Welcome back to the Anxiety Roller Coaster, or ARC; maybe from now on I’ll just refer to it as my “character ARC.”
As the opening statement implies, things have been all over the place this past week; for every peak, there is a trough, or vice versa. I’ve been taking some herbal tranquilisers (that’s not a euphemism, smartasses; I’m talking about Biral) to keep my anxiety in check, as well as laying off the caffeine and sugar where I can so as not to aggravate it in any way. I’m still trying to get to a therapist, but my work schedule makes it difficult to find the time, so it might still be another week before that goes anywhere. In the meantime, I’m managing myself in any way I can; sometimes that’s visiting friends for a day of board games, or just zoning out on the couch watching YouTube and letting my brain settle down.
The day job continues to frustrate; we’re switching over to a new estimation and workflow system, and the teething problems are very real. In addition, the lack of consistency in the number of jobs we get means that I cannot afford to relax, even when there is no work coming in; at least if I’m busy, I can distract myself well enough. I’m also glad I got my new earphones in; there’s always that one person in the workplace that sings along to the radio, ruining the listening experience for everyone, and has to be drowned out. Also also, ever had a co-worker with an annoying ringtone? I have three. Spotify is my lifesaver.
Kitten update: Sparrow’s neutering surgery went well; he bounced back very quickly, and hasn’t shown any signs of distress. He’s still full of life and energy, though thankfully not quite as hair-pullingly disruptive as he was before; he’s gone from zooming around the flat like a bolt of lightning, to settling for harassing our other cat, Silver. Sparrow obviously just wants to play, but Silver is still very standoffish towards him; she’s a few years older and enjoys the sedentary life, but she can still give Sparrow the smackdown if he needs to be put in check. Hopefully once we move out and have more space, they won’t have to live on top of each other so much. Speaking of which…
The house hunting continues; we’ve got our eye on a couple of places, but as always, it’s out of our hands since we don’t control the money. It is becoming more imperative that we find a place, since Sparrow’s extended stay has not gone unnoticed by our landlord; he has reluctantly allowed Sparrow to stay, provided that we pay an extra fee on top of our rent increase. Fortunately, as we have been model tenants (his words), our landlord has not increased the rent too much, and has said that he will not charge us any penalties for ducking out of our lease early if/when we find a new place, as long as we give him a month’s notice. We were extremely worried that we might have to rehome Sparrow, as we didn’t have much luck with that when we first brought him home, and especially now that we’ve come to consider him part of the family. It was a huge relief to know that we could keep him, but I was definitely fretting for a day or two.
So, as I continue to soundwave back and forth between stress and relief, next week will see the launch of the next Showcase story; whether it’ll be up to the standards I want or not, I don’t want to keep putting it off.
Ciao for now.