moving home, moving forward
i think if i fail again
that i know you're still listening
maybe it's all gonna turn out alright
and I know that it's not, but i have to believe that it is
kept you waiting, huh?
how have you been. how was your christmas. did you have a new year's kiss? what are your resolutions.
i've had a pretty eventful january. aren't transitionary periods in life so fun.
i moved home. that's pretty big. got deadnamed and misgendered quite a bit by my dear parents throughout the moving process, but i suppose that's the price i pay for not shelling out for a moving company. i live in city of dreams birmingham now. with a close friend of many years and his (our?) cat. it's been a lot more pleasant to exist in. i actually want to speak to my flatmate. there's a cat. it isn't absurdly chilly inside at all times. my room is actually a little bigger, and not a living room in a victorian house converted into what could only arguably be called a bedroom. there's a cat. i enjoy going out into the city considerably more than i did in derby. there are reasons to step into the cold wind outside of my best friend and a single cafe to meet her in (i do, desperately, miss being able to just walk out and see her, though). did i mention there's a cat.
my best work, no good options, was published by stop caring. i am endlessly grateful to artemis for trusting me with it and for giving such a personal, difficult essay a home. i think a lot about how i'm not going to be able to top writing a fucking book, but now i also have to contend with the fact that i'm not sure i can top this in regards to individual essays. i'm proud. that's what matters.
still, though. can't be having too many nice things. just not how it works.
i'm unemployed! can't exactly do my previous bar job remotely, so i'm back into the screaming purgatory of the job market in Current Year. even for just bartending or general hospitality, it's pretty fucking bad. i'll be okay burning savings for a bit, but i'm really, really hoping that changes.
there's also. you know. games journalism. and how well that's going. few things have made me feel such incandescent rage and sorrow recently as seeing inverse shut its gaming vertical and lay off some of the best in the field. they deserve better. we all do. it's just. if writers/workers of that calibre can be laid off at any point, it's difficult to see a future in which i, a writer with considerably less experience than those laid off seemingly every few months, can find work. oh well. another rejection. another application. so it goes.
i also had not one, but two breakups in january! that's a personal record. i'm more of a lesbian stereotype everyday. one, a mutual realisation that we weren't really compatible, and as much as we did like each other, we ought to be friends rather than girlfriends. that was gentle. the other, right person wrong time. not much to be done. still friends. it's just unfortunate, and it hurts. heart held and subsequently torn a little. is love awful, as previously stated? jury's still out.
so, i guess i have to just keep going. new home. new job(?). new love(?). new hope. maybe it's all gonna turn out alright.