Happy New Year?

Well.

I felt like I should send something out for the end/beginning of the year. I’ve been finding it really difficult to write lately, mostly due to depression (I have bipolar disorder). I’ve basically stopped reading. I have almost a thousand unread emails. You know how it goes. Anyway, I did write the following which is worth sending out, I think:

I’ve written and rewritten this. November was hard, as I’m sure it was for many. I’m a queer teacher in America just trying to get by and tend to various health needs. I have not been having a good time since the election.

Mostly, my anxiety is through the roof. Look, we went to Walt Disney World over Thanksgiving break (because it was my partner’s birthday on Thanksgiving, actually). It was great! But I found myself constantly thinking ahead to the next thing we needed to do. We would get ready for one ride and I would need to know what ride was next. One night we took the boat from our resort to Disney Springs and my brain was preoccupied with how exactly I was going to stand up when the boat stopped and hold my phone while putting on my backpack.

The anxiety has been bad since late June/early July, when we started getting the Supreme Court rulings.

I don’t want this to be another post-election post. I already wrote one of those of my own. So let’s find something substantial here.

I started preparing for this back in July, toward the end of the road trip I took with Tay, where we visited queer youth groups in “red states” and my family in Indiana. The Supreme Court ruled that the president could have immunity and judges didn’t have to listen to expert advice (overturning Chevron). I doubled down on communities I had access too and pretty much left the site formerly known as Twitter. (I’ve actually been on Bluesky for a while, over here!) I donated when I could to people and organizations doing the work. I’ve been reading more short form creative work (my actual reading of novels has gone down though?). I’ve spent more time with poetry.

None of this really solves the problem but it does provide solace and community. As much as it’s nice that Bluesky has blown up recently, it still creates doomscroll possibilities. I’m trying to focus less on opinions and more on concrete action. (May I recommend 5 Calls? Although I still have to get the courage to call myself.)

But I’m also just lying in bed a lot. Sometimes I find this comforting; other times, it is a time suck and I get stuck in looping thoughts. I have been reading a lot less, although I have increased my audiobook listening (may I recommend Hijab Butch Blues and Congratulations, The Best is Over!) Even before the election, I was sluggish, suspecting I’ve swung into the depressive side of my bipolar disorder. But more than anything, my anxiety has been more intense than it has for a loooong time. Each day feels like a feat, and yet time is also passing quickly. Unfortunately, the lift I felt from the Disney trip did not last long an I found myself depressive again.

I am teaching a dystopian fiction unit right now with my 8th graders and wow, is it surreal. We talk about surveillance and conformity and control and the world left after climate disaster, and we read The Giver. I gave up momentarily on the adult book I was reading to finally read the fourth book in the quartet, Son, which focuses on a Birthmother who is fourteen years old in the same community. (Except I still haven’t finished that book, either.)

I’m still writing poetry sometimes. And I got a really nice rejection right before the election on a poem that is even more relevant after, so hopefully someone soon will want to publish that. I want to prepare for my next round of submissions, but I also can’t help but feel that energy should be directed elsewhere, mostly on the novel.

Basically the only thing keeping me going at the moment is old Doctor Who episodes, which I’m determined to finally finish as much as I can of after having stopped watching them over, like, 12 years ago when I was still a teenager. They’re much more available in the U.S. now, including being uploaded to YouTube!

So there’s that. No resolutions, no recaps, no best reads or watches or listens, no pictures, nothing anticipated. I am free. See ya 2024.

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