#emo hours xoxo(in an optimistic way tho dw)

[mementofloreo-archived]

An Update/Happy New Years Letter from Toby!!

hi folks, here's a catchup post from yours truly! it's a bit long so i've put it under a readmore, but there's nothing too serious under there, it really is just a life update of the same sort I try to write every new year!

sorry for not being around lately! i've been having a pretty bad chronic pain flareup and have been kinda sick.

a while back my cat- who is a nasty little escape artist and very naughty boy!!- managed to get outside the house. it was on an evening when it would later get into the single digits.

milo's very important to me, and we live right next to a highway now, so every time he does this it's stressful. when he wasn't back home by around ten pm(despite each of us periodically going to check and call for him) I got pretty desperate. it was so cold out, and i felt distraught just thinking about him possibly getting sick or hurt or worse out there somewhere when it was 12 degrees and getting colder.

In the end I was wandering around calling for him out there for about half an hour, and then spent half an hour sitting on the patio with my phone and calling for him periodically. I knew spending so much time in the cold would make me really sick bc I've always been frail and highly sensitive to the cold dry of winter, so i have myself to blame for that.

i had to leave a blanket out for milo in the end bc it was getting hard to breathe; he did finally come home a little later and i found him on his blankie close to midnight. he was calm and not shivering or seeming sick, so he must have found somewhere pretty safe to hang out before coming and staying warm on the porch. he was VERY hungry and thirsty when he came inside but he's remained healthy since and in good spirits, so I'm fine with being sick. he's my baby and I would rather get a cold working to get him home than have him not come home at all, or let him get hurt or sick.

storytime aside, it's just a time of year when I tend to struggle a lot more with my emotional and mental health. my family has suffered through a lot of tragedies that took place around this time and it's also the worst time for my seasonal affective disorder. so on top of my physical health being worst in winter, so is all my other health. ongoing shortages of several different medications(mostly for adhd and similar symptoms) in my area mean that I am also without my adderall or concerta and haven't had reliable access since about november. I don't function at nearly even ten percent without them, so that has also been a big factor.

to my new mutuals, I'm sorry I haven't been around! I hope we can finally start chatting and plotting soon, because I truly do want to get to know you and see what clicks for us as writers.

and to my friends and other mutuals, thank you as always for your patience with my spotty activity and for still being sociable with and happy to hear from me even when I'm not feeling able to write. you're more precious to me(every one of you!!) than I can adequately express.

since the start of 2020, my life and my family's lives have all been very difficult, fraught with hardships of all different sorts and a lot of chaotic and unpredictable change. the divorce and eventual remarriage of one of my brothers; my mom and i moving out to live with her sister in the first months of 2020 in a last ditch effort to drive my dad to finally really address his drinking problem(he is now over a year sober!!!)

and then of course my mom getting sick that may,

and then never getting better.

and then we found out that she never would. she has chronic fatigue syndrome now, and issues with low blood pressure and breathing. the family home we'd lived in since I was just a little kid was old old old and we found out eventually that she had new mold allergies. as our savings dried up and we finally managed to sell and move out at the end of 2021, I knew '22 would be harrowing.

and it was. it was awful. from the end of january to the end of august I lived in the spare room at my brother's home, unsure what would happen from one day to the next, how long i would be there.

since early september my parents and i have been slowly settling into a double wide mobile home we were(by the grace of luck and higher powers) able to purchase rather than simply rent, when we had thought initially it would be difficult to even find an apartment that would meet mom's needs and be withing our range.

but we finally have some stability and peace of mind in our lives again. and I hope that will bode well for the rest of this year.

I don't know how soon I'll be consistently active here on the dashboard again, but I do want to try, even if it ends up a slow process. happy new year to all of you, and i dearly hope you will see more of me as it goes on.

-Toby