Or a void to monologue into. Which is what I am about to do now.
No holding back now. At some point in my creative online life, I worried about whether I was being too negative or un-inspirational as an artist. I wrote too much about my struggles, frustrations, and difficulties as an artist. Perhaps more than enough to actually discourage people from pursuing an artistic life.
But this is my artistic life. And unlike many other artists who just seem to continuously bloom and blossom on the web, I constantly battle obstacles. I guess it is also a matter of curation. Most people won't really show the hard and dark parts because they are often painful and difficult and just really opens one up to vulnerability. But in my case, the hard and dark parts make up most of my days and I like to believe that maybe writing about them will have its purpose for those who may care to read.
Some factors in my life to set the context: from a low-middle-class family in a third-world country, single but carrying the full responsibility of supporting my senior parents who are not the easiest people to live with and both have medical conditions that need maintenance, I am neurodivergent - not formally diagnosed but I have many characteristics that place me on the spectrum, I have depression and anxiety and under medication for it, I am an introvert leaning closer to the "antisocial" end than the ambivert end.
On the positive side, I also happen to be smart enough to get and keep a job even after more than a decade of freelancing due to mental and emotional health issues. The pandemic has forced me to find a job with a regular paycheck if I wanted to survive with some level of decency. I have been fortunate to find a company I could fit in and even grow in. I've been doing extra work on the job in the hopes of earning an increase next year because my paycheck now is just enough to cover the barest basics and not much else.
Right now I have just passed through a second infection of the virus and I have some signs that I may have Long Covid. Planning to read up more on it and see what I can do in terms of self-care, self-medication, and self-therapy.
So I am not in a good place at the moment. If others have chronic physical pain, I have chronic mental and emotional pain that is dialed up higher than usual for the past few weeks.
I am a believer and practitioner of doing what you can with what you have but right now I have so little for both.
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