The Blogs of Wrath

 

An Ocean of Books by William Strang

        Many moons ago, I had a really successful book blog. I was getting paid for what I loved, reading books, and was even given opportunities to travel internationally because of it. It was grand! Then slowly I started suffering from a malaise that morphed into something much worse, a complete shutdown of everything in my life. If you’ve ever experienced a chronic mental illness, you may be able to relate. I went from gung-ho on so many aspects of life to barely being able to function. I kept reading as if my life depended on it, but everything else, like putting on pants, eating, or any of the basic necessities of life, made me feel like Sisyphus trying to get that boulder up the hill. So I stopped, everything, especially the blog.  

          This week we will be tasked with creating a blog on a more professional framework and I can’t help it feel an increased sense of dread. These simple posts for class have been painful enough and I’m still suffering from major writer’s block. Now I have to face a dilemma, do I start something new from scratch, which will do nothing to help the writer’s block, or do I try to go back in time and update and rework my old blog and therefore resurrect it?  This may sound like a simple thing and yet it is far from it. The old blog is tied, in my mind, to the trauma, unhealthy moods, and generally all of the crap that I tried to leave behind. I’ve been tossing this black cloud of a decision around in my head for a couple of weeks now and I still don’t know.  

        I feel as if I'm drowning in the ocean of the past.

A Semblance of a Routine

 

We all have our own stories and journeys that led us to this class and college in general. Mine has been herky-jerky at best. I’m finally finding my rhythm with this whole back to school thing and it feels good. (Knock on wood) 

Even before the lockdown, I was in chronic depression/anxiety hermit mode and Covid gave me an even bigger reason to do...nothing. Okay, I read A LOT, over 400 books a year, occasionally gave feedback to publishers and authors, and walked a fair amount, but otherwise? I existed and that was it. Covid put an end to the walks and even the occasional dinner or shopping trip with my parents. It was as if I had been on pause for a few years and then Covid straight-up hit stop.  

Far too long into this “stop” I realized that I needed to do something, anything, and finally hit on going back to school. Like many, there were challenges with figuring out which hoops I needed to jump through to apply, get transcripts sent, and funding. As someone that honestly abhors dealing with blue tape or strangers thanks to anxiety it turned out to be less horrifying than I’d thought it would be.  It was a series of baby steps that I took one by one, day by day. Each hurdle, often made up in my own head, was a victory. 

So here I am, two months in, after nearly thirty years away from college, and almost thriving. There were times that I told myself that I was taking on too much and my family tells me that almost daily, but I’m getting good at shutting all of that out. The first essay caused two panic attacks and I spent the days after turning it in telling myself that I’d done it wrong and was going to fail. Only, that didn’t happen. I got an A. (insert happy dance here)  

That was the turning point for me. I could see and more importantly, feel, that all of this wasn’t too much and that I could do it. I’ve gone from doing nothing to taking things slowly and brick by brick, building something, a routine, a more hopeful attitude, and a purpose. It’s a good feeling and I can start to create larger goals. It’s a grand feeling and I’m grateful to be here. 

 

A Modest Proposal Part 3

 Let's Destroy All Upstairs Neighbors 

 

When we left off, I’d figured out the source and turned off the water to the culprit. The neighbor was supposed to call his landlord and I got busy with a borrowed shop vac to clean the mess up.

        

            After filling up the vacuum multiple times, I could see that the damage was bad and still happening. The lower part of the walls were bubbling, I’d had some expensive oversize books leaned against the bookcase but on the floor that had not only been ruined but wicked water up onto the actual shelves, and the ceiling where the water had initially come through was now bowing. 

I didn’t take a lot of pictures right then because I was, ya know, busy. Also, I was trying to get a hold of both my next-door neighbor and the owner for the unit upstairs. The insurance hassle was a big mess that would take weeks to unravel, and it didn’t help that Mr. Toilet-Running Dude decided to go AWOL for the next 24 hours. He was taking, and I kid you not, a nap.

Eventually, we got people in here and the damage kept mounting. Also, I had to leave because they put over a dozen fans around to try and dry inside the walls. That took a couple of weeks, the house where I was staying was also in the middle of a kitchen remodel, so as soon as I could I moved back. Yet my house looked like this.  

This all happened on December 9th and my house is almost back to normal (livable? Not a construction zone?) more than three months later. Half of my furniture had to go because it was moldy within a couple of days, so I’m still living in boxes for the most part. Mind you, this is all out of pocket so far as the insurance companies duel it out.  But hey, I’ve got walls and ceilings now.  

Of course, the other night I had a knock on the door. It was the contractors that were working on the next-door neighbor's downstairs repairs, they had another water leak that has hit the only other area that wasn’t messed up in December. Sigh. Here we go again.

 

A Modest Proposal Part 2

 Let's Destroy All Upstairs Neighbors

 When we last met, I shared how my place was flooded yet I hadn't been able to find the source. The bathroom, dining area and about half of my bedroom was covered in water. It was so wet that I'd slipped multiple times, hitting my head. In between throwing towels down and wringing them out to use again, I texted upstairs. 

 Mind you, I’d been dealing with this mess for at least a couple of hours and this yahoo thinks that A. He shouldn’t have let me know there was a problem? And B. He thinks it’s an easy fix and a couple of towels will set me straight? ARGH. 

                   

Hey, at least I know the source now. I finally had a source and an entry point, the ceiling fixture in the wee hall outside of the bathroom. I can’t believe I hadn’t looked up earlier. Of course, being pretty flummoxed over all this, I didn’t think to actually look up prior to turning on said light, which then blew the circuit breaker and gave off some wonderful sparks. 

 

              In a way, I felt so much better. This wasn’t my screwup. I took a breath, in for ten, held for ten, exhaled for ten, held for ten, and repeated that a few times. Nope, still screwed. It didn’t look like the water was still flowing but just in case I shot another text upstairs asking if he had it fixed or had turned off the water. HE HAD NOT, faithful reader. He hadn’t even called his landlord yet. This water had been running down into my house for hours at this point. Where was it going now if not out from the light fixture? 

 

I ran outside turned off his water and said that he needed to make the call immediately. Dear reader, he had the balls to say not to turn off his water because he needed to take a shower. I saw red. He’s lucky this is all via text at this point because I was furiously cussing in multiple languages at this point.  

 

Didn’t plan on a part three but here we are. See you soon.