This was a month!! And what a month it was.

I started the month with a camping trip which you can read about in my last post; the sunrise that morning was so gorgeous and generally that entire trip carried me through the rest of the month.

The main things that happened to me this month which took out all of my energy:

1. This year some organizational changes at work had us all re-applying for our jobs, which I did in August. In November, I finally had my interviews, offer letter, start date, and orientation training.
2. In addition to all that, I applied for another job since it was open and I was curious. I interviewed well, but it wasn't a good match at this point (maybe in the future). The interviews for this job happened on the SAME DAYS as the interviews for my job.
3. I did tons of doom scrolling to ignore all the stress associated with the job stuff, mostly on Reddit and Tumblr. Had more than one little freak out and RSD was triggered for at least 3 stupid reasons.
4. I took a walk wearing the wrong pants and got a really bad chafe (broken skin, blood everywhere). During the healing process, I used bandaids that it turned out I was allergic to. Unrelated, I got sick just as my chafe wound was beginning to heal. This whole ordeal took 2 weeks out of my month.
5. I had many opportunities this month to become more aware of some of the horribly racist language in my vocabulary - stuff that I didn't know and can't blame myself for but also should have been obvious by now. This is a reminder to never stop learning and evolving and changing how you speak!

Things that went well:

1. I finally got access to my mailbox again, which I didn't have for most of October and November. I had the post office hold my mail in the meantime, and it was delightful going through all the mails.
2. I did a bunch of digital decluttering, including going through some music folders to update metadata, organizing photos, and organizing my writing.
3. I increased the dosage for my Strattera which helped me sustain energy and focus longer than I have ever done in my life I think. It's only been a few weeks and hasn't leveled out yet but I am on a ROLL.
4. Redesigned a bunch of sites and started building ideas I've had on the backlog for a while.
5. Created a bunch of camping minizines and started a Ko Fi where I'll start posting the things I make. It may take a bit to get this off the ground since it's a busy time of year but now it's there for when I have the desire to make and share a zine.
6. After the Animal Crossing update announcement, I've found reinvigorated energy for my island! I'm continuing with the idea I had before (which I never finished), but refining it in different ways to accommodate the changes. If you're interested in ACNH, you can follow my posts on my Gamezilla ACNH log. I also talk about Monster Hunter Wilds on that site but I haven't been making posts about it lately.
7. My HVAC finally got fixed; if you've been around for a while, this started failing and eventually broke in July. Finally back in business and I'll have heat for the winter! This was fixed last week, most of my month was spent cleaning and making room for them.
8. After the Strattera kicked in I lost a lot of ability to focus on my phone so I'm down to ~30 mins a day of social media altogether. I still struggle with focusing on some stuff that I need to do but I don't care, right now it's Thanksgiving break and I'm engaging in hobbies and writing and it's so nice!

I numbered these lists so I could compare how many were in each... Although I think the stressful stuff holds more weight than some other things, I am surprised and excited that the positive list is longer.

Today is a low energy and high tremors day, so I don't have the appropriate functionality to do much more than this but I'm proud of myself for taking the effort anyway. The reason I started these monthly posts was to help ME keep better track of how my life is going and how I spend my time, and also to see if I can find any patterns in anxiety levels or whatever. It's also nice to share and connect and find people who relate, or who are simply just interested. I think writing in a private vs "public" journal forces you to think more about what you're writing, and it's often a little more polished than raw. Articulating thoughts better can only be good for your future self! (I also keep a private journal for the rest.)

I don't know what my reviews are going to look like next year but I'm glad these month-in-reviews (however inconsistent they've been) have helped me keep up with this reflective practice. I look forward to continuing to share more details about myself than anyone ever asked for.