A writer, they say, writes. This makes me a sysadmin, queer/poly pervert, a geek, but certainly no kind of writer the way I’ve been neglecting my blogging. And, really, the whole point was that I was trying to improve my writing habits. But, I’m not writing it off yet. (See what I did there? It was a pun, people! A writing-related pun! HAH! Oy…)

So, I’m going to check in and tell you about the nosebleed-inducing highs and the soul-grinding lows of late. All three of you who still read this blog after months of basic fallowness.

I’m not breaking down, I’m breaking out…last chance to lose control!

Some of the highs, it turns out, were chemical. And they were helping me screw some things up in epic fashion. If any mental health or medical profession ever again tries to prescribe me any form of Wellbutrin, they’re getting a smack. I mean it. The stuff is seriously no good for me. It and another antidepressant called Remeron were effectively doing bugger-all for me and canceling one another out for some months as my primary-care was at his wit’s end trying to help me medicate myself out of The Tale of Woe™. (One of these days, I’ll post a timeline of that. Long story short, it was about 3.5 years of my life during which the universe seemed to be conspiring to turn me into emotional road-pizza.)

Actually, that’s not true, it wasn’t accomplishing nothing. It was draining my pocketbook horribly on my current employer’s horrible high-deductible + HSA health care plan.

So, my newly-referred psychiatrist thought it would be peachy-keen to step me down off the Remeron first, leaving the Wellbutrin unchecked (and the truly marvelous Cymbalta as the only really effective med for me in the cocktail). And the resulting behavior prompted my therapist to say I was acting like a bipolar person in their “manic” phase—euphoric, out of control, and in my case even more oblivious to the concerns and needs of those around me.

I ended up burning my romantic relationship with wee Amy (tho thankfully not my friendship), screwing up so badly at Bawdy they asked me not to come back, and so obsessively seeking new partners that I almost drove the lovely Renie away completely.

Once I came down, I was (to continue to overuse the word) mortified at myself. I can’t think of a single relationship I didn’t strain, romantic, platonic, or employment.

Don’t try to keep your composure, I’m only having a laugh…

But there were happy things, too! My relationship with Renie has been intense and amazing. Even if we don’t make it (though I still have this odd presentiment that we will…I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am), it’s nice to know that I can feel chemistry that intense for anyone, and that someone so miraculous could feel it for me.

I’ve also been seeing two delightful women named Amy C and Kanane, who’ve just been wonderful to me. I guess my polyamory isn’t “academic” anymore, and what’s more it’s really nice to settle into a groove without feeling obsessive about meeting new partners every which where and all the time.

My longstanding friendship with a woman who’s always impressed the hell out of me—Heather—deepened in a wondrous way, as has my friendship with Amy of Chasing Amy, who’s also damned impressive. Chasing Amy has also been responsible for some of the more interesting and sexy stories of my recent life, for which there will be future blog posts, have no fear. (Teases: “Best…housewarming…EVAR,” “Pasta and strippers!” and, “FIVE?!? And a boy in the room?”)

I’ve also made new friends, like the astonishing Mags, and reconnected via the Internet panopticon of Facebook with two friends I’ve known from birth (mine or theirs, depending), Nick and Sam.

And Polly! Never has anyone made me look so good as this camera-slinging Photoshop goddess. She’s sweet, kind, and talented. How could I know her for a couple of years and only now start to realize how cool she is?

I am so surrounded by exceptional people. And they all, oddly, seem to like me. How cool is that?

The psychiatrist poses as psychologist…

And my therapy has gotten in-fucking-tense. We’re into all the crappy childhood imprints I took that have been holding me back since time immemorial and perennially making me feel like a loser and a failure. I’ve been avoiding talking to my mother for months now knowing that, after our last conversation was the straw that broke the camel’s back, the next time I talk to her I was have to read her the riot act. She still wants me in her life things are gonna have to change, swiftly and permanently, ’cause I’m not having it anymore.

