Well, it looks like it's that time again: updating folks on what's happened in my life since the last time I posted in here. (For those who are stumbling across this journal organically and aren't part of m DW circle yet, there's a post from 2022 that's friends-only due to sensitive topics - I'm picking up from where that post left off.) I feel like writing about the important points of what happened over the past two years will be a good distraction from the emotional regulation nonsense I was dealing with earlier.

This is kind of long and rambly, so I'll put it behind a cut for those who might not be interested.

So! Picking up where this post left off...

• At the end of 2022, I ended up getting back in contact with my younger sister, Ruth. We hadn't spoken in about a decade, thanks to our mother, and since mom lost her shit and decided to blame Ruth for our father cutting her off financially (despite there being a news article about him being in a gnarly car accident at the same time he stopped sending her money), Ruth decided maybe that was an okay time to get back in contact with me. Things are going pretty well between us now, which is good.
• The first part of 2023 involved me catching covid for the first time (from my roommate/metamour Heather, of all people - I didn't have to leave the house to catch it, it came to me), which sucked. I was sick for two weeks, and it was right in the middle of me recording a pile of videos to support the rollout of Teams Phone at work.
• The day I finally tested negative for covid, though, I got to pick up my new car! I named her Korra, after the lead character in Avatar: Legend of Korra, since she's the same shade of blue as Korra's outfit. She's a Subaru Crosstrek and I love her.
• After that, I went to my first in-person conference since 2019, and it was the first time I'd really, truly felt like myself in such a long, long time. I got to see my conference buddies! I got to present a poster! I got to wander around Chicago on my own a little bit! It was great. Exhausting and a little overwhelming, but great.
• Then, because life wasn't already a lot, between having two partners and living about 35 miles away from one of them, on top of starting to go back to the office again (a 60-mile round-trip commute from the house Peter and Heather and I bought), I ended up starting another relationship! With Lucas, someone I'd known for a while through friends and through LARPing, and was already part of my now-large polycule, as he was already dating Kasi. (I should probably post the polycule diagram in here at some point, the constellation is getting pretty large and it might help to have a reference map for all the interconnections)
• Started struggling with having regular meltdowns once I added a third partner to the mix - probably due to a combination of exhaustion, pushing myself too hard, and that undiagnosed autism I'm still dealing with, wheeee
• Most of the second half of 2023 is a blur, between working in the office more, trying to balance three relationships, playing in a LARP, and trying to keep myself functional on top of all that. I do remember taking a whole week off in October of 2023 on very short notice, and spent it laying in bed and watching Star Trek. That's how burnt out I was. (I'm taking better care of myself now so I can avoid having more weeks like that.)
• In 2024 I went to another conference! And won an award! And had a hell of a meltdown when I got home that led to some bumpy times with Lucas, who's a lot more neurotypical than most people I know. (Or he's a different flavor of neurodivergent than most people I know - I'm beginning to suspect it's the latter.) There were a lot of communication issues - probably because I'm only his second romantic relationship ever. (His first is Kasi.) He went from no relationships to "hey, let's try polyamory" hard mode, right off the bat. That... caused some issues.
• J and I had a not-legally-recognized wedding in July 2024! It was lovely, and we went to New York for our honeymoon and stayed in Lake George for a week. We even got to see Ruth, and I met my niece and nephew for the first time. (We also drove out to my ex-husband's family's cabin in Lake Luzerne so I could see it one more time - thank god none of Bryan's family was there, that would've been hella awkward)
• I went to Gen Con in person for the first time since 2019! It was fantastic and horribly overwhelming all at the same time! I both loved and hated it, and am seriously considering whether I want to put myself through that again this year.
• After a lot of discussion with all my partners, I decided to move in with Lucas, since he lives a lot closer to J and Kasi (that 35-mile trip to their house got exhausting, especially when it happened twice a week) as well as much closer to my office. His house is just about right in the middle between J's house and Peter's house, distance-wise, which is pretty convenient. We figured I'd move in sometime in December of 2024.
• However... those plans got pushed up to the week of Thanksgiving - my mother passed away and Ruth wasn't sure if she was going to need me to come out to deal with the house during the time I'd taken off in December to move. I have weird feelings about my mom's death that I'll probably talk about in another entry. We hadn't spoken since 2013, and while I did get to say goodbye to her thanks to Ruth video-calling me from mom's hospital room, I'm not entirely sure if she was aware of it. (Long story short: she died from complications with gangrene. It was not a quick process.)

And now we're pretty much caught up, for the most part. I wish life would stop being so life-y sometimes. It feels like there's always so much going on that I don't often have time to recover. At least I have next week off to rest - good ol' spring break.