by Kai | Jun 14, 2021 | Gaming and hobbies, Geekery, Language, linguistics, About D Kai Wilson-Viola, Mental wellness, Op-eds, Writing, Mental health, living with bipolar, A day in the life, coding, Dissertation, Featured
I know this is an odd concept to raise for someone that’s a business owner and often works as hard as I do to advocate for others, who has raised two children to adulthood and when I think about it, survive what could be seen as serious negligence by my older psych team, but sometimes, do you wish you didn’t have to ‘adult?’
Adulting is overrated
I don’t mean by this that I don’t think I should have zero responsiblities. I’m just really tired of not getting ‘a win’ in the things that I do, not really. All of my planned treats, no matter how small, have either fallen through, or I’ve had to ask my partner to pay for them after all – which makes me feel bad. He doesn’t mind as much, but it’s a bit hard to talk to my kids about being adult and responsible then running to my other half and crying because life is hard.
And lately, I’ve been crying a lot.
I try not to focus on bullying, because it’s not a positive thing to think about and it gives them power, but often, I’m finding a lot of people when they are challenged on what they say, suddenly try turning the tables and creating the idea that they’re a victim. That you’re in the wrong.
Compound that by the fact that often, this is over hosting bills or whatnot, and you can see how it hurts me to have people treat me this way.
Reality…
Realistically, my company actually works, just about right now. I’ve got some work to do over the end of my Kaiatus to launch a few websites, but, we’re actually stable. Wire thin margins, but stable, so when someone starts complaining about their hosting bill, there is a bit of me that doesn’t want to engage. Another bit of me that knows I have to, because if I don’t, they’ll not pay. And a huge bit of me that’s wary, because I’ve been attacked recently for not considering giving away services free for the pandemic.
I only really manage what I do because I’ve kept beta accounts with places that aren’t as great as they could be and finding ways to fix the shortfall, or doing the stuff that I need manually. But realistically, I’ve been out of spoons and upset for about a week now.
The thing is…I can’t really pillow fort. Next week sees the start of my graded exposure to the outside world. In laymans terms, that means for the first time in five years, I’ll be leaving my house and going for a walk…and trying not to throw up when I do. It’ll either be brilliant, or I’ll make it brillaint, but today was a day where I could have just done with hiding away and not needing to deal with the world. If I manage it though, Prime Day reward will be nice. I never get anything extravegant, but….treating myself to some new books for Uni or some additional research tools would be nice (cybersec isn’t a ‘cheap’ study area, Forensic linguistics even less, and honestly? I’m lucky. I’ve got access to stuff through my partner and friends). If not there, Humble Bundle always has cool books on AI.
See…I can adult
When I start thinking like this, often, my friends point out that I pull myself out of it. I’m #blessed to get to do what I do. And, yes, I am. It doesn’t change though when nothing is going right and no one wants to do as they’re supposed to, and you need the books before the end of the month, or you’re looking forward to a tiny treat that keeps getting postponed, that you feel this way. It’s still not the ‘correct’ way to think, but….rewards are sometimes good. When applied sensibly. I can’t do it any other way. And for those of you pointing out ‘I can ask…’ I can. You’re right. Lucky me again, but….why should my partner bail me out when I’ve planned and it should work?
Like I said, I don’t like adulting. At all. 42 years old and I wish I didn’t need to. I’m just so tired of everything being uphill.
And don’t ask me about books. Still waiting for my 100 ISBNs…
Kai is a writer, author and avid reader. A mental health advocate, Ludosport athlete and coder. She’s the mother of two young adults, owned by two cats, and lives with her beloved in the Cotswolds.
by Kai | Sep 5, 2016 | Mental wellness, Organisation, Writing, Mental health, writing habit, A day in the life, writing well, and more, living with bipolar, Announcements, Novels, Reading and Reviewing, coding, diet and lifestyle, Featured
So, I was a bit quiet about it, but I went on holiday for two weeks in the middle of August. I spent the last two weeks battering around a pile of theme parks – Disney, Universal, Blizzard Beach (One of Disney’s waterparks), plus Nasa, Gatorland, the Florida Mall, Denny’s, IHOP… we did so much that I’m spending so much time just exploring my experiences and filing them away carefully. My memory being what it is, I’ve also got about a gazillion photos that we all took – me, David, his mom, his sister, the kids.
I’ll talk about that more in another post (because this blog is getting picked up again as my ‘personal’ place to talk stuff, aren’t y’all lucky), but I need to touch on something I realised while I was away. I am doing far too much. FAR too much. There’s no room for me to learn and explore my world, and there’s no room for writing, none at all.
So, you might say ‘but you knew this already Kai, this isn’t a surprise’. And you’re right. But between barely holding it together to grief, and to sleep deprivation (I sleep six hours a night, on my best night. Normal nights are closer to five hours clawed back, with melatonin and other meds), so my little brain needs to be taught the hard way.
