A Writer's Notebook, Day Six-Hundred-And-Ninety-Eight

I am beginning to get back in the swing with my work, I think.  I wrote a few more poems than I had in the past several days, and I felt good about the direction that I think my story is going.  It had been a bit slow, and I did not write a great deal today, but I think it sets a direction for the next segment that is a bit off from where I had been expecting to go, though it lines up with ideas I had from the start.  It is another of these things where the story just seems to have a sense of where it wants to go.  I am still feeling quite stressed about things, and I know I need to find a way out of my current predicament, and those issues still remain for me.  I am not certain what to do.  I've tried to put energy into other things, but it does not really help, as I just feel as if I am distracting myself.  I need to find a way to feel a sense of genuine progress, as I've said a million times already.  It is no good to keep running in this circle, and today, I was in a mood that just did no good for things in my life.  I am putting a burden on others that is not fair, and feel like a heel for it, which does nothing but make the rest of the issue worse, and puts pressure on me to figure out how to get unstuck from this.  I am too aware of how it is hurting me to just let it happen, but I feel powerless to take any action that can help me in ways that matter.  And I am watching everything else happening in the world and just feel even worse that this is what I am concerned about.  I try to consider other issues, I write a lot that is about things happening in the world around me, but the reality of things right now is sometimes too much, and I have so little I can do in that realm, the feeling often only adds more stress.  It is not any sort of excuse, but it is how things are right now in my world.  I do not turn away from what is happening, have paid attention to the news, have listened to the stories of people being dragged off in vans by Trump's secret police, the growing infection numbers (I live in South Florida), ongoing protests, so much else besides, and sometimes it is easier to think of the things going wrong that are not so far outside my control.  The trouble is, even the issues that matter most to me right now in my life seem immune to me taking positive, cumulative action.

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