Health

After all the great feedback on the previous post on Burnout, and Randy Fay's excellent talk (video included) and blog posts.

A few things that I can say for sure:

• I'm suffering from all three of Randy's signs of burnout: Exhaustion, Cynicism, and feelings of Ineffectiveness. This is partly due to external (to the community) influences, and partly because of a laundry list of things I think are wrong with the docs system and how hard they are to fix.
• I have been managing this by completely scaling back my involvement for the last couple months to "take a break", but that is not sustainable. I either need to find a way to be effective and optimistic again (not to mention balance my own mental/physical health needs), or step down either temporarily or permanently.
• There is change needed for the documentation and Docs Team to remain sustainable and prodcutive regardless of how long I maintain the role.

Signs of Burnout

When it comes to Exhaustion, I think that for me it comes from two things: 1) chronic health issues leading to legitimate energy constraints, and 2) also being burnt out on the combination of work and Drupal work. I don't feel like I have any energy left over for the things that recharge me like moderate exercise, socializing, and creative time. I don't feel like there's any way to further offload responsibilities to regain this energy without actually cutting more work hours or docs responsibilities.

I didn't really realize this until this week, but I am also feeling very high levels of Cynicism, especially related to what can potentially be accomplished, and whether anyone would want to help. This comes mostly from a feeling that not much has been accomplished since the D7 launch, and that the docs team is too transient and small at present to effectively engage or mentor people who could help.

With regards to Ineffectiveness, the lack of resources (people + time) makes it difficult if not impossible to delegate the tasks I'm currently responsible for, and also to make any overarching changes, for eg. to the infrastructure. In the meantime, my time is spent issue queue gardening, and making little headway on those pieces I feel are important (or writing, which is what I actually enjoy and no longer do).

What could change

Now, I don't just want to be one of those people who complains and doesn't propose anything to fix the situation (sidenote, is it possible to tax people an hour of docs work for each minute they complain about the docs?) Ahem. :) I've been thinking hard and discussing with others about what could help, and following are the main options that have come up to this point.

Personally

For my own personal concerns, I see a few options:

1. Step down temporarily/permanently: Probably not the most appealing option to the community or myself, but a real one none the less. This would help by relieving any stress and time lost to management resulting from being in a "leadership" role, and free up time for me to actually do the work of writing/planning infra, and also fun stuff like patch reviews, research, etc.
2. Further scale back paid work time: This would be a good way to make room for more Drupal work, but let's face it, income is important. Additionally, try and find a way to not do the exact same thing in Drupal as at work (ie. mostly managing issues, people, and QA) - it's too much of the same with no outlet.
3. Figure out how to become effective again: The most useful option to the community, and the most difficult option for me to figure out. This would probably go a long way towards reducing cynicism, but may or may not alter exhaustion levels.

Docs (Team)

As far as general changes that I think could make the Docs Team and documentation function better, here are some options (some pie-in-the sky, some more realistic):

1. Stop micromanaging: Make Docs Team (not Docs leads) responsible for day-to-day work in the issue queue. Rejig Docs lead role to focus only on larger goals/planning.
2. Separate docs projects: I believe Randy originally suggested this - make each docs "guide" into a separate project, with its own issue queue so people can more easily work on specific guides (and even have per-guide coordinators). We currently just use issue tags to track different topics
3. Improve infrastructure: This ranges from medium sized tasks like implementing node-reference fields and configuring blocks of related content, to an enormous overhaul of the structure of the docs into a system using XML or RDFa for example to make content reusable/structured.
4. Turf the "handbook": Another idea presented to me recently was to move the existing documentation into a "community wiki" type area, and write a curated central guide from scratch which is then maintained by a small core group of Docs Team members.
5. Recruit a TON more people: Through some kind of marketing (?) recruit and retain more and more active Docs Team members.

How to make this work

That is where this gets tricky, and where I need input. The personal side, of course is really up to me to decide and figure out. But on the documentation/Docs Team side, I'd really like feedback on what approaches could be useful and realistic to implement, and suggestions on how to make them happen. Once I have wrapped my brain further around these options (and we've discussed them Friday at the Docs Sprint), I'd like to post some ideas to groups.drupal.org more officially.

Randy Fay is doing a session at DrupalCon on Burnout:

We have an incredible group of people who invest deeply in our common project. Some significant portion of this group is near burnout at any given time, and we've lost important contributors, some famously, as a result of this.