And the hard way was basically taking me offline for most of two weeks. My phone doesn’t do roaming and I decided, early on, that I wouldn’t use the wi-fi, so I basically read, spent a lot of time hanging out with my kids (my son and I played pool a lot) and just enjoying *being*.
Now, my being is books and writing, so I spent a lot of time trying to work out what I should do with myself. I don’t read or write nearly enough, and just behind that, I’m not doing a day of learning that I promised myself. So there’s all that. Behind that, and not far behind that either, I have a business to run – hosting and apps as it happens, and a diary I designed to help with all of this stuff. I know it works because I hit the ground running when I came back.
I know it sounds like I’m happy with all of this, but I’m not. It’s one of the most important things in my world- the ability to get to the point where I am comfortable and happy and can work with what I’d like to do, and I’ve lost that.
I’ll get there, but I’m sure it’s going to be bumpy for the next few weeks. I’m happy to get with it, but there are things that are important to me, lost in the shuffle. And all it took was a two-week holiday to spot it.
My mental health is still deteriorating, but I think I know how to sort that out too – I just need a bit of space to do it. Space isn’t easy to come by though, so while I do, I need to make sure I’m holding up my end of other stuff too.
But there is a ray of hope. Writing and my books. While this is a personal blog, the pro stuff will appear here too. One thing I did learn while I was away was that while my heart is full helping others, my soul sings for words. And I have so many stories to tell. And I want to tell them.
Kai is a writer, author and avid reader. A mental health advocate, Ludosport athlete and coder. She’s the mother of two young adults, owned by two cats, and lives with her beloved in the Cotswolds.
by Kai | Jun 28, 2016 | Fiction, Hosting and Tech, Novels, Gaming and hobbies, The Art of...., Geekery, The Home Office, News, Organisation, things you don't know about me, Op-eds, Other sites, Thrillers and crime, Mental health, Pen names, Vids, A day in the life, Personality, Writing, Announcements, planning, writing habit, Reading and Reviewing, Sci fi, writing well, content, site stuff, Books, Featured, tapping the well, living with bipolar
I know, I know, I said yesterday I’d post something, but we filmed this, we filmed some other stuff, and then…well, other things got in the way, so we changed the order we did the vids in, and stuff.
I’m writing this from my bed today – I’m not having a great week already, but I’m sure it’ll get better 🙂
So, today, I’m inviting you over to Authorinterrupted, which you, Constant Reader, may or may not know, is my ‘professional’ writer’s blog, but which, for a very long time last year was just ‘my blog’. I’m going to split off the personal posts and either mirror or redirect those to here.
For those of you asking how best to keep up with this instead of remembering where I left off the day before, if you go to ByKai, you should find that all the posts mirror there, though they may appear slightly out of synced order to when I post on Facebook to say there’s a new post live. But, also as requested, Kai’s Blog Page, or Kai’s Blogging Network as I prefer to call it, has started this week too! Exciting stuff.
So, without further ado, my promised freebie, and see you later, over on Authorinterrupted.com – let me know what you think!
If it’s not behaving here, I’m launching my own Youtube Channel too, so please join me over there, or on my page at Facebook, where I’ll load it direct!
([youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDMd_U4lGIw])
Kai is a writer, author and avid reader. A mental health advocate, Ludosport athlete and coder. She’s the mother of two young adults, owned by two cats, and lives with her beloved in the Cotswolds.
by Kai | Oct 6, 2011 | Hosting and Tech, writing habit, Op-eds, and more, diet and lifestyle, Free for all, Non-fiction, Organisation, tapping the well
I’ve got a very specific routine to my writing day now – one that I thought people might be interested in.
I’ve mentioned in the past that music is really important to me – and up until last week, my morning started with my portable alarm clock (aka my phone) which I would listen to until I went down stairs, then music would go back on at exactly 8am, when the youngest went outside to wait for her taxi.
But the last week, at 8am, I’ve taken the chance to come upstairs with a cup of tea, and I’ve crucially left music off.
So, I write my task list and contemplate my day in silence. It’s nice because the bedroom/office I’m in is in full sunlight most of the morning, and into the afternoon when I finish up working for the day (if I’m not coming back to work later) so I’m getting plenty of light where I sit, and there is a tree near the window, so even now, as the weather is turning chilly (and man, it’s chilly this morning compared to the last week), I’ve got birdsong.
From there, I social network. Twitter and Facebook need constant feeding, and I think I put in 750 words there on their own. I’m still trying to find my stride with G+.
And after that, I start work proper. Usually about 8:45, but today, as Steve Jobs died (don’t come to this blog for breaking news, I’m always waaaaay behind the curve), I’m not starting until nearly 10am. With a full docket and email to troubleshoot as it’s randomly stripping attachments, I’m still melancholy. I guess it puts life into perspective when someone that achieved so much goes – not even because he was ‘young’ by today’s standards. Steve Jobs would have been missed whether we were talking about him dying today or in 20,30, 40 years time. That kind of impact will never be lost, even to history. And that’s some legacy to leave.
