23 years of words exchanged, finally a face-to-face

Today's blog post is a story. A long story, that I'll hopefully tell through a far shorter one. 

Back when dial-up was still a thing, AOL was what all the cool kids were doing, and many of us were lucky to get 20 minutes of internet time a day, the internet was a very scary place to most parents. 

Not that the internet is a super safe place free from predators now (it never has been), but there was a greater fear of connecting online with people. The idea of talking with total strangers, let alone befriending them and sharing personal information, was so taboo that I once got grounded for emailing actors in a show (which actually could happen back them), at the official email address of the show, listed on the official website. 

In hindsight, my parents were right in many ways to be worried. Not about that one, though. (I actually reconnected with one of the actors while I was in college and she remembered me. We were even MySpace friends for a while, which was like, the coolest thing ever, amiright?).

Anyways. 

There were dangers, absolutely. There were also a lot of friendships of convenience. Lonely people, connecting with other lonely people, becoming friends largely because there was no-one else. 

But there was still genuine connections and bonds. They may have been more challenging to find, since large communities based on interests, beliefs, hobbies, ideas, etc didn't really exist in the same way they do today. It happened though. 

And despite the couple of stalkers, a cat-fishing pedophile, and a few other incidents (stories for another time), that genuine connection happened for me. 

Back when FictionPress.com was a thing and wannabe writers flocked there to publish pretty much everything they wrote, I too, found myself hitting submit on a near daily basis. At the time, I was steeped in Evangelicalism, so much of my work reflected that. It was, uhm... uh. Well. We're going to avoid diving into that part. The topic itself is only really relevant in the sense that it was the connection line. 

I don't remember who commented first, her or me. Whomever it was, that comment sparked the other to hop over and begin reading their stuff. And then become completely enthralled with their work. 

It was 2002 and I found myself eagerly trying to get internet access whenever and wherever I could to read the comments she left for me and leave comments on her works. Those back and forth 'reviews' we left one another led to private conversations once the site allowed that feature, which led to the exchanging of MSN handles and email addresses. 

In Ris, I found someone who made me feel seen, and who I saw as well. We came from very different parts of the world, and very different lives. But our shared Evangelical experiences, our mental health issues, passion for writing, and interests, pulled us together. 

It launched two decades of a slow-growing friendship. A friendship deeper than any other I've ever experienced... and one where we never had the opportunity to meet in person. Until more recent years, we didn't have much opportunity to "hang out" in voice chats or video calls either. The odd long distance phone call. Skype, even when it was a thing, was a challenge due to less than reliable internet on Ris' end. 

Not to mention the time differences. But there we were -- one from Canada, and one from South Africa. No matter what happened, we couldn't seem to get rid of each other. Even when we had fights where we used our words to wound and cut deep. Where shifting belief sets caused friction and different moral alignments caused offences where there were none. (A chaotic neutral and lawful good walk into a bar... things don't go well). 

Despite it all, each rock that crumbled seemed to be replaced with a stronger one. We reached a point where we spoke most days, almost all day. Just before COVID hit, a new opportunity opened up to us... playing Dungeons and Dragons virtually. Why we hadn't thought of it before, I couldn't tell you. As the pandemic kicked off, the frequency of games we played virtually together increased, and before long, we were having lengthy video calls (sometimes alone, mostly with others) multiple times a week. 

We were thrilled. If you had told either of us 20 years ago that one day we'd be hanging out multiple times a week, able to see each other's faces, talk whenever we wanted, and even have voice calls whenever we wanted, we wouldn't have believed you. 

Then... Ris decided she wanted to come visit. That, in itself, was something I don't think either of us ever, ever expected would happen. She made the decision in 2021 that she would come in 2024, and off we went planning. Neither of us fully expected it would happen. We hoped, but we both kept a healthy does of "it's probably going to fall apart at the last minute", just in case. And it nearly did. Although she applied for her Visa in plenty of time, the process took so long, we were literally days away from having to either push back the flights or cancel altogether. 

Alas. It worked out. 

In July, Ris flew halfway around the world with a plan to spend three months with us. In July, standing in a crowded airport, looking for that towering badass of a woman over the heads of the hundreds of other people bustling about, I saw Ris for the first time, in person. I saw her face, not over a computer screen, but coming towards me. Exhausted, but grinning all the same.

In July, I got to hug the only constant in my life, for the first time. 

Over the past few months, I've been struggling with putting into words what this has all felt like to have her here. Now, she's a week away from going home, and I still struggle. The struggle now, I think, is more due to not wanting her to go and trying to avoid dealing with the feelings. 

One of the most amazing pieces of this trip has been how natural and normal it's felt to integrate Ris into our lives. For her to be part of our family, our daily routines, our chill moments of doing fuck all. 

She has become a constant in such a new, amazing way. And I'm not ready to say goodbye to that yet.

I came across a meme today, that hit a little harder than maybe it would normally. And then I sent it to Ris, the bitch. 

It said: "Hold your best friend close because I miss mine. She's still alive, she just has the audacity of living too far away from me."

