#bc i know myself and i know i always struggle with commuting routines

[the---hermit]

I have not kept it a secret that this semester commuting has been really rough on me. By the time I get home in the middle of the afternoon even if I only had to sit in a hour and a half lecture I feel like an overcooked noodle. And the mornings aren't any easier, my anxiety has been spiking a lot lately, and that messes me up completly, and it's particularly hard on my stomach. Let's just say it's a very demanding period of my life both physically and emotionally and I have been doing my best to get through it with ups and downs, but most importantly by trying to properly take care of myself. I decided to compile a list of small things that have been helping me, both for future reference as well as for people who might be dealing with similar issues.

Prep everything I can the night before. I don't leave the house until more or less mid morning since my class is on lunch time more or less (and this will come up again), so I do have time to do stuff in the morning, but if I have already put everything I need in my backpack, picked an outfit for the day and checked that I have my bus ticket the night before I can have a much calmer morning. Having a calm morning is fundamental for me on any day, so especially when I have a stressful and energy demanding day ahead I want to make sure I don't have to rush, and here is my second point.

Try to have a morning as calm as possible before I have to leave. I am a morning person so I wake up quite early which means I have plenty of time to take it easy. And this means drink my tea as I read my book, prep the last few things I need, like my waterbottle, eat (on which I'll have a later point). Overall my morning before leaving needs to be slow and mostly made of things for myself so again my precious reading time, listening tocmusic as I get ready to get in a better mood and so on.

Taking my meds regularly. It's the logical thing to do, if I am in a period in which my anxiety is worse than usual the number one goal is to be consistent with meds, they are there to help me even if sometimes I forget that.

Finding ways to enjoy food when anxiety fucks up my stomach. What happens is that as soon as I have an anxiety spike for some reason I get very nauseous, which is terribly by itself and it gets worse when it makes me struggle to enjoy my food. But I found a couple of ways to work around that in the past few weeks. Eating when I am away from home is much worse so what I do is embrace the little hobbit in me and have more meals when I am at home, and just bring some snacks on the road if I need them. That means I have two breakfasts before I have to leave the house, the last being a bit more filling. And then when I get home no matter how tired I am or what time it is I cook something for myself, something simple, but I take the time to make something good that fills me up and makes me happy. Because having a full stomach does improve your mood belove me. When I am on the road I bring some lighter snacks that can help me if I feel like I need to have something but that will also work well if I have a spike in anxiety and correlated nausea. I usually eat some homemade bread while I walk from the bus stop to my uni, and then snack on some nuts while I wait for the lecture. And I always have an emergency sweet treat in my backpack because that is something that I actually do on a regular basis. This thing has been working very well, I have had less problems with my stomach acting up, and I am definitely getting all the nutrients I need during the day, just at times that are a bit different from my normal routine.

Bring tea with me. It's something I never did before but it's becoming the one thing I won't give up. I either make a green tea or an herbal tea that I drink before the lecture, and it's been so good for me both physically and mentally. It's been super cold so the warm treat is really needed, but most importantly it's been very comforting and calming, so shutout to my dad for suggesting that.

Having little things to look out for during the commute. This mostly consists of me listing to podcasts, and re:dracula has been of great company in my commutes last year so it's nice it's become a bit of a tradition. It's just good for me not to associate commuting with negative things, so now I just percieve it as poscast time which makes it much much better. This also includes texing friends when I feel like I can look at the screen of my phone without getting car sick (again when anxiety messes me up I can get random car sickness), that's good to keep my mind off things and make the commute feel lighter.

Total relax when I get home. Which sometimes means lying in bed with a cup of tea and nothing more. If I have enough brain power I might read a comic, or play stupid midless games on my tablet for a bit. Honestly just things that need as little energy and brainpower as possible because by that time I do not have much energy or brainpower left, and it's okay. I normally use up a lot of energy when going out and it this period of time all tasks require I use even more energy. I can't do much about it other than accept it and do my best to tke care of myself.

[sulkyshot]

Is this really the end? I know we never had any distinct similarities, our personalities and lives a bit too different after many years. The last time we met before all these years had been when we were about 6, and then we were separated no forcefully, it just happend bc life. Then we find eachother on the day of registration for hs, then slowly became friends, slowly but still friends. I went to your Quince and you went to mine. Still very distinctly different but I loved and cared for you because my longer term friends have a special place in my heart, but I guess it didn't go both ways, I thought we were content and could work through our friendship. I always loved getting to hang out and would try to shove down the doubts of your reactions and enthusiasm to our conversations,that only seemed to want to be anywhere else at times. I tried planning out days, I ditched for you, I made excuses to answer your calls when you needed me, we tried drugs together for the first time. I listened to your rants and told you how you deserved better, I comforted you when you didn't want to hear that anymore. I listened and listened but I never felt heard myself. There was never enough comfort or reassurance to let myself go around you, which is mostly on me. I'm sorry I never felt comfortable enough. I'm sorry my advice and support was never the best I could've done. I'm sorry I started missing your calls. I'm sorry I couldn't do more.