The more general problem is: How can we help our contributors to manage their work so they don't get so close to burnout? How can we help people find (or regain) balance while dealing with the technical and social problems of contributing to our great project?

Proposed solution:
- Begin a concentrated initiative to grow and keep our contributors, and to keep them happy.
- Make this a goal a key project responsibility.

He just posted a blog post, on defining burnout and signs of it, this week as well.

My Thoughts...

Burnout among community leaders is real and damaging, not just to those who are burnt out, but the greater community who rely on these people. I have seen friends burn out, and I have been teetering on the brink of full on burnout for a while. Now I'm going to be blatantly honest about why I think it happens and what we could do about it. Please take my complaints as fodder for improving, and not slights on the community!

Factors

I think that personally, and as Co-lead of Docs, my increasing burnout can be attributed to a few factors:

1. Work. Of course, I have my non-volunteer work to do as well, and that takes precedence over my volunteer position. Work has been really busy for the last year, and that's taken away a lot of the time and energy I was previously dedicating to Docs and core.
2. Life. General stuff going on in life has also distracted me from working on Docs. It's a fact of life that personal factors will come into play, good or bad. Last year when I was sick a lot, I actually had more time at home on my own to be online.
3. Health. I have chronic health problems and my energy levels fluctuate wildly from week to week. Some weeks I can keep up, others I can't. But the issue queue doesn't care about my health!
4. Lack of community support. Let's face it, docs can be the ugly duckling of development work. Lots of people write code and don't put docs online for it, or update code and don't update docs. There are a TON of docs. There are a TON of redundant docs. There are a TON of missing docs. It's a real beast, and the amount of material to write, format, and maintain is hugely disproportionate to the amount of time the community puts into docs. Which brings me to...
5. Lack of resources. There are not many people who write and maintain the docs, and this group is often transient, moving onto development, or working in short bursts. That is not helpful in keeping up on the amount of work to be done. This could be a fulltime paid job, and there is virtually no funding for docs. Managing people is a big job, I think I actually got way more done for docs before becoming Co-lead as none of my time goes to writing docs now, it all goes to managing the issue queue and responding to questions/requests, leaving no time to do more overarching tasks.
6. It's often a thankless job. Sure other avid contributors are often extremely thankful for the work the Docs Team does. But sometimes I feel like the project's documentation is taken for granted, and there is a tone of entitlement to good documentation (contrib maintainers surely see this as well). Issues in the queue complaining about the state of the docs or demanding documentation on a particular topic are disheartening - I see the same thing in the queues for popular contrib projects. Maintaining the docs is like treading quicksand, and it's a losing battle with the current resources.
7. Expectations. I can't even imagine doing the job of Docs Lead on my own! OMG. I have no idea how Addi survived it as long as she did. This position is not realistic! Even with Jennifer managing docs infra and API docs, and me just managing the online docs, it's a hefty job. It's not enough. We have a few a few topic coordinators listed, but we really need more, as well as team members who can help with docs for the ever growing library of contrib, and help maintain the docs queues. Additionally, this is an under-resourced volunteer position and people need to adjust their expectations accordingly. For me, the expectation that I will attend a DrupalCon, and submit sessions, as well as lead the docs sprint is even a large one. My health doesn't often allow me to even attend full days of the conference, nevermind those added responsibilities. 
8. Give some, want more. It seems when someone volunteers to give some of their time and energy to the community, there is always a want for more. I understand that it's a compliment that the community thinks a volunteer does good work. But it's important not to overburden people who already have huge responsibilities. I've been learning the hard way to say no more, but as much as I appreciate being given additional opportunities, don't care for any kind of "oh, you're missing out" attitude when I turn down opportunities that would take up even more of my time/energy/finances.

Maybe I'm not cut out for this! But maybe "this" just needs to change for all leaders in the community...  Enough about what is going wrong, what can be done to improve?!

