Writing!

I have started writing for NaNoWriMo. Whoo!!

Watch me dance and throw a party! Because I am writing! yaaaaay!

Now, that being said, I'm not writing every day. Working exhausts me. However, when I sit down to write, words come. Ideas start popping and the voices start talking.

I've not yet bothered to go back and read what I've written. I have no idea if half the words will make any sense. But I have notes. I know what kind of descriptions I want to give the cities, the streets.

My first drafts are always more of an outline where I write out who does what, where, and why. Then I go back and flesh out the details. and THEN I let someone read it.

This is super exciting for me!! I haven't felt this spark to write since before I went on medication.

Granted, my word count is at all of 2200+ish right now. It's day 9, and if you do the math, I'm quite behind. But that's not worrying me, actually.

In fact, I feel encouraged. I was walking to work today and had several lines worked out in feel and texture as well as the full mental imagery for the next couple of scenes. That means that when I *do* sit my butt in the chair and put my hands on the keyboard to pound out some fiction, it's gonna flow.

Am I going to hit 50,000 words this month? I don't know. I hope so! But I'm not as concerned about the number of words as I am about the fact that I'm writing.

Sitting here writing this little NaNo post is not time I'd otherwise spend writing my steampunk fantasy. No, it's time I'd be spending eating, or sitting in front of Netflix watching another episode or two of Supernatural, or doing my daily garrison chores in WoW. Stuff I do to unwind from the mentally goofy wired-but-tired-but-wired mode that I'm in right now. In fact, pet battles sound like the thing for the day.

I'll take my meds - because I forgot to take them before I went to work - And in an hour the Effexor will have me wide-eyed and bushy tailed. However, if I don't get any writing done today, I'm not going to cry or have a guilt trip because of it. I went to work and had a great day at work. That equals productive day to me!!

Oh! And I'm sketching an idea for the cover of the book. Which makes no sense, but NaNo has this spot to put a book cover for your novel. So I figured what the heck, I'd make a book cover for this story which has a title that... well... um, it will probably be changed after I figure out where this story is going and how it's getting there.

Anyway, I do the sketching on my breaks at work. So that's coming along nicely, too. :) Friends text me back and forth to help flesh out characters when I need to figure out some motivation. It's so much fun to brainstorm about stuff!

It's also a lot of fun to sleep. So there's that. But I AM writing. So yay!

What. The. Flippin. Heck.

Hi there. I am a member of the LDS church, otherwise known as Mormons.  

My church is controversial. It always has been - because it was founded by a guy who said he saw God  -- and no other person, ever, has claimed such a thing, so controversy and oh my the horror.

It's controversial because of the additional books of scripture. Because new words. No one has ever messed with the words in the entire history of the words being set on paper. Not once, nope. So those new words? If you read them, you'll sprout horns and tails, just watch.

It was controversial because of polygamy. Well, I guess it still is? Because history.

It was controversial because it didn't allow Blacks to have the priesthood. And then it was controversial because it did. People joined because of the first bit and people left because of the second bit. Bigotry happens, which sucks.  

I could go on and on and on. Nearly every aspect of my church is controversial in one form or another.

Currently it's controversial because of its stand on same-sex marriage and the baptism of the children of those unions. Obviously no other church has an issue with this, so why in the world won't the LDS church become more open minded?

*snort*

tl;dr

Feeling Vulnerable

Ok. I *think* I have our insurance premium fiasco figured out after talking from person to person to person. Now, I just have to get Rob's HR to cooperate. Then maybe we can pay rent ON TIME and catch up on all the other bills. Like all y'all wanted to know our financial woes. Everyone has them, we aren't any different from anyone else.

I don't even know why I'm sharing this. It's been so frustrating having half the amount we thought we'd have every two weeks. It's not like I expect insurance to be handed to us for free. I am all for working for and earning what we have. The cost is so overwhelming, though.

My faith encourages us to have 3 months of savings on hand for emergencies. And we DID. That's the most frustrating thing. We used it all over the summer for *that* emergency. And we had this complete miracle happen in August and September to help us stay on our feet. So it's not like I don't see the miracles happening in our lives every day. I am extremely grateful that we are taken care of even when we don't know how things are going to work out.

I know we'll make it through this, but wow this particular trial is hard. However, Rob has his meds and they are affordable. The kids have insurance in case they are sick. Our homeowners are FABULOUS about working with our situation, but after our fiasco five years ago, keeping a roof over our heads is my biggest priority and biggest fear. It's not like we're *behind* on rent, because we're not. I just hate paying it in installments during the month instead of one lump some as agreed.

Somehow I'll get *my* medical bills taken care of from that ER visit when we were sure I was having a stroke. My meds are affordable. I have an awesome psychiatrist who I love and who checks in with me to make sure I'm stable and doing ok. We have a fabulous pediatrician for the kids and a wonderful GP for the rest of us.

I have great friends. Some days it's really hard not to worry, though. It's hard to acknowledge that some bills are behind. I hate playing catch-up with electricity, phone, gas, cable. Yes, cable. Since Jada does online school for her core classes, internet IS a necessity, not just a luxury.

I don't know why I feel like I have to justify our choices. I feel extremely vulnerable today. Probably because of yesterday's missed meds. I'm also feeling extremely grateful for the people willing to help us. The folks who said they'd call Rob's HR on our behalf for the insurance stuff. The people who let me cry because I'm stressed over things I cannot control but affect my life.

The good people who love us no matter what.

Text Games

When one of my daughters went off to college, we started playing a text game. I texted her a line of lyrics to a song, and she'd text me back another line of lyrics using one of the words in my text.

It was a fun game. We had over 200 texts just in music lyrics. And if we got stuck, people around us were always happy to play, too.

Music is this thing we have in our house. A single word will often cause one or more of us to break into random song before continuing the interrupted conversation.

I loved this game. It kept us connected over the long distance.

--
This particular child of mine speaks the love language of "Time Spent." None of us knew this until her senior year in college, but she knew she needed time. So while I was existing through post-partum depression, she would come home from wherever she was and insist on my attention to braid her hair. and once she had my attention for that, she'd sit on the step and talk about her day.

Midnight conversations. We've had them for years, from Jr. High until now. To this day she'll call around 11:30pm or later, needing her late night conversation.  It's no longer every day. Sometimes it's not even every week. But it is a connection that *she* started years ago, when she refused to let me fade into the background of non-life when I didn't know how to cope.
--

Today she messaged me and let me know that her roommate is now playing the lyric game with a relative.

I grinned, but was also sad. I joked back that we were trend-setters.

However -- We haven't played the lyric game since April First.

In fact, after my suicide attempt, she wouldn't even speak to me for three weeks.

This is the child who called Rob that night and told him where to go looking for me after she'd calmed down enough to think. This is the child who patiently and not-so-patiently tried to pull me out of bed on bad days.

This is the child who said, "Mom! You were supposed to go get a tattoo! Not try to end everything! You were supposed to call me and we would go get your butterfly!"

So today, while grinning at the fact that we started a fad, I cried a little. She doesn't like to remember why we stopped in the first place. In fact, I think this is the first time she's willingly talked about the text game since April.

There are consequences you cannot control when you make a choice. I made a choice, and broke part of my connection to a child. It may never fully repair.

As this is one of the more visible/tangible connections I have with my children, I am also aware of the broken connections that are not so easy for me to feel/see. Connections I have to make an conscious effort to find and work on.

Mental Illness affects everyone, not just the one with who has it. I am fairly sure that my children and husband must have a much harder time going through life than I do, now that my brain chemistry has decided to play mad scientist.