Peace and contentment
Even while crashing
Anyone who has pets will understand how entirely them being ill consumes your life. Honey has been ill since last Wednesday with tummy issues, which is a lot longer than she normally has them for. I’ve been grilling plain fish for her three times a day and spending the rest of the time watching her closely and giving her anything she wants while we wait for our vet appointment on Wednesday. I only rang the emergency vet twice over the weekend which I think was quite restrained of me, and I only cried one of those times (even more restrained).
I’ve had cats and guinea pigs before, but I’ve never really felt like a Proper pet parent until I adopted Honey. Part of that is likely because I adopted her while I was living by myself, and also that this is the first time my priority hasn’t had to be earning enough money to keep me and my pets alive. Because I don’t have a traditional job, I can really pay attention to her and what she needs without it taking every last ounce of my energy just to meet the basic requirements of pet ownership. She’s an old lady and I love giving her a comfortable retirement home, and in return she gives me endless love and poo. My two favourite things!
I haven’t yet come out of the energy crash that started 10 days ago, even though I had some brief respite last Sunday to officiate some roller derby and eat a roast dinner at a friend’s place. I’ve only convinced myself twice that I can exercise my way out of chronic illness, which I think is quite restrained of me. While it’s horrible to feel like my limbs are full of lead, I’ve managed to find peace and contentment in the things I’m able to do while resting. Animal Crossing has featured heavily, specifically doing very detailed organisation of my item catalogue. Organising is my happy place. A game where I can write lists of ingredients I need to make things and tick them off as I get them is the dream. It’s why I always play legacy challenges on The Sims. If anyone knows of any challenges like that on Animal Crossing, please let me know!
Another place where I can stretch my organisation muscles is on The Storygraph, where I’m a community librarian. There are hundreds of us; we’re volunteers who work on making sure the book records are accurate. If you haven’t heard of The Storygraph, it’s like Goodreads but better and not owned by Am*zon. Logging my reading is something I do every day, and I loooove the data that I can access through it.
I have two current projects – one is registering all the books I own and making sure those records are accurate. The other is working through Huia Publishers’ list and creating/amending the records of all of their books. I don’t know why I chose this particular publisher; I came across them while working on member requests a few years ago and noticed that none of their new releases were on The Storygraph. They’re a small enough publisher that it’s a realistic goal to process their entire catalogue, and it feels important that members are able to see books about Aotearoa and Māori culture and history.
I’ve mostly been swapping between The Storygraph and Animal Crossing for the past week as my energy allows, and it feels pretty good. Crash weeks are deeply boring because I’m mostly at home and mostly stationary, but I feel lucky that there are things I can do that still feel good. Please keep your fingies crossed that this crash lifts soon, ideally before I head back to Brighton for Wigilia and Christmas!
Fingers crossed ! But there’s resting time here as well xxx