Is everything terrible, or is something wonderful about to happen?

This is a self-therapizing entry about feeling discouraged.

Folks, I don’t know about you, but I’m struggling with feeling discouraged right now. It feels like everything is exponentially harder than it needs to be, and obstacles seem to be coming out of nowhere.

After just paying $500 for Apple to repair a non-damage-related defect on my MacBook Pro, it’s now sitting in a state of water damage, and I’m looking at $1000–1500 in repairs I don’t currently have. Shit, I’m still working on paying my daughter’s tuition for this month. That’s been happening a lot lately. And no, please don’t talk to me about public schools. Just…please don’t. Believe me: if I had a workable option funded by my own tax dollars, I’d take it.

My COSGRRRL printer is working on a quote which I have no idea how I’m going to pay for. And GR Comic-Con is one month away. I have nothing for my booth prepared, and very little artwork has come through the pipeline.

My daughter, husband, and I, are working our way through our second round of cold and flu since early September. I literally just got my voice back on Monday, and by Tuesday I was back to feeling like hot garbage and a total sinus meltdown.

I’ve felt like hot garbage for so long, I’m beginning to forget what it feels like to be healthy. I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few weeks having increased empathy and appreciation for Adam, Diabetic Cyborg. Your health is a precious thing which you take for granted until it’s gone. And once it’s gone, it really fucking sucks.

And it’s hard, when you feel like hot garbage (as Adam knows all too well), to do all the things you want to do. Like pounding the pavement to get the cash to launch COSGRRRL into print. And continuing to fix up our historic reno home (we JUST got our bathtub/shower back up and working, like, last week). Or going camping for our anniversary this weekend, like we’d planned. Or tending to my excessively messy yards. Or writing that new restaurant review I was supposed to do weeks ago…

That’s not even mentioning the ex-related emotional, financial, and legal drama we’ve been trying to keep our heads above over here, which has no end in immediate sight. Dear baby Jesus.

Maybe it’s because my brain is full of snot, maybe it’s the barometric pressure, but I feel discouraged.

It feels like negative things keep piling on, and obstacles keep appearing, with little in the positive category to balance it out. I’m used to scary and negative things happening, but in my experience, there are usually positive things which come on their heels to balance things out. But that crik looks pretty dry right now. If positive things are coming to balance things out, they sure are taking their sweet time.

Then there’s, like, Politics And Things That Are Happening In The World right now, which I honestly just #canteven. That includes Medium’s kicking its indie writers and small pubs to the curb, which obviously impacts COSGRRRL and my work here.

It feels like something’s got to break, either under me or above me. My inner Pollyanna tells me the ice is breaking, and the lower the valley, the higher the peak that follows it. But my mildly feverish, snot-addled brain isn’t sure it believes that. It’s a bit preoccupied feeling sorry for itself.

And to make matters worse, I’m not even sure what I need. I always have my next steps, but right now I have no idea what they are. An investor? A buyer — but who? A big sweaty wad of cash fallen from the sky? A large contract gig? A vegetable juicer? 24 hours of uninterrupted sleep? All of the above?

Should I close down COSGRRRL, or is that inclination just the Powers of the Air trying to push me further away from spreading messages that need to be spread? Trying to make me fulfill my own prophecy of failure?

Should I close down this blog, and focus exclusively on paid writing (no, I’m not counting $3/post here on Medium as paid writing)? Or should I migrate both my blog and COSGRRRL to WordPress — and if so, should I try to find someone to help me do it, or should I try to find the time to fumble my own way through it? Will any of my concepts for monetization actually work in reality?

I don’t know any of it.

The good Reverend Nigga Daddy was just saying over on Instagram that making cash is all about finding your purpose — the “tag” you’re born with which tells us what we’re supposed to be doing in this lifetime.

And I get that — hell, I teach it to my students. I know that my tag is writing. I know, because it’s the thing I do and enjoy best. But finding a niche where I’m both writing what I’m compelled to write and getting paid well is a nut I seem to have yet to crack. I feel stuck.

I know I’m not the only one facing problems with health and finances and all the rest; hell, I doubt there’s anyone out there who couldn’t tell a similar story. And I think we can all sense that some crazy shit is happening right now that’s influencing us. Something’s going down. Right now, it feels like it’s us.

So tell me. Do you feel like things are breaking up, or breaking down?

Is all this resistance because we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing and are getting close to accomplishing it and the Powers That Be are opposing us, or is it because we’ve lost our target and are crashing straight into Mordor?

Do we need to persevere, or change tracks? Or a third option I’m not seeing?

Tell me. I want to know what you’ve been experiencing, and the trends you see.

As I said in the subtitle, this post is mostly self therapy. I know my tone is usually very strong, assertive, and confident here, which is perhaps what’s been prompting me to humanize myself somewhat. Cuz yeah. This is some shit. I’m discouraged, and tired, and worried. And I know that I’ll get through it, and up onto the other side. But right now I’m here.

Letting people be where they are is a thing I’ve been learning to value, lately. Which is hard for a problem-solving INFJ.

So I guess that’s the moral lesson in this post: shit gets everyone down, and sometimes you’ve gotta just sit there. Like I’m sitting here now.

Thanks for sitting with me.