Only, my hair was not tied up.

My stomach dropped.

I knew what this meant.

I had been warned.

I googled it anyways and sure enough, this was the sign that my hair was beginning to go. I gave myself a moment, shed a couple of tears, and then got the kids and we headed into the bathroom. So, I didn’t get that mohawk we’d planned, though I did do another cut before then, shaving both sides off (I dug it).

We went straight for a buzz cut and after my initial pang of grief, it felt really liberating. Like, how fucking cool am I? I shaved my head! I looked like a badass. I felt like one too. It looked GOOD. Lots of people commented on it, and while I think you’d be a giant asshole to tell a chemo patient their haircut looked bad, I felt like for the most part they were genuine compliments.

A week later I tugged on a patch of hair, and it came loose. No pain, no tension, nothing, just hair between my fingers. Being me, I quickly got fixated and kept pulling out bits of hair, the weirdness of the lack of sensation boggled my brain. I had to show everyone in my house. Demonstrate the strangeness of it. And within very little time I had an incredibly patchy head, and it was back to the bathroom for an even closer shave. I couldn’t do it all myself and am grateful to the kids for once again supporting me in cleaning things up. (I am not including those photos… lol)

And now I look like a chemo patient. Or Baldi, as my youngest says.

My eyebrows are starting to come out. Other hair as well. I feel like I look sick for the first time since I got my cancer diagnosis and I don’t like it at all.

It’s weird to have been chronically invisibly ill for a decade - all the pain, fatigue, brain fog, constantly trying to pace myself and regain some modicum of normal energy levels, only for my health now to be a thing others can clock just by looking at me. I don’t enjoy how vulnerable that can make me feel.

I used to think that invisible illness was harder; that if only people could SEE how much was going on internally, they might understand. But now people can see and I don’t like that either.

Maybe being sick just sucks no matter what.

Two rounds of chemo down. Four to go.

And in the next week my hair will begin to fall out. I had my first round of chemotherapy on the 29th, and they said that around the two-week mark... I saw two eyelashes on my cheek the other day and wondered if it was already beginning. Two nights ago, I had my first ‘hair falling out in clumps’ dream.

I’m not planning to wait though. We’ve decided that if it’s going anyway, we’re going to have some fun with it. We’ve already given it one chop. My 16yr old wielded the scissors and I’ve been getting compliments on it for the past week. She did a great job, even sick, tired, and wearing a mask so she didn’t infect me.

Today we’ll make it shorter, but the shorter it gets the closer we get to my natural hair colour and that feels... weird. I never thought I would go natural again (not until I start getting grey - I plan to rock the grey hair when it happens). My vibrant hair has made me feel more ‘me’ than my natural hair ever did. I believe that I’m not meant to bleach/dye it until after I’ve finished all my treatments (I could be wrong though, there is SO much information to try and absorb) which means it might be some time until I have the opportunity to do it again - and of course, I will need hair for that in the first place.

I never thought I would do a full shave either, but here we are.

I’m making the choice to cut it, shave it, try new things with it because making a choice - even when the outcome is practically inevitable - gives me agency. And when you have cancer or any other illness/disease/etc, holding onto any agency that you can is important.

I’ll miss my mess of teal. It will be really weird not to be easy to find (though perhaps my bald head will be a beacon? nah, it’s too chilly to go without a hat right now! lol). But hair grows back and now is a great time to try things I have always been too afraid to do before.

Because fear cannot win. Not right now.

My initial response to whether I need anything is generally ‘no’, a default setting because I was a neurodivergent kid who felt like too much and didn’t want to be a burden to anyone. Who also felt like the best way to be safe and loved was to be as un-difficult as possible. I was easy. Compliant. Quiet. My needs were too. Or rather, I got so used to shoving them down that I genuinely believed I didn’t have needs. What I needed was for everyone else to be happy or at least okay.

I’m still working on figuring out what I need. What I want is sometimes easier for me to tap into, though the more overwhelmed I am, the smaller those wants and needs get unless it’s generally a ‘I want to hide under a rock with a book and my dog’ want.

ANYWAY, the whole point of all this is to say that while I don’t know what my needs are or will be (ha, I’ve never had breast cancer before, nor a mastectomy, let alone a bilateral), the first thing that I thought would bring me joy was that if people thought about their favourite things and shared those things with me.

Knowing what brings you joy will bring more joy into my life.

It will also give me more things to explore and enjoy while I am in my recovery period - maybe I will find a new favourite show, movie, or book! Maybe I will send my husband out to buy your fav chocolate or coffee or ice cream so I can give it a go. Maybe I will see some photos that will make me smile and brighten my day, or a funny meme or video.

So, with that in mind - if you would like to share some of your fav things with me, I would really love that. You can share them in the comments below, or you can send me a message on Instagram or reply to the email copy of this post, and if you are really called to, I am totally willing to accept things sent in the mail (a piece of paper with your fav scent on it? I don’t know).

I’m doing my best to surrender myself to this whole process, to allow the people who care for me to be there for me, and to accept that care with more grace than I normally do. Or just, you know, accept it in general.

There are lessons in every moment of life, and I am trying so hard to take note of the ones that are cropping up for me. I can feel the love I am surrounded with, and I am accepting that as well, rather than trying to convince everyone that they are wrong and I am undeserving. It’s funny how sometimes it takes a big bad for you to really see these things clearly.

You’re all amazing and I’m so grateful that you take the time to read some of my posts. Please know that you really don’t have to share anything if you don’t want to.

I thought I would share a few of my current fav things.

Song: Night at the Opera by Emei - this is just super fun. I wasn’t sure what to think of it the first time I heard it, but it’s got some great moments. (The fame, the flash, the trauma!)

Book: I finished This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews recently and really enjoyed it - was fun, and has an excellent premise though OMG CLIFFHANGER, I need the next book asap and I think it’s going to be a while because the book only released this year and it was a chonker. Currently reading The Brides by Charlotte Cross which my lovely friend Greg gave to me about the women at the centre of the Dracula story, told mostly in epistolary format I believe. Really enjoying it so far!

Drink: I am really loving a dirty chai at the moment. So good.

Other things: chilly mornings and clear starry nights. Aren’t they delicious? My part time youth librarian job - I just love it so much and it’s one of my happy places. I am going to miss being there so much while I am recovering from surgery! The RPG campaign my brother is running and our group which we have dubbed the Murder Hobos due to a casual reference one of the non-player characters we interacted with used. We definitely do wander around and do a lot of maiming and murder. It’s my first time playing an RPG (I was too scared to do it when I was younger for fear of getting it ‘wrong’, and now I know that there is no wrong), our group is SO fun and I laugh so much and I am so thankful for them.

This naturally means that I am now also addicted to shiny dice...

Your turn, if you’d like to share :-)

Sometimes when you leave a thing for ages it can be really hard to come back to it, and it’s normal for me to basically just let a thing sink into oblivion and pretend that I didn’t care. And yet, I do care. This space has been so good for me in so many ways, and I know I need to get back to it.

I want to.

But first, I thought I would share with you a not so comprehensive list of the posts that I’ve half written over these intervening months in no specific order.

Is It Casual Now? - yes, this is a Chappell Roan reference. A post in which I attempt to get my brain to treat my casual job, well, casually. Because I find it really hard to do that and at the time was spending many more hours thinking about ways to improve things than I was getting paid for. I had actually managed to get to the point where it had become casual in my head as well as casual in actuality when I landed a permanent part-time role as a youth librarian and so now I get to initiate and work on all the things my head was buzzing and be of greater good to our library services.

Untitled post about my residency at the Michael King Writers Centre - honestly, it was such a great experience in so many ways. I’ve not been alone with myself for so long in over twenty years and so it was ROUGH to begin with. But it was really nice to actually get to the point where I missed my family.

