The Mean Streets (OOC Thread)
Nothing's bad or miserable or on fire, I just have a perfect storm of three bandwidth-stealing things happening all at once.
First, it's audit season at work with two full-scale, multi-day regulatory audits happening in the next two months (with all the associated pre and post mini-audits and debriefs). Which is fine, it's my job and I'm good at my job and my co-regulatory wrangler is both my wife and an epic-level super-genius, so we got this. But there's a lot to do, most of it composed of brain-draining reading of very fiddly clauses and sub-clauses of complex regulatory documents and documenting, documenting, documenting.
Second, about a week ago I was formally diagnosed with Adult ADHD (after a lot of effort put into securing and taking the testing). Which is good, it's a long time coming and I'm excited about the possibilities it represents. But it means that I'm now in the process of experimenting with nervous system stimulants and dismantling all my decades' old coping mechanisms in order to replace them with better ones. Next year I'll be a super-powered version of who I am now, but today, right now, it's taking a lot of brain to navigate.
Third, for unrelated reasons, I've made the decision to leave what has been my primary hobby for the past number of years: the keeping and raising of tarantula spiders. I have an extensive collection, so I have over 100 spiders of various size and species and complexity of husbandry and housing to find new owners for in a way that serves the animals' best interests and mine.
So, none of it bad. Some of it quite good. But all in all, lately each day just vanishes in a puff of smoke in a way I haven't experienced since my children were small.
And I found I was stressing every day about my posting rate. Which made me feel bad. And that made me avoid checking in to avoid saying 'sorry guys' one more time. And being avoidant isn't good for anyone.
So. tl;dr I need to take a full mental break for a bit. Just put down the responsibility completely. Sell some spiders, get my medication and my therapy/coaching and my regulatory affairs all in order.
Come back stronger on the far end.
Thanks for listening.