I know I need to write; I’m not sure where to write. That is likely because I don’t know at this point, what is going to come out.

It seems as though it’s always a struggle to be consistent about writing, though maybe that has to do more with personally disturbing content, and resistance to ritual, than anything else. There is also the fact that, as I stated above: I don’t necessarily know what is going through my sub- or unconscious that is saying, “Hey, let me out. Make me visible.” I just know that the urge to write, is there.

And sometimes it can be difficult to really…sit down and do so, knowing that something may come out that I may not know what to do with. It is nice to be able to know, however, that if I see myself starting to spiral into rumination, I have the option — once I recognize what’s happening — to disengage, and do something else.

Recently, I’ve had a tough time with sleep, which is being reflected in my daytime energy level…and my anxiety level. I’ve found myself ruminating about things that happened years ago, which don’t matter in the present. Should it really impact me now if one of my old co-workers meant to sabotage me or not, five years ago? I don’t see her anymore, I don’t want to work at that same site again, and — seriously, it’s over. At the time, I thought she was a “safe” person.

But there is a repeated pattern in my life of my attempting to trust people who are unworthy of that trust. There is also a pattern of trusting barely anyone in my life, whatsoever. At this point, I recognize that just because someone is significantly older than me, or higher in the work hierarchy, that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily, “good,” or trustworthy in any way. They may even be hostile. Even people who try to be mentors may have ulterior motives — some more apparently than others.

Due to circumstances I had no control over or awareness of at the time, I have not always had the best judgment. That doesn’t mean that I lack responsibility for my past actions, but it does mean that my decision-making was impaired in ways I didn’t understand, and in ways I had not been made aware could even happen.

Nor did I necessarily know how much others could (and would) amplify the effects of my mistakes.

For at least three weeks, I’ve been having issues with being able to have an uninterrupted night’s sleep. I’d have to consult my planner, to be sure. It wouldn’t surprise me if this has been going on for a matter of months.

I’m not totally sure what it’s related to, though I have trouble with anxiety at baseline. Of course, the entire situation with the ongoing pandemic + the flu, really can’t be helping.

I suppose it also has been recently that I’ve realized the entire “Library” career thing may be misguided. However, there are ways that I can use my skills in ways that do not confine me to a specific job within the limits of the Library sphere.

If I would like to read and comment on writing — and I’m able eventually to become comfortable dealing with people — becoming some type of Editor is possible. If I want to work with User Experience or Interaction Design, along with my Art skills, I may be able to utilize these within Front-End Web Design. My research skills would come in handy if I ever wanted to be a Fact-Checker…

…though those are only my initial brainstormed entry points to a paying job, beyond being a Content Producer, Cataloger, Collection Development Librarian, Indexer, or Purchaser (for a bookstore). Given my own self-knowledge, I’ll have to be creative in order to avoid a day job spent dealing intensely with the general public, or with my other major personal bane…which should have contraindicated me from working in Circulation in the first place: lack of sanitation. Cleaning other peoples’ babies’ vomit off of picture book covers is not the thing you want to be doing with your life — especially if you have a choice about it, and especially if you aren’t being paid enough to compensate for it.

In short, I need a job that is reasonably clean, and away from having to deal with people (and other people’s perceptions of me). This is why I had been looking forward to working with data; but working entirely with data is, seriously, very technical. Maybe a bit too technical, for me. And very much, not creative — unless you consider math and logic, creative. Some (particularly App Developers), may; but that’s not how I characterize creativity for myself. It’s the furthest thing from my own creativity, that I’ve recently experienced.

If I could learn Computer Programming and SQL, in a low-pressure environment, that would be different…but I see that leading into a field wherein my main skill set (in the Arts and Humanities) is undervalued. If I did get further into Web Development, I could feasibly become a Technical Writer…

…though there are decent options for learning this stuff online. Books really aren’t your best bet, here. They go obsolete too often, and the narrative quirks of the authors are too thorough (such as using homonyms at seemingly every available chance). Really…in the last technical class I took (on XML), the Web was more helpful than anything I was forced to read from a book.

Maybe I should take that into consideration; that trying to acquire XML/XSLT/XQuery skills, didn’t have to be as difficult as it was. It seemed like the curriculum was made to be difficult, so it would look like one actually learned something if one passed the class. Unfortunately, passing the class may have meant little, and what was learned may largely have been self-taught.

I don’t want to have that kind of experience, again. I didn’t pay tuition to teach myself.

But it’s over, now. Rumination, right?

And, I guess, if I could learn XML from the Web…it’s possible to learn other technologies from it, too.