2024: A Challenging, Frustrating Year
It’s hard to believe that December is already halfway over. These last few months have felt excruciatingly long, yet looking back on them now, they seem to have passed by in the blink of an eye. Since I finished my book in late-September, my time has primarily been divided among reading, conceptualizing my next project, and trying to get a handle on my persistent–and ever-perplexing–health issues. There’s a lot of uncertainty in my life at the moment, and I feel like I’m suspended in time, biding my time while I wait: for answers; for my writing career to take off, or at least gain a little momentum; for my ideas
A Huge Life Change and Growing Stronger from Adversity
Fall is finally here. The days are getting cooler, the trees are beginning to shed their multicolored leaves, and a scurry of squirrels has inundated my backyard to stockpile nuts for the upcoming winter. This year, the arrival of autumn signifies more to me than merely the changing of seasons, but also a fresh start, and the long-awaited end to what has been one of the most challenging summers of my life. Back in June, I wrote a blog post about the positive mental transformations I was experiencing as a result of certain changes to my lifestyle. Well, no more than a couple of weeks had elapsed since publishing that
Managing My Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (So That I Can Write!)
OCD isn’t something I’ve really discussed much, even though it’s been a part of my life for going on four years. This is partly because, for a long time, I didn’t have the terminology to describe the worsening compulsion that was wreaking havoc on my writing, and partly because, until about a year ago, I wasn’t able to admit to myself that I even had a problem. As infuriating as my disorder was, it was also extremely familiar, and I wasn’t yet ready to face up to the truth and change my counterproductive ways. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when the OCD started, but if I had to guess, I’d
Simplifying Life and Quieting My Mind
At the start of the calendar year, I made it my goal to prioritize my mental health; I wanted 2024 to be the year I overcame–or at least began to overcome–the mental health issues that’d been negatively, and significantly, impacting my life for the last few years. Mainly, I’m referring to my anxiety disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder, which, as my eating disorder progressively got better, have progressively gotten worse. And as the latter, in particular, had begun to wreak havoc on my writing career, this seemed like the year to face it head-on, to put in the hard work required to improve my mental health with the goal of improving the quality
The Best Books I Read in 2023
Well, the time has come yet again, to rank the top books I read in the past year. This is the third installment of my best books series, and with each subsequent year, I feel as though my love of literature only grows stronger. Of all the books I’ve read this year, the following eight titles have stood out from the rest, for writing, character development, theme, or–in many cases–a combination of the three. Here they are … The Great Believers – Rebecca Makkai This was the first book I read in 2023, and it set a pretty high standard for the year, to say the least. Nominated for a
A Few Big Changes This Winter
It’s that time of the year again. The days are getting shorter and colder, Christmas music is playing everywhere, and the cacophonous leaf blowing that dominated the last two months has finally fallen silent. This winter feels very different than winters past. For starters, this is the first year my family isn’t doing anything special for the holidays. Growing up, holidays were a huge deal in my house, and I always eagerly anticipated the traditions and piled-high presents that defined Christmases in my youth. Especially when I was struggling with my mental health, Christmas was placed on a pedestal, the one time of the year when I might find some reprieve