I haven’t written many diaries in a quite a while, and I haven’t had the energy to visit the site that often — I try to visit the site and read and rec a few diaries, but even adding comments has been exhausting.
It has been a tough couple of years for the city of Minneapolis. The city has been dealing with the pandemic, the murder of George Floyd, and the legacy of decades of racial discrimination. It has been stressful and traumatic for many people.
In my own personal life, I have been dealing with ongoing Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and some events that I may describe in diaries here later. I have just mostly been struggling to deal with all the garbage that has been coming my way and stay more or less sane. I haven’t written about everything that has happened because I am still processing it emotionally, and trying to put events in chronological order to describe what seems unbelievable. But mostly, I’m just trying to make sure that I am healing emotionally and taking care of myself.
I am currently away from Minneapolis, staying in a relaxing place and looking for an apartment that accepts disability payments. My family is also trying to figure out disability housing for me.
Daily Kos — the writers, the website, and the community are still very important to me — it is just that with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, I am only able to function for about 6 hours a day, and I am not able to keep up with that much social media, much less television, and reading newspapers and newsmagazines.
I do tweet a fair amount — my twitter account is in my bio, but I do look forward to the time when I am ready to write more diaries on Daily Kos — even if it is only my thoughts on the artwork and images on the cover of the Economist.
Thank you to all who do write diairies here — both staff and community members, and to the people who comment or even just rec and don’t comment. This website is more professional and formal than when I joined in 2008, but I appreciate that you have managed to retain the community elements of the site.
Take time to take care of yourselves — the last five years have been a kind of war. Praise yourself for the small things you do, and be amazed at the big things you do. Take time for yourself and for joy and creativity — whatever that means for you. I like to go for walks, take nature photographs,color postcards and coloring books, experiment with watercolor and collage, play game apps like Sudoku, Fishdom, Design My Room,and browse Ulta and Sephora endlessly and try not to buy too many cosmetics that I don’t need. I have found a few good thrift stores and love browsing for bargains. I am catching up on Disney and Marvel movies that I hadn’t seen, and may actually go see a movie in a theatre.
Wishing you joy and sanity, and if not that, at least only minor breakdowns and smashing of dishes.
( I couldn’t figure out how to preview the diary for edits, so there may be spelling errors, etc.)