March 2023 was like the rest of 2023 so far - it effing sucked.
This year is really going down as one of my least favourites atm, and I've got some bad years on record, y'know? *sighs*
Anyhow, a good neighbour - a neighbour who'd been my neighbour since I was a toddler - passed away suddenly.
They were always there, y'know? They came to my brother's wedding and everything.
So that, on top of everything else I've been dealing with this year, was pretty damned horrible.
It's good to remind ourselves - as often as is necessary - that the little things are there to enjoy.
...By 'ourselves' I obviously mean me - we need to remind me. 😅
Warning/Disclaimer Time:
I very briefly discuss mental health problems in this blogpost.
I also give opinions on what can contribute to people's mood, so: I'm not any sort of scientific/medical/psychological professional - I'm a chick with personal experience of mental health issues and an internet connection. OK? OK.
The little things contribute so much to our lives.
Our beautiful, messed-up, everyday lives are made up of the bracelet you wore this morning, what you had for breakfast, whether you tripped over the doorstep on your way out, what song is playing on the radio... etc. etc.
What can I say about February?
As February tends to do, because of the length, it kind of zipped past.
It was not as bad as January for yours truly (because that, unfortunately, would take some beating,) but it was still full of more downs than ups, really.
I struggle when the people I love are struggling, dearest nerdlets, I really do.
And I tend to turn those feelings back on myself - like if I was just 'good enough' then things would be better, if I knew what I was doing with my life then things would be better, if I was just fundamentally 'better' then things would be better.
Objectively, I know that is a pile of b*llsh**.
Subjectively, I feel it.
I don't know what I'm writing but I hope it'll turn out OK.
I'm literally just typing things and hoping it turns into a blogpost at this point.
Wish me luck.
Thoughts are hard to form, sometimes.
Let alone trying to write something insightful, pithy, witty, or just plain worth it.
Sometimes I put way too much pressure on myself and on this blog.
Not everything I write has to have some deep meaning behind it.
(I know - you wouldn't think it for by reading some of my posts on such heavy-weight topics as fanfiction and weird superhero videos I found on the Interwebs. 😅 )
Warning: this post discusses current events so mentions a lot of potentially distressing topics, including, but not limited to: war, child labour, train accidents, Covid.
WTF is actually going on?
The 2020s are something else, honestly.
Someone needs to turn reality off and turn it back on again - simulation or not, this sh** is glitching.
January was hell.
I got some Very Bad news about a very close family member.
The 'it doesn't get better' kind of news.
I'm not really ready to go into it, further than saying I've found myself becoming a carer again. Yay.
So January was enough to say that 2023 is a bad year. Straight off.
I'm just hoping it stays at this level of bad and doesn't get worse. I can just about cope if it does that.
I really like languages, OK?
I like to play with them, twist them, turn them, taste them, learn them.
(And yes, I do literally mean taste them - synaesthesia.)
So... I put Duolingo on my phone a while back. (Not sponsored - sadly.)
It wasn't a 'New Year's Resolution' type deal-y. I don't do those, and besides, it was late last year when I randomly decided to get Duolingo.
I feel like it's a good time of year to remind myself of something:
I only have two hands.
Now, obviously, that makes sense literally (for me, at least) - but it works on a metaphorical/figurative type of way too.
I can only do what I can do - I only have so many hours in a day, so much energy to expend, so many resources to draw on... I only have two hands.
December - you gotta love December (well, I do anyway,) if only for the Christmas-ness.
True, December was, like much of 2022, full of ups, downs, and in-betweens.
But Christmas was nice - maybe not The Best Christmas Ever™, but then, is it ever?
I had a nice cwtchy* Christmas at home with my parents, my cats, and my brother. Who bakes awesome mince pies and gives them to me. (The brother, not the cats.)
*Just realised when editing that this is Wenglish and most of you won't know what being cwtchy means 😅 - uh... it doesn't really have a direct translation. It's kind of like combining huggy, and homely, and cozy... only better!
November wasn't great.
I mean... it wasn't the worst month ever.
And any month you can walk away from is a good one.
But yeah, November wasn't great.
Sometimes I think the world really did end in 2012, it just took a while for us to notice.
The 2020s just feel pretty apocalyptic so far, don't they?
