It's been a challenging month and I'm still working on coping with it all. Aside from the challenges of a global quarantine: isolation, stress, an overly crowded house and a reduction in the resources me and my kids have available, there have also been more individual difficulties.
My mother in law passed a few weeks ago. Not from COVID, but from cancer that we only learned about in April. She and I had a complicated relationship, particularly since the split between my ex-husband and myself. But she was my kids' grandmother and I respected her, even when she and I disagreed.
I've also been struggling with my own health issues. My doctor and I have been trying different medications to deal with it and one of them ended up having a very bad reaction for me. I'm still trying to recover from that. The whole thing has left me deeply drained and exhausted, which doesn't leave me with the emotional reserves I need. The last month has probably been the deepest I've gone into my own depression in a long time.
There's not much to be proud of in what happened but I'm proud that even though I was feeling hopeless, I reached out for help, both professional and personal. A big thank you to Samianne for talking me down off the "I'm a talentless hack and will always be a failure" ledge. I'm back on the more realistic side of evaluating my prospects, but I think it's important to recognize how bleak my own thoughts can get sometimes. And also recognize that I can move past it, if I ask for help.
Things are probably going to be irregular for awhile yet. But I'm doing the best I can under the circumstances. And I'm also doing my best to be okay with that.
I hope everyone reading this is healthy and doing the best they can under the circumstances, too.