What I do know is that while I’ve been a PC person most of my life (due to expense rather than preference), my first ever laptop was a Mac. from my adopted brother – I bought it from him and wrote on it for nearly a year, until we moved south and it died. In that time, I even replaced the screen. I wouldn’t DARE try that on my PC 😉
Kai is a writer, author and avid reader. A mental health advocate, Ludosport athlete and coder. She’s the mother of two young adults, owned by two cats, and lives with her beloved in the Cotswolds.
by Kai | Sep 25, 2011 | Design, Gaming and hobbies, Language, linguistics, Announcements, Reading and Reviewing, coding
Something that I don’t think is very evident from my writing is that I’m very music oriented. If I can get away with it, no matter where I am, in the house, or out and about there’s either music, an audiobook, or crime programs on in the background somewhere. Music starts my morning, and audiobooks, or more rarely now, TV shows finish out my day. I’m constantly somewhere where there is noise. To the point that if I ever end up catastrophically brain damaged or otherwise unable to instruct it myself, or am in a coma, I’ve got it written into my living will (kinda sad that I’ve got one at 32, but the books go one way before a certain point in my life, and the rest belong to my other half, to do with as he pleases, and the kids need to be taken care of too) that there is always to be music wherever I am, even if it’s only just loud enough to be heard by me. Even if it means bringing my phone and speakers into the hospital.
But, unless you knew an old incarnation of this blog, you wouldn’t know that – I used to open out posts with the music that was influencing me – either a lyric, or a song title. I’m going to start that again, because this blog, and to a lesser degree Kai-q is going to be about me. All of me.
Which means this blog is going to get a bit frenetic for a while 😉 I’m difficult to define at the best of times, without actually looking at what I get up to, or even, what’s on my desk, my Kindle, my Goodreads list, my camera, my phone… I am a complicated, complex, multiple type geek, and probably very rarely, I’m a multiple type geek that has several strong focusses.
Basically – what you think you know about me – it’s probably mostly true, but there’s probably more to me than most people realise. And more than I’ll ever probably be able to express.
One of the things I do know right now is I’ve got a plan – finally. I’ve also got a very clean workspace, and the freedom to actually work for myself now. Totally and utterly, I’m free now, and that’s a good thing.
As for the title – the blog was hacked this weekend – and had we not already been keeping a vague eye on the site anyway, I think that this could have been a lot worse than it was. I’m still working on cleaning the residual issues that I’ve been left with, but most of them were temporary. The reason – the main reason, I took the blog offline is because I couldn’t apply the fix while people were trying to access parts of the site. So, we put the temporary redirect up, fixed the blog, voila ;). Well, kinda, cause I’ve not finished the blog design yet, so for now it’s a bit bland…
The psycho killers thing – well, that means one of my characters has decided to stop being such a huffy little pain in the ass and is talking to me again – his two favorite bands happen to be Talking Heads and Nickelback, though he’s taken a shine to Mazzy Star lately too. Mostly I’m just glad Elliot is back from wherever he vanished off to. I’ve still got yet more planning to do, to the point of paralysis, but I’m finally in a place where I can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel – and apparently on my keyboard. It does mean less time downstairs vegging with my other half at night for a while, but I think, if I can make it work, it’ll be more than worth it.
Kai is a writer, author and avid reader. A mental health advocate, Ludosport athlete and coder. She’s the mother of two young adults, owned by two cats, and lives with her beloved in the Cotswolds.
by Kai | Aug 21, 2011 | Announcements, diet and lifestyle, Free for all, Organisation, Hosting and Tech
One of the things I’m working on, other than writing and releasing books, is making my life a bit easier. I work 30 hours a week as a copywriter, and on the surface, given I also care for two kids and the house full-time, that might seem like I’ve got a good work/life balance.
But I don’t. I’m still struggling with basic scheduling, and fitting everything in. I’m still underestimating how long errands take, and I’m still struggling to disengage effectively from places like Facebook. I guess it really drove the topic home when my boss posted on the AppleCopywriting blog about removing distractions.
So, weekly todo’s are the way forward. With time set aside for all of the work that I’m expecting, it should help 🙂
For now, I’m using ‘Workflowy’ to manage the vague stuff, that isn’t dated. And I’m not sure what I’m going to use for actual deadlines, possibly toodledo. There has to be an easier way, but for now, it’s a bit difficult to see my way out of the forest for all the tasks that are stacking up around me like brittle wood. 😉
Kai is a writer, author and avid reader. A mental health advocate, Ludosport athlete and coder. She’s the mother of two young adults, owned by two cats, and lives with her beloved in the Cotswolds.
Looking forward to those recipes.