This is a 5 minute freewrite using
today's prompt, "sick babies." I modified it a little and did it in 10 minutes.
In case people wonder what this is about, I explain after, which I normally don't do for freewrites, but today is special.
Whale Wars... the Aftermath
The writer looked at her words. They were strewn all over the floor. "They look like sick babies to me," she said to no one. No one was there, and, anyhow, she suspected no one would understand.
They had come in the night. They thought she would be asleep, but she was just in a weird haze brought on by all the sleep medication. Was it a true sleep or did it just bring on fog and hallucinations that were hard to rip away from in the morning?
They came. Who were they? What did they want? It was explained to the writer that it didn't matter. These were still her words, after all. Right? Right? Ma'am? Ma'am?
She stood stunned and horrified. They weren't just words to her. They were her babies. Now, with them thrown all over her home, she felt sick.
There were words like "reward" and "whale" and "love" and "kindness" and "childishness" and "empathy." The writer could make no sense of them. Some were just remnants, angry green and brown smears on the wall.
"Can I even continue to live here?" she wondered out loud as her guts roiled. Who would clean this mess up? She had been assured that anything she did to try could only make it worse.
"Just go have new babies elsewhere," her friends said. Or that is what it sounded like to her.
Afterword
I don't usually explain my freewrites, but all this nonsense is filling up my head and spilled into my freewrite. Some people might be aware that there are currently "whale wars" on Hive. You may or may not realize that there are about 200 of us caught in the cross-fire.
I never asked for the generous upvote I received on a regular basis, but it was nice even though I noticed that it seemed to stop other large upvotes I had been getting previously. I did not ponder what rivalry might lie behind this.
Then, suddenly, because of the whale wars, my upvote is gone and no one with a substantial stake will upvote my work anymore. I get it. I know nothing here is "given," but the fact that in a month that I have worked harder than ever before, it is all obliterated, I just don't know if I have the emotional resources to deal with that.
I know that others have way, way worse problems. For example, some people are facing REAL war like in Ukraine and elsewhere. That's an actual problem. And some people, unlike myself, depend on what they make on Hive. For me, it helps. It helps financially and emotionally, but I can make it without this.
However, actually, that's part of the issue also. I don't like to see my new friends in Nigeria and Venezuela suddenly languishing.
Thank you to you know who!
I don't know whether it is tacky, but I want to say that I am very thankful to the people with both a large and small stake who support my work on a regular basis. I think you know who you are. I try to reciprocate, and I am not sure I always do a great job of it. Partly, it is because my vote is small -- when I vote, I like to actually read and respond and I don't always have the energy. However, I will try to do better.
That being said, I am in the worst depression of my life. I don't even want to write about it because it is so bad. Instead, I have been forcing myself to write of more cheerful things for the most part. Well, until today it seems.
Still, I know there are others who are going through worse. A trick I use to survive the worst moments: if you can get through one second, you can get through two. That logic can be extended to a minute, etc. When I am at my worst, I count, inside my head if I cannot speak and using the timer on my phone or the clock to help if available/needed.
I count to 1000. If you count slowly to 1000, you will most likely calm down, feel less pain (physical and emotional). It helps us to focus on something external and arbitrary like numbers. I rarely get to 1000 (and when I do, I start again at 1.) Different things work for different people, but I have found counting to be helpful in moments of extreme physical and mental distress. I think I will go and count now.
P.S. Maybe the "cool" thing is not to say anything and to let the situation ride itself out. However, the whole point of writing, for me, is self-expression. If I don't do that, I am not being true to myself, and then there is no point to any of it.
