Thursday, November 2, 2006 1:20 am  <|>
<254> Hold The Door Open: I should be sleeping now, or at least headed in that direction by laying in bed and closing my eyes. Actually, I did try that just now, but instead it came through my mind that I should get up instead and come write for a little while. I suppose I'll keep this short - though whenever I say that I usually end up writing a ton. Really I slept in this morning after a fun night out with friends last night, and I've been up working on some things for a client tonight, so my mind maybe just isn't quite ready to sleep yet.

Things have been going fairly well. I've been feeling tired the last few weeks, but that is starting to go away now that I'm back to weekly shots of medicine (what I used to be on before I went back on dialysis - then was on in a different from that I got from the dialysis machine meds directly)... it took a little while to get back on it thanks to insurance always changing and some slow responses from social workers and kidney coordinators... but it's fixed now and I'll hopefully be getting my levels back up to non anemic range soon enough. My doctors would point out that in strict terms I hadn't again hit the anemic level just yet, but I certainly had the lack of energy level to feel that I had. It's one of the hardest things for people to understand who have never had an issue with such things. The feeling of just a total lack of energy while you do your best to continue on with daily life. You don't look that much different, yet the feelings - not just energy level, but mindset too - are amazingly different. I'm starting to feel better and better though in terms of energy so hopefully the stuff is kicking back in. Right after I got off dialysis I had a surge of energy come back and my levels were actually 'too high' (though I felt great and wasn't complaining) but they had me cease to get back on the medicine right away for fear of my levels going even higher. I was just fine feeling that much energy - it's not like I was super human, I was simply feeling how a 'normal' person usually feels who is healthy and such. But it wasn't to remain I suppose and as that level slipped away the 'normal' level for myself didn't last all that long before the tiredness kicked in. Oh well, like I said, I'm hopefully working to turn that around slowly, but surely.

I am moving things along with Metatative lately. It had a birthday - 1 year as of October that I registered it officially. Yes a whole year has passed, but of course I didn't start out being able to getting take on much since I had full time work and then the health stuff came... but now I've been free to work my part time at my main company (which I now consider a client too) and also look to take on more. I have a second mainish client that I'm starting to spend more and more time on. It's a challenge, maybe a little more than I at first thought it would be, to have it both going on at the same time with real clients on both sides... At my main company where I've worked now for years I'm only contract part time, but I still feel like a full timer since I'm in the same position basically that I've always been in. It's steady hourly work that's hard to pass up, but my need to branch out and establish myself with Metatative and other clients is too needed and too strong to ignore it at this point. Then once in awhile I go completely nuts and see a full time job I just can't pass up applying for. I don't really except to get these and they are few and far between (mostly because I keep myself from looking and definitely from applying when possible), but sometimes I just think I should leave myself open to the possibility. At the same time, I really believe that my relaxed work schedule has aided me in keeping my health as good as it's been and my stress levels down. I know it's perhaps only half to do with the last time I started a real full time job I had to leave because my kidney almost failed completely... yeah I'd be lying if I didn't say the association was hard to ignore... but I know that I had also been feeling pretty run down before I started the new job last year as I was leaving the old (now still part time current) one. It's weird. But I do believe things work out the way they must for a reason, so I just keep going on...

Concetta is home from Scotland, she got back several weeks ago. She's had a ton going on in terms of getting her life up and running again and that inspires me to get up and going myself - though maybe not in the same ways - but just in general. It's good to have someone around you that keeps you inspired and it's not that I don't have Dan for that in many ways, but a partner is different in a lot of ways too. We are all artists - almost all of the people I spend my time with are - so to a degree that keeps me going, but a lot of us lack the time to focus the way we'd really like and so sometimes that desire needs refreshing, even for the ones that try the hardest. Lately I've been trying to keep myself focused on things long enough to develop my actual art a little more. I separate it more and more from my design work I guess and having an actual company to handle any money making stuff on that end helps I suppose. I don't really do art the same way some of my friends do and I certainly don't have the talent that many of them do either, but I'd like to think that maybe I have a chance at developing my own thing and just seeing where it takes me. I enjoy it, so at least I'll be having a good time in the process.

So much for keeping this short, huh? I'm starting to get tired now at least. I'm working full days tomorrow and Friday, and have things planned at night on both upcoming nights as well too I think - at least I know my evening and night will be packed on Friday. Saturday I am supposed to go to a friend's birthday party as well, though I don't know all the details of that quite yet. So I always hate approaching the weekend when it's only the middle of the week knowing that a lot of the time is already spoken for. Yes, I'm more productive on a deadline or tight schedule at times, but sometimes I just need the time to myself too. It's good when I get to spend the extra time with friends or something, which I don't feel I ever really get too much off, but even when I'm spending time on things I enjoy it's hard not to get overwhelmed once in awhile to feeling like times back in college when there was 'always' work to be doing if you weren't working. It was a weird balance and check system that partly only existed in everyone's head (though the work was really always there). It gets like that sometimes now. I might feel like I have a ton to do - because in reality I really always do - but I've learned not to let that stop me from taking some down time and that is also an important step in staying healthy I think. It's an overall mindset and combination of things that I just have to keep myself reminded of really. And if I can succeed at that, then I believe I really can keep on going...