When the bough breaks

I was supposed to go to a conference this weekend, the Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Trans Allied College Conference, or MBLGTACC. I don’t know why the A doesn’t stand for aromantic (people who don’t experience romantic attraction), or asexual (people who don’t have a sexual orientation), but that’s a post for another day, I’m afraid.

A week ago, I got sick. A week ago, I was finishing up my last few shifts at Starbucks and someone punched me in the chest and threw me out of the men’s room. Then I got sick. To top it off, my cousin is dying, and my uncle had stage 4 liver cancer and passed away on the 18th. I was supposed to leave at 4am on the 19th, which was also the 4 year anniversary of me celebrating my transition. Sometimes you have to make executive decisions that suck but are better for you in the long run.

Last week my partner Jo and I got the rest of my stuff out of storage and then Jo got sick as well. I’m also officially starting my new job as a personal care assistant on Monday. I knew if I was to go to MBLGTACC that I would hardly be sleeping and I’ve been sick for over a week so I decided that I should probably stay at home, get Jo to and from work, and get caught up on my life. That’s a tall order for a 3 day weekend but I’m up for a challenge.

First I tackled doing all of the laundry. Jo did dishes and cleaned the kitchen I also decided that in my 25 years on this planet, I have acquired way too much stuff. I also live in a small apartment and I had mono a few months ago. I’ve lost a bunch of weight and a lot of the clothes in storage don’t fit anymore, or they look ratty. So I threw away at least 4 garbage bags. I can always start over with getting clothes that fit and don’t look disgusting. I am a huge fan of thrift stores.

I am a person that gets a million ideas at once and gets really inspired and passionate and basically I am the king of half finished projects, which I really discovered when Jo forced me to do a yarn stash inventory. We put all of my yarn away and in an order of projects that I have to finish first. I was also a bit disgusted with myself and how much yarn I have. This habit of not finishing projects follows me in other areas of my life. I was so excited to get the entire apartment cleaned that I wanted to run around doing everything at once.

I learned it is much more effective to stick to one room at a time. Finish one knitting project before starting another. Write this set of poems before you leave them in the depths of your computer never to be seen again (which reminds me that I should totally go through my computer and find those poems I’ve left abandoned. Sorry, poems).

I’m also a stressed out senior trying to work an internship, a full time job, and go to school full time. I don’t have a lot of free time. I get burned out. I get tired. I think about dropping out at least once a week. I don’t seriously consider it, but the thought is there. I’ve been forced to become a morning person. It is in the morning when I am waiting for coffee to brew and Jo is sleeping, that I take out my computer and write a page. Or a poem. Or think about what to talk about next on this blog.

Sometimes when the bough breaks and you feel like you are that baby that is going to fall, you have to stop what you are doing, do an inventory, deep clean some stuff out, find the time to take care of yourself (for me that’s allowing myself to watch a short episode on Netflix and knit a few rows) and figure out what you have to give up in order to get where you need to go.