Day 90: Completion

I mean, three months isn't that long. It's a term at school. It's a... trip, if you go away for three months.

I can't think of anything that's famous for lasting three months. My brain has turned to scrambled egg in this heat.

But three months. It can fly by. I've spent blocks of three months in the recent past just working, drinking, sleeping till late, and it's like I've blinked and the time has just vanished. Dribbled away.

But I tell you what. Stood on the wrong side of three months, looking out into 90 days stretching cavernously ahead, thinking of the prospect of staying sober and writing a blog post every day for that time, it can feel like forever.

But now it's over. I did it.

I got through. There were good days. There were bad days. I wrote serious stuff. I wrote painful stuff. And I wrote stupid stuff. A whole heap of stupid stuff.

Most of the time I didn't feel like doing it. I had other things going on, I was tired from work, or about to go to work, and I didn't feel I had anything much to say, I had to just sit down and force words out, even when they didn't want to come.

But I did it.

And even when I hated it, I knew it was good for me. It's been so helpful in starting to get over that perfectionism thing that has stifled me for so long. Having to put up writing every day that was last minute, loose, unfinished, plain bad - it's taught me that it doesn't matter. The world doesn't end. Everyone doesn't see you as a failure. People barely notice, in fact, regardless of what you do. They're far too busy trying to keep themselves afloat.

And the more I posted, the more I began to see that though, yes, there's a pleasure that comes from putting up something that is edited and polished, having people say nice things about it, that will never be enough to sustain you. That ego stuff is just icing, and no one can survive off a diet of icing. And the more you go chasing that icing, the more sick you become.

Just concentrating on the work, day after day, whether it's going well or not - that's the potatoes, that's the broccoli, that's the fruit salad for dessert.

Does that analogy work? I can't tell if that analogy works. This heat has really got to me.

OK. So doing the blog has been good in getting me into the habit of sketching, trying things out, enjoying the work for its own sake, and moving on.

And it has been great for my mental health, although I've actually been low and tired and in pain for the majority of this process. The thing is, that pain has been there for so long, and I've been pushing it away for so long. But doing this has forced me to face it, a little at a time, over and over, to let it come for me and to stand there and to keep on going.

Doing that is horrible. It really sucks. But it beats the alternative. It's as simple as that. Facing pain is awful, but not facing it always ends up being worse.

- - -

So. The 90 days are over. What next?

A year. That's what's next. I've been learning lessons from the daily blogging, but I haven't learnt them yet. I've been gradually changing habits of a lifetime, but they're not yet fully changed.

So I'm going to keep this up, if I can, every day for a year. I've done three months. What's another nine?

I'm going to stick with being completely loose, completely amateur. The more the better, in fact. Absolutely anything goes. Any style, any tone, any type of writing. Splash words out of the paint pot of my mind all over the canvas, again and again, experimenting, making mistakes, most importantly having fun.

I want to blog more about getting up early, because this past week waking at seven has been great for me, and I want to ensure the habit sticks. I want to blog about cooking, because my diet is still terrible.

Doing something regularly about mental health would be good, whether just to check in with myself, or to bring awareness to something people don't know much about.

And those gaming pieces were fun, so maybe a weekly post catching up with how I'm doing with my Switch, or anything else games related that's on my radar.

And the same for films and books. I used to be so enthusiastic about movies, but I lost that through depression, and I've been too busy with writing these past three months to get back into them. Literature is impossible when you're depressed, because it requires real concerted effort to get through, but I've been reading more here and there of late, and finding a way to talk about that would be good.

And those writing prompts. I find those the most rewarding of any of the writing I've tried, but they also require touching the deepest parts of me, and those parts ice over when my mental health is bad, and trying to go near them when the negative voices are loud can lead to the worst attacks of self-loathing. But, yes, I want to do lots more of those.

I guess I have nothing but time. There are a lot of days in nine months. A lot of empty space to fill.

I can't wait to get started.

One last thing: Thank you so much to anyone who's been reading this. Thank you for the kind words when I've been down. The compliments when it's gone well. The commiserations when not. Thank you for caring. And thank you for listening. You're all gems.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a Switch to play. Love and smooches xxx

P.S. Here is a bonus picture of my ridiculous face.