- So I got spouse working on this jigsaw puzzle instead of playing endless rounds of civ. He'd been on it about 7 hours and I wandered over to check out his progress. And I put a piece in place. And another. And then we're both working on the puzzle and it's midnight. "We should go to bed," says spouse, frowning over the pieces we think are boba fett's pants. Do not underestimate the mental stickiness of the jigsaw puzzle. "So I guess we're puzzle people now," I say to spouse. "I'm not ready to say I'm a puzzle person," he replies. I joke, "What are we, puzzle curious?" He ignores that comment to focus on the practical. "We need a better puzzle table. This one isn't big enough." I agree.

Behold the beauty of the jigsaw puzzle. It's cheap and made of cardboard, has no time limit or rules or set number of players, requires no electricity or battery or internet, can be picked up or set aside at a whim, is rewarding with no threat of failure - all winners, no losers. I'm starting to think it's the perfect sort of zen communal busywork the modern world lacks. I dunno if it's any more intellectually meaningful than a computer game, but the fact that it's an open invitation for anyone to join in and participate (rather than being closed off in the game world from others) is a positive.

The puzzle is good.

- I worked on ornaments for the mural. I made a couple out of zip ties. Since I admired people making crowns out of zip ties I have wanted to do something similar, so I scavenged metal rings from spouse's leatherworking stuff and then put zip ties around the ring radiating outward. Would have been better if we had more smaller zip tie variety but the point was using stuff we already had. But with some paint and glitter and plastic jewels, they came out alright. I made an accordion fold ornament. I took a brown paper shopping bag, cut it down the side and opened it up, then cut that 36" length into three strips (5.5" x 36"). I painted half the strip with gold craft paint, let it dry, then folded it accordion style with the help of a metal ruler, so it is about 5.5"x1.25". I trimmed the top and bottom even. Then I cut into it like cutting a snowflake, using scissors on a few folds at a time. Take needle and thread and run it through a single hole at the bottom, creating an anchor point so the folds open up like a circular fan. Allow for an overlap in the folds so it can be glued and the ornament will stay in a circular shape. Ta daa. These worked well. I tried making an ornament out of toilet paper center rolls and that one came out sad. The way the tube is formed is not uniform, so there are points of varying softness and stiffness and that means it doesn't give good results as a crafting material. Lame. Not even a ton of hot glue could fix it.

- Spouse and I caught some sort of cold bug, probably at thanksgiving. I was feeling off during the week, picked up spouse and he's sniffling, so we both caught something. No fever, no loss of taste or smell, no cough. Seems to be just a garden variety cold. Pretty normal for me to catch some bug after getting stressed out. I'm tired and sleeping lots and having weird dreams. Pressure in my ears. I thought I was over it yesterday but I kept getting tired. Today is more of the same.

- It was a good weekend, but between the emotional lows and catching sick I am pretty low energy. It's very quiet in the apartment, and cold. I hate to admit to being a weenie but apparently I am. I somehow broke the thermostat several months ago (I pushed too many buttons and it locked up and there's no visible reset port) and I haven't bothered calling maintenance. Tolerating some suboptimal temps is not a bad thing, I figure. The heat is set at somewhere around 65-67 degrees - some people would say a very reasonable warm indoor temperature. But I am so cold. I'm wearing three layered tops, an apron, sweatpants over leggings, wool socks and wool sock slippers over them, and a kerchief on my head and a scarf (I look like a fat pirate fortuneteller), and it still feels like it is 40 degrees in here. It's not because I am sick - I am just cold. And when I get cold I can warm up by either taking a hot shower or getting in bed for a nap. "Oh exercise will warm you up" but I can barely scrounge the motivation to take a shower at this point. The fact that I am in a fat pirate fortuneteller outfit really does nothing for my self esteem.

So I am cold and the apartment feels starkly empty and sad. Usually I try to put on a movie or a show (something with people talking) to fill up the space a bit. But it's not having the effect I'd like. The kitchen is a mess again and I'm out of some food items but lack the energy to go shopping. Maybe I will care a little more when I get hungry enough. I've lost the momentum that I had before thanksgiving. I've lost the plot.

This is normally the point in depression where I start freaking out a bit and getting really upset at myself and I just burn whatever energy I've got left saying mean things to myself. I'm aware this never results in anything positive. I've never berated myself out of a depression.

Yesterday I managed to wash the sheets and remake the bed. Today I took a shower and cleaned the cat box.

--

It took several days to write this post because I have been in such a low mood. Whatever momentum I had got crushed and it felt like I got sent back to square zero, or maybe worse than zero. Felt like I absolutely wasted the past 3 weeks of my life and I am so worried I will squander this time and never recover. It is critical for me to set up good habits and sort my shit out properly now and I have been struggling with feeling like I am failing myself. I never had such an opportunity like this and maybe I never will again. The headaches really kept me down and I've managed to sort them out somewhat and now it's like ... fucking deliver or just crawl in a hole and be a miserable failure until you die. Are you worth something or are you just wasting oxygen. This is the time to rise if ever there was one. My whole life I have been struggling from one thing to the next sort of making due and blaming certain outside circumstances for my failures and shortcomings. Oh, if I didn't have to work so much overtime, or if my job wasn't eating my soul, or if I weren't poor, or if I weren't single, or if I weren't struggling because of X, blah blah blah. But I have none of that right now. Literally the easiest time of my life. Like, put up or shut up. Figure it out.