Solutions

1. More, smaller leadership positions. The community and amount of docs and code we maintain is constantly growing. Co-leads and more coordinators are essential for the continued health and sanity of our contributors. Topic coordinators in docs, and things like the Views bug squad are good starts, but we need more people helping, and we need to work on enabling them to be more self sufficient so they're not always waiting on feedback. (If you want to be a topic coordinator for docs, let me know! More are listed on g.d.o.)
2. Respect the time of community leaders. If someone doesn't respond immediately, don't get angry. If a leader needs to take a break, for instance going on hiatus for a couple months, respect that. We are doing our best. That said...
3. We need to accommodate time off! Leads shouldn't have to be on duty 365 days a year. Every person in a leadership position that is fairly critical should have either a co-lead and/or an understudy. Someone who can help out and when needed take over for a while. Just the existence of this structure would take a lot of pressure of leaders to not have to be available all the time.
4. More people need to help. I know, this is an ongoing issue for open source projects. But we need to get more Drupal users and community members to participate, especially in some of the less popular tasks. They still need to be done! Maybe we need a marketing campaign of some sort? Some people, like me, even enjoy these kinds of tasks, so we should also...
5. Revere "gruntwork"! Things like support and documentation aren't just gruntwork - they are really important tasks for all levels of community members. They shouldn't just be looked at as a stepping stone to development work. Support and Docs Team members should be nurtured just like developers are, and given the same respect so that they aren't perceived as lesser positions in the community. Not saying everyone has this attitude, but it's important, especially as the community grows to recognize these tasks as critical parts of the ecosystem.
6. Funding for docs? I don't know if it's realistic to get funding for documentation work. It sounds like it'd be possible for a huge infra project, but isn't so much for day to day needs. Not sure how to get more help with our infra from the larger community so that we can help our processes become more efficient.
7. Reset expectations. When interacting with anyone in a major leadership position, remember how much we are responsible for. Try not to be impatient with us, or demanding of our time. Don't put pressure on leaders to contribute more. We're volunteering to help, but that doesn't mean we are solely responsible. Which reminds me, we need to find a way to...
8. Make contributors more self-sufficient. Documenting how to help doesn't seem to be enough. I would love to see a more structured mentorship system in place that would take some of the weight off of the shoulders of people already in leadership positions. There are many community members who could answer simple questions and help onboard new contributors. And yet it always tends to be the already overburdened leaders who take this on.
9. Rethink things. Finally, I think that we could really rethink some of the more burdensome parts of the community task list. For instance the documentation. Should Docs Team really be responsible for this massive amount of community contributed docs? Should we just manage some "official" core docs and end user tutorials? Maybe there are other approaches that would work better with the growing community. Open to suggestions!

Preventing Volunteer Burnout

And now, some tips from our dear friend, the internet, for preventing volunteer burnout:

In my experience, burnout can happen for a number of reasons: the work I’m doing isn’t challenging, the work I’m doing has little meaning, I’m not learning anything new, I’m doing something I’m not passionate about, or the workload I’m shouldering is overwhelming. - Tom Johnson, 'Avoiding Burnout as a Technical Writer'

Moderation is key...aying no is difficult, especially if you think your answer is going to disappoint someone. But it's necessary since spreading yourself too thin can be a bad thing for you and the recipient(s) of your volunteer efforts. It's best to be sensible about your time so that you're able to maintain the energy and desire to honor the commitments you make. - John Barrymore, 'How Volunteer Burnout Works'

As the saying goes, "if you want something done, ask a busy person." ...in Canada. Interestingly, a small minority of volunteers accounted for the bulk of the hours. The top 25% of volunteers accounted for 78% of total hours of volunteer support... If they do not get the balance they will get burnt out...The problem is that we do not notice the burnout coming until it is too late and what you are left with is either a very unhappy volunteer or a great volunteer who quits. 

Tips:
- Connect to purpose
- Create an achievable position description
- Give volunteers holidays
- Set guidelines at the start
- Create an environment that is welcoming
- Thank volunteers

- Lori Gotlieb, 'The road to volunteer burnout: How to avoid it and how to manage it' 

Slideshare, takes a while to load - the slides are pretty self-explanatory...

- Meredith Kennedy 'Preventing and Addressing Volunteer Burnout'

In my volunteer management work, I see and hear about volunteer burnout. Volunteer 'burnout' was the term coined years ago to mean asking those faithful volunteers to do more and more to the extent that they actually burned out, left the organization, and likely stopped volunteering altogether. This was likely the beginning of serious recruitment issues: instead of recruiting new volunteers, those who could be depended on were asked for more 'time'.

