTER! But, in better news, I got a job offer starting in January. I'm so ready for it!

I got a lot of my closet cleaned out. I haven't donated clothes since 2017, and I'm kind of ashamed of myself for that. Have you ever had a moment when you folded your laundry and there was no room in the dresser? Yeah, I was there. So far, I have seven trash sacks of clothes to go. Marie Kondo anyone?

I also went on a trip to see my sister for Christmas. She’s a member of the Foreign Service and works for the State Department, so she works overseas. She was assigned to Bogotà, Colombia, so I went to South America! Let me tell you the elevation was killer. It messed with me physically. Pictures forthcoming! I didn’t get a lot of reading done in Colombia, but that was for good reason. Time with my niece was more important, and i made choices. I want my niece to remember me paying attention to her and feeling special in my eyes. Zoning into a book and ignoring her would make her feel unloved and ignored, so I put the book down. Being present with family is more important sometimes. 

Books next... right? Ugh... right?

November Reads

I started November laid off from a job I had hardly spent two weeks at. Great times! My whole life was projected into some chaos, but I felt I a little more grounded than the first time I found myself jobless. That's what a master's degree will do for you. I've spent a lot of time applying for jobs. I work a lot because I feel so guilty when I take time off. I didn't take time off when I got hired at my new job between that and my old job, because, I JUST CAN'T. I suck at work boundaries and time off. Well, God and/or the universe was like loooooool, think again!

I quit writing and October Reads

October 2023

I quit writing in October of 2023.

I've been struggling with creating good stories to write and I toil and toil over my manuscripts and making the storyline work. I haven't had new ideas for a usable new story in years. I come home from work, open up the laptop and I stare at old manuscripts for hours, nit-picking and staring at it, and starting all over.

It just struck me how little I physically read, I usually listen to audiobooks while driving, and you miss so much. I've talked about it, and I have a lot of books that I needed to read read, so I decided to start reading as much as I could again, too.

On Having Two Careers

 Hi. I know, long time no post.

I've wanted to write a blog for a while, just that I have two main parts of my life in the public eye: being a writer and the job I got into as a therapist. Yes, I have two jobs, if you're new here. I'm just used to working 24/7 and feeling guilty if I'm not, and I graduated with my MA in summer of July 2021. Taking a day off from work is quite guilt-inducing for me, but I have to remind myself I can have rest. Well, I'm changing jobs right now, from an addiction treatment center to an eating disorder inpatient center.

my author head shot, possibly a
headshot for my therapist profile?
by Jerry Winnett Grindhouse Photography

Timeline of a really convoluted car accident:

So the run down on the car crash: I was hit on Church Street in Nashville driving in the west-bound lane at about 11:05pm on October 7th near Printer's Alley. I had no stop signs or stop lights, I was driving straight. A guy in a 69 Chevelle Malibu pulled out really fast and t-boned my car.

Emotional Damage

 I know we all watch TikTok and hear that sound clip of a guy saying, “Emotional DAMAGE!” And it’s hilarious. I laugh at that stuff too, but my psychologist side is coming out in this post. Yes, I am trained therapist working on licensure right now, I work in opiate addiction and I see so much of my own problems in it. Counter transference is a real thing, y’all.

Last night while I was working my second job (trust me, having only written 1 book and I’m not a licensed therapist yet, writing doesn’t pay the bills either), my car brakes started grinding. I couldn’t work Lyft for the night, I feared I wouldn’t have transportation and I’d be bumming rides all week until my garage could find time for me in my schedule and I couldn’t pay for the work and OH MY GOD HOW DOES ANYBODY SURVIVE IN THIS CAPITALIST HELLSCAPE OF MODERN AMERICA?!?! I have been on emotional overload for almost 14 hours, but my garage was able to fix it today. As a bonus, they had this awesome book in their free book basket in the lobby, which made my morning!

The relief is palpable. But I keep thinking about how I can identify now what emotional overload is like in my body and knowing it meant I needed rest and self care.  And I remember feeling this way and not knowing if it was ever going to go away and trying to work through it. That was such a horrible way to live. 

Don’t take this as a flex that I can identify emotional overload and figure out what I need to do to calm down. It’s not. This is literally YEARS of therapy and emotional work and learning boundaries, not just with others, but with myself. Nobody ever taught me to self-soothe and to care for myself. I absorbed stress from my caregivers as a child and took it on as my own, and felt responsible for it. I’m not. And it’s okay to do things that nourish yourself and fulfill you and to invest in your own mental and emotional health. I get annoyed with people who throw any kind of self care you’ve done for yourself in your face as selfish and irresponsible. Self care isn’t selfish. It’s necessary for survival.

In short, TL,DR: you can’t pour from an empty cup, so don’t try to power through your stress, it doesn’t help. 

The Handwriting Dilemma

 Okay, I'm gonna admit something I hate about myself and about myself as a writer: I have terrible handwriting.