But it's paradoxically difficult to understand the identity crisis that comes when one is relieved from the burden of a job or other adult trappings or even the burden of friendship connections. Sounds great but it is terrifying ('sweet horrible freedom' as my one roommate liked to say after he left the army). Who am I without a paycheck to define me or stress to complain about or social things to do. It's a very companionable thing, complaining about basic stressors. Instant rapport with others. I have been living in this identity vacuum and it's super scary. All I'm good for is making food and washing dishes and doing laundry and cleaning the catbox. Shit, anybody can do that. Everybody already does that. I'm not even a parent - I can't point at a baby and make noises about diapers and childcare costs. How do I justify my own internal worth. We get trained to look at outside metrics to define ourselves. Grades. Test scores. Awards. Family members. Friend groups. And here I am and all the outside things I relied on as proof that I was worthwile (or outside things I scapegoated to disguise my shortcomings) are gone. Literally the only identity I have left is "supportive spouse". So I cook and clean and do the chores and try to prop myself up that way because spouse is the sun my life orbits now, like it or not. I adore him but I am also so painfully dependant on him, and that was never an identity I saw as flattering or enviable. Who wants to be domestic, honestly. Maybe that's the systematic undervaluing of domestic and emotional labor talking, or the grrl power feminist messages, but having a "supportive spouse" identity is about as brag worthy as a part time job at wal mart. I look down my nose at it but it's all I've got.

I made all these thanksgiving plans and did all this work and really went all out with this "supportive spouse" vibe and it fucking crashed and burned like the Hindenburg. No survivors. Should have been a really nice thanksgiving, was somehow a total failure. Pancaked so hard I'll be feeling it for years.

There are several truths here.

1) I put in a tremendous amount of work and spouse was a total wet blanket and ruined what should have been a very nice holiday.

2) I know spouse has never been big on special occasions but I really wanted some validation so I tried to put on a show to get some and he just didn't play the game like I wanted.

3) I felt obligated to do a fancy thanksgiving song and dance because it seemed like the thing to do under the circumstances. There is a national holiday of feasting. Spouse has been gone. Make celebratory traditional feast. Happiness ensues. Except it didn't and I didn't get the promised payoff for my work that all the commercials promise.

Unfortunately, understanding all these things does not make the failure any less crushing. I wasted a bunch of precious time and now it seems like all future special occasions have been tainted. I'm not going to be able to get excited for holiday prep after this. All the burden of the work and decisions and sustaining the energy/mood fell on me. Nobody cared about all my work, or reciprocated. Why would I put myself through that again. I could make a decision to delegate certain tasks ("you, get over here, you're washing the dishes now") or make rules to enforce holiday cheer ("no playing computer games, put your phone in the phone jail") but all that does is make me wear the holiday police hat, enforcing mandatory fun laws ("be merry OR ELSE"). I have no interest in being the holiday police. A lot of people go down the road of putting on the "mom" authority role in their relationships. I sure did, especially in my 20s. It's a mistake. The answer isn't "be more assertive", because that also puts the whole burden of success on the primary. "Oh, the holiday could have been amazing but I didn't take charge and communicate clearly enough so it's all my fault." No. Lies. This is how the passive players perpetuate shirking a fair workload and taking advantage of the active primary.

But if I stop celebrating that is not what I want, then all the holidays will be sad. Can't win, can't win. Sure, it's a bunch of insane consumerist claptrap wrapped in painful revisionist history, but it's still a holiday. There's a nugget of goodness in there.

I found the motivation to run some errands and get some food. Already eaten anything in the house worth eating. No interest in cooking so I just got stuff for sandwiches. They make a pretty decent low carb bread. I don't know what cancer causing food wizardry they use but the product is decent enough to pass for bread. Sandwiches are easy and good and no cooking.

Cheered up a bit after errands. I went to walmart for a dirt cheap space heater (it's more for the grey project but in the meantime I have it at the desk, so maybe I will be less cold) and I found a pack of nice bookbinding boards on clearance for $5, normally $25. Guess nobody goes to walmart for their bookbinding hobby. Stole more free coasters from home depot and bought some weatherstripping to repurpose as a plug holder in my jewelry box.

