Press Pause

 

Today is one of 'those' days.  I donwanna.  

I donwanna do...anything...frankly.  At least nothing that 'needs' doing, right this minute.  I just...donwanna.

My life has always been driven by deadlines.  As a kid in school, I would start writing the essay due on Monday on *maybe* Friday night.  Then, feeling the pressure all weekend I'd punch out the words, and with a sense of intense relief, hand the thing in on Monday.

When I started weaving, it was much the same.

I would set up a schedule with all my 'due dates' - shows, teaching, articles, then rely on the pressure of those 'looming' deadlines to help power me through to completion.  Adrenaline is a wonderful thing.  

Mostly that worked.  At the time.

I promised an article to be delivered today, but now I'm faced with the final formatting, and it's going to take me all day - at the very least - plus I have to wait until I'm actually threading the loom before I can take a photo of that, plus the few other photos that still need to be taken.

And this morning?  I donwanna.  

The problem is, I decided I needed the article to be done and now I've committed to doing it...the pressure is on, but my body is just flat out refusing to co-operate.

This week hasn't been a 'good' week due to pain and even though relief has been promised, it will take several days before I can begin the new pain meds and a couple of weeks before I can get the injection.  Because I don't have just one source of pain, I have two. (Well, more, but the rest I can treat with ordinary painkillers.)  That's me, overachiever special snowflake.

Sometimes one is worse than the other, sometimes they come like gleeful evil twins to make me double miserable, but either one can knock me off my feet (at times literally).

For anyone who has never had chronic pain, it is a constant drag on one's energy.  When spoons are already sparse, it doesn't take much to just tip the balance.  Today is one of those days.

I did actually get the new warp beamed and *most* of the necessary photos taken yesterday, but correlating the digital images to the text is going to take time, especially because there are process photos, and those need to be inserted into the text *in order*.  And the changes between them are minute (in some cases), tiny enough to be difficult to see in a thumbnail.  

So, it is going to take time to carefully go through everything and make sure it is all correct - or there will be confusion.

And the whole point of writing the article is to reduce confusion, not add to it.

This morning I commented to my spouse that I need to stop offering to do things.  The challenge is, when I feel I am ideally suited to tackle something, it's the old 'if not you, who; if not now, when' mantra.

In part I desire to leave something of my knowledge behind for others to build on.  In part I feel I have skills with words in order to explain complex processes.  (That may be my ego talking.)  In part it feels necessary to provide information to people who may be having difficulty finding information.

(I have recently been doing a deep dive into topics I know little about and NOT finding the information I need - for several things going on in my life - and it's been frustrating as hell.)

People refer to Magic in the Water as a 'classic' and it rarely comes available for sale.  It makes me feel like all the stress and worry and financial resources required to produce it, were worth it.  Too soon to tell if The Intentional Weaver will be considered such, and Stories, well, that was a 'vanity' project, in many ways.  The next 'book' will also be a 'vanity' project and I doubt many copies will sell.  Because it will be specifically for a very tiny slice of a very tiny niche market.

With chronic pain draining my energy every day, I am finding myself less and less inclined to do much other than just please myself.  And as I cross these looming deadlines off my list of things-to-be-done, I am hoping very much that I stop volunteering to do yet *more* things.

Says she, who just offered to organize a workshop for the local guild (NOT with me but a different weaver - because *I* am *supposed* to be 'retired'), and then source an instructor for another workshop for next year.

Because I have the contacts.  I know the people.  I can choose a 'good' instructor for my guild members to learn from.

If not me, who?  If not now, when?

Long past time to get dressed, have lunch, then start sifting through photos and make a numbered list of photos and where they are to be inserted into the text I've managed to write (and have had an alpha reader vet, so I'm satisfied with the text, at least.)  

I just have to make it through the next few days and then *some* of the pressure will be relieved, and some of the things that need doing will be put in process.  Because Life keeps Happening, and time/energy is limited.  I need to keep going - because when you are going through 'hell' you have to keep going - no point in stopping while you are in hell, amirite?