Endings & Beginnings

Some meandering on the personal side of the ledger, I have to confess I feel terrible in multiple ways right now. Physically, I'm sick with what my primary care doctor insists is a virus. All I know is that my chest hurts from coughing pretty constantly for the last two months. It may have been back to back viruses or this is something else. Either way, I feel pretty horrible and exhausted from it all.

My mental health has not been that great because my Seasonal Affective Disorder has been kicking me in the teeth and my Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder has been doing the same at the same time. Today is particularly hard because it is an anniversary date of one of the many sexual assaults I had experienced in the past. Being depressed and prone to dissociation has made this month very hard for me to function on the most basic levels. It's exponentially harder as tasks become more complex like generating content for this and my other blogs. We won't talk about how writing is going, except to say that it is not really happening right now because I can't focus on it.

I have a great deal of anxiety over what the coming year will bring. I know some of this is just because I have anxiety problems. Some of this is because there are legitimate things to be anxious over that range from household details to questioning just what manner of disaster the supposed leadership of my homeland are engaged in. Some have the luxury of saying it wouldn't effect them but there are many people like my family and friends who are deeply effected by things like the farce of tax reform and the long range impact of the disaster in Puerto Rico on things like medical supplies.

So, the year ends with my feeling awful in the sense of negative feelings of distress.

At the same time, I am making plans for next year. I am trying to live in a place of hope. I may not feel it right now, but I can behave as if it is a thing. Through that behavior, I shall build habits to rectify some of the bad habits I developed over the course of a long depressive episode this year. I have decided that 2018 is the year that I get things done. This is my unofficial motto. I'm working on my health. I'm going to finally finish those projects I planned to make for myself. And I'm going to finish some books that have been sitting in various stages of completion. On my list of things I am going to get done this year is I am going to resume posting here.

I'm going to make some changes to posting schedule and topics. There will be some changes to my format for some of the regular post topics. I'm going to do my best to get this to a high quality level of content again and regular production of said content. This being sick and not doing any of this is just unacceptable. So, I am going to do my best to change it.

It is Sai Herthe's day. This is a day within the Déanic and Filianic communities that we cleanse our homes spiritually and seal them against the forces of evil. Rituals vary. The one that I prefer is to walk through all the rooms of my home with a candle to drive out the darkness. And then with a bit of incense to drive out the essence of evil. I follow this by ringing a bell to chase away the bad luck of the old year. I then place my candle on my altar and let it's light empower a sphere of protection around my home. When the candle burns out, the light powering the sphere of protection transfers to pure spirit.