fadeaccompli | (no subject)

Things continue stressful. I am hitting (perhaps later than most people) one of those periods of life where certain choices have really obvious giant trade-offs, and I'm a bit paralyzed by some of them. (Do we sell the house in Austin? What do we do about having too many pets for a rental place, if so? Should I try to go on a six-week trip to Greece this summer? How much longer can I put up with doing this kind of long distance thing, which I thought would not be this hard? Can I really be an academic and an SFF writer at the same time, and if I shelve the latter for a few years, how many friends drift away because of it?) It just seems like... I'm not smart enough or brave enough to make the decisions I need to make.

But not making a decision is also a decision, because options drop out, the longer you wait. (This is part of why I'm a PhD student at 36, and not, I don't know, 21. 25. 28. 32. Any of the times when I could've tried to do this earlier, and didn't, and time moved on.) Which is, ironically, part of the paralysis: the shame and terror associated with the easy path, which is to just let things keep on doing whatever they're doing, until it's not my fault, whatever I pick, because it's the only choice left.

This sounds grimmer than it is. I'm doing well overall, I think? Saw a fun movie last night, been getting some writing done, got a paper abstract accepted to CAMWS (and now I need to write the paper!), fairly caught up on homework so far this weekend. Got chores done. I'm being responsible.

But the future is always terrifying, and always slipping away. (Without even bringing political madness into it. Sigh. Well. At least it's not the 60s.) I'm trying to be more proactive. A little more ruthless, in taking care of myself. (Which often comes down to pruning social media. A friend stopped speaking to me for reasons I still don't quite understand? Okay, not going to keep trying! Someone keeps making me feel bad inadvertently by how they talk? Maybe it's better if I don't read them!) A little more gentle, in admitting that I can't do everything--and maybe it's better to do a few things decently than try to do them all perfectly and then be wretched when I fail.

I suppose this is halfway between a journal entry and a subtweet. Suffice to say: time marches onward, and the best I can do is try to keep up with it.

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As someone at an earlier stage of life (but with similar-ish qualms about academia and SFF writing), I've found the best way is to just spirit-of-the-moment go "sure why not", then only PANIC when I'm committed. Having thoughts about how to achieve something is much easier than having thoughs about whether to do something. So far, the approach has served me well, and I've had more fun than I used to.

...though perhaps decisions on house-selling are best handled in a more responsible fashion. idk.

And most of these decisions can't be made without consulting my spouse. Who is currently in another country, in a very different time zone, for several weeks. Whee!

I can't pretend to have advice. I'm in a few similar situations but not quite, and those differences are big enough where anything I have is just an infinite shrug. So I offer commiseration and general solidarity.

Pruning social media, though. I basically did that all the way into solitude. Twitter stresses me out! Facebook is worse! I'll just bunker down in a hole here.

I appreciate the commiseration! And, man, Twitter. I love Twitter because I love seeing bright, awesome people say fun things about their own lives. (Ursula Vernon's garden comments and writing comments and potato rants! Ann Leckie making wry comments about stuff! Amanda's pictures of her spider costume for Halloween! Fox's selfies and her discussion of the comic-writing process and her decisions on projects!) But it's all interleaved with DOOM and TERROR and STRESS and not-enough-nuance-in-140-characters stressors and... well. Yeah. Sigh.

My Twitter feed is like 5% animal pictures, 10% lovely wit, 10% basketball, 50% THE SKY IS FALLING (not that they're wrong), and 25% "Look at what this disgusting person said! Look at it! Look at it! I'm gonna dunk on it now, but the important thing is that you look at it! Are you seeing this terrible stuff? Is this not getting past you? Have I not signal-boosted it enough so I can feel good about my thunderous tomahawk slam on it? No? Don't worry, someone else will be along to make sure you see it so they can two-hand-jam on it, so while we're all playing NBA Jam Privileged Edition, you'll see this vile statement no fewer than 10 times thanks to Twitter's algorithm bumping each version of this to the top. WHAT YOU MAY HAVE MISSED - virulent sexism."

Facebook's that but without the basketball.

Clearly I need a better Twitter feed. I suppose that's kind of up to me to some extent, right?

As I type this, my cat is very lovingly punching me in the throat (he's very cuddly after he eats, and wants to get in my lap and pet me, but doesn't understand how that works so he just stretches up and lightly jabs me in the neck), so maybe he's got the better idea of how to live. Eat food and sleep.

It's hard, with Twitter feeds, because even people I like will go "Look at the terrible!" (heck, I do sometimes.) Because things cross a threshhold where we feel we have to DO SOMETHING and sometimes the DO SOMETHING is to TELL EVERYONE and then it just gets cumulative across multiple people and...well. Yeah. I don't have a solution, just a description.

Tumblr is a lot calmer for me, but that's because I have a filter list about thirty items long on Tumblr Savior. Does a post tell me to reblog it, or ask for donations, or use keywords associated with recent atrocities? I do not see it! My Tumblr feed is full of pretty pictures and amusing comments and smaaaaaall amounts of politics. I wish I could trivially filter Twitter; I think it would help a lot.

I don't use Facebook because it baffles me and makes me feel about fifty years older.

Your cat has some good ideas, it's true.

I know what you mean about friends drifting away if you make the choice to shelve the writing, because I've seen it happen. I also know that several of the people in your immediate vicinity including myself have specifically not drifted from people who have chosen not to focus on writing for awhile. You'll still have a place with us, and we'll still want to be your friends. For what that's worth. It's not everything. It's what I've got.

I know it's only one thing, and there are so many others. I'm here and listening when you need that. And I'll see you soon.

It is worth something! And I really appreciate it being said. My close friends, I know, would remain friends; but there's a certain anxiety about losing the more casual friendships/connections in the community, when it took so long to actually feel like *part* of that community. (Especially thinking about how doing the Rome trip this summer that my advisor suggests would mean missing Fourth Street. Oof. That means a lot of people I see once a year, I just don't see.)

And I will see you soon. Which is good.

Ah, yah. When something is annual, missing one is huge. And the casual connections...I do see what you mean. I'm sure we'll talk more about community and everything else when I see you.

If I have to trade your writing for your occasional tweets about cool stuff you're reading/translating/researching, hey. O:>

I hope I have not been too stressful. (And if I have, then not-following me on whatever social media is fine, because I am determined to be Very Low Drama about stuff like that. I will only sad at getting in a blocklist for silly fluff tweet things like RikerGoogling.)

If you need a realtor for Austin house stuff, I dunno if my mom is still doing that, but I can always ask! She'd at least know people, if you go that route.

Anyway. I think good thoughts for you, whatever your choices, and validate the stress. Eeg.

You have not been stressful! (See, this is the problem with subtweeting; it makes my friends worry.) It's just... y'know. *waves hands vaguely*

Sadly, 'get a realtor' is the easiest part of the Austin house... issue. What do we do with four pets? And a long-term housemate with no income who doesn't want to leave Austin? And trying to get new lodging when finances are up in the air? And giant stacks of Stuff that would need to be packed? Yeargh and argh.

*patpats* Yeah, I know. It is the "screaming at the moon" thing. *sigh*

ooog, pets and housemate and finances and STUFF... And packing is, indeed, THE WORST and TERRIBLE. (And moving people away from Known Places and support and whatnot is also terrible.)

I wish I had transporter technology. O:(