Disclaimer time: I am not any kind of mental health, medical, or life-coach-style professional. I'm a random Welsh chick with a blog - nothing more, nothing less
Lazy people exist, I'm sure.
Lord knows, we've all met a few in the course of our lives - and they'll keep on being lazy regardless of what I do or do not say.
But most people aren't lazy
- we just tell ourselves we are.
Sometimes it feels like I'm jumping up and down, trying to get attention for my writing, my blogging, my whatever-ing...
...only to get lost amongst all of the other people jumping up and down and vying for your attention in an increasingly noisy world.
Warning: this post discusses spiders - no pictures of spiders though, because I wouldn't do that to myself.
I also briefly discuss illegal drugs because I like variety, apparently.
October was... pretty good, all in all.
I mean... the UK economy collapsed, followed by the UK government, and everything feels a bit like a slow-motion breakdown of society, so... that wasn't good.
Still, apart from all that, October was pretty good.
When I started this blog, the UK was still in the European Union, David Cameron was Prime Minister, and Obama was the US president.
...It's kind of terrifying to realise that that was only eight years ago, but here we are.
And I feel so very old and tired 😅
September was pretty good, on the whole.
For me - not for like, the Royal family, or the British economy, or the numerous wars and natural disasters etc.
...I'ma get back to me now 😅
Yeah - I kind of trotted along, for the most part, just doing what I do.
Keeping metaphorically swimming and all that jazz.
Making some progress on this 'n' that, y'know?
...I'm not great at explaining things from my life so that they sound exciting 😅
I've been trying, lately, to let myself be tired when I'm tired.
Now, that probably seems simple to a lot of you - you lucky folks who get tired and just... accept it.
But me? Apparently when I'm tired, my natural reaction is to do more.
Which... uh... makes no sense.
I'm going to assume it's at least partly down to the tiger vs. not tiger thing I've talked about before. 😅
I.e. my weird little hooman bean brain thinks we're under attack and/or vulnerable in some way when I'm tired, and pushes me to be alert to the dangers/fight the tiger/whatever.
A reporter approaches someone laying flowers outside Buckingham Palace...
"...I'm just devastated!" they howl. There are genuine tears on this random person's face.
The reporter says something about the whole country feeling the loss deeply, being in mourning, grieving, everyone's lives being touched by the late Queen - really laying it on thick - and... nah.
Just, no.
The Queen died.
That's not a happy thing. And my thoughts are with her family and those who knew and loved her.
They lost someone they loved, so yeah, I feel for them.
But I am not mourning. Not personally, as an individual.
I saw her once, when I was a kid, and strangely pro-Royal (but then, I was like nine or ten, and she was an actual Queen,) - I was one of those kids they bus in to line the route and wave flags as she passes in her car, y'know?
Yes, they actually bus local kids in for that - I got selected and everything, check me out! Lol.
And we got Welsh flags as well as British ones, because dragons rock.
(Warning: this post briefly discusses mental health problems)
August was... OK, I guess.
And for me, this year, OK is freaking fantastic!
So, it was still too hot, but it was cooler than July which -
- yes, please, thankyou, more of the lack of heat melting my brain, if at all possible, thanks!
I do not function in the heat. At all.
Frighteningly, we now have an official drought in much of Wales.
If you don't know Wales and our verdant, fertile, valleys all that well, you might wonder why that's frightening.
Basically - you know the stereotypes that the rest of the world has about it always raining in London? Yeah? Well, I would consider London to be quite a dry place.
And we have drought.
(And now London possibly wants our water - but if I start getting into the long and exploitative history of water politics between Wales and England, we will be here all day.)
Climate change is real, and it is here.
'We've got mountains of content
Some better, some worse
If none of it's of interest to you, you'd be the first'
- Bo Burnham, Welcome to the Internet
There's a lot of content out there, a lot of media, a lot of art, a lot of whatever you wanna call it.
There's a lot of it.
My TBR is over 900 books, and I've given up ever taming it.
My web bookmarks and favourites can only be described as chaotic.
My Netflix, Disney+, Sky box, and YouTube are overflowing with things I want to watch, only to get distracted by something else on the home page and end up watching that instead.
There are so many excellent people whose work and art I wanna see on blogs, socials, whatever...
