Prewrite: 28th December 2017

The end of the year is three days away and I feel like this year has flown by in flashes of nothing and bright spots of grief and strife. What has 2017 left me? Exhausted. That would be the short answer.

Important things have happened. I know they have. Weddings, babies being born. Great changes and little ones.

Hospitalizations for all sorts of reasons. A sheared off cornea, an abscessed tooth that swelled my face so badly it deviated my septum, blood sugar so high they thought I should be in a coma. Heart attacks, hospitalizations, surgeries, chemotherapy, hospice… The last half of the year gifted the untimely deaths of several friends, as well as the rather expected but still sudden death of my stepfather.

I gained weight. I’m almost three hundred pounds again and I despise it. But I’m trying. Gods, am I trying. A suicide attempt on my part and on two other friends. Thankfully, none of us were successful.

It seems that illness and misfortune has abounded this year. But it is mixed with many wonderful things as well.

Such as, I got demoted at work but also got new friends?

My Darling Wife and I helped said new friends redo a room for their daughter. I’m taking part of a maker’s art show, and I’ve actually sold some things I’ve made. Which is exciting. Or should be?

But god am I choking on misery right now. Eighteen days awake, with not more than three hours of sleep at most a night. So much pain. And I don’t take pain medicine unless it’s to the point that I’m throwing up from it or can’t see straight because of halos. It’s…exhausting, to reuse a word.

I feel not like a candle burning at both ends, but one thrown into a fire full tilt to melt.

Part of it is the depression. And/or the fibromyalgia. Which, in fun news, my new doctor doesn’t know if I actually have; she thinks it might be Rheumatoid Arthritis, which…is frustrating as that is what my previous doctor said it wasn’t. More tests, more blood to be drawn, an appointment coming up in the third week of January.

But it’s whatever. I’ll keep going. I have goals set. And the only way to meet them is to keep going. Even if I feel kith and kin to Artax in that damned Swamp of Sadness. But, as Bastian said, “Everyone knew that whoever let the sadness overtake him would sink into the swamp.” So I can’t do that. I can’t fall into that pit again. Because I could barely ask for help last time.

So I am tired. I have Yarn Group tonight, now, actually. So I should go be social and creative. And try not to fall asleep. And work on the Red Blanket. Included a picture of the blanket in progress.