Been a bit quiet... not just here, but it feels like everywhere in my life. I have been thinking a lot about being the kind of character I want to be, drawing on things I've done in the past like Working With Mary Sue and things I've read recently like Deb Castellano's new book.
When I first started on Deb's book a few months back, I started a pinterest board called #aesthetic, where I've been filing away things that appeal to me on a "yes I want to be the person that wears/owns/does that" level. It's been an interesting challenge, since when I was Konmari-ing, there was a strong emphasis on facing down the aspirational things you own. Konmari says there's no point in owning things for the person you feel like you should be or want to be rather than the person you are.
There's a lot of truth in that, especially the "should be" part. Don't feel obliged to own tools you aren't comfortable using, books everyone says you should read, or things like that. Evaluating whether the things in your life are there because they're serving you is important.
At the same time, though, aspirational things can go two ways. Yes, there's the unhealthy one where you're buying things you never use because you're not the kind of housekeeper who's going to keep up a Pinterest-worthy dry erase family calendar, or the crafter who has time for elaborate stained glass projects in your tiny apartment, or even the person who remembers to put the matching decorative pillows on the bed every day when you make it. This is the equivalent of having clothes in your closet for after you lose weight, but without any concrete plans for weight loss. They are made of spun sugar and guilt. They only sit there and make you feel bad. Why am I not a better housekeeper, crafter, parent, spouse? Fuck that. Trash the fucking decorative pillows. Trash the ritual that makes you feel silly instead of sacred. Burn all of that guilt and expectation to the ground.
The other thing you can do with an aspirational thing, though... and I suppose this would be the point where the aspirational thing gives you joy... is bring yourself to it's level. I want to be the kind of person who cooks, who crafts, who makes his own tools. I joke that my aesthetic is solarpunk maker, but there's no reason I can't be that weirdo in real life. I still need to go to work and take care of the kid and all that but even when my neurochemistry is kicking my butt, I feel better when I do stuff. Even if doing the barest minimum of stuff feels insurmountable, I feel better having done it. There's satisfaction in a clean house, in mending clothes, in making things. In doing some tiny part to make better choices.
So I have two options. Wrestle the joy from something, or admit it doesn't fit my life and let the expectation go.
I have been using NaNoWriMo as a sort of test run for finding joy. I struggle with hobbies because I want to throw myself into them, but I also want to do everything at once, and then executive function steps in and I do nothing. This is not optimal, obviously. NaNo was a good excuse to focus on just one thing for a couple of weeks and not feel bad about everything else, telling myself everything else would have a turn also.
I am not going to win NaNo this year. I did write some stuff, though, and I'm writing a blog post for the first time in almost six months. I played with some various tools and ended up back at 750words, where I used to write years ago and drifted away from. It's simple, I can log in anywhere, it auto-saves and there's no extra bells and whistles and game mechanics to distract me... plus there's a motivation to write daily but no real sense of failure if I don't. If I can keep it that way, it'll work well.
Halfway through the month, I went to Wordstock looking for inspiration and I found it in the Laika exhibit. Not writing but I found myself wanting to get back to dolls, to sewing, to miniatures. So writing is good solid practice but it doesn't quite fit into all the small niches of my life right now.
What's next then? Well, #domagick's theme for December is meditation, and I've got some magical stitchery I've been plotting out, so I'm thinking meditative needlework is a good way to go. I've got time to do some research and I have a project in mind to start so that'll be fun.