"Volunteers who are committed continue to be asked to give more time. We are also expected to give more money to the causes we volunteer for. We are also expected to sell more, promote more, and show up at fundraisers." - Donna Lockhart, 'Volunteer Fatigue: What impact on the future of volunteerism?' 

Finally, a great post from my favourite Project Management author, Michael Lopp, on bordom and burnout (not directly related to volunteering): 'Bored People Quit'. I think this is also important because doing repetitive tasks and being constantly overburdened can also be boring - it strips away the creativity that keeps people engaged. We need to try and make sure that smart, engaged contributors have that creative time so they don't get bored!

 I had so many favourite moments the week before last at DrupalCon Chicago, I started jotting down a list so I wouldn't forget them all. Here are some highlights:

• Witnessing Chris Shattuck meeting Kristof De Jaeger (aka. swentel), finding out that he is the creator of Display Suite, and promptly hugging and thanking him.
• Getting one-upped on travel tea-drinking by Johan Falk (aka. itangalo). I tote an insulated thermos and tea bags around with me. This fellow brings a pot of loose tea and not one, but two tea infusers.
• Greg's (aka. heyrocker) tweet about Johan's aforementioned dedication to tea drinking: "I have an idea for a module and I'm so excited about it that I feel I am wasting time getting tea".
• Hanging out in the Sheraton lobby the weekend before the con with all the keeners. It was just plain awesome.
• Meeting Rob Loach the Friday before the con (there were about 5 of us who'd arrived by then). I recognized him but wasn't sure who he was. When he told me his name, I had to share the fact that he'd had a blog post on his homepage for a couple years with one of my Flickr photos embedded, making it one of my top viewed photos (thanks to robots?). Turns out he's from Toronto.
• Witnessing the standing ovation Angie (aka. webchick) got during Dries' keynote for her awesome work on Drupal7. Well earned.
• The party at the Field Museum was awesome. I almost didn't go, but am so glad I did. Got to catch up with lots of great people, forcefeed Angie some dinner, and see dinosaurs!
• Dave and Patrick getting super excited nerding out on mapping in the lobby late in the week.

• Did I already say dinosaurs?
• Catching up with so many favourite Drupallers through the week. You all know who you are, and you are awesome.
• The Gatorade fairy. I had a stomach ache (what else is new?) the morning of my second talk, and was desperate for some electrolyte-love. I tweeted, asking if anyone had seen any nearby. I later arrived at the room I was speaking in, and there was a Gatorade bottle sitting on the table. My co-presenter Jennifer said that it was dropped off for me. I don't know who you are Gatorade fairy, but thank you so much. Not only did that really help me get through the morning, but it also reinforced how awesome this community is. I felt very supported.
• Also, I feel like I rocked the public speaking! I did one short talk, and one long one, both co-presenting with Jennifer. Having her there definitely helped me feel at ease, she's such a pro. But I was far more relaxed than I've ever been before doing public speaking. It felt great, and now that I've broken through the fear, I feel like I can work on becoming a more engaging speaker.
• Trivia Night! OMG it was just awesome. My intended team was late getting back from dinner, so I ended up teaming up with Katherine Senzee, Gabor, and Fox. We held a lead the entire night and ended up winning! But that was just the icing on the cake - it was a reaaaaaally fun gathering, and the questions were challenging and fun. I was even a voice clue (which led to stealth psych-out tactics against the team that was hot on our heels and sitting behind us). Thank you so much to Alan and Stella for planning this! Also, Drupallers make funny team names. Except for tables 9 and 11. You are not funny. ;)

• The Docs Sprint!!! Holy cow so many people came and wrote docs all day!!!!!! I was super tired and hardly had a voice by then, but I held out the whole day, and helped everyone get rolling and get oriented. It was so great seeing how many people were up for helping out - thank you so much to everyone who came and also to everyone who's continued to work on their issues since the con! Lots of the attendees posted on g.d.o to show their attendance, Drupal karma points to you all! Also, super excited to see the progress and interest in improving the Docs infrastructure, thank you to those who've stepped up to help with that as well!
• Watching Dries and Sam Boyer create the Drupal 8 development branch, and discussing the development process with a roomfull of passionate core contributors.