Why I Broke Up With My Writing Streak - at some point I realized that I was writing every day not to write every day, but in order to maintain a streak on the game 4thewords. I love this game. I have been using it for a very long time, as evidenced by the FIVE-YEAR writing streak I had. But more often than not I was simply logging in and dumping the crap from my head onto the page in order to ‘win’. Which... wasn’t helping my actual writing. So, I stopped. I broke my streak. I let it all go and gave myself some space. At some point I even had to wonder whether I was still a writer (thankfully, as we can see by the last time I posted, I am). But I think it was important for me to quit so that I could stop focusing on the wrong thing and refocus on the right thing, actually writing.

Funnily enough, I have a new streak. I think I’m at around 80 days now? If I miss a day, I just repair the streak and don’t think about it too hard. I actually do need to dump stuff from my head more often than not at the moment, which brings me to.

One Boob Wonder - a post where I start to talk about being diagnosed with breast cancer not quite two weeks ago. It was quite a shock, despite the fact that the day before I went for my biopsy I was freaking out and telling my family that I thought I was going to lose one breast (my right) and be a one boob wonder. Catastrophizing, or prophesizing? Who knows. Maybe both! It’s been, what, ten days since I had it confirmed? Though at the biopsy the Dr said it was highly likely I had breast cancer and I drove the three hours home crying off and on and breaking the news to the kids when I got back (I’d called my husband after the test).

On reflection, I’m really glad that we had that few days to mull over it before it was confirmed for sure, I told my workmates, and some other friends, and left it a week before I shared it more widely (the old related Facebook post you can share with your personal deets - yes, NZ folks with breast cancer DO deserve more options like they have in other countries).

I am doing pretty well I think, though I know that there will be ups and downs. I’ll have an MRI this week (my first!) and then see my surgeon again next week to make a plan. I’m so glad I got to meet her last week, even if I was freaking out and did not want to get out of the car and go inside because fuck cancer, and every appointment or test just makes it more real. She has reassured me that this will be okay. It was caught early. Prognosis is good.

One step at a time.

Growth? Maybe.

I’m learning that I work in cycles, and that from time to time when all the life stuff becomes too loud and takes up my energy, I need to retreat and the easiest thing to retreat from is the online world. I start to write posts in my head (sometimes I even start actually writing them!) but then the moment passes.

Life is still busy, but it’s not overwhelming right now (phew). In fact, I feel like for the first time in a very long time I’ve managed to strike a decent balance, but most importantly, I’m writing again!

It’s weird how I can forget how good something is for me. Because life was so exhausting that for months I barely wrote. I stopped feeling like a writer, which added to my stress in some easy to point out ways: 2026 is the start of my Master of Creative Writing, and for the first time ever, I’d been awarded a residency. But I felt like I had nothing in the tank for that type of creativity.

Oof.

However. Study has begun! And knowing that there is an expectation for me to write (6-8hrs a week is what the course outline suggests) has enabled me to finally stop spending all of my early mornings lying around listening to audiobooks while I hug my dog - which is a worthy and valuable way to spend time, but also, not conducive to moving out of the creative funk.

Two weeks before semester one began I started to tell myself ‘Okay, Cassie. 6am. Get your laptop. Turn it on. Write something. Anything.’

It took until the third day after the start of the paper for me to actually start. Clearly, putting it off and feeling like a naughty kid is something I get a weird pleasure from, but the point is that I’ve DONE IT.

Wed 25th Feb. This marks the day that I started writing again.

Not only that, but because of the timing, a perfect, beautiful morning routine easily slipped into place.

I wake anywhere between 430-5am, I hug dogs and feed my cat, I stretch while I make a dirty chai. We (the dogs and I, not the cat - she isn’t a fan of the dogs) park ourselves on the covered-in porch where I listen to books and clear notifications on my phone and drink my chai and hug Harlow (Leeloo prefers the beanbag and her space at this refined age of almost 14). Just before 6am I get my laptop. I sign in (I’ve started using 4thewords again after breaking my 5-year streak back in Nov/Dec). Harlow decides that NOW she needs more specific, vigorous pats and attention, I fuss over her, and then I get to writing.

Brain-dump first. Fiction after.

At 645am I move inside and cook breakfast for my middle kiddo. At 7am I deliver it and then take Harlow for a walk. By 8am I am home and sorting some admin and/or housework before school drop off. I feel like I’ve already won the day.

At first the brain dump was taking up a lot more of the allotted 45min writing time than fiction, but over time, that changed.

I found my way into my planned thesis project, and within the space of a couple of mornings I’d several revelations that changed things quite a lot and really brought it into focus. I was going to write the first chapter to submit for the first assignment, but then we found out that he would much prefer it be a short story so that it has a beginning middle and end.

Dammit.

But you know what? I rallied! And then I figured out how I could make a chapter from the YA horror novel I’ll be working on at my residency work as a short story. It will just have two different endings - one for short, one for chapter.

I LOVE writing. I had forgotten that, and I think that this huge break (probably the longest I have ever had since I started writing seriously) was really good for me. Everything felt too much, and writing seemed like the only thing that I could reasonably stop doing and not have things fall down around me.

Except that writing helps ME. And I need to be well too. Which is not to say I’ve been unwell, but I have been overwhelmed and stressed and anxious. I have struggled with the never-ending list of things that needs to be done; the list that just keeps on growing. With feeling like I am failing before I even start.

And now? The list is still never-ending (this is life, after all. You never completely finish most things because they move in cycles), but I’m winning every day. The words are coming easier. I have all but finished the first short story for my Masters and am well into hashing out more details about the flow and overlap of the YA novel for April.

(Shout out to my meds, for the record. I have never before been a ‘gets it done ahead of time’ girlie, but the story isn’t due till the 13th and I will submit it either today or tomorrow, and the fact that I haven’t had to rely on last minute deadline pressure is huge).

Cassie Hart is still a writer.

Thank fuck for that!

It was a new idea for me, and the brief was simple but broad - speak for fifteen minutes about your response to a specific work, alongside two others, and then a QnA.

Not one to enjoy speaking on the fly, I spent time with the art pieces, and I noodled, and was really surprised by what came out. I wanted to share it with you.

Here is the reading I gave:

Ko Tūtoko te mauka

Ko Makaawhio te awa

Ko Uruao te waka

Ko Kāti Māmoe, ko Kāi Tahu, ko Waitaha ngā iwi

Ko Kāti Māhaki ki Makaawhio te hapū

Ko Te Tauraka Waka a Māui te marae

Ko Cassie Hart taku ikoa

Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.

When I was invited to participate in this korero, I was curious and excited. It seemed like an opportunity to collaborate in a way that is new to me, with people who are new to me, in a venue I’ve never spoken in before. I love both new things and collaborations, so this was a delightful proposition.

I thought that I’d come and sit with this piece of art and let it talk to me, that I might write a piece of fiction and read it here for you now. I let my brain noodle on the piece and on what it meant to the artist, and what might mean to me, looking for the strands that would help me create a story that holds some of my normal creepy, magical vibes.

This is not what happened.

What happened was that I thought about my mother. About the scent and texture of harakeke. About how she taught me to weave putiputi as a child.

It was not a dull set of directions in a book, and I have never been able to follow things by verbal instruction alone. I have to see it unfolding, copy the movements, make the motions myself before my brain will latch on and hold the information. Once I’ve done something enough times it absorbs into my being in a way that makes it hard to forget. Given a few moments to reconnect, my fingers will make putiputi on auto pilot. The comfort of each of those folds, those layers, curving into something my skin remembers, my cells delight in.

Each time I do this, it takes me back in time to when life was easier, to when I was safe and comforted. To when creating something so simple made me feel confident and connected.

