I had a good week at Nationals. As in, surreally good:
…and even placed the highest I ever have (80th) in a large (150+) competition of mostly spry teenagers.
Additionally, querying and other networky/researchy things revolving around The Book⢠are going better than expected. Don’t really feel like I can go into detail yet but it’s all very promising.
Part of it is straight-up homesickness. I lived out of a suitcase for half of June. I don’t usually travel this many places in quick succession. While the people I’ve met and events I’ve participated in have been wonderful, I’m unused to such rapid changes of place and I’m left disoriented.
Some of it is exhaustion – all that travel, plus full time job and Life that never stops on top of my seeming inability to get more than 6 hours sleep a night has taken a toll.
But more than anything else it’s my bad wiring.
I have anxiety and depression. I don’t like to dwell on it so I don’t talk about it very often. Due to my great good fortune in having decent mental health care they are mostly managed, most of the time.
But sometimes my brain just won’t let me have nice things, as it did towards the tail end of last week. It has this chemical rebellion that results in feelings that it’s all going to backfire any minute, or that it’s all luck and not the result of long hours of hard work.
As I type this I’m bouncing back, but it’s a long, slow bounce. The best I can do is rest, get back on a regular schedule and avoid caffeine like the plague (ask me about my celebratory slice of chocolate pie. No, best not). When I’m in such a state, rejoining the workaday world where I am not an [insert activity here] rockstar is paradoxically easier than enjoying my successes.
So: big girl panties yanked up, laundry done, early bed tonight.