We're in college now. Different schools because we've always had different ambitions. I left you alone because I had my own life too,maybe I was too dependent, too assured that you wouldn't go anywhere. I left because I was working with life and trying to fill my own life with my interests and meetings with people who were like me. I don't remember the last time we hung out. Did we even take a picture at graduation ? I miss you. November came along and I got the ding of reminder of your day. I had started working already, had a routine and was adjusted to college life. And we had texted, you had texted me and I responded-bexause that would be the only times we would have conversations- we had our brief conversations regardless time. It was you struggling alot of the time, I hope I held some comfort. Then I asked when you were free, I was willing to call in sick to my job that gave me random hours, I knew you also struggled with free days because they overwork you often. You said the day after your actual birthday, a Friday, perfect I only worked a 5 hour shift that ended at 12pm, and your classes ended at 12pm that day. I had thought of getting out early, getting you flowers because I know how much you love them, visiting your school and surprising you despite it being another hour up north to commute. The days went by and I accidently wished you for your birthday a day early, the day you hung out with samamtha. I hadn't been my best, work and exams had been on my ass, I didn't know what day it was unless I saw the calender. I apologized and rewished you well wishes at 12am the following day. 22 hours later you cancel our unplanned plans. It hurt. But I understood your reason, cramps get bad and I get it, I really do understand, I should've understood further when I didn't see any signs of a raincheck from your end. I let it go. The next day, I go on life360 and you're there, except you're not. You're not at school,okay yeah makes sense, but you're not home either... the area..his house? I'm not sure to this day (20 days ago) I don't want to know. Do you hate me? Dislike me? Similar questions I've had over the course of our reunited years. Questions I'm no longer willing to shove away. You have your own issues, I have mine. I've come to the conclusion, in this life in our current age, we simply don't fit in eachothers life. No matter how much or how little of an effort I try. Maybe it is the end. I've been considering calling you later tonight when I get home to ask if everything's okay and even a little confrontation, that most likely would just end in me crying. I've considered not answering you next time you text me wanting comfort that I don't have for myself to begin with. Then I consider, was our last message of my well wishes on your period our actual last? No was our last message was my reply to your story where you had shared your success and I had responded "I'm so proud of you " because I genuinely was so so proud of you and still am because I knew how much you wanted to get your license be more independent, have more control over your life and future career. How happy I was that things were finally going well for you. How much i wanted you to know that i heard her saw her and recognized her hard work. How you never even opened it.

You've gone back to posting on Instagram, that's a good sign, you're doing well, I'm happy. Maybe I'm being too sensitive. Maybe it shouldn't have hurt as much as it does to not see myself on your Thanksgiving appreciation story on Instagram with the qoute "very little people who have my heart like they do 🤍 so thankful". Maybe that shouldn't have been the last push to my last slimmer of hope to keep our friendship going. Maybe that was your indirect sign to let you go and let you live your life without me in it. Which as selfish as it sounds, I admit i have purposely continued to push myself into not falling out of your life. I wanted to belong as comfort to eachother. I shouldn't have let you affect me this much, I shouldn't have cried right now while looking back at our miscellaneous messages. I'm sorry if I was too much, I really do hope the best for you, I genuinely wish you to have a fulfilled life with your dreams coming true because you deserve it. You desreve it more than anyone I know. So please be happy and please stay healthy. I love you so so much. Maybe even too much. I'm sorry. I love you but you don't love me and that's okay. I just know it's time for me to move on. No matter how much it hurts, it's time and I'm devested. I'm devesated that you probably won't even notice, I'm hurt but I should know when I'm not wanted. I'm so sorry. Goodbye.

With love,

your oldest acquaintance.

[squid-inspiration]

you’re so productive! any advice for finding writing time? (esp for ppl who spend almost all their time reading and can’t stop...)

ah god, idk if i’d call myself productive, i don’t even have a lot of fics on ao3? but i do write a lot, a good amount is just original work or not on ao3 yet. w an exhausting job and a daily 4h commute, i have like 3.5ish hours left at the end of the day to take care of cooking, sucky adult responsibilities like bills, etc. so I FEEL YOU.

idk if this is much use to anyone but me, but i’ll just list stuff that i feel helps me Get Shit Written in no particular order. it’s not necessarily “how to make time for writing” but rather “how to not get stuck so you can actually make progress in those 20min you have per day”.