• Hanging out with everyone the last evening at the Sheraton and chatting and laughing.
• Spending two weeks with Bruno (the week of the con and the week after) - awesome is an understatement, and also seeing how stoked he was to get involved in working on Media and Workbench modules.
• Also the last evening, loved the card game Johan brought out, I have no idea what it was called. My brain functions highly for that kind of stuff when I'm tired (just like I play Tetris better tired), so it was pretty intense and fun.
• And a final awesome moment of the last evening there, listening to Narayan explain the UID increments and offsets for Drupal.org, and why they're necessary. Everyone was super absorbed in the explanation, and I think I actually sort of understood what he was saying. I hate to use the word, but it was an "epic" geek-out moment.

THANK YOU DRUPALCON ORGANIZERS, IT WAS FANTASTIC!!! I would hazard to say that you really got it right with how to keep the con personal, fun, and interesting amidst the huge growth in numbers of attendees. Thank you, you've totally restored my faith and enthusiasm for the North American cons. 

ps. Yes I realize I said "awesome" far too many times, but it really, truly was!

Finally my epiphany of the week... 

If you read my blog regularly, you'll know anything that requires physical exertion is hard for me. I tire so easily, and take a longer time to recuperate than most people. This conference being right at the hotel was soooo great for me. Sure, it would have been immensely easier if I'd had any cooking facilities, but the energy conservation couldn't be beat. I was glad in the end that Bruno and I decided to stay in the Tower both because of this and how fun it was hanging out in the lobby with everyone during the evenings and weekends.

I exchanged a couple tweets with Theresa Anna after the conference, and realized something. I think part of the reason why I've taken to Drupal so enthusiastically is because, aside from two action packed fun and exhausting weeks a year (plus a few other weekends here and there), most of the involvement is virtual. 

Obvious yes, but I never realized how much that has affected my ability to get involved and excel at this. People remark sometimes that it doesn't seem like my health restricts me much from doing a lot. But in this case, it hardly matters how I'm feeling, I can almost always work and talk to other Drupallers while resting at home. I get to collaborate with people I think are great, learn, and contribute without tiring myself out. 

This might not sound like much to some, but it's been such an amazing opportunity for me, and I'm glad that I have realized how important this is and will continue to be.

Signing off with a dose of #drupallove - see you next time!

The Backstory

(Note: Some of this first half will be redundant if you're a regular reader.) Somewhere in the midst of being cooped up at home sick for weeks on end this spring, something in me clicked. I stopped caring about not being able to do it all. I don't know if it's so much giving in, or self preservation, or just not needing to beat myself up for things I can't change. Maybe it was survival instinct, or maybe it was being forced to accept the reality of my energy and wellness levels. I'm sure a question my counselor asked me a while back got this all circulating in the back of my mind: "What would happen if you didn't do everything that you want, what then?" My answer at the time: "I feel like if I had to give up doing all these things, that I would cease to exist."

I know, ridiculous. And yet, honest. Of course, if my worst fears came true and I was too sick to do most of the things that make up my current life, somehow I'd adapt. But deep down, I feel like I wouldn't be me without these things.

This particular question had been posed to me during the aftermath flareup of my February evil stomach bug. Prior to getting the flu with cough of doom in April (I know I'm not the only unfortunate soul who got this awful thing and was really ill) and subsequently experiencing two weeks of being more debilitated than I think I'd ever been before. Altogether I lost 8 lbs in 3 months (which was roughly 9% of my bodyweight). This question was posed in the context of going to DrupalCon San Francisco at the end of April, which I was wondering if I should go to at all, even before the cough of doom hit.

After having this question posed to me, I shelved it in the back of my brain, refusing to *really* answer it. As soon as I was starting to feel better, I decided on a whim to fly down to Portland for a long weekend to visit with my cousin, and some other friends there. By the time I woke up the day after arriving, I was feeling really awful, but I chalked it up to a bad sleep at first... By the next day, I was feeling incredibly horrible, and was in no state to fly, but it seemed there wasn't really a way out of it (luckily it was a short flight back home). By the time my uncle had picked me up at the airport and gotten me home, my throat was killing me and I was getting a fever.

And thus commenced the worst flu and cough I think I've ever had. My mom actually ended up coming out and staying with me; I was literally in bed for a solid 10 days, and spent another 5 or so not going anywhere beyond the corner store. My mom went back to Saskatchewan at about that 10 day mark. The 2 week in mark was when I was supposed to go down to SF a few days early, to sight see then go to the Core Dev Summit. At this point I was just starting to feel better, but was still really not well, so I postponed my ticket down a few extra days (with the help of a fellow Drupalcon-goer), as I'd had no voice for about 5 days by then and couldn't even call the airline myself). 