It was around the time that I was born that my grandfather broke it to the family that he was Māori. That they were Māori. This was in the 1980’s, so by the time I was old enough to be aware, it was just part of who we were. I went to Kohanga Reo when I was little, and it was only recently that I learned that it had only started in the early 80’s, and I realized we must have been among those first members. Perhaps it was a time when we were reclaiming some of what was lost? I couldn’t know at that age that this part of my heritage had been hidden away prior, that it was something my mother was beginning to explore.

I remember our first family hikoi down south in what I remember being an orange bongo van (but could have been yellow or some other colour. It will always be orange to me though), in a convoy with some other cars. None of them were as cool as the bongo van, they fade into history because inside that van were the cousins, swapping seats and stories and jokes, bickering over snacks or elbows, being kids. Being Whanau.

Ko Uruao te waka. Ko bongo van te waka.

It was the first time I’d been to our whenua and I remember the way it felt when we came over a hill, I think, being hit with this feeling like I was home. The wild west coast of the Te Waipounamu. I had yet to set foot on the soil, but I was home.

Having been raised here, beneath Taranaki, on the rugged coast with the brutal winds, and stark landscapes and then visiting where we came from, it seems no wonder to me that I also feel at home here.

Ko Tūtoko te mauka. Ko Taranaki te maunga.

I remember going to the river, rocky and rough, glittering too. Fool’s Gold, they said, but it didn’t matter because it felt like treasure, in the same way that exploring this land that my ancestors called their own did. I had no words for it back then, no knowledge, just the awareness of rightness. Of being complete.

It was cold water, too, and I can’t say if it came from the mauka in the same way that the rivers of my day to day life did, but the rocks, the eels, the aliveness of it made me think of home. Of the river at the back of our farm, icy cold, and full of the treasures of my early years.

Ko Makaawhio te awa. Ko Newall Road stream te awa.

I have memories of chasing chickens, and one of our uncles, you know that distant, never met before kind that is just whanau like you’ve always known them, swinging them around by their necks to snap them. We were helping provide the kai for when the duke of Edinburgh came to visit. There is a photo of us standing in front of him, my little brother photo bombing before it was a thing.

Our uncle gave my brother a stone that looked like any other stone but when you licked it, it turned a vibrant green.

It wasn’t until I was much older that I learned our hapū are guardians of a specific type of stone. Aotea is only found in the Makaawhio river. Before I turned forty, I felt this yearning for my own piece. To have some on me. My mother loaned me hers, which she hadn’t been wearing. When you wear it, the stone changes colour, deepening with the oil of our skin. My children all have taonga of their own and despite the fact that the younger two have pieces from the same stone, they are now two completely different colours, reflecting their individuality, their uniqueness. The taonga they are to me. My mother gave me my own piece when I turned forty and it was yet another time that I’ve come home to myself.

Time. It repeats, and it echoes, and we play out the same stories, again and again, colouring them in our own ways, emphasising different points, downplaying others. But the thread that binds us all together in a line, whether we are made from the same flesh and blood or not, is stronger than weather or time.

My mother was what I rudely referred to as a born-again Māori when I was a moody, mentally unwell teen. I was full of rage and angst, and I didn’t have the grounding to see what she was trying to do with the books and the songs and the deep dives into our whakapapa. And now here I am, walking the same path, struggling in the same way, desperate for knowledge when it feels so out of reach.

Seeing this piece again when I visited just yesterday made me wonder about my own whakapapa. Until now it was always about the land for me.

And about the lack.

Now I want to know whose hands have woven our family line before mine. What feats colour our history.

Te Turaka waka a Maui te marae, where Maui landed his waka on te Waipounamu. Where te Maeroero murdered Tikitiki o Rehua. The place where patupaiarehe play their melodies.

You know, I used to believe I heard them here, under Taranaki, before I even knew what they were. There was an allure to that call, the song of the other – an other which I have always felt even if I didn’t understand why. I was sure they were calling to me, specifically, beckoning me home.

(pause, breathe).

I have never set foot on my marae. The few times I’ve made it to Mahitahi, there was no marae. We gathered at a hall on the beach, it was the base of everything, the hub from which we expanded out under the marquee, around the big rubbish tins where we strung eel to cook, where we ate, where we played. Leading us to the river, the sea, the trees. Trekking across farmland to the urupā of our ancestors. Way off the beaten path, a distance created by colonization and time and trauma.

I want to go to Te Turaka Waka a Maui and learn about who my ancestors are. Fiction and fact, tales embellished, legends told through the lens of our whenua, our tākata taking up the primary roles. All of it folding together to bring us a truth more real than reality. Layered in time.

Layered like the whenu in this artwork. Those whose deft fingers wove these together made decisions about which colours to place where, which strands to use, in what order or orientation. To me, this feels so reflective of life, how loose, how tight, hands reaching for hands, drawing us higher taller, until we are all stars shining in our own unique ways.

Stars were harder for me to learn, but perhaps that is because they are at a distance. I cannot stop and sniff a star, though each and every one of them is an ancestor looking down on me.

It’s up to me to reach back in time, to layer new strength to the pattern of my whakapapa, to bolster the tethers that have weakened over time. To choose which strands to place, and how to colour them. To pass this gift along to my own tamariki.

Right now, my mother is in hospital, having shattered her elbow on Thursday. I have visited her, and called family, shared updated. Taken her mokopuna to visit, gathered the things she needs, and restrained myself from touching her because I don’t want to inflict more pain. Still, she takes time to tell me she appreciates me, that she can handle this pain for now, until the doctors can heal her.

It reminded me that while the body is fragile, the invisible strands that bind us together, person to person, past to present to future, are strong and persevere despite that frailty. That we are woven together.

So. It's been quiet here, and that's not because nothing has been happening, more like things have been changing so quickly I haven't been keeping track. I've realized that with my ADHD once something has stopped being NOW it feels less relevant, so it's hard for me to post about things that happened in what feels like the distant past, even if it's only a few weeks ago.

So today I am here just to talk about how much life has changed since I started taking my ADHD meds.

My brain is quiet. I am no longer such a massive dick to myself all the damn time. All the negative chatter dried up, which has been so lovely. No matter what anti-depressants I've taken in my life, this has never happened before. I definitely notice that as my hormones fluctuate, they can creep back in but as an AFAB person with no uterus, it's really hard to keep track of my hormonal cycles (and I just don't care enough, or have enough spoons, to try). I never knew this was related to ADHD. I mean, it's not like I knew I HAD it, to begin with, but it's been absolutely astounding to me how these meds just turn that shitty voice off or on the worst days, at least shush it to the point I can mostly ignore it.

I have more energy. Apparently, all the stress of having unmedicated ADHD was exhausting? Aside from when I got a nasty cold a month or so ago, I haven't had a single nap since I started my meds. I used to nap DAILY, just about. And I'm not talking a 20-minute nap, I'm talking an hour or more, depending on when kids needed rides or whether there were appointments on during the day.

I can read print books a lot easier! It's so funny to me, that as such an avid reader, I have avoided print for so long, preferring audio so I can play stupid little games or do other things while I listen. But I can actually just sit down with a book and read for ages without constantly wanting to check my phone or seeking an extra form of stimulation. I've always considered myself a really slow reader, and after my diagnosis this distractibility was naturally linked to ADHD. I can sometimes read for hours without looking at my phone now! How wild is that? I know that some of this is also linked to undiagnosed Irlen's, but the cost of the right glasses for that is excessive, and so this is enough. I can read so much easier. Which is a relief because I keep getting books out from the library as they are so shiny and appealing, and now I can actually get through them at a decent pace.

