I am happily and enthusiastically back on all of my best bullshit.
"to be back on one's bullshit is to return to a state at which you were your truest and most vocal self with a renewed focus on authenticity and a decided lack of fucks given for others"
I was riding high after hosting PyCarolinas inaugural (and so far only) 2012 year and then the excitement from the last post on this incarnation of my block, my invitation to EdgeConf in 2013. I felt validated and accomplished and boundless excitement.
Depression has a way of knocking you flat, but somehow doing it in a way that feels fast and slow at the same time. All the wind gets knocked out of you like a slow-motion punch, so slight you don't even notice it until you're curled up on the floor catching your breath. I think it was a few years in, about halfway between 2013 and today in 2019, that I even came to realize and admit that I was drowning. Depression isn't just "being really, really sad". When you're sad, you're sad about something. You're thinking about the thing that's making you sad and you can point at it and say "That's the thing that's wrong." Depression doesn't have to come from anywhere at all. It's just there. It just envelopes you, dampens everything good, shrouds your vision.
It sucks. Wow, does it ever suck.
I have distance to go. I know that. I'm not sure what the destination is, at this point, or if there even is one. I've come out of the fog far enough that I can remember what life used to feel like, what I used to feel like, and recognize the impact of the years of depression. I do not know if I'm working towards returning to that version of myself, or some midway point, or some all new version of myself built out of the scraps.
What I do know is that I'm back on all my best bullshit, and that's a great thing.
With that out of the way, here's some bullshit I'm pretty happy to be back on:
I'm slowly building up writing habits again, after years. I'm even attempting NaNoWriMo for the first time in a long time!
I have multiple side projects going and I'm feeling the old thrill from code well hacked. I'm working on Feet, a Python runner, tinkering with WREP, my personal writing tool, returned to maintaining Jules, the static site generator I use for this website, and I eek out a little tim on my gamedev projects, too.
I really enjoy my job, for the first time in years, in ways I forgot I could. I think I'd convinced myself that I "just grew up" and wasn't being obsessed with work anymore. Instead, what really happened is I stopped caring or finding anything really fulfilling about my job. I'm excited for Mondays again.
I still don't read as often as I'd like, but I've finished a few books and I'm making it more of a regular thing again.
I've been buying new video games and actually playing them and enjoying myself. I'm having fun again.
I've been doing art again.
I'm working with a team to bring PyCarolinas back after a near-decade hiatus. Holy shit!
I'm submitting talk proposals and getting up in front of people again.
I'm excited about things again. I'm excited to feel like myself again. So, Hi, everyone! Its been a while.
Hopefully this also means I'm gonna be a lot louder again, so, get ready for more of that?