The day before my new departure day, I still didn't feel very well, but I packed anyway. I decided I'd call it in the morning. And to my surprise, I woke up the next day, finally feeling a bit better. So I decided to go for it, I figured I'd go to the airport, and if I still felt ok, I'd check in and get on a plane. And if once I got to SF I felt ok enough, *then* I'd deal with going to the actual conference. One step at a time, even if all I did was rest for a week at the house that I'd rented for a group of us, that'd still be better than not going at all.

With this one step at a time, "anything is enough" mentality, I made my way through the week. I slept in every day, packed some food, and then went to the conference for a few hours. Then I'd come home, nap, have dinner, and hang out at the house with whoever was around. I didn't do a single full day. I didn't go out any of the evenings. I took cabs the entire week instead of riding the streetcar. I didn't really see much of the city, other than the two blocks around the house, and wherever the cabs went.

But did I enjoy myself? Yes.

Did I make myself sicker by going? No.

By the time I left, I felt a ton better than when I'd first gotten there. Despite really only attending a tiny amount of the conference, I managed to catch up with everyone I wanted to at least once. I managed to get to a bit of the Docs sprint and a few BOFs. I got to record a Drupal Voices podcast! I had tons of fun hanging out with my housemates. Sure there were a few moments where I was pretty run down. But overall, it was a positive experience, I didn't feel any worse at the end of it, and I was thrilled I had been able to attend at all, all things considered.

Not doing all of it as intensively as I'd planned to didn't really take as much away from the experience as I'd imagined it would. And I don't think anyone judged me for not being able to do it all. And I think for once, I finally didn't judge myself either.

Despite being nothing like what I had planned, it was all I could have hoped.

What Has Changed

Maybe the same thing will work for life.

Maybe even though it's nothing like what I had planned, it will be all I could have hoped.

A small epiphany... now only to keep applying the lesson. This could mean a real breakthrough for managing traveling less exhaustingly, for not burning myself out with work, or by doing too many things on weekends. Living at a more sustainable pace. Something with which the "Spoon Overcouncil" would be more aligned. Accepting the help when it's offered, and actually believing that I'm not a burden to those who've offered it. That's something new for me too, asking for help. I was forced to do it to get through this spring. At first it made me feel as awful, burdening, and guilty as it always had. But then, I realized what I didn't want to admit: I *needed* help. And the crazier part, people were offering it because they *wanted* to, and helping me when I needed it was not the huge burden that I'd made it out to be.

On the other hand, people continue to question my choices to do *anything* that's taxing on my body. Entertaining the idea that since May of last year, I really do feel crappy most of the time. And that I always feel crappy when I travel. Some people (nice people, who are just wanting the best for me, admittedly) think that hence I shouldn't do such things. But what would that change? 

If I thought putting my life on hold could help make me better, I'd do it in a heartbeat. But the reality is that there's nothing I can do that will miraculously make me better. Despite feeling like something has been really off balance since last June, no doctor or specialist I've seen has been able to find anything other than my long standing chronic conditions going on. 

To finally have had a very good doctor who is up to date on chronic inflammatory/auto-immune diseases say to me that my system is really oversensitive and out of control, is an odd comfort. To have him explain that having IBS and this kind of chronic illness *does* relate to having flareups of Fibromyalgia and fatigue (which was something that I had been told before, but then had a differing second opinion on) has been vindicating. This doesn't mean that he can necessarily help; though he says he's going to try, I have learned not to have any expectations in this respect.

But all of this, what it changed in me is it gave me the ability to accept what is. That I am going to be tired a lot, that I am going to feel sick a lot, and most of all, that it doesn't mean I have to stop living my life. I don't need to fight it anymore, that's not actually helping anything. I don't need to feel guilty for not doing things, or feel like I'm not trying hard enough. Something about being so sick, and then actually being fairly incapacitated for a couple weeks made this all ok.

If anything, I'm starting to realize what an amazing thing it is that I do as much as I do, when I am contending with levels of wellness that would keep most people at home. I've gotten used to living like this, but it's NOT easy. It's a struggle. And that's why I don't need to make it any harder on myself. But I also am not going to give up. If I feel just like this every day for the rest of my life, I'm not going to let it stop me from enjoying the things I do decide to use my spoons on.

