Down But Certainly Not Out

I woke up this morning with a bunch of post ideas and proceeded to spend my day doing anything but blogging, regardless of the sudden motivation I started the day with. I did stick all of the topic ideas in drafts, though for now, I figured I’d write a general life update as it has been a while since I posted anything here and I constantly beat myself up for that. Usually, in a situation like this I would consider cutting costs but with something like a hosted WordPress blog, I don’t even want to think about losing almost 7 years worth of content and memories, and I feel like the monthly fee to my host is worth even that much. Still, I love my blog, and I miss having the time and drive to keep posting regularly.

But here I am! And life has been… well I won’t say crazy, but I’ve been under a lot of stress and it’s tripped me into a bit of a depression. Some days are better than others, but mostly it’s incredibly hard to keep on moving forward. Still, move forward I do, because what more can you do? There’re a few things that are unclear to me right now, and I can’t really go into them here but it’s something I’m considering almost constantly. I know there’s an issue holding me back right now, I just don’t know what the solution is at the moment. That’s what I’m working on.

Yet this particular depressive period is a weird one. Usually at these times I fall into a trap of self-hatred but this time, that simply hasn’t happened, and I’m not sure if that’s because I recognised what was happening and took a couple of days off of work to de-stress, or because of a few new pursuits in my personal life, but I guess it doesn’t matter. Aside from the very bad, I’m actually okay.

In fact, some things are pretty great. (aside from current events… I’ve had to switch off from those, when people don’t come pushing them in my face all “look at the horrible thing that happened now!” Please don’t do that. For my own sanity, I need to remain detached)

1. I’m heading to Gamescom in less than a month with MMOGames. It will be my first time, ever, in Germany. It’s the first time I’ve been abroad at all in, oh, 7 or 8 years? I’ll get to meet the nutso people I’ve worked with and chatted with on a mostly daily basis for the past year+. And it’s a new experience for me, entirely. I’ve never been to a convention before, and Gamescom is a big one. It’s going to be crazy and stressful, but ultimately, I expect I will come out of it with some wonderful memories.
2. The latest T-shirt I got from Qwertee is slightly perfect. It fits just right and it’s got My Neighbour Totoro characters on it, and I effing love me some Ghibli. And I love Qwertee!
3. My marriage is in a great place. And our best friends are getting married in September, too!
4. I finally started my huge Heaven and Earth full-coverage cross stitch piece and I’m loving it, despite how complicated it was to start for a relative newbie like myself. I may write more on this in a separate post, but for now, this is the artwork that the pattern has been created from:
   

5. Dan and me have a trip to Cardiff planned for the end of September. I don’t think we’ve ever been away together “just cus” and that is exactly the reason we’re doing it. To explore things, and enjoy ourselves. Fun. Cardiff isn’t the most exotic of places, but we’ll be seeing Dan’s favourite artist live (George Watsky – not my thing, but that’s okay. I’m sure it’ll be great live!) and we can check out what an actual city has on offer, as Pembrokeshire/Carmarthenshire are a little lacking in many ways.
6. Legion launches in WoW in just over a month and I’ve been having lots of fun in the pre-patch over the past few days with the new Shadow Priest and the new wardrobe system.
7. I’ve been getting back into my pagan side. It’s not something I’ve spoken about online since getting into blogging, I believe, and I don’t plan on talking about it extensively here as I have pretty much told myself I’ll keep religion and politics away from this blog as it’s more of a focus on my geeky pursuits. However, in a list of positives, I can’t leave it out because reading around and talking to people about something that was so integral to teenage-me has brought me a lot of joy during an otherwise dark period for me. I may skirt around the topic here from time to time, but I have set up a Tumblr blog especially to allow me to talk about all of this unchained. If you’re interested at all, feel welcome to follow me there. If you’d rather not, that’s fine too.
8. Pokémon GO has been a force for good recently. I haven’t been getting out and playing it as much as some people but I have been leaving the house a little to capture some nearby Pokestops and catch some Pokemons. For somebody struggling with mental illness and mostly housebound, being able to go outside and not feel bound by judging eyes has been utterly freeing. I don’t think I’ll play Pokémon GO long term but for now, it’s a good thing in my life.
9. I’ve started doing a little writing for MMORPG.com. You can see my first two articles (part of a series on returning to Guild Wars 2) here and here, and I will be writing a little from Gamescom, also.
10. Most of all, my mind is swirling with ideas. I’m constantly thinking about the things I want to do, how I could do them, trying to work out specifics. It’s all very early stages in my head right now, but it’s big stuff, and I suspect that my weird period of mental health will continue while I work out exactly where these ideas are going. Yes, it’s vague and cryptic, but until I know what the hell I’m thinking myself, there’s nothing to say, and it could be a fair few months yet.
11. Also? Check out the finished art commission Dan had Runesael do of our mains in WoW. <3 The idea behind these characters is how we see them and Rune has done a fecking perfect job!! You must follow them if you don’t already, and not just for their gorgeous art.

I like to consider the good in life during these darker periods in life and look at the bigger picture. Giving yourself things to both look forward to and be thankful for is, I believe, an important part of living, otherwise, we’re just going through the motions and who wants that?

More than anything, I’m done with the negativity. Terrorism, dodgy politics, hate, fear… all of it. I’m done. I want to be the kind of person that spreads positive messages rather than sharing things that concern me. It’s something I’ve been thinking on recently anyway, especially surrounding Brexit, Orlando, Trump, Turkey… I could go on, but I won’t. Instead, I’m going to share a video that made me think over the past couple of days. Hank Green is a wise man.

What good stuff do you guys have going for you right now? What have I missed lately? Give me all of your happies!

“Positivity” Photo by MartaZ*

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