I usually do The Week of Reflection between Christmas and New Year's, a favorite stretch of time for me, but this year I just wasn't up for it. I spent most of December so depressed I could barely get out of bed. (Remember when I said I was going to clean up the studio? LOL ALL DAY that did not happen)
Depression is familiar to me, but it's been many years since I suffered a major bout. I think it was triggered by the loss of my cat Noodle, which brought on reflection which turned into ruminating. Noodle was 18 years old. I looked back on her life with us, and I remembered my life when I found her, and things have improved for me in 18 years, but not all that much. Many things have gotten harder.
Some of my drear arises from the state of the country. I have always wanted clay to be an arena where we can just be neighbors and see the good in each other, so I try to be minimally political here, but no reasonable person can say things are going well for American democracy. There are many people far more painfully affected than I am, so I have no right to personally complain, but it grieves me to see suffering & injustice & to be able to do so little to help. I do what I can, but we have collectively failed so many people; we aren't going to get those lives back. This weighs on me.
In my individual life, nothing major has changed, but I did have a sort of epiphany: things are not going to get easier. Things are never going to get easier. I think I always subconsciously believed that someday, if I worked hard, I would reach a point where I wasn't struggling financially, when there would be enough time to relax, but guess what? I did the math, and there is no relief in sight. While I never intend to retire from making pots - not until I am physically unable - I thought I would be able to dial back on my classes, because while I enjoy teaching, it's mentally very taxing on me, and starting to be physically hard, too. I thought I'd be able to cut down to 2 or 3 classes a week somewhere between 62 & 65, but that is just not going to be possible; I'm going to have to teach 6 classes a week until I'm 70. I'm so tired now, at 61, that I can't imagine how I'm going to feel nine years from now.
I guess the big change happened in 2024, although I did not recognize it at the time. Doug's health has grown more frail, and he is unfortunately in the difficult space between too disabled to work but not quite disabled enough to collect disability. He can take care of himself - there's no physical burden on me - but I have to carry the whole household financially. I am grateful that I am able to do that (barely) but it doesn't leave time for much else.
My efforts to create an income stream in less physically demanding ways have not been very successful, which leads me to spiral that I am just mid at everything I try. (Except making pots, which pays me like $7/hr, or teaching pottery, which I love but which exhausts me.) I suck & I deserve to fail. That's my shitty brain chemistry talking, I know, but since my brain is where I live it feels very real.
Today is the first day in a long time that I've been able to get up out of bed without a specific reason to do so. Hoping hard that it is a sign of better things on the horizon. Is now a good time to say, Happy New Year?
Thanks for reading this far. Sorry to be a bummer, hopefully the next time I post things will be better.
I love you and miss you, Noodle.
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