All of this to say that life has drastically changed for me. The meds aren't a cure-all, for sure. I still have trauma that I'm working through, I'm still figuring out who I am, and how I work. Autism doesn't come with a handy pill, and I don't want to medicate away everything that I am. I love these meds for the ease they give me, but I know they don't override all of my ADHD. I can still get distracted if I feel like it. I can still lose time. My short-term memory still isn't amazing, and I can still easily forget why I walked into a room. It doesn't take away the (what I think are) hilarious dark humorous thoughts - but it does buy me a couple seconds to think about whether I'm in the right company to say them out loud.

Which is to say that I feel like they make me more me, not less. Like a version of me that walks through the world with more ease, who is no longer their own worst enemy.

And damn, but I needed that. After 40+ years of constantly beating myself up and thinking horrendous, nasty thoughts about myself, it's astounding to me that my brain can actually be a kind place to exist in. That I can finally give myself some grace, and love in a way I have never been capable of before.

The space it has opened up for a self-love journey is such a blessing, and not one I am going to ignore.

I was so fucking wrong.

Holy shit.

This was not the beginning to the new year that I wanted.

I don't think I've actually sat and gone through ALL the traumatic events in my life so clearly, out loud, from the first that I can recall to the most recent. I've whispered singular events to individuals here and there, tucked others into the pockets of strangers and friends, never letting any one person hold the full burden. The list is huge. All the things that haunt me and have shaped me into who I am today.

Which, some days mostly looks like a trauma response. Am I person beneath all of those layers, beneath the years? I don't fucking know. Some days, I don't think so. Some days I feel like a fucking shell without a crab. The armour discarded because what is inside me grew too unwieldy, too ugly and mishappen to fit inside.

Are any of us more than the experiences of our lives though? How can I still be so caught up in these things when without them I wouldn't be who I am? Because on some level I know that I am kind and compassionate, that I have so much insight into the human experience, the ability to put myself in other people's shoes because of what has happened to me.

And yet...

Anyway, I know that it's not the intention of these processes to split a person open, even if you do need to be willing to pick the scabs off all your wounds and expose them to someone else in order to get the right kind of treatment. The psychologist was lovely. My counsellor was there for extra support too. (I wasn't sure if I wanted the extra body in the room, but I think that it gave her a far more in-depth picture of who I am and what I'm dealing with - what she is going to be part of trying to help me recover from.)

I kind of feel sorry for her. I'm surely not the most complicated person she's had to deal with, by any means, but still. Even if she's not family or a friend, I feel the burden placed on her. Feel that trauma brain whispering in my ear about shit I am, how hard I make things for others, how worthless, how undeserved. How many people have it worse than you, Cassie? They should be here, and you should just shut up and deal.

It was a safe space, and it was done in the most compassionate way that it could. But for some reason, this time, I couldn't just tape down the scabs and carry on. I feel broken open. Confronted. In a near constant state of hyperarousal, alert and warry, unable to relax in the way it feels like I'd not long managed to teach myself how to do.

Fuck.

I'm frozen, unable to do the things that need doing, but also unable to relax. None of my meds are helping with this right now, and that's causing extra mood issues because they normally do, but now I just feel more broken than ever. What was all that work for, if I am all of a sudden not coping now?

Is this the actual rock bottom? When none of your coping methods work anymore. When you cannot distract yourself from the truth because it's perched on your chest, screaming in your face?

I fucking hate it, that's all I know. And I don't want to feel like this, and I'm really pissed off that I've recovered from the worst of my coping mechanisms like drinking too much because damn, I wish I wanted a drink.

Writing this has helped dispel some of the tension (so, thanks!), and I have counselling again in a few days where hopefully I can begin to work on some kind of reset. I'm not sure how I'll get anything of value done while I'm a walking open wound. Smiling, pretending that everything is fine and normal and I'm not a shattered shell, that what looks like gold glue, holding me together is actually poisoned lead. I want to be a beautiful piece of kintsugi. Maybe one day I will be.

I mean, at least now I'm having a much easier time identifying trauma brain when it's whispering in my ear. That's something, right?

Anyway, welcome, to my new official diagnosis of complex post-traumatic stress disorder. Join the fucking club.

There is a problem when you've trained in helping people, where you know the tools, and you know what they might say and suggest, and you can tell pretty quickly if someone is going to be able to SEE you and dig deeper than you can on your own. As a person with a degree in psychology and a post grad in counselling, it's hard for me to trust that someone is going to be worth my time. I've literally had one counsellor ask me what advice I would give myself, and after I told her she said that she had nothing else to add.

I think the beginning of this mistrust stems back to a counsellor I saw after my parents announced their separation. She sat opposite me and kind of nodded and made positive noises, 'mmhmm' even when I wasn't saying anything at all. I hadn't said anything at all. She had not gained my trust, and I think at that time I was fairly locked down. I'd decided that if my parents weren't together then I wasn't going to need anyone. I couldn't trust anyone or rely on them, and I am definitely still working through that!

(Mum, I am not blaming you! You two weren't compatible anymore and I get that. I could see it coming. My response to your decision is not your responsibility. Love you. You're amazing and have always been worthy of my trust, whether I felt comfortable giving it or not.)

(And I will add that I had a really good counsellor once, but that was over twenty years ago now).

After trying, and being rejected several times, for some counselling sessions via the health service, I finally managed to get in to see someone and I just happened to be assigned someone who is a great fit for me. YAY!

Initially I was of the mind that there was no way we could deal with ANYTHING in four sessions. It's such a short amount of time and you need to build some rapport and all of that jazz.

There was none of that. Not really. I sat down and told her about what had been going on (it does help to be ready to open the wounds, and I was ready), she listened and related, and then she told me that she thought the most important thing about our time was that we focus on ME. We could talk about the things going on, but I need to be centred in the conversation. The sun. Everything else orbiting around me.

That was a challenge.

I have spent so long as a side character in my life that it's very hard for me to step into that main character role. And I love that she set that down as a ground rule. She SAW me. Saw my patterns so easily, and as a result, I felt like I could be open with her. She pulls me up when I turn things around so that I'm not the focus, and she can see when something I've said is a scab on a festering wound. She encourages me to rip it off so that we can treat what's below. Of course, all in a gentle way. It's not rough, it's not demanding, she's a guide on this journey, but I had to be ready to do the work.

I'm so grateful to have someone to work with who is a good fit - I've always known how important that is, but when you're working through the public system, you're rolling the dice and just have to take what you're given or get nothing at all.

So, three sessions in, I'm actually having an easier time reaching out to others and asking for what I need. Asking for support. I'm trying hard to trust people (most of whom are actually deserving of that trust - I have amazing friends and family). To trust myself (much harder). I've wobbled; this week, in particular, something happened that sent my brain spiralling, sent me backwards so fast I got whiplash, and I reached out to several friends to ask them to tell me not to quit everything or put myself back into side character mode.

I will not quit my job. I will not quit my writing.

I will not quit on myself.

And that makes me so fucking nervous.

If you spend long enough living crisis to crisis, it can be incredibly hard to accept when things are okay. Like, that life is normal and there is no imminent threat. When things are actually GOOD and not just okay?

My jaw is tight, my back is tense and aching, I am filled with nervous energy because my body and brain just KNOW that something bad is going to happen. I'm constantly thinking about what could go wrong, scanning the world for the next threat. As a friend said, this is where the phrase 'waiting for the other shoe to drop' might come from. Except it feels bigger than a shoe. It feels like the Titanic is going to fall on my head at any moment. Something bad is going to happen.

It has to, right? Something bad always happens. There is always another crisis just around the corner.

But things are good. Genuinely. The best they have been in ages. There is some extra space to breathe and relax, which is why it feels wrong to be on the brink of a meltdown; but I really am just waiting for the next sucker-punch. And the sad thing is? If it came - when it comes - there will be a sense of relief because the world has returned to my normal. I know what to do in a crisis. I've got all the skills to deal with that. I'm used to it, to shoving everything else to the side to deal with what's right in front of me. The most pressing thing. The thing that keeps my loved ones alive.

