#look olms are really badass and nothing will convince me otherwise

[not-poignant]

Garden Cosmos, Glory-of-the-Snow, Hellebore, Camelia, Black-Eyed Susan~.. (there are a lot of good questions, but before it becomes too much, ha).

Garden Cosmos: How was your day today?

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It was... well actually I inputted 'awful' into my Daylio (mood-tracker) app earlier, so a substantive part of it wasn't great. It was tumultuous. I had a much-needed massage today after around 9 weeks of going without, so a lot of fascia had to be broken up forcibly and it was very painful, but I really like my massage therapist and we had some good conversations (and she gave me some lemons from her tree!)

Then, I finished chapter 20 of The Ice Plague, which felt great, until about thirty minutes later when I remembered that like, I'm still essentially me, and that's someone I can't stand right now (hence - awful). After that I crashed energy wise, pretty normal (are you all bored yet) and slept for four hours and woke to tachycardia and probably a panic attack. I forced myself to get up and walk for 30 minutes, listened to the amazing new Manchester Orchestra album, and crashed again for about another hour mood-wise.

And then spent the evening watching His Dark Materials with Glen, so my mood kind of levelled out to where it is now, where I feel capable of answering asks and maybe doing some editing?

The day has been...exhausting.

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Glory-of-the-Snow: What are ten things that make you happy/you’re grateful to have in your life?

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1. I'm grateful for fresh water 2. I'm grateful for my meds, because even though they don't solve or cure anything, they at least make life as liveable as it currently is. 3. I'm grateful for the generosity of friends and partners 4. I'm grateful for all the many species of animals in the world and how endlessly fascinating they all are 5. I'm grateful for the folks who read my stories, and the ones who enjoy them enough to let me know 6. I'm grateful for confit orange peel dipped in dark chocolate 7. I'm grateful for Manchester Orchestra 8. I'm grateful for people who don't assume that just because they've found a path through their personal hell, that I will find a path too, or that my path will look anything like theirs when I do. (The people who let me be who I am, and not who they imagine me to be). 9. I'm grateful for my hands, that let me type, and illustrate, and play piano, and cross-stitch. 10. I'm grateful for Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and the fact that I haven't made one imperfect Snowboy this season so far, lol.

(I went with gratitude instead of what makes me happy, because anhedonia makes all the things that make me happy stop making me happy. Do not recommend).

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Hellebore: How do you show affection?

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Badly. x.x

I don't know. Sometimes I think I show affection by withdrawing from the people I care about. Sometimes by holding space and listening. Sometimes by witnessing them in their darkness. Sometimes by giving them big squeezy hugs and holding them close. Sometimes by playing with someone's hair, or poking someone gently in the arm. Sometimes by cooking and sometimes by cleaning and sometimes by gardening and sometimes by making sure someone's favourite food is always available. Sometimes by sharing music or television or movies. Sometimes by walking away to shelter someone from the bomb that is my uncontrollable PTSD-triggered rage. Sometimes with laughter. Sometimes by walking through the fire of my own depression and anxiety to the other side. Sometimes by not dying, because I know it might make some of the people around me sad.

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Camelia: If you could visit anywhere, where would you want to go?

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I don't know, actually. There are places that are near the top of my list - Japan, Singapore, a lot of places in Europe actually (probably too many to mention, and probably not any of the places most folks think of), I want to go back to Orkney so badly, I want to be in Tasmanian rainforests again, in the mountain fog.

As I get older though, sometimes the places I most want to visit aren't the elusive ones, but the places I can visit - rocky beaches with moody seas have been in my head all year, so...those are the places I have been trying to visit.

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Black-Eyed Susan: If you could be any animal for a day, what would it be?

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Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be an olm for a day. Not having eaten a single thing for years, fresh water running over my back, with vestigial eyesight, functionally blind and in the darkness of hidden caves, knowing only the grip of slippery rocks beneath me and living in a world of frigid vibration, only to take advantage of a tiny morsel of food, and know how to be satisfied with that enough to keep on living for another five years with nothing more than water and rock.

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From the flower asks meme!

#asks and answers #memey goodness #personal #look olms are really badass and nothing will convince me otherwise #but i'm also always amazed by those creatures that live a life #that doesn't seem like any life at all #because i'm like #tell me how you do it #do olms experience major depression too #or do they love it #because they know no other way? #i don't know #they have a genetic memory of eyesight and the life of a creature in soil and leaves #do they miss it? #suicidal ideation cw