*sighs* What a fucking cliché.

But this is going out to all my friends…I need your help. I need your encouragement. I need you all to check in with me and help me overcome all this crap in my head that keeps me from doing things for me. Doing things for others, never a problem. Other people deserve things, and the people around me are so worthy of happiness and success.

But I’m having such a hard time making those baby steps toward feeling like I deserve things, too, and not neglecting myself horribly. So help me not lose sight of my goals and wants, OK? I really need you guys now.

You all rock. And speaking of rock, 10 Scooby Snacks to whoever can name all the songs quoted in my section headers without Googling ‘em. (Not that I could prove you didn’t Google them, of course…)

But I won’t wait two %^@!*($#^ing months to write again.

My first draft of this was even more emo than this, so just be glad I came to my senses. It was going to be sorta-kinda poetry. Free verse and worth every penny. This is what I get for having thrown out all my bad poetry from when I was 15…I almost subject you, my dear readers (all three of you), to the spectacle of a 37-year-old bleating on about being too this and not enough that and oh, how life is unfair, but even more so when you’re a lazy bitch with depression and crap self-esteem.

So, consider yourself lucky.

But the fact remains that, much like my dear friend, Dana, I have no idea here at midlife-ish who I want to be when I grow up.

That I’ve been dragging my feet on my small business idea (a Mac-based, full-service IT consulting firm, for the record) just reinforces what I already knew, namely that IT isn’t What I Want to Do For the Rest of My Life™.  Do I have the skillz to pay the billz in that business? Well, on a technical level, you betcha. On a business-admnistration and self-promotion level, I’m not so sure. That I’ve been dragging my feet on my Geek Salon idea (long story…tell you about it later if you don’t already know) tells me just how fearful I am of trying and failing. That I’ve been dragging my feet on my own writing really fills me with dread because, much as I’ve always felt I had a few good books or scripts or what-have-you in me going back to when I was a kid, it makes me wonder if I didn’t defer that dream a bit too long. To say nothing of being thoroughly cowed by the skill of writers I’ve been reading lately, like Neal Stephenson, Neil Gaiman, or Alan Moore.

So I finished my transition…so what? What difference does it make that I’m as close to biologically female as medical science can make a male-to-female transsexual when I have no idea just who this woman is supposed to be for the next 40 years or so. Nothing is pulling on my heart and mind the way my transition did, saying, “You have to finish before you die. You can not let yourself give up before then!” I have no purpose…and it’s eating me from the inside out.

You know that feeling you get when you want to go out to eat with a bunch of friends, but every single restaurant or cuisine that’s suggested feels like a no-go? You don’t know what you do want, but you know you don’t want anything suggested thus far. That’s been my life for the last three years ever since I got back from Scottsdale and the last brief stint of true happiness I’ve known so far.

Political activism and crusading law certainly inflame my passions…and hell, I’d probably make for a damned fine lawyer given my penchant for arguing minutiae and my obscene memory for endless trivial details. Only trouble is that the quixotic nature of that life, the never-ending compromises, and the inevitable disillusionment with my own alleged allies would drive me to drink in short order.

Creating literature, moviles/TV, and/or music still has an allure to my heart, but feels too risky for me. I’m living on borrowed money, which means borrowed time if the old adage is to be believed. And it’s not making me burn the candle at both ends to do it regardless of “success” or “failure,” either. *sighs*

And more hardcore science or math would mean going back to school on money I don’t have to build skills never gained or long in disuse to do something I’m not sure I’d like anyway. The only part of that scenario that I’m sure I’d like is going back to school, but that would still require a goal. “Life-long student” is not a viable profession, whatever some of my former UCSC classmates might think.

It’s really enough to make me wish I could make myself content to be an IT technician and want to do that enough to make myself jump out of bed at a respectable hour.

If anyone has any suggestions for (re-)finding one’s bliss, I have to say I’m all ears.