It's been 23 years. I think I've earned the right to call her a hag for giving me three months and then leaving me behind 😜

Creative burnout and the blogging crash

I think all of us, as artists, writers, musicians -- any kind of creator, really -- would like to believe we are beyond creative burnout. That no matter what is going on in our lives, no matter the burnout we feel in those other areas. 

And maybe, there are those who are immune to it, who are above and beyond such a thing. Those who have endless creative energies, who are like unicorns amidst the already colourful spirits of all who are called to create.

Unfortunately, I am not one of them. 

I tried to convince myself I was for a long time. After all, I couldn't really be creatively burnt out when I was still creating, right?

Perhaps that's why it's so easy to miss. Why it was so easy for me to miss it. After all, I was still writing fiction, even if it was in short spurts with my friends. I was still getting a paragraph here or there on my novel, and blog post idesa, and new story ideas... just nothing, well, cohesive. 

Aside from these moments of inspiration, the random moments where my muse whispered word after word in my ear, I struggled to write anything at all. Even the articles I wanted to write. What should have taken me a couple of hours often took me weeks. And then, the well of fiction writing dried up too. 

Non-writing related projects? They also suffered. Trying to get excited about crocheting felt like trying to make myself fold the laundry or do the dishes.

It wasn't just creative burnout I was dealing with either. It was everything. But that "everything" also put the creative burnout into perspective for me. 

The idea I was stretching myself too thin wasn't some earth-shattering revelation. I knew this. People who loved me, who knew my tells, had been cautioning me about it for a while. Something had to give. 

Of course, it wasn't easy. Making decisions to step back from certain things in my life (like my business) didn't suddenly fix things. That's because while the actions themselves were contributors, they weren't the root. They only added it it. Time is also a factor. When you're recovering from burnout, it doesn't just suddenly happen. You don't remove the things that are contributing and suddenly you're all better. You have to wade through that darkness and find your way, one step at a time, back to the surface.

My journey though, isn't the point of the post. That's perhaps for another day. 

I've realized that much like our capacity for love and affection, which is directly impacted by the love given to us, our creative cups need to be filled up regularly too. This isn't a new idea -- in fact, I'm sure someone somewhere has probably developed a TED Talk, a seminar, or written deeply about the need to invest in consuming creativty in order to keep your creativity flowing. Someone, probably, with far more research and evidence than just their own personal anecdotes. 

Creative burnout, is after all, a fairly hot topic. A quick Google search reveals everything from blog posts to magazine articles, creative leaders, and more, addressing the issue. 

One thing many seem to be in agreement on is that stepping back and getting reflective/introspective about where your creative energies are being spent is important in identifying where the burnout is coming from. There also seems to be agreement on the idea that taking the pressure to create off yourself is vital during a burnout.

Anyone close to me could tell you productivity is an issue for me. I have an inherent need to be productive at all times. If I have a period, even 20-30 minutes, where I can't be productive, the guilt sets in like an anchor and I begin to drown in it. What's worse is that this idea of filling my cup and my need for productivity go hand-in-hand. Activities that make me inspired, that fill my well of creativity, are often things I would classify as being unproductive. Taking time to read, or just listen to a podcast, learning about an art technique -- all of it means not doing something that progresses housework, work, etc. Even when I do those things, there's often a productivity element I work in to make myself feel better. Like setting specific reading goals that HAVE TO be achieved. 

There's also the creativity drains. Like watching TV. Not that TV is always a creativity drain. Shows, movies, and video games, have often led to a great deal of inspiration for me. It's less the content and more the constant. When I don't have a solid routine that sets aside time for filling that creative cup, I tend to skip them. I focus on something that's for productivitiy (like doing something for someone else), instead of for me. 

To tackle that burnout, I had to make time to engage in things that were just for me. Things like art, reading without harsh goals, bullet journalling, and put very harsh parameters around the productivity side of it. Bullet journalling had to become about simply being an interest and a joy, rather than an obsessive need to meet every tracker. 

Even blogging had to be cut because I couldn't get my brain around blogging just for the hell of it again instead of feeling the need to write on a set schedule with posts that held value for others. 

It took over a year to be able to start considering blogging regularly again. And even longer to actually get back to it. 

That leads into my final point about avoiding or recovering from creative burnout. 

Boundaries. As I'm working through therapy (going on 10 months now, that's huge for me), I am finally learning the importance of healthy boundaries, not just with others, but with myself as well. For me, that has included putting in boundaries on when I can blog according to my feelings, do art, write, and even read. I've switched to preparing blog posts by hand so that I can write the post when I feel the inspiration, but I can prevent it from morphing into the need to have content. It means I can transcribe it into a post when I feel like it, rather than needing to get it posted and find something else to write about right away. 

Even making the choice not to read or play Dungeons and Dragons when I'm too tired or mentally drained has been a huge lesson. I still feel a ton of guilt when I make that choice for the latter, but I'm getting better at it. 

It's not an easy process, but it's worth it in the end. 

No more NaNoWriMo

To steal a line from a 3OH3! song, "Don't trust a 'NaNo'"

Okay, yeah, if you don't know the 3OH3! song, that probably makes no sense. But hey, this is my blog, and I'm going to make my own inside jokes. 

I hadn't intended for my first post on my new blog to be a big, deep issue, but you know. It happens.