But I do not know what the hell to do with lower levels of stress. I'm not sure I remember what it's like to have average, daily, regular old stress levels. Have I ever? I'm honestly not sure. My brain is seeking it out, frenetic, frantic, desperate for whatever chemical load comes with the stress. I want it. I need it. I crave it.

I get it now, in a bodily way, not just as theory or knowledge learned from others, how hard it can be to disengage from conflict and 'drama'. How there is a gap in your brain when it's gone, how it feels bad, wrong, how it unsettles you. I want to invite it in. I'm looking for it almost hungrily.

By nature, I am not a dramatic person. I avoid conflict. I like peace. But I am coming to realize that after living like this for so long, I don't know how not to. Not really. All my attempts to relax and unwind and find peace have been a scratch on the surface, and there has always been that underlying tension. Me, poised, ready to respond at a moment's notice.

And living like that? Has made it really easy to ignore my own internal landscape a lot of the time. I mean, I understand me as much as anyone can understand themselves, but all of the chaos has given me an excuse not to really face up to myself. Every time I've picked up a book and felt slapped in the face by the truths exposed, I've still had the chaos which meant that I didn't have time to fully address those issues. There was always a reason (an excuse?) why I had to put that to the side and solve the bigger more threatening issues.

Oof.

That means I'm going to have to work on me now, right? I cannot blame anyone else, anything else, for my bullshit. I'm going to have to stop being distracted by all the other things and actually focus on myself (gross!).

It's weird that in some ways the high stress levels can give you the freedom not to do the personal growth that you need to do. Not to dig too deep into the problems that you know you have. It's almost a relief when you can focus on someone else's needs rather than your own. It's easier to deal with. Easier to see the answers, to solve.

This is such an uncomfortable space to be in, and I know that healing from trauma, getting to a place where I can find a new equilibrium is going to be a weird journey, an unpredictable one. I honestly never knew that everything changing for the better so quickly would throw me into such a loop.

I don’t like it. But I also kinda love it.

This is something I have at many times over the years voiced to others that I never thought would happen. He has always had a lot of needs, primarily ME. And I have always done my very best to be there for him and help him work through all the things that have cropped up across his life (and there have been many!). For a long time, we weren't even sure he would make it out of his teens alive.

And now he is well enough to embark on an independent life. To go and live with other people and experience new things. So many wonderful things. I'm so freaking excited for him. SO fucking proud. Like, wow. We did it, we got to this place! And it's beyond my wildest hopes for him. He's studying, and he has new friends, and he is doing so great. He's worked so hard to get here and I don't think he realizes just how far he's come. But I do. I see it. I see him. I believe in him.

And it doesn't matter if things go pear shaped and he needs more support - the simple fact that he's giving it a go? That he is putting himself out there? Amazing. Astounding. So worth celebrating.

This is the first time I've had a child move out of home and I've got to admit, I'm not as emotionally prepared as I'd like to be. I fully believe this is going to be wonderful for him, and for us as well, but the fact he won't be here every day? Ooof. There is this twisty mess of emotion: joy, grief, pride, nerves, excitement. He is the first to go, but it won't be all that long before our middle child heads off to university. I have less than two years of them here at home to go.

We were watching Shrinking last night (thanks for the rec, Richard!) and the adults are talking about how you get to a certain stage with your kids where you just have to let them go off and do the things, and if you've done parenting right, they'll reach out when they need you. And I know he does. (sometimes, he reaches out when he doesn't really need me, but I am a giant security blanket). I will always have my kids backs when I can. Even when I can't. Even to the detriment of my own back. It's just how I parent and it's so important for me that they know I'm a safe place to land.

I'm getting better at saying no when it's a preference rather than a need, better at making sure I'm also looking after me, but in those big times of need? I will always be there however I can be.

But tomorrow night, this kid? He won't be sleeping under my room. I'm sure I can go a few days with just thinking he's away, staying with a friend or something. Every time I walk past his room though, I'm going to see that empty space (okay, let's be honest, it won't be empty, it's going to have a mess left behind, things still stuck to the walls, bits of rubbish, discarded clothes, and anything we didn't have the energy to move at the time, some of which is no doubt likely to lurk there for weeks, oh and his bed, and an old set of drawers he isn't taking with him).

How am I dealing with that empty space? Because I can already feel it.

It's a void waiting to be filled.

I'm dreaming about the day I can create my office in his old room. We've agreed to wait some time before I do that. It's important for him to know that if he needs to run home, he can. That there will still be space for him (that it will still be HIS space). To feel like I've not just been waiting for this day so I can take the space for myself. Some part of his brain might even try and convince him that I forced him out of the house so I could take it over, even though he knows that's not the truth (brains are tricksy - hilariously when I showed him the paint colour I've chosen he literally went on a half-hearted rant about how I just want him gone so I can take over his room lol and then I read him this, and we both chuckled).

But I have dreamed of the day I'll have an office. That office has had many iterations in my head over the past ten years. I've looked at cabins to rent or buy. At one time I even wondered if there was a way I could convert our ensuite into an office, albeit a small, damp one. However, where the hell would all our clothing go? lol I thought about converting the front porch into a fully built in space, the garden. I've looked at furniture and thought about the perfect chair. I've perused Pinterest looking at colour schemes and decorations. I've priced up different combinations of items, and paint and decorations. For most of my parenting life, I've had to fit myself into other spaces - the kitchen, the living room, the hallway, the bedroom. Spaces that everyone else occupied, or could, whenever they wanted.

I'm so ready to have a room of my own (I have been ready for a long time. I thought I would be waiting longer. I'd have coped if I was). A place where I can close the door and shut everyone out (everyone but the dogs, anyway). A place where I can spread out, breathe, be as me as I want to be with no consideration for other people. It's hard for me to articulate why this is important, but maybe part of it is just down to being such an introvert. Of needing so much peace in my life. A place that I get to control and dictate the rules for. Everyone else has a room in this house - I even call the bedroom my husband's room lol I sleep there, and my clothes are there, but I don't even get dressed in there, I gather clothing and dress in the bathroom because I get up at a ridiculous hour of the morning and don't want to wake him.

His computer is there. He works from home there. He plays games there. He watches TV there.

I don't feel like it's my room in any meaningful way.

It's amazing that in the near future I will be able to stake a claim on my own space. I can already feel the relief that will bring seeping toward me from the future. I am dreaming all the dreams, and using those dreams and that hope to help me process all the feelings involved when your first kid leaves the nest.

I'm spending a lot of time vacillating between several states: I am the void, the void is calling, I am avoiding.

And the moments were things actually feel like they are improving only for fatigue or pain to slam me back down again.

It's heavy. So heavy. And I am so fucking tired.

The thing is that nothing is wrong! Things are better than they have been in ages for my loved ones. I think I've just been holding on for so long, navigating us through one crisis after another that now that things have apparently settled my body and brain are reacting. I am excellent in a crisis, but there is ALWAYS a come down, and at this point I guess I've been in crisis mode for two plus years, so the come down is really fucking rough.

I've noticed this trend that when I am struggling my jaw is clenched all the time, physically and mentally. It's like there is so much toxic bullshit in my brain that is desperate to claw free, but I can't let it. If I let it come out, I might fall apart. If I let it slip that I'm not okay I might fall over and be unable to get up again.

Logically, I know that I always get back up. I don't seem to know how not to. This is a good thing, right? Though sometimes I think that if I could just stay down for longer, I'd get a lot closer to being okay.

I just don't know how.