The small victories have started meaning more. The losses have started meaning less.  Frustrating and sad, yes. Unfair and painful, absolutely.  But when the options are slow or not at all, slow doesn't really seem so bad.

Before we get started, here's some new LCD Soundsystem for your listening enjoyment... (Awesome, SteveK, your tip about just shrinking the height on the YouTube player works!!!)

Much of my thoughts go like an agile retrospective these days... project management is permeating my thinking patterns.

Good

• I made it to DrupalCon San Francisco, and despite being sick and going late, had a great time, and rested lots so I got better and not sicker while I was there.
• Over the flu. After shaking the death cough, my lungs actually feeling better than they have in over a year and a half. My voice is back which makes me very happy, except my high singing range, but I'm sure that will return with a little more time.
• Work is busy. I feel like I am being effective, and like my hard work over the last year and a half is paying off making things run smoothly, having everyone feel self-actualized, having happy clients, and getting to do the kind of work we enjoy.
• I feel more appreciated and at peace in various aspects of my life than I have in a long time. (Ever?)
• Eating lots of good food; I have gained back about 2.5 of the 8.5 pounds I lost since February. Might not seem like much but I was worried it would be even harder to gain anything back.
• Got a crapload of blood tests done last weekend, and they all came back normal. I was getting lots of bruising, but I can safely assume now that it is just from being a bit malnutritioned, and that some steady Vit C intake will fix me up.
• Also, I went back to the old walk-in clinic I used to go to before I started hunting for a GP...Holy I forgot how much better a couple of the docs there are. 
• I've mostly been sleeping a lot better lately, and sleeping/waking earlier than is normal for me. It's felt very odd, but in a good way. I doubt it will last much longer, but it's been nice.
• I have been feeling more relaxed in general. I like this. I'm pretty sure the people around me like it too.
• I have more spoons lately.
• I've been doing a better job at keeping a balance, taking care of myself, asking for help, not being mad at myself for not feeling well.
• Oh, and my Drupal Voices podcast that was recorded at the conference was posted this week!

Bad

• My stomach is still generally feeling awful, more awful than normal, as has been the case since last summer. (Luckily looks like I'm gonna get a referral to a new, hopefully more helpful, GI doc when walk-in doc is back from vacation.)
• My apartment is getting more construction. It makes me crazy. I am househunting. I don't find moving fun.
• My back and neck have been fucking killing me lately. Too much computer and sickness, not enough yoga and off-computer time.
• I ate moldy soy yogurt today. No biggie, just gross.
• I don't have much Drupal Docs mojo right now.
• I really, really miss several beloved friends who are not here.
• Not sure if this is really a "bad" but I'm not sure going to DrupalCon Copenhagen is really going to be the best thing for me right now.

Do differently next time

• Get annual flu shot. It's just not worth getting the flu (I've had it 4 times in 3 years since moving downtown!)
• Not stand for useless and/or rude doctors.
• Not eat suspicious soy yogurt. (I have made this mistake more than once now.)
• Do more yoga! Do more yoga! Do more yoga! When will I learn?

Yesterday, I was here:

It was lovely. LOVELY. That wasn't the only reason it was a good day though. It was the first day in about 6 weeks that I felt somewhat "normal" (ie. not so exhausted I can't really go out and do anything). I'm not sure exactly what did it, but after a giant sleep and a little dietary tinkering toward the end of the week, all of a sudden, something shifted.

I am still feeling very tentative about feeling better, and spent the day today at home puttering around. Did laundry, made some soup broth (my first time!), talked to my folks on the phone, talked to some friends on the phone, and relaxed. I know I need to keep taking it somewhat easy, and (now that I've admitted defeat) will happily do so if it means continuing to feel better.

I'm hoping the change to spring is companion to a larger shift for me, into a more peaceful, healthier feeling space that I've missed so much. Huh, just writing that I realized it really is spring, yesterday was the spring equinox!

So, here I be. Hoping for more good days than bad this week. Doing my best to just be. And get some semblance of what is important to me back in a more permanent sense. My mom has told me many times that her mom used to say, "act enthusiastic and you'll be enthusiastic!" so will also be focusing on keeping a good mindset, and making small and steady steps towards good.