Over the past month or so I’ve been in a bad mental headspace. My mind has been aimless and I haven’t really felt enthused about anything. Part of it is because of the crap that keeps building up at work lately and part of it is long dormant issues resurfacing and yet another part is something new that I discovered about myself recently that I’m still trying to figure out. All of this together has culminated in me being an absolute headcase alternating between mania and depression for the past little while. I’ve kept it hidden for the most part, as I tend to do with these things. They’re my problems, not yours so I generally don’t talk about them with anyone. Of course, if you know me then you’ve probably seen me in this state in the past at some point and realize this isn’t the best thing for me to be doing but I still keep doing it. Normally I end up letting this all build up until I do something really stupid like quit my job or move to the moon or whatever.
This time around I managed to find an outlet before that all happenned (or at least before I got to the REALLY stupid part. I can’t deny I’ve managed to make a few stupid mistakes over the past couple of weeks but I’m learning to live with them). I finally bought myself the mountain bike I’ve been promising myself I’d get for the past 4 years and it’s an amazing feeling of freedom. I’ve been biking almost every day now for the past week and I feel better than I have in ages. I’m so out of shape it isn’t funny but it’s been totally worth it just to keep pushing myself to go that extra kilometer every day. Plus I love my bike. It’s so damn cool.
See! Isn’t it purdy! Mine is much muddier though! Puddles are fun!
All this physical exercise has actually had a positive effect besides getting my lazy arse out of this computer chair more frequently. With all this activity my brain has kicked back into quadrupal high gear and the writer’s block that I’ve been fighting with for as long as I can really remember is gone for now. I’ve been an absolute writing fiend the past two days and it’s been great. I’m just in the early stages of writing and you guys won’t ever see it until I transcribe it, but it feels absolutely wonderful to fill up an empty page. So far I think I’ve written about 20 pages of rough draft in the past two days. I haven’t bothered to word count because right now I’m just doing a VERY rough pass at the overall plot thread. Once I get down to brass tacks and start actually writing the meat of the story and the intricacies of character interaction I’ll bother with that but for right now I just want to lay down the skeleton and framework and then see where things go.
I know this mental energy is coming from the exercise but I don’t think I’d be as focused if it wasn’t for a conversation I had with someone last week that put a lot of things in perspective. My friend was able to kick my arse into gear as I expected they would and I’m forever grateful. Thanks. You know who you are.
So while my life may not be perfect at the moment — I still don’t have the riches to support myself in the manner in which I’d like to be accustomed to, nor have I managed to get the perfect girl — I finally have things going in the right direction and it’s a good feeling. Yay Me!