I've found that it gets to the point where little things slip out in voice messages to friends, or phrasing I use. It's not hard for them to notice. Hard for me not to confirm that actually I am close to being a quivering mess. It's this toxic mesh of perfectionism, masking, responsibility, need for independence/to not be a burden. The desperate desire to just be okay for a change. I've been trying really hard to be more honest about it with people I feel safe with, and so far, it's been well received. I'm reminded that I am loved. I am cared for. That other people want me to be okay and will make time for me if that's something I think will help.

Eventually, I slip. It all slips. Tears, words, me curled on the floor sobbing in emotional, mental, physical agony.

I think I've forgotten what thriving looks like because I've been in survival mode for so very long now. And that's a hard place to come out of.

So, I've come here to say that I am not okay, and hope that in doing so, I can loosen the screws on my jaw, and it won't hurt so much. That I can speak more truthfully about what is going on with me, because I feel like I am in general an authentic person. But I AM also a liar. A lying liar pants. Because I don't want to be a burden, and I don't want others to hurt because I'm struggling, and by now I should just be able to pick myself back up again and get on with things (and I will, I promise I will, I always do).

That said, isn't it in part my job to protect at least my kids, and my loved ones, from the mess that is my head? It's not THEIR job to make it better. I never want that to be the case. How can one be honest without also oversharing or traumatizing others with their stuff? It's a line that I find hard to tread sometimes. It's either all falling out of me in gooey chunks, or it's locked up, and I haven't learned how to be normal about it.

I keep seeing those stupid messages around the place that say 'It's okay to not be okay' - which, fine, yes, let's normalize talking about the ways in which we aren't okay, but also at what point does it stop being okay to not be okay? When do we switch from it being okay, to having it impact all the other levels of our health? (which it does, trust me, I know. It's too late for me)

Having just been rejected for counselling via the public health system, I guess I'm still 'okay 'enough for them not to think I need to see someone.

I mean, they're wrong, but what do I know? I only have to live in my head with all of these stupid thoughts.

Today I unclenched my jaw and told someone where I'm at. It helped, I think. But resulted in several rounds of sobbing and blotchy red skin, but at least the intrusive thoughts are quieter. The problem is that so many people are struggling right now, and I am used to being the support, the lifter upper, the donkey who shares the load.

The donkey whose back is now broken, but who keeps on plodding, keeps on offering to take the load... It’s just who I am. I want those I love to be okay, I just need to stop letting it be at the expense of my own okayness.

I'm so tired.

I will keep on going though, because that is what I do. I'm 44 and I'm still here, still breathing, still learning how to be okay.

However, there is a Zero Build option now, and so I was like, okay, fine. I will play with you.

Shooting games are not where my strengths lie. In fact, I'm just plain bad at them. I made exceptions for certain games as long as there is good story, but I will never forgive myself for getting stuck near the very end of Uncharted 1 when I accidentally saved the game at a place where I could not go back to get more ammo (before I realized one should always have MULTIPLE save points), and I had bugger all and there are a million Descendents ready to eat my face off.

I'm just never finishing that game. *shrugs*

After weeks of playing Fortnite almost daily I still struggle to know where people are firing from at times and can't track all the things, I've only just got to grips with what the different guns do, and I can only kill a couple of people per round. BUT I am having so much fun.

This is not something I ever thought you'd hear me say.

I look forward to my hang time with the middle kid so that we can load up the game and get a few rounds in. I've even started looking at quests and stuff, interacting with the wider world within the game.

And I splurged and got the Battle Pass, because I was so sick of being a default avatar in the game. I wanted to be something more ME.

Anyway, the whole point of this post is that I've found incredible joy in being really bad at something. I have embraced the suckage and feel absolutely no shame about a) how bad I am or b) how much I'm enjoying being bad.

Which is not to say that I'm not trying to improve - but as a perfectionist who is trying really hard to free herself from always having to do the best, there is something beautiful in just being really bloody terrible. In letting that be okay.

It wasn't until I listened to a book called How to be Enough: Self-Acceptance for Self-Critics and Perfectionists by Ellen Hendriksen that I realized just how much perfectionism has been controlling my life. It prevents me from even trying things if I think I might be bad at them. It made me look back at my life and realize that I denied myself a lot of joy for fear of being bad or worse than I was the last time I did something.

Examples of this: in my early teens I was a top archer in New Zealand in my age bracket. Consistently top 3 in the country. I really enjoyed Archery, I was good at it even before I got glasses at 15 - I was short sighted, so you can imagine how much I improved AFTER I got glasses. Now and then I think about picking up a bow, but perfectionism prevents me from doing that. What if I sucked? What if that was my peak? What if I could never be good again?

Does it actually matter if I'm good, though? My brain screams YES, especially because I WAS good before so therefore, I should always be good and if I can't be good, I should just never do the thing.

This also applies to medieval sword-fighting, horse riding, and no doubt many other things. Naturally, I think the pressure to be good at something I was once good at is more intense, but that same pressure applies to almost everything. If I am not capable of being good at a thing, what is the point in even trying? This hinders me in my author career as well because I find 'selling' very hard, and so I avoid it. Ads? Forget about it. Marketing? Kill me now. I don't know about these things, and even though logically I know I COULD learn, my brain says I am going to be bad at them, so I'm not even going to try.

...

Yeah, that's working SO well for me /sarcasm.

But with Fortnite there is no weight on it. No financial loss. No pressure. It doesn't matter if I'm bad at it. I can still gain XP and unlock skins. It's fast paced and I can die and die and die again, and there is no cost, no consequence. It literally doesn't matter.

It's very freeing.

And I feel like that energy is something I need to bring to other areas of my life.

What if I could find a way to let go on the perfectionist reins and just accept being bad? What if the true cost of NOT doing the thing is actually higher than the cost of trying?

*shudder*

I am both horrified at the thought of being bad AND at the thought of all the ways I've restricted, controlled, and made my life smaller due to my fear of being awful at a thing.

Fortnite is, weirdly, helping me work through this. Every time I die in a new dumb way (and trust me, there have been some hilarious deaths) and my body doesn't go into a shame response shows me that it's okay to suck. That the consequence of failure is not actually life threatening. That I can fail and try again, and again, and again, and still be okay. I can still reboot and give it another shot.

Of course, there are some consequences for failure in my writing career - a book could bomb (but that's happened, and I didn't die), I could be terrible at ads and lose money (I also didn't die when this happened, though the shame spiral was huge, and I've been too afraid to try again) and so many other things - but I genuinely feel like Fortnite is helping me to kill the shame of failure and to actually, weirdly, find joy in it. I can laugh at myself (gods, I am SO serious when it comes to me, this is actually a real relief. Thank fuck my kid doesn't get TOO mad at me when I die). I feel excited at the opportunity to try again.

Fortnite is still fast paced in general, much faster than writing and publishing, but I genuinely believe that it's helping me in ways I could never have predicted when I picked up my PS4 controller. It's a joyful game for me, and I'm excited to apply some of that newfound joy in failure to the rest of my life. I WANT to experiment, and my brain is bubbling with thoughts of how I can do that - I want to see the results of those attempts no matter what they are and then throw myself at the problem again.

At the pace of a chronically ill person, that is.

I have never been able to do speech to text before - historically the apps have not been great at interpreting New Zealand accents (or other accents either), but Otter? Otter gets me. From the very first time I tried it I was really impressed by how well it did. Initially I was using it to make notes on the first draft of In the Earth's Embrace, the second book in my co-write series with Iris Beaglehole, but then one morning I was walking and I was hit with this scene. These words, and so I opened the app and I spoke into it. Slowly, not getting it perfect, but just speaking the very short scene and I got shivers. It was so great, and I am in love with that scene. I've gone on to write other snippets from different point of view characters in the same way and I almost think it's easier to get different voices for the characters that way because I'm talking in a different way, choosing different words and different things that the girls focus on. It was... exhilarating.

