The Depression Hits Again

One of the things I struggle with with my depression is the future, and not feeling like I'm worth anything. 99% of the time I feel like I'm a waste of space and that there's not point of me existing. I see nothing ahead of me. No future, no plan, no purpose.

Working on this book, and this trip, has changed that. For the past few days, while I've been plotting the route and researching things to do in each city and creating the blog, I've been in a good mood. Not giddy and hyper (which I get occasionally), but an actual positive, optimistic, hopeful good mood.

It didn't even fade when I got a semi-nasty comment on my blog yesterday morning. It didn't fade when the mint chocolate brownies I'd spent hours making turned out to be a fail. The trip/book was bigger than my depression.

For a while.

This morning I woke up and couldn't face getting out of bed. I reset my alarm for a few hours later and went back to sleep. Then I did the same thing again. When I finally actually woke up I lay staring at the ceiling for half an hour. If I hadn't needed to use the bathroom, I'd probably still be staring at the ceiling. I still feel like I have a plan, but I'm in the part of my depression that gives me no desire to do anything. There are lots of household chores that need doing, and I downloaded a recipe for donuts, and I have emails to sort, and a Ravelry group to moderate, and crochet/knit/embroidery projects to work on. And I don't want to do any of it.

I'm not sure what I want to do.

Support My Work

I'm going to write a book. Surprisingly for me, it's a non-fiction one. A travel book specifically. I'm planning an epic trip around America. 20 States in 80 Days. When I've finished I'm going to write a book aimed towards solo female travellers. In the meantime I'm going to blog a lot about it.

Read it here. Subscribe to it, comment on it, share it. Mostly, enjoy it.

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My other main endeavour at the moment is my Etsy store.

It started in January as a pretty-much-everything store, but hasn't been particularly successful. The patterns are selling well though, so the store is gradually becoming a pattern store. I'm designing new patterns everyday. For knitting, crochet and embroidery. Check it out!

Celeena Cree Creations

The length of my writer's block

I have these notebooks where I keep handwritten copies of all the poems that I write. Today I got around to writing those haikus in it. Before those, do you know when the last poem that I wrote was?

October 2008. That's before I even started this blog. It's been a long, long, long time since I've written anything.

I want to be a better writer. I really do. I have "wordsmith" in a tattoo on my back, and I mean it. I just have this wonderful tendency to avoid things that are difficult or painful. So I've avoided the writers' block and dealing with it.

One of the things I have on my "to do" list is to go through all my writing as first drafts. I should do that. Some of those haikus were actually pretty good. With a bit of revision and editing they could be actual poems.

I think I'm going to add a day in my diary, once a month, to work on old pieces and do writing exercises and things. We'll see how that goes.

10 Random Facts About Me

Another random blog to fill up a day (that last Fantabulous things one was for yesterday).

1) My shoe size is 8.. but I can wear 7 and 9, depending on the type of shoe.

2) I went to three different high schools.

3) When I was a kid I used to think I was allergic to garlic because I didn't like it. Now I can't get enough of it.

4) I have 21 tattoos: runes around my wrist, a jigsaw piece, morse code, an angel on one shoulder, a devil on the other, a monkey on my arm, a monkey on my shoulder blade, klingon, a Guiding trefoil, an entwined star and heart, wingdings (with a pair of handcuffs), a Mario mushroom, a Goomba, a bitemark, a star on my face, an imp on my collarbone, a sun and two moons (for mum and my two sisters), "llama" in mirror writing,

5) I can never, ever, EVER, list all of my tattoos at once. I always forget one or two.

6) Despite the three cats I have currently, and the three I've had in the past, I'm actually more of a dog person.

7) I love the rain. I'm sat on the sofa at the moment watching the heavy rain outside. I wish I had the confidence to go outside and dance in it. At my old place I had barely any neighbours, and would go right out and dance in the rain. Here there are too many eyes.

8) I collect frames. If you've been to my house, you've seen that my living room walls are flooded with assorted and random photo frames holding postcards and photos and funny pictures and my cross stitch work.

9) My entire right side is dodgy. It's my right ankle that has the problems, my right eye that can barely see straight (and goes a-wandering when it's tired), and my right boob is slightly bigger.

10) I have body dismorphia. I have trouble with dieting and losing weight because I don't think I'm as big as I am. I don't feel as big, and I don't think I look as big as some of the big people I see on tv and in town.

There, aren't you glad you took time out of your life to read that. Learn anything you didn't know?

10 Days of Haikus

It's been a very busy weekend (see follow up post) and I haven't had a chance to blog, but I HAVE written the final three haikus.

Sunday...

Time for a day trip.
Never been to Liverpool.
I'm going shopping.

Monday...

A busy weekend
Results in a great big smile
and two aching legs.

Today...

Ten haikus written.
Some of them are halfway good.
At least I'm writing.

So there you go. I've written ten haikus. It feels good to be writing (creatively) again, even if most of it is rubbish. I'm going to try and keep it up. And of course I'll be subjecting y'all to the madness. (Insert evil laugh here).

10 Days of Haikus

I'm a wee bit drunk
Drunk as a very small skunk
And all out of words

10 Days of Haikus

Here is today's haiku. Can you guess what I've been up to?

So much paperwork,
Leering at me from my desk.
It makes my brain hurt.

10 Days of Haikus

Written at 2am this morning, just as I was getting to sleep:

I'm sorry readers
I forgot to blog today
Here, have some cookies

10 Days of Haikus

In keeping with the theme of the last couple of days, today's haiku is miserable:

I'm trying so hard
To keep myself together
I think I'm failing.

As you may have noticed, I'm not doing so well depression-wise at the moment. I'm trying my hardest to come through it, but most of the time I don't think I'm strong enough.

Labels Reboot

I have too many blog labels. Some of them are now redundant. So I'm rebooting them. I'm only going to use a few blog labels from now on.

If you follow one of the older labels, you'll be able to find all the new posts for them under the following headings:

FAMILY & FRIENDS
- family
- friends
- lovelife
- pets
DEPRESSION & HEALTH
- depression
- health
- weightwatchers
STITCHING & COOKING
- baking
- etsy
- HaR
- HSKS
- patterns
- stitchwork
- twt
YEARLY CHALLENGES
- 2012 fantabulous things
- discworldathon
- new things
- one day one sentence
- photography
- project 200
- purpleocity
- year of the circuses
WRITING
- 30 day meme
- writer's inklings
OTHER
- edumacation
- geek out
- interwebs
- lists
- Maine
- random ramblings
- videos
- wow