We’re going to go beneath the surface a bit today.
Sometimes, it can be hard to keep up your focus. I’ll use myself as an example (bet you saw that coming, didn’t you?). This week has been pretty horrible. I’m leaving for Florida tomorrow to visit my grandparents amidst a storm of family drama that includes but is not limited to my eighteen-year-old cousin shocking everyone and breaking up with her boyfriend, leaving her job, and moving in with some guy she never met in Ohio, my brother in the hospital for a suicide attempt because he has horrible PTSD, has lost 23 people in his local support group, and is convinced that no matter how hard he tries and how much good he does, the world is an ugly place in horrible pain and he doesn’t know how to handle that, and the rest of my family flipping out because I am daring to travel without my service dog (he’s sick) and haven’t been on my anti-seizure meds regularly since just after this COVID nightmare began….among other things.
In times like these, classic!Nova is a fickle beast. See, as I’ve mentioned before, I have gotten so used to handling things on my own that I… Well… I try to handle things on my own. In this instance, that has meant internalizing a bunch of crap because if I’m not calm, if I can’t be a voice of reason, everyone else will be even worse than they already are, and then where would we be? What I want to do is break shit and cry a little, but I can’t do that, so I’ve just been trying to deal in other ways, throwing myself into work here in SL, for example, cranking out photos, throwing the almighty Flickr algorithm into an uproar, and just in general trying to focus on anything but what is going on. Classic!Nova convinces herself that if she focuses hard enough, all the extra stuff will sort itself out right and she won’t have to burden anyone with it.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that.
I was recently reminded of the wonderful people I talk about here sometimes. New friends. People that I can actually count on and talk to. Yesterday, I unloaded about what was going on to a few of them, shared my concerns and the underlying fears they were birthing… and I felt a little better. There wasn’t this undercurrent of worry that I had shared something so raw to me. I didn’t feel bad for sharing and saying what was on my mind…and I think that speaks a lot to the kinds of people I have surrounded myself with now. Beautiful, understanding, kind souls who care about what’s going on in my life because they actually care about me. Did it fix everything? Nope. But getting the opportunity to be truly honest about how I have been feeling without worry of some nuclear backlash means that new!Nova feels a little better about things, because classic!Nova’s next step would be a disappearing act. I know that about myself, but I can also see that this time, it all feels different. All this insanity is still going on, and there’s still that underlying stress and fear because I know everyone around me is hurting and I feel like I can’t do anything about it, but I don’t need to hide because I have people I can actually depend on now. That means the world. Like, wow, guys.
I really hope y’all didn’t think we were going to talk about keeping a blogging schedule or something. I mean, that’s good, too. Schedules are good, plans are good. But… motivation is more than that. It’s looking beyond the physical things to what’s underneath and attacking the problem at its root. It’s recognizing that stuff isn’t going to go right all the time and still finding that will to keep doing the things you know will bring you some level of normal. It’s telling yourself that everything is going to be okay, even when you’re in the thick of the bog of eternal stench, and continuing to move forward.
Stay motivated, guys. Surround yourself with people who love you, with things you love to do, with things that give you some measure of peace, and keep going. Accept the things you can not change, make the healthy changes that you can make, and let people in. It will make a world of difference.
Credits:
[Shape][Divine Transformations]Nova Shape **custom**
[Head][LeLUTKA]Simone v. 3.4
[Body][Belleza]Freya 5.0
[Skin][The Skinnery]Paris (Toffee)
[Lips][Izzie’s]Matte Love Lipstick
[Hair][Magika]Faye
[Dress][Vanilla Bae @ Collabor88]Paige Dress
[Headpiece/Orbits][Zibska @ SaNaRae]
[Collar][Zibska @ SaNaRae]
[Pose][Foxcity]from Fixated set
[Tune][Adam Lambert – Underneath]
I Promise I Know What I'm Doing 