Writing by hand means that I'm taking it slow, thinking about word choice, having fun with that. I was working on the first piece and got to a point where I realized that there could be someone in the car waiting for this character, but I didn't know who it would be. So, I stopped and jotted down the different options and what would make them interesting, before picking one to roll with, and ended up being able to end that chapter on this huge reveal. I made all the notes in a different colour, so just took my time with it was so fun.

The biggest fear I have around this is that I'm paranoid as fuck about losing my work, and yet I can't seem to bring myself to transfer it all to word doc. I have with small bits typed up, but not everything, and currently there are bits of it in at least two different notebooks.

And then there are the speech to text notes, which I really need to transfer somewhere.

I've never had a project so spread out. I'm normally that gal who opens a word doc and writes something from start to finish.

But not this time.

Oh, what if I write each character's stuff in their own notebook? Is that just an excuse to get more notebooks? What if I write diary entries? Ooooo. Now that's given me another idea.

I've known for a long time that TIME is what my brain needs - space to think things through, to work stuff out - but the push of indie publishing is that you always need to be doing more, putting out another book, having something on the horizon. The sooner the better.

Of course, burning out - AGAIN - was a great reminder to me that I'm never going to be that person again and if I so much as think about it too hard I'll be slammed back into bed so hard my hair follicles will hurt, and I'll feel each tooth aching individually.

I've seen on YouTube that people use the letters of the title to refer to their book and at present, the title is LONG, literally the longest I've ever had, but we're going to call it TTWPWB. It's a young adult horror full of what I consider to be delicious things. It deals with sexual harassment by a teacher (drawing from my own experiences) at a private school on an island (obviously not from my experience). It's told from five different girl's points of views and is the most complex thing I've ever worked on.

There is a lot of body horror with the way that our bodies change and how sometimes they don't feel like our own when others take them and use them in ways we don't consent to, we naturally have female rage, and the monstrification of the girls in various ways. Revenge, of course. Secrets, and the intense teenage friendships that are both nurturing and toxic at the same time. Obsession, possession, regression. There are too many things that this book is to be able to explain them all, and while it's full of dark, difficult, triggering, awful things, it also lights me up in ways I haven't felt in a long time.

Because I think my best work is work that draws from the well of my own pain, my personal rage, my unique worldview - those are the things that make me an individual, those are the things I can bring in a way only I can write, so I might as well make the most of them. They also are where I draw my strength from when it comes to writing the so called 'book of my heart'.

Butcherbird was that book, and now... now TTWPWB is. There will be many other books of my heart, I am sure, and the more heart I give to my books, the more I love them - and the more my readers love them too, I think. I hope.

Oh, and in case any of you were wondering - will I be writing this whole damn book by hand and voice? Gods, I hope not. But you never know, do you? And I'm just going to let the story show me where it wants to go.

Until next time! I'll be the one rolling around in this book like a dog in a fresh corpse. It feels amazing to be so in love with a project, and hopefully recording some of that love will help remind me of those feelings when I'm stuck in the mires and can't see my way out.

*This post has also been made into a video for my YouTube channel, and while I was kind of going off this post, it no doubt differs in some ways - you can check that out here if you’re interested. FYI, I don’t have the spoons to edit videos, so you get me in all my messy glory! lol)

Four Hundred Metres.

*brain implodes*

That's so close! But back then, it might as well have been a marathon. I did it sometimes, in an attempt to improve my fitness, but it wasn't enjoyable. I do lots of steps just around the house and in daily life, and I've always managed to overextend myself dramatically if the need arose (special events etc), but it would result in post exertional malaise for days afterwards.

And then we got Harlow in August 2023. She was four months old, and I had committed to exercising her daily. She was either sleeping or ON, and the walks helped spend some of that energy (though it in no way stopped her desire to chew all the things...)

Over that time, she's grown (you can see from the pics!) as has her need to stretch her legs. After we found out she had hip dysplasia and could no longer walk on the beach, I spent months just going around the block. It's about 1.5kms and includes a hill. For a long time, that did me in. I couldn't get to the top without puffing (and I used to have to stop on the way up). It was a good amount of effort without wiping me out (most days). We would then also sometimes walk to the clifftops and look at the sea, and that was lovely (though she would often see her old beach dog friends and be sad).

Slowly, I've been extending myself. Looking at new routes, making tweaks. A year ago, I couldn't imagine a time I'd be able to walk a specific route with a longer up hill/down hill section, but I kept driving that road and seeing other people walking their dogs and then one day a few weeks, we did it. And it was easy. Oh my god.

After almost a year and a half I can now easily walk over 3kms in the morning. I don't need to stop, even on the hills, though Harlow often needs to stop and sniff/watch traffic/watch birds/watch rabbits/whatever else takes her fancy. She is a big watcher. I feel like I could do more - and some days when it's busy I DO walk a lot more. I got in a couple of 16,000 step days when friends came to town for a visit a few weeks back - and that's delicious and exciting to me. I can do BIG days and still cope. I don't always crash and burn afterwards now (though it's inevitable sometimes).

And it reminds me that progress can be slow - incremental, almost invisible at times - but it's still progress. Movement in the right direction. This is success. It's change. It's improvement. Despite being chronically ill, I have more in the tank than I used to and that gives me hope in all areas of my life. If I can claw back some level of fitness, then I can probably claw back in other areas too as long as I have patience, and maybe some good motivation like a lovely dog who needs to burn off some energy.

It’s all about giving myself that time and space, and figuring out what that motivation looks like - and not being too much of an asshole to myself when I can’t yet see the changes, because they are happening, even if not at the pace I’d ideally like.

What might be changing in your world that you haven’t noticed yet?

It's nomination time, and I am here with an ask - if you read and enjoyed my short story fog/fugue, published in the August issue of takahē, it would be amazing if you consider nominating it for a Sir Julius Vogel Award in the best short story category.

The SJV's are New Zealand's science fiction and fantasy awards, and a great way to find excellent Kiwi reads if you're looking for a place to start. We have so much talent here in our small nation, and I don't think I'll ever win in the short story category, but a gal's gotta shout about her fav story of the year, right?

The nomination guidelines are linked HERE and the details you would need are below.

Title: fog/fugue

Creator: Cassie Hart

Category: Best Short Story

Publisher: takahē

Contact: just.cassie.hart@gmail.com

Other info: The link for the story is here: https://www.takahe.org.nz/fog-fugue/

Please don't feel any pressure to, but nominating for these awards is a lovely way to show authors that you enjoyed their work - if there are other things you've loved, pleased give them a shout out. It really does make authors smile. I’m finishing off my own nominations this week so that I don’t forget! Nominations close at the end of Feb 2025.

Look at this beautiful shiny pointy award!

I did not always succeed. I was more often than not disappointed in myself - imagine that? Setting myself up like that and being an asshole. Not cool, Cassie. Not cool at all!

Things are different now though, in a number of ways.

I've decided to do away with goals, for starters. Well, SMART goals. After a lot of reflection, I've realized that they just don't work for me. They stress me out. My life is too chaotic. I keep using that word to refer to things, chaos, and I want to stop for a moment and expand on that. I don't consider chaos to be a bad thing - my life is sensitive to change, things shift and mutate and grow and evolve and I LOVE that. Sure, it means it can be hard to plan too far ahead, and that SMART goals are out the fucking window, but I'm good with flux and change. The psychics definition of chaos is: the property of a complex system whose behaviour is so unpredictable as to appear random, owing to great sensitivity to small changes in conditions. That last part is particular important, because I am sensitive to small changes in conditions, so it makes sense that my life is as well - the things I choose to put my energy into can shift as life shifts, but I feel like over the course of 2024 I've learned so much about myself that I can now be more certain that where I decide to put that energy is the RIGHT place to put it.

