I used to spit out instant replies like lightning. These days it varies.

I try to check posts but not reply until after work. If I have free time, I do my best to respond to a few of them at least each day. When I can tell I have more threads than I'm wrapping at the end of the day, I stop taking on new threads or try and wrap up my existing ones ASAP. This stops my hoard from ballooning too much.

I'm not great about following a set posting order -- I have a tendency to prioritize dramatic threads -- but I know muse for one thread will make it easier to write another. So I forgive myself that indulgence.

If I get pulled into rapidfiring a thread that I have a lot of muse for, sure, I'll ping-pong for awhile and chase that high. I used to feel guilty about this, but I have realized this is a hobby and I'm allowed to enjoy what I enjoy, so long as I intend to write for and finish the threads I take on.

lmao update it was for bad

we live and learn 🙃

It is comical how so many people in power have the same exact stress response, no matter where I work or the gender of the person involved.

My job suddenly becomes pretzeling myself to spare feelings lest I trigger a defensive landmine that hits me with endless bullets of criticism. And sometimes the landmine goes off anyway, because it alleviates their stress to take it out on someone. But they act as if I invited it, for daring to ask for the things I need to do my job.

At least I know it’s not personal. It’s just annoying.

I am the absolute worst at living in the moment. I am always trying to out-think my feelings and plan ahead so that nothing surprises me. Which of course doesn't... work.

It's very weird realizing I need to stop trying to control everything and just let things happen. For good or bad. I'm very bad at it, but I'm getting better.

I mask so well until I don’t.

I cannot believe I have a full social calendar from now until next Wednesday. Who am I. What is my life.

Hermit era is apparently over??

You can do everything right and still feel wrong. I hate that.

Low key wonder sometimes if I'm drawn to roleplay and other methods of self-expression due to bottling all my feelings IRL. There's a freeing aspect to playing someone else sometimes. It's like permission to be messy and unlikeable, to leave things unresolved, and to break all the way down without expecting to rebuild from the ashes.

Highfive, these are my favorite writing partners also. Finding people willing to commit to longer stories is the best. It's so rewarding to see plots evolve and change over time.

(Ngl though, sometimes the fanfic angle hits just right.)

A loved one told me once, "You can't expect to heal from upheaval overnight, or for your life to become everything that you want it to be all at once. Focus on making changes one step at a time." It's advice I'm grateful for, because we forget change is slow and change is hard.

But the little changes do add up, little by little, step by step, and one day you look back and find you're in a much better place than you started.

Now that I'm not overwhelmed by work, I've been attending regular social events. I've started reading again in earnest and rebuilding my personal library. I'm meeting very kind, very friendly people that I'm excited to get to know better, instead of secretly dreading social interaction as "one more thing to do."

These are such small things when you list them, but they feel very significant to me. I think a lot of life is like that: a series of tiny, mundane, but very hard-won victories. You just have to take it one step at a time.

I broke over 4,000 posts on the character I've been writing the past few years. I'm a solo-main in one community kind of writer. I like to focus all my energy on a single story.