So I went to the most amazing Writer’s Fair at the beginning of November. I got all motivated and excited about my writing again. Therefore I readjusted my deadline for sending out my manuscript, and I decided to do NaNoWriMo which for those who don’t know means you start a new novel at the beginning of the month and try to write 50000 words in that month. Both of these on top of my day to day chores with a house and two kids, plus teaching a women’s class at church and being a single mom for three weeks out of the month because my husband was taking a longer shift at his job out of province. Then my health tanked, problems that not the least of which was severe exhaustion (despite 7-10 hours of sleep most nights) and some huge issues with postpartum depression. See How I Deal With PostPartum Depression

How did it all end? I still didn’t make my deadline and I only got about 1000 words into the book I started for NaNoWriMo. Now a part of me really thinks of this as a failure but another part of me realizes that I still tried, and that you have to tackle life as it comes. Am I upset that I didn’t make my deadlines or meet those goals that I wanted too? Darn right I am. However, I am honest enough with myself to know that my health and exhaustion contributed to this. I actually finally began to feel like myself again (for the first time in months) in the past couple weeks.

As much as I would’ve loved to do everything I tackled it didn’t happen. But at the same time I can still keep working towards those goals, just because I didn’t finish them when I wanted to doesn’t mean I should just give up on them. I will accomplish my goals, it may just take some extra time.

The end result is that day by day I’m slowly becoming more of the person I want to be. With the aid of good doctors and friends and family my health is getting back to normal. When I take bites of the proverbial sandwich I’m going to take smaller bites for the next little bit, and once I swallow those begin to take bigger and bigger bites. Time marches on, but so do my trials, and hopefully my strength grows as I take them on and work and push past them, because I know I can.

So if you’re having a bad day, or week, or month, remember that if you get help and understand yourself and keep working, a good day is on it’s way to you.

p.s. If you are also dealing with depression like I was, please talk to someone and get some help, one of the best and most informative and truthful videos about this that I’ve ever seen is this one here:
***Make sure to watch the whole movie all the way through