More Stretching Required

Stolen by the FAE

To say “well, this has been a hell of a year” when looking back would be a massive understatement. Considering my last published post was in April of 2020, it’s fair to say that things have changed. Some of those changes have been large, others have been small. Losing my job was a large change. Making adjustments to my personal hygiene routine is a small one. Beginning pursuit of a degree in…

We all have obstacles between us and where we need to be in order to feel healthy and peaceful. Here's my thoughts on The Need To Break Through:

break·​through | \ ˈbrāk-ˌthrü \ 3a: a sudden advance especially in knowledge or technique

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary

We all have obstacles between where we are, and where we need to be.

Notice that I used need, as opposed to want.For the purposes of this discussion, I’m talking about our mental and emotional states. What we need in order to survive, rather than whatever desires or…

Why I consider my heart to be in Dry-Dock:

I’m a fan of CGP Grey’s analogy of “navigating the waters of the sea of sadness” in terms of making progress with regards to mental health. His video “7 Ways To Maximize Misery” is an incredibly concise and engaging guide to developing better self-care habits, as well as being an amusing exercise in reverse psychology. Thinking about the analogy in my situation, especially over the course of the…

Just as important as being kind to one another, we must be honest with one another, and ourselves. The people who show up & give nothing less than kind honesty are worth the time we give them, as well as being rare. Let's talk about the truth.

Let me kick this off with some honesty: I still maintain standards for myself that are, at times, unrealistic or too exacting. When I expect myself to be flawless in my Magic gameplay, or further along in my personal goals than is realistic, I will still get incredibly frustrated with myself. It can shift those goals from being SMART (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, for which I am Responsible,…

Last night, I told myself "stop putting it off", and the result of that choice was a blog post. I hope that at least one person finds it useful — that person being Future Me.

Normally, I’d save this sort of thing for a Friday 500. However, considering the last entry I posted here was in August, and it’s now bloody October, there’s no reason for me to put it off.

To be honest, that’s the point of this post in the first place.

I need to stop putting it off.

Even now, sitting here, typing these words out, I’m dealing with a lot of frustration and mixed emotions.…

"Doors and corners, kid. That's how they get ya." When we turn a corner in our lives, how do we deal with what or who might be there waiting for us? 500 Words on Corners

“It seems you’ve really turned a corner!”

It’s a supportive idiom that people use when they bear witness to someone they care about getting into an improved situation in their life. And it can be very heartening to hear, especially if you’ve been going through a long hospital stay, an extended period of unemployment, or any number of other personal crises.

However, since brains are strange…

Today I want to talk about what it is, as I see it, to be your Best Self.

From the moment we are born, there will be people around us who will try to tell us what we should be doing, how we should be acting, and by what metrics we should be measuring our success. The influences of our families, societies, popular media, and a host of other sources try to inform us of what is “best”: best behavior, best performance, best goals, best cars, best social media platform, so…

500 Words on Redemption

The premise for this post began thusly:

https://twitter.com/BlueInkAlchemy/status/1136409855340699648

“Everybody loves a redemption story.”

This is something that has been said to me, and about me, in the past. And there are a lot of stories on the subject out there. We want to believe that the people we love, and by extension ourselves, are people that are capable of being redeemed,…

The Challenge of New Choices

There are some things in our lives that we don’t get to choose. I didn’t choose to be born bipolar or bisexual. People close to me didn’t choose how they were born, either. Naturally, others will treat those things as if they are choices, saying things like “just try being the gender you were born with a little longer” or “you just need to do X and you won’t be sad anymore” or “have you tried not

500 Words on Entitlement

Here’s a simple question: what do you feel you are owed?

If you put in hours and hours of your time at a job, you are owed compensation for that time, right? That’s how jobs work. If your employer says they don’t owe you anything, you have rights. You can sue their asses. You earned that money. You put in the time, therefore you deserve the pay.

When people talk about entitlement, often…

An Open Letter of Apology

In a previous post, I endeavored to explore and explain the root cause of the damaging, self-sabotaging, and toxic behaviors that lead me to my most recent hospitalization and the ramifications still being felt by those who were once partners, friends, and associates. I opened with a general apology, but did not dig into the specifics. That is an oversight that must be corrected, and that is the…

The more I thought about last night's episode of #GameOfThrones the more I found myself disgusted. So, let's talk about lame and lazy writing.

Spoilers for Game of Thrones (the TV series) ahead. Fairly be ye warned.

But I need to talk about this, because it’s been bothering me ever since the end credits for Episode 4 of Season 8 rolled across the screen.

I have so many questions, and I don’t like any of the answers.

The biggest one is this:

If you are crafting a character-focused drama that has drawn in an audience because…

Getting Good at Starting Over

Hi.

It’s been a while. And I’m not sure we’ve actually met.

I don’t think this is comfortable for anyone involved. There are a lot of people, who saw who I was and tried to be there for me, that think of me or look in my direction and are completely baffled by or uncertain of who I am. For months I became more and more unrecognizable, even to myself, and confused those closest to me with…

500 Words on Dynamism

Everything changes.

I’m finding myself thinking about the paradigm in Mage: the Ascension that some refer to as the Metaphysical Trinity. It’s a cycle that consists of Dynamism, Stasis, and Entropy. As I prepare to leave the start-up life behind, hopefully forever, and move into a position in life that is more stable and less inducing of constant low-level stress, at least on the employment…

The Magic’s Back

I really wasn’t expecting to get back into Magic: The Gathering.

I’ve been a Hearthstone player for a while, now. And it did a decent job of scratching that CCG itch that started back in ’93 or so when I first picked up my first starter deck of Magic. The Warcraft theme and some of the design elements of Hearthstone still hold some appeal, but I can’t deny I often felt something was missing. I…

500 Words on Happiness

HOLY SHIT IT’S A NEW BLOG POST

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how much time I’ve lost, or has been stolen from me, because I’ve been unhappy. Unhappily married, unhappily employed, unhappily living. As human beings, nobody would choose to be unhappy, save for the willfully masochistic, and I’m not one of them. I neither wish to glorify nor romanticize ‘the struggle’. I’d rather not…