November salvation

I have been slipping away.

In the workplace a subtle distance has grown between my associates and I. “I hope you stay with us,” they sometimes say. It is apparent that my thoughts of leaving have been passed on, likely out of benign concern and not as gossip, from the pal I trusted with them. Meanwhile the associate I was closest to, one of just a few who works night shifts with me, has retired as of yesterday. We traded emails and intentions.

My current work schedule is light but very unfortunate. It hampers my hiking schedule and my time in nature with excellent pal, the Healer.

And it hampers my availability for the community functions of the volunteer organization which runs our Circles of Support. Simultaneously Grandpa Munster’s circle has ceased to meet as a circle currently. We are only meeting him one–on–one. That whole community is falling away from me except for Munster himself.   

And it conflicts with the December-through-October write-in schedule with my excellent writer pals while the internet filters at work deny our group’s online forum. I am slipping away from them too.

My delightful, creative new Dungeons & Dragons group has seemingly evaporated, hopefully to return if Aqualad gets a better handle on the challenging new University experience compiled with an overly cumbersome girlfriend relationship.   

The Earnest Chef has evolved his career and finds himself more fully rooted in The Big Smoke and estranged from Scooterville.

Dog Whisperer and Earth Writer have also seemed less accessible.

And that whom I love most dear has been far removed of late and less inclined to communicate with me, though still has nice things to say on rare occasions.

I have been uninspired and critically lazy; perhaps alarmingly so. Look at this blog, ignored now for a month. It’s a near-perfect thermometer, this blog. Ninety per cent of the time its level of activity is a reliable measure of the health of my journey; my pursuit of goals.

The one exception is family, who delightfully, I have visited with five times in the last two months. I missed a sixth due to illness and plan to be healed enough to attend a modest family reunion with a minority of my many cousins, including Renaissance Kid, on the coming weekend (But not World Citizen who is currently mucking about in Indonesia). The impetus behind increased family activity, I shall reveal shortly. It is one of the many blog pieces I have began writing of late and not finished and not posted.

About all these dear connections which have been fading, I must say though: There are no reasons why any of them can’t be turned around again.

And as for my own mental decrepitude, bordering on emotional, there is perhaps a light at the approaching end of the tunnel!

National Novel Writing Month began yesterday and though my start is late, due mostly to illness, and likewise I have been missing the live gatherings thus far, I do feel the presence of my writer pals, both online and in my heart, and the important writing habit I have neglected is revving up again; super-charging.

I have been smart about my plans; going back to basics to draft a critical non-fiction project which I should have done years ago and which should accomplish much, regardless if it ever is published. The very process of it will organize my head in such a way that I may be enabled to finish some of my abandoned novels and/or to begin new ones with a new confidence and better groundwork.

It should also provide a great tool for Neo and I, should we ever finally get together and attempt to accomplish something profound; something I strongly feel is within our reach.

And part of the NaNo plan is to blog every day and to make that process permanent, through December and beyond! There is so much to ruminate on, dear diary. You might soon get sick of me!

See you tomorrow.