I forgot I had this substack. I was a committed blogger for nearly ten years and then Instagram took over and I stopped writing. I just reread a post I wrote on here about myself in 2022. Pretty much everything has changed.
I was working in tech - I got laid off and have now been self-employed for 2 years in the textiles/quilting/crafts sector.
I was using my birth name of Alex. I’m now Bea (“bee”).
I was rocking my mental health diagnosis of 25 years standing of “depression”, which turned out to be wrong. I’m now a member of the CPTSD gang and ketamine therapy changed my life.
I was wondering (as I had done for the previous 35 years) why I found it so hard to be tidy, to relate to people, to focus on tasks. About a month ago I was officially diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 46.
I’ve had about 20 biopsies or associated cancer scares since that post in 2022 - the latest one just came back negative 2 days ago - and I have less than a year of cancer drugs left to go.
“Context” now means something different to me.
It’s been a busy time. But lots of good in amongst the bad. Bea is living a much happier life than Alex ever did.
This update was prompted by my leaving a comment on Austin Kleon’s latest post.
I highly recommend following him and paying for his full offering.
Creativity is something I’ve been struggling with since the cancer diagnosis and everything that 2020-2024 contained. It’s especially tough now that my whole livelihood depends on creative activities - teaching them, enabling them and organizing events around them. I’ve always been curious about my internal belief that things will get better when a lifetime of depression indicated otherwise. But I do believe I will get my mojo back and make it as an Artist (note the capital letter) one day. I need to re-read Austin’s books (Steal Like an Artist, among others) and follow his advice to keep showing up. The piece I’m most proud of making in recent years is “Selfie Triptych”.
It kind of speaks for itself.
I’ll talk more about “context” in my next post.