And what was she, the fairy Melusine?

 (Which I am posting about to try and internalise properly) 

1. If possible, in a situation where I have to put stuff in a locker/on a library desk, choose a locker or library desk at the end of a row. This regularly saves five to ten minutes of wandering around trying to find the locker or desk, or leaving all of my stuff in the British Library overnight because I cannot remember a locker number.

2. There is nothing actually morally wrong with going to the library, or the gym, an couple of hours (or even an hour) before they close. They are still open at the time, I am more likely to manage getting to them in late afternoon/early evening and I have chronic pain and executive dysfunction. Not going to them in late afternoon/early evening because I think I am being lazy/not going in for enough time leads to me not going in at all, and that is generally unhelpful.

3. While it would be great if I could sort out my sleep cycle more, it is generally good for me, someone who currently has a flexible schedule, to try and *allow myself enough sleep* when I fall asleep. 

4.Despite the comments of random people when they see my tablet gallery that I take a lot of selfies (I do, I also photograph the sky a lot and take a lot of screenshots, taking selfies fairly often/looking at myself in the mirror makes me feel less self conscious about being weird looking, and less dysphoric. Also, it is of no concern to anyone else what is in my tablet gallery, I am allowed have a lot of selfies, screenshots of manuscripts and pictures of ducks. I am the main person who looks at it. 

 Today is my 30th birthday.

I've done a lot of my being sad and weird about it in the run up to now, so I am hoping to, like, quietly actually enjoy it.

(Also, there is a decent part of me which is like: take that depression, I got here despite everything and all of last year) .

If people do want to make a fuss in the comments, though, that would be nice. 

 I have put my Christmas tree up and have posted Christmas cards, and this is helping a bit with the current anxiety and depressive downswing tied into it being Christmas/the end of another year and not feeling like I have made any progress .

(I actually really like Christmas/the general winter holiday period, my depression tends to be bad in the winter but I normally kinda like forced/socially obligated cheer and stopping for a bit and giving gifts. That I am so very broke this year is one reason I am feeling a bit sad, and the weird work ethic guilt over taking time off if it is only time off from being underemployed)

I've been hoping not to still be single this time next year for the last three years, and it's really hitting me quite hard this year as, you know, hoping really hard has little effect. 

 My ankles are really, really clearly dodgy thanks to hypermobility these days, and I have quite clearly lost a lot of mobility in the past few years...

But I walked 2/3 of the way up Glastonbury Tor today, something I had wanted to do (not the 2/3rds part, the walking up it part) for a long time and that made me happy.

 I turn 29 tomorrow (Monday). I am feeling a bit odd about it- I have been in quite a bad depressive episode for a while and it has led to some weird thoughts About Mortality, and my social life is weird at the moment (often because of lack of money and being disabled make doing things hard, and most of my spoons are going on academic work). 

This is the cheerier life update. 

I am graduating Friday week with an English Literature BA First Class Honours.

So, for the last year, on and off, but more on than off, I have been in a fairly grim and difficult financial situation thanks to bureaucracy (which I can/will explain either via PM or in a locked entry, but I am wary of putting much details in an unlocked entry). As much of it has been taken care of as is humanly possible so far, but it makes this summer fairly difficult as my current sources of money are: 1) PIP, which I am very grateful for but is not a huge amount of income per month, 2) asking my parents for a loan when I absolutely run out, which is not ideal as I have spent a considerable chunk of my life trying to not be remotely financially entangled with them and it does not help with various dynamics (them still strongly disapproving of my transition etc eight years after it started) and 3) asking some close friends when stuff is dire.

Those are still my first port of call, but I am graduating next week and there are various expenses (clearing library fines, replacing a book because of BLOODY DYSPRAXIA interacting terribly with pain and depression) which I need to meet around that, as well as the fact that it would be great if I could avoid asking my parents for money for groceries and having my every financial transaction monitored by them.

So, I feel bad about doing this, and DO NOT donate unless you can afford it, but I thought I would put up a PayPal donation button and see that helps.

(I am looking at other things which can help, but I am in a weird double bind thanks to the bureaucracy thing where paid work isn't an option until they make a clear decision)

 I have literally one essay left on my degree, and that is making me feel a bit weird. (I think I am actually in a perfectly good position to start writing it, I just feel odd and afraid of starting writing because it is The Last Thing. And I do actually want it out of the way, I just need to avoid perfectionism regarding it and at least write a draft. This means the fact that I have opened a document and typed an introduction is good). 

Endings generally make me feel a bit weird, and it turns out I feel really weird about undergrad finishing, partially because the ending of school was not really there (I mean, I went in for 'last day before study leave stuff' but I'd had to drop out because of being hospitalised, so it is nice but strange to actually have end of degree stuff happen? (And also has involved a lot of having to remind myself that it is very, very unlikely that everything will go horribly wrong at near last minute again).

I am just about coming out of a really quite bad depressive episode which started at some point in  February and went on until a week or two ago. (it's not gone, I'm still depressed, I'm just out of REALLY BAD depression which is a relief) With that and pain stuff having been bad enough that I had to go to A and E in late March, I really should actually be quite pleased that 1) I have got everything in and done by the deadlines set 2) I have managed to consistently do some good and difficult work when really ill, and also turn up to things.

 There's a lot of stuff going on, and I am trying to sort through my own thoughts about it a tad. I turned 28 on Sunday, and I have spent much of the time since then wanting to have a nap, but I presume this is a normal 28 year old behaviour. I presented at an internal symposium at uni this time last week and it went really well. I have some generally good stuff going on study/career wise, and this is very good. 

I also still have depression, and get thrown by unexpected triggers, and then catastrophise these into Literally Everything Wrong with me so I am trying to make some notes of concrete things which are good.

I was on the phone to friend-I-talk-to-most-days, the other day, comparing notes on stuff, and he pointed out that while I still have a fair amount of emotional ups and downs 'they're not as bad as they were three years ago, in that, you used to regularly go from a three to a one, whereas now you go from say a six to a four, or a three, which still sucks, but is a lot better'. I thought about it a lot, (and then accidentally looked at some old emails from three years ago) and think that that is fairly true, and also a helpful way of looking at it.

Another concrete thing: 

I had a birthday party on Saturday, and I went to Intrusion last night, and both were lovely and also suffered slightly from the problem of 'a social thing with lots of people I know and like at it, and not managing to talk to all of them for long enough/at all'. And I finished supper tonight, and thought about how nice a problem that is to have, in the grand scheme of things, and that I am lucky it is sometimes a problem I have. So I wanted to note that. 

 That I have finally started: logging in for application forms for masters degrees, and also, confirmed all three of my references. 

(I plan to do my masters applications in the form of lots of small bursts of filling them in while otherwise feeling incredibly apprehensive)