A positive absence, for once!

When I am absent, it’s usually due to a multitude of emotions destroying me from the inside out. Some days, I can’t manage to do more than watch my favorite YouTube channels, and my creative muse has taken a vacation abroad for an indeterminable amount of time.

Things have been different this time around, though. I've been more stable since trying the injectable form of testosterone rather than the gel. It had been hell during my first try with the injections, and since I’ve covered all of that elsewhere on this blog, I won’t get into it here. Long story short, a different mixture, ethnanate instead of cypionate, is what was needed.

My mood swings, while still there in the background, have improved. I didn’t expect this to fix my bipolar episodes or the interpersonal problems I have with borderline personality disorder, but it has been much easier to calm myself as well as stand up for myself when I need to.

I’ve had a fire within me that refuses to take shit from anyone. This isn’t a bad thing for someone like me, who was more likely to sit by silently while bad things happened. To be able to speak up when I need to has been a great change for me.

I’ve also pulled my creative muse back from its extended vacation. Writing is important to me again and I’ve made it my job. At least, I’m treating it like one until I can officially call it that.

I’ve been more involved in writing communities online and am getting braver about asking for critiques, and I'm learning to give them. I've learned so much within the last week about publishing and editing, and I’ve gotten great advice from editors and published authors alike on how to navigate all of this. It was something I desperately needed, but I couldn’t possibly accomplish it while I remained in a bubble of self-hatred.

Yesterday, I finished editing and looking over the fifth draft of a novella. I'd finished it during the summer of 2015 during a manic episode while I was homeless, and it was the first book I’d written that I saw to completion. Although it was riddled with poor grammar and my sentence structure was poor at best, I was proud of it.

Over the past few days, I fixed earlier chapters that had been written years ago. It was something I began and left to sit, unable to finish as I’d done with so many. I fixed the wording, added new things and explained others, and poured more emotion into the original draft than was originally there. After all of this and splitting it into chapters, I feel like I have a second book ready to send out.

I’m in contact with an editor or two, one of which I am certain I want to work with for the longer book that I’d like to publish first. Hopefully, I can build up a working relationship with them for future projects. Having that thought alone makes me nervous in all of the best ways.

I’m no stranger to anxiety. I’ve seen it in its worst form and it’s left me sickly and bedridden. I spent a few years of my life with a severe, chronic stomach illness that was worsened by it.

To see that there is good anxiety besides the bad, and finally feel it, is freeing for me. It feels the same in all of the physical sensations, but there is a different emotion attached. It’s not fear, but anticipation.

If you want something bad enough, it will happen. I’ve been wanting the title ‘author’ officially for many years. I can only hope that my desire for this is big enough to make it all happen.