Catching Up Over Cocoa
Hello, friends and readers. I have returned after nearly a
year of not writing. I sit here with a warm cup of cocoa and half a box of macarons,
ready to give you some updates.
In the past few months, I’ve been hunkering down and social
distancing. Until there is a vaccine for COVID-19, I refuse to go to any gatherings
or to eat out at restaurants often. Unfortunately, I’ve missed two funerals and
I will be missing a wedding. But TRUST that I refuse to fuck around with a disease
that has no method of prevention and no method of treatment. So, what have I
been doing in the time that I’ve been trapped inside?
Let’s start with something big, since it’s something that’s
likely to influence my writing voice from here on out. Sometime in April, I
finally became an agnostic. After several weeks of resting from the rat race of
work, earning a Master’s degree and commuting over 100 miles twice a week, I
finally had some time to put my more refined faculties to work. I became disheartened
when I started seeing a pattern in religious and spiritual communities. More
and more people, even and especially in the New Age community, started to
rescind pandemic protocols, to encourage people not to receive vaccines and to
believe in the malicious QAnon conspiracy theories. This is neither the primary
nor most important reason why I became an agnostic. But it’s the catalyst that
forced me to start thinking about this decision.
My primary reason for becoming
agnostic is that I wanted, first and foremost to pursue truth. For years, I
have been trying to reconcile something as rigid as Catholicism with something
as nebulous as New Age spirituality and something as clinical as science. In
the back of my mind, I always knew I was lying to myself. I was lying to myself
when I thought that someone or something bigger than me was guiding me and
caring for me. I was lying to myself when I convinced myself that I had
inherent purpose or that anything wondrous or magical (at least anything like
starseeds and heaven) existed. It was hard to be okay with that decision. Deep
down, I want something amazing and mystical to exist. (No, rational thinkers.
The wonders of science just don’t count for my vividly creative brain. At
least, not for now.) It hurts to know that divine retribution isn’t there to reward
the just and to punish the evil. And it hurts to know that a tiny, frail
creature, like the kitten that I lost in May, has no afterlife of bliss. But,
it’s a process. I’ve found that the progression of proper coping mechanisms
works in reverse for new members of secular ideology. Whereas religion begins
with a honeymoon phase and wanes into guilt and shame, secular ideology (for
me, at least) begins with a feeling of emptiness. But over time, my coping
mechanisms (which I’ve received, thanks to psychological professionals recommending
methods that actually work according to scientific studies!) strengthen. I see
more wonder in what is already here because there will be nothing more wondrous
than this in my lifetime. I find ways to live my life with joy, even though the
people who have bullied me and hurt me are sometimes doing better than I am.
Over time, I’m becoming okay with the what the algorithm of life has dealt me. If
I can change, I’ll do my best to change it. If I can’t, then I try to move
forward.
Aside from me completely
reassessing my beliefs and my place in the world, I’ve also begun to reassess
my writing career. If I’m honest, I’ve completely lost my desire to write. I
can’t stand the writing community, to be honest. (Not the nice aspiring writers
Twitter. They’re cool.) I can’t stand the hubris of certain members of the
writing community. I can’t stand their virtue-signaling and their excessive
self-promotion. I can’t stand how indecisive this industry can be sometimes. I
can’t stand the few people I meet at writing conferences and critique groups
who are so full of themselves, even though they’re not even published yet! I
know I shouldn’t be saying these things on my blog. But at this point, I don’t
see a clear writing career for me. I will still self-publish on Amazon because
my stories deserve to be heard. I will still keep writing those stories and
querying future projects. But for now, after about 80 queries, I can’t find the
strength to attempt to traditionally publish Paradise in Flames. Of
course, I will let you all know when it’s available for purchase. Amazon has
changed their rules to not allow violence, so I don’t know how long it will
stay on the market.
But, enough doom and gloom. My
quarantine experience has been transformative in positive ways, as well. I’ve adopted
two kittens. One is a black male named Orion and the other is a mixed Siamese named
Baroness. A lot of free time at home has given me the time and energy to take
care of them in their first crucial months of life. They’re so big now that they’ll
be getting spayed and neutered soon.
I’ve decided to take care of the
little things in my life that typically drain my peace and clog up my brain
whenever I’m working and going to school. So far, I’ve managed to get some dental
work done, to get some therapy sessions in and to clean a cabinet. It’s not a
lot to accomplish, but step by step, I’ll get more things done. I’m hunkering
down until there’s a safe and effective vaccine, so I have quite some time to
work on myself.
And in terms of work and what I
plan to do with this fancy schmancy degree of mine? Well, I no longer work at
the children’s tutoring center. Unfortunately, they hadn’t gone digital. And
the college tutoring job was only a one-semester apprenticeship. I was planning
on spending this semester working on my grades at school, but I got caught in a
big bureaucratic mess because I took a quarter off, so I haven’t registered for
any classes for the rest of 2020. But, that’s okay, since I’ve been accepted
into a correctional education internship. That’s all I will say about the job
for privacy reasons. But, I’m elated that I get to do the work that I’ve been
wanting to do since I read Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy. (PS, remind me
to write a review on that soon. It has changed my life and my view on the
prison industrial complex.)
Well, the macarons are gone, the
cocoa has congealed into a cold skin at the bottom of my cup and that’s all I
have for right now. I’m feeling oddly inspired to start posting here again, so
stick around for more blog posts. In the meantime, why don’t you give all my
socials a follow?
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