On the Razor's Edge Between Invincibility and Vulnerability Lies the Breathtaking Strength of Human Perseverance

As May draws to a close, I'm finding myself productive but dogged by a general malaise.  

All things considered, I should be happy, because there's a lot to be happy about and a lot to look forward to.  For example, I recently binged the show Invincible and absolutely LOVED it.  (It's not going to take over Umbrella Academy as my dysfunctional superhero show of choice, but it holds its own.)  I ended up buying all of the comics, which is over 3,000 pages (or, if you just want to measure compendium thickness, about six inches).

In fact I ended up writing a review I'm pretty proud of.  

Read my review of Invincible here!

I've been keeping up with my writing, mostly.  It's a hodge-podge of passion projects, e-mails with writing partners, reviews for the GGG website, and, of course, the occasional obligatory press release.

Like this one about Netflix's upcoming Geeked Week.

Writing aside, now that I'm fully vaccinated, my life is opening up again, allowing me to socialize with other vaccinated friends.  I reconnected with Benedetta from my journalism program, for example, and went to Kevin's birthday pool party.  I went with Jonny out to Johnny's bar (although, we sat on the patio; we're still too shy to actually eat indoors).  

I even went to Vegas with Chris and Tevin from the Dragon and Meeple.  While I was there, I visited Ekho and Ken, who I haven't seen in three years, since they moved to Nevada, and I'm eagerly looking forward to visiting them a second time before the year's end.

Since my birthday fell on Saturday and because I share that birthday with Tony Stark, naturally, I insisted on going to Marvel's STATION, which is located inside of the Treasure Island casino.  I even remembered to take pictures this time!  Here's a select few:

(Captain America's bike from Avengers: Age of Ultron.)

(Hawkeye, indisputably the best Avenger.)

So what's with this grey sense of dread looming over me?  I mean, I look happy in all of those photos.

I guess part of it is the awareness that what happened with my friend a few weeks ago has probably effectively terminated our 10-year friendship.  I'm really not sure how to come back from it.  Because she doesn't want to get vaccinated, I don't want to physically be around her.  More importantly, on an emotional and psychological level, her reaction implied a level of personal disrespect I really can't abide.  I've been trying to prune my friends down to only the best, which usually only means removing people from social media when their posts bother me.  But this is a real friendship and having it end so abruptly and cruelly has really done a number on me.

Aside from that I've felt a little overwhelmed with the house, because Calvin is fully mobile and so long as he is awake, I really can't get any work done.  

This means I only have about three hours in the course of the day to manage chores and writing.  It's cutting into my writing productivity severely and that's causing me a great deal of anxiety, since usually, I lean hard on my personal sense of fulfillment from creative work to put me in a good frame of mind.

I'm trying to balance out a lot of little things (personal finances, health, house management) and all those little things have left me wrung out.  (If only there were a metaphor for this, maybe one involving, I don't know, camels, and straw?)

(Oh, look, an Invincible meme.)

The anxiety from work is temporary, of course, because Calvin won't be a toddler forever.  But the disruption to a close friend could be, and it's also given me a deep sense of distrust toward all of my other friends, and doubt about what things I can rely on in my life.

I think this is one of those "the only way past is through" kind of situations, but I've always found those to be the most frustrating because I'm naturally very controlling in most aspects of my life and want to feel like I have power over future outcomes.  Alas, if there's anything 2020 taught us, it's that we're a lot less in control than we think we are.  And that the best way to come to terms with that isn't trying to forcibly wrest control from the universe but to come to terms with the things we can't change and make peace with them.

So, I'm trying to focus on the things I can control and let go of the rest, and, if I can't trust the world, to trust in my own ability to respond with grace to whatever it throws at me.