I haven’t blogged in a while and the reason for that is because I am too busy. So, so busy. Soul-crushingly busy. It’s my own fault. I took on way too many commitments in a short space of time and now I am Suffering.
It will, I hope, be worth it in the end. But it’s a hard-learned lesson: I need to slow down. More than that, I need to learn to say no. This is hard for me as a by-default people pleaser, but also as someone who legitimately fears that opportunities will dry up if I turn too many of them down. I guess most creatives have this fear, and there’s a constant battle to keep producing art, to stay relevant. It’s hard to balance with all the other stuff, like ‘the day job’, ‘everyday life’ and so on. So for me, a person with a full-time job (and a long commute), a part-time Master’s to study for, plus a fiction writing career AND a wrestling journalism gig to cram in…it gets a bit exhausting after a while. My husband is starting to wonder if I actually exist or whether he imagined me.
So. Once this mountain of work is taken care of, I need to pencil in time to do absolutely nothing. My dissertation is almost upon me, so the window will be very small. And frankly I’m very bad at doing nothing. I thrive when I’m busy. I always want to be doing something, anything, preferably something with an end result that I can be satisfied with. Perhaps practising relaxation and laziness will be good for me. Perhaps it’ll drive me insane. Place your bets.
Apropos of nothing, this January marked three years since we lost David Bowie. Here is one of my very favourite of his songs, featuring the equally wonderful Maynard James Keenan, and remixed by former Nine Inch Nails keyboardist Danny Lohner – a wonderful melting pot of some of my favourite bands:
Dispatches from the Sinister Room 
Take deep breaths and remember to hug your husband, poor soul! Sending you stamina, meanwhile, and best wishes for that horrifyingly long to-do list!