HOW THE SQUID GETS STUFF WRITTEN

aim for routine. i fail this as often as not, but when i got home i take care of dull adult stuff and food etc, and i get to piss around on random websites a bit, but i try to sit down at ~11pm so i have an hour to spend on writing. i generally don’t do an actual hour of writing, but eh, i try.

writing sprints! i used to do nanowrimo, and i long for my highschool days where i once hammered out 175k IN A MONTH. how?! (i mean the story sucked, but still!) these days if i’m struggling i sometimes set a timer for 20-30min and just. write. i can get distracted again after, but that time is for writing. usually i can manage 400-700 words in one go, not all of which are brilliant. which leads me to…

EDITING. editing is your friend. i often write snippets out of order to get down the precise wording of sth when it pops into my head. i’m not afraid to look at a fic overall and move entire scenes around, modifying them so they fit better, etc. i don’t much stress “does this scene segue perfectly into the next” when i first write it down. essentially, do your best, but don’t get hung up, bc first drafts are supposed to suck. in movies, you film the footage, but the film is created in editing. i try to treat my writing the same way.

don’t be precious! this is where my animator mindset kicks in i guess lol. i’m not afraid to toss stuff out. if i write 300 words to get a point across and it’s clunky, well whatever, move on and revisit. oh hey, upon revisiting, turns out i can express all that in 47 words! delete the other 253 words, move on. hey i love this scene, but it kind of breaks the flow and doesn’t entirely fit in this place for the emotional/thematic arc - transplant it elsewhere, make adjustments to fit it into its new place, move on. it’s like gesture drawing: capture the essence quickly, worry abt anatomy later. get the bones & big shapes in place first. if i have the emotional core of the scene that’s the important part and the transitions and fixing can come later, no prob, moving on.

this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put effort into it, i put my heart & soul into everything i write, but better get it done than perfect. this stops me from getting too hung up on a “perfect” result.

carry a notebook! i always have one on me, and sometimes a sketchbook too. just jot down random dialogue snippets, sentences, metaphors, etc. idk how ppl survive w/o notebooks, i get anxiety if i don’t have at least an old grocery bill & a pencil on me. i don’t rly write during the 4h/day i spend on the train bc i hate ppl being able to read what i write in public, but i take lots of notes. i also just. think a lot abt what i want to write, i suss out just the right phrases etc, and when i get home i often feel good and ready to go!

i guess this kinda goes along w my “keep the big picture in mind” attitude. i try to know the ending as soon as possible so i can measure everything i write against it. does this scene in some way, shape or form support the arc leading us from the beginning to this ending? no? DELETE. or adjust until it does. i know this is more plotting/structure than “making time,” but having a general idea of where i’m going helps me to go go go when i have the time to write, rather than floundering aimlessly about for 15min of the 20 i have.

GET A WRITING BUDDY. i would like to sing the praises of @brightbluedot here, who is the literal bestest anyone could ask for. i know some ppl don’t like showing their messy WIPs, but i LOVE tossing stuff at ppl bc i am in constant need of validation lmao. kicking ideas around and talking out loud abt my difficulties works magic for my problem-solving - i’m an animator, so i’m used to running my stuff past ppl and getting continuous feedback. it can be v painful but it HELPS ME SO MUCH. 

and often i’m like. “oh hey if i write this then i can throw 200 words of it at audrey and we can freak out over these losers together!!” like. i cannot overstate how much i like sharing stuff w ppl, if anybody wrote to me “hey how’s this or that WIP coming along” i’d smother them in 500 words in a heart beat, i’m that kind of person. so ofc i need to have 500 words to throw at ppl! this… makes me feel like a sad person, but i’m a pro at emotional oversharing, so there you have it i guess. insecurity & attention-seeking = motivation to do stuff for validation & attention lmao.

be emotionally fragile as fuck. did mention yet i have a thin skin? it is THE THINNEST. drama kills my mojo instantly, so a lot of the time i used to spend writing meta or interacting w the fandom is just spent writing instead. kinda sad honestly, but these days i spend v little time hanging out in the tag and just try and keep up w a handful of ppl <3 long story short, i redirect a lot of emotional energy from fandom drama to micro-managing my characters’ emotional arcs & recurring themes. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  

sometimes ppl also write stuff that’s so good i bums me out, which is not a happy way to react to great wrtiing, but i’m being emotionally honest here, so there ya go. i sometimes just need to stop looking at other people’s stuff to stop myself from comparing how many click&comments&kudos they get, bc that’s a) not an indicator of quality and b) even if it was, who fucking cares, ppl like what they like and that’s how it should be, the point is i shouldn’t even care in the first place! this way i spend more time focusing on getting stuff done, too. instant time-saver.

ok uh, idk if any of this is even remotely what you asked for, but ummm i tried?? looking back i guess the last two points are pure salt uhhh. 

i hope there’s maybe a little nugget of helpful advice in this rambling mess :’D i’m a professional procrastinator, so this is p much just how i try to trick myself into being productive and motivated when i do have the time to write.