So I have been sort of mechanically working on the motivation restart process, starting back at level zero. I can't remember what I've written about and what I haven't, but back in early november I got some little glass containers and some things we used as RPG tokens and I set up a little system for rewarding daily activity. Each glass is labeled with a few simple chores and it's partially a reminder to do the thing and partially a little tactile reward to take a token and drop it in the glass when it is complete. When I get demotivated and low energy I have an extremely hard time organically prompting myself with a task. I know that accomplishment is the catalyst that helps me get out of the hole, but everything just seems grey and flat and there are no priorities or desires. Like Morla the Ancient One says, nothing matters. I am so self-critical in this mindset that I will sabotage any small attempt at accomplishment. Like, for instance, making the bed, an easy thing. I'd tell myself it's stupid to count making the bed as an accomplishment and nobody cares anyway so why bother. But with the little glass containers, it's already set up and labeled and I don't have to struggle to think up tasks that are both easy and "worthy". I even got some pretty mismatched cut glass containers from the thrift shop and they make a nice musical sound when I drop in a token. So I reset that for december. It helps to have made the task groupings when I was in a higher energy mood, because I remember why I wanted to do the thing. Oh yeah, the bedroom looks nice when the bed is made. I have to help myself over the self-imposed speed bump.

Back in november I tested some disappearing ink/water soluble markers, commonly used for quilting (the purple air erasable markers worked the best). I took a piece of cardstock and wrote three prompts on it in permanent ink and taped it to the mirror in the bathroom. In the morning, I write my answers with this purple marker, and it slowly vanishes over the course of the next 24 hours. The next day the paper is blank and I don't have to worry about feeling guilty about not accomplishing yesterday's thing. Very zen. The idea is that it is supposed to help me get excited and anticipate some activity for the day. I know this sounds gradeschool basic but the less energy I have, the more difficult it is to remember that I was interested in working on a project or doing some activity. I'm not very good at spontaneity because it takes thought and effort to recall the emotional connection. But if I have the prompt I can think about it and write it down and keep the interest fresh.

I took the paper down before thanksgiving because we had a visitor. So I put the paper back up. I need to remake it because my original three prompts turned out to be confusing. I wrote:

1) What do you WANT to do?

2) What do you NEED to do?

3) Novelty/adventure/explore:

The problem is that I find it very difficult (especially when low energy) to differentiate between want and need. Theoretically "want" should be something fun and "need" should be something not fun, but oftentimes in a long project, most of it is seriously not fun. I have trouble identifying "fun" - the concept is more confusing than it should be. So I found that I could only come up with the same thing for both #1 & #2 and some days there is no novelty component. What I want to do is the same thing I need to do and vice versa. So I need to revise it as:

1) Name something you are excited to do.

2) Name something you don't want to do.

3) Novelty/adventure/explore:

For instance today, I could be excited to finish an inktober, and something I don't want to do is either clean the kitchen or bring the cat litter up from the car, and I don't really have a novelty thing unless I get around to trying to make this paper strip ornament that looks interesting. So there, I have three things to use as basic tentpoles for my day. If I find myself getting in a reddit hole or tempted to nap, I can revisit those three things and give myself a direction.

Swedish star woven paper ornament.

So even though I am stupid low energy right now, I can set these things up and make it easier to get back on the horse, without relying on other people to be around for me. The problem with other people is they often have their own life issues, and if they can't provide satisfactory support they can easily become a target for blame and make the depression worse. In my experience, seeking support from others is futile at best. You can't outsource the care you crave. Short term, maybe, but long term everyone will fail you, intentionally or carelessly, because ultimately the burden is unfair. So I have to work out the process to restart my own motor.

I was worrying over the problem of this coming christmas. I have the turkey in the freezer already, but I've got no appetite to make the full feast. I don't have the appetite for much cooking or preparation at all. Do I just resign myself to a sad christmas, where all it is is a reflection of the failure of thanksgiving?

I could do the snack platter - easy enough, no cooking there. Nothing wrong with a sandwich - I like sandwiches. The only thing better than a sandwich is a grilled cheese.

And that's when I had the genius idea I'm going to use for future holidays. Snack platter, grilled cheese with turkey, and a big pot of soup. See, I make the turkey, I carve it up, and everyone makes their own fucking sandwich and grills it themselves. In the future I can just get good deli meats and I don't even have to make a god damn turkey, just the pot of soup. It's genius I say. Just like the corporations put in self checkout stands, I am outsourcing my labor. Maybe after the move we'll get a panini maker - just make the sandwich right at the food table and they can't mess up my good cookware. Who doesn't like grilled cheese and soup? I love grilled cheese and soup. It's an excuse to get good sourdough bread.

So I'll either make this very good russian mushroom potato soup recipe I already have, or I'll find a tomato bisque recipe. I'm leaning towards tomato because red is a christmas color.

See I still get the fun part where I pick out the different things for the snack platter, yet I skip most of the drudgery of cooking the dishes and doing the endless cleaning. Soup isn't too complicated and I can just make it in the instant pot and leave it on warm. Everyone can help themselves. It's still a celebration thing but it's not sad and I don't get stuck with all this drudge work I hate. It's brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.

So that went a long way to help the holiday problem. I feel a lot better with a plan.

It's not like everything is fixed, I still lost a lot of time and my energy is still low. But I have the foundation back in place. I should write up a manual to myself so I have it for the next motivation hole, whenever it happens.