This year I'm focused more on the process than the destination, which is why SMART goals have been kicked out of my world. The more I tried to work toward a deadline, the less I enjoyed the work. It stole my love - I gave my love away. Well, I'm taking it back.

Here is the chain of thought: when focused on deadlines/outcomes, I don't enjoy the work, I feel pressure, I don't feel like I have the time to make a book everything I want it to be, and then I find it really hard to actually do any promotion, so my books don't sell.

Um, well, that's dumb!

So this year I'm enjoying the process of writing projects that call to me, that challenge me, that allow me to learn and grow and write about things that are important to me. I keep likening myself to a dog rolling around in a fresh animal corpse, because that's totally what is happening in my head. When Harlow finds a dead thing, she tries her very best to throw herself on top of it and ROLL, getting that stink all up in her business.

I want to be all up in the business of these books. I'm SO excited about the projects I have on - but I'm also ready for things to take time, to need revising, to challenge me, to send me crazy with the problems that crop up. One of the best lessons from last year is that things take as long as they take, and if I give projects the time and space they need, I feel better about them, I can make them as good as I possibly can before I hit publish, and then I actually feel positive about promoting them and telling people about them. Win!

Part of this also means doing something I've been terrified about - finding beta readers, building my advanced reader team. I have this core belief that I am a terrible person, thus I must also be a terrible writer, terrible at everything basically - I'm simply fooling people into believing otherwise (muahaha, I am SO ghastly and clever). Obviously, I am not a terrible person, and also, as a very good friend said to me last year, I've had all the external validation that I should ever need to show that I am not a terrible writer too.

But I just can't get away from that fear, and that fear has stopped me from reaching out to find alpha or beta readers who could give me feedback and help me make my books better... It's stopped me from finding a decent editor to help me make my books shine, which is all obviously just feeding into my belief that my books are terrible, and I am a terrible writer.

Self-defeating cycles be damned - time to break free.

This year, it's time to listen to my intuition. To trust that I know me best. To disengage from the remaining 'should's that hang over every self-publishing author. To finally listen to myself rather than everyone else. I know, it's taken a long ass time. But I can be a really slow learner...

Normally I choose a word of the year. I literally can't remember what last years was because it went right out the window, and I moved back into Survival Mode. This year I'm choosing Expansion. This year I am choosing Sparkle.

Because I am going to shine. This year, I will be the me-est me I can be.

Almost at the end of 2024 and so it's time for the annual wrap up - I say that, but I genuinely don't know if I did one last year. Was I even really here? I have no idea. I mean, it's debatable as to whether I was really here this whole damn year.

So, let's get into it.

2024 is the hardest year I've had in a really long time. It was so hard. I went into it with one chronic condition and I'm leaving it with three. I've spent more time than ever before on alert for friends and family members who were actively trying to take themselves out of this world, including two incredibly intense months in my own home. More intense than the 18 or so intense months that came before that. Things are MUCH better on that front now, thankfully! But I think I'm still recovering. Still working through my trauma - and finally saw the Dr and got a referral for some counselling of my own, which will hopefully happen earlyish in the new year.

I started the year feeling like finally it was going to be the year of Cassie, but damn if that didn't fall apart quickly. For several reasons - I have had terrible boundaries. My situation required a lot of extra energy output. More trauma. Lots of hypervigilance. I hit the worst burnout I've possibly ever had, and that's after being in burnout already and feeling like I was on the path to recovery - dammit!

And yet...

My family and friends are all still alive. I had a bunch of wins, which I have to thank Instagram for telling me about. They sent me a wrap up thing with all the highlights and it made me realize that despite it all, I did pretty well!

So, let's go over those things, focus on the good and not dwell on the bad.

I published two new books - Courting Gemini came out in May and basically did nothing. I think it earned out its costs, but not much more than that. I was already burnt out by then and didn't feel like the book was everything I wanted it to be, which made it hard for me to promote. And also made me sad, because the idea was epic, and I love my characters.

On the other hand, In the Spirit released this month and I felt SO buzzy about that! I actually shared some snippets and posted about it in places, and it's doing really well. I put this down to Iris Beaglehole's devoted readers - I'm grateful they are taking a chance on a book that has me as co-writer, and it's been really delightful to see that some people are reading all the way through and then going on to pick up another one of my books. One that basically hasn't sold a copy in years!

It was also a highlight to get that book out at all. I first published it Dec 1st 2014, and while I loved the original Kotahi Bay series, it was my debut and I have become a much better writer, and felt like that series deserved so much more. Iris suggested we rewrite it together and that has been an absolutely magical experience. Literally. I can't wait to get stuck into book two in the new year.

I had some great teaching opportunities - my second time at Kāpiti Writers’ Retreat where I taught worldbuilding and had the most amazing class, as well as the NZSA Roadshow in Manawatu with a lovely group of people. It was an almost surreal experience because I had a migraine and relied on the kindness of others to get through.

I also did a couple of panels at the Auckland Writers Festival for the first time, and that was so great! I loved the experience.

And, I had a solo writer talk at our local library for an event as well, which was a first for me.

I got asked to be the featured writer for takahē, a literary mag here in NZ. I was really surprised because I don't necessarily write what I'd have assumed they wanted, but they assured me they wanted me. I really enjoyed writing fog/fugue for them and was thrilled to find out that they had nominated my story as one of their six nominations for the Pushcart Prize.

I also got asked if I'd submit a microfiction to a bilingual anthology, and I threw something at that, not expecting it to get in - but the editor loved it, and so next year I'll have my first story published in both English and in Te Reo Māori.

Sloane and I finalized and published Death in the Mouth Vol 2 - which is even more gorgeous than the first one!

My Canadian bestie/co-writer Dee came all the way here to Aotearoa NZ and we hung out!!! I met Sara, and we all had the loveliest time together. It was soul filling in the best way.

I took my kids to their first ever protest, which was amazing. Such a fantastic turnout that I think really made the kids feel like there are things you can do to let our government know we aren't okay about the things they are doing.

I learned a lot about myself, about the way I work, about the things that are important to me and help me function, and I'm taking more time than ever to rest and be alone. (Hello 3am starts!), and I'm leaving 2024 in better physical health than I started, which feels really good. Harlow and I are going to have to extend our walks, because we both need a little more, and I love that so much.

Oh, and as of this date - 23rd of Dec - I've read 335 books this year, which is awesome!

I finally feel like I'm coming out of burnout, and despite telling myself that I'm going to take a break this month, I've been working on goals and plans for the future - and a lot of reading, but still, I want to get started, am chomping at the bit, and have to keep reminding myself that I'm not working right now. I'm resting and reading as many of my physical TBR as I can. I’m still recovering. Still making up for so much burnout and will need to keep doing so for the foreseeable future.

Right. That's an extremely long wrap up! If you made it all the way to the end, I'd love to know some of the highlights of your year if you want to share.

OH! I almost forgot - I launched Chronically Burnt Out (but hopeful)!!! How could I forget? I guess it just feels like an extension of me rather than something new, but it’s been a huge help to me. I hope it’s made you think, or smile, or grow.

Let's make 2025 shiny.

It's easy for me to ignore the print books, even when they are the most obvious ones, glaring at me from shelves and headboards, and side tables.

ANYWAY.

A week or so ago I decided (as is very common for me at this point in the year) to complete reading those print books that have been languishing on my 'currently reading' pile. I started with this one because it's much less personally challenging than the boundaries book.

This book is basically a challenge to the 'busy is best' and productivity push that we have in our world to always be doing, to be earning, to be improving, seeking success. I admit that I grew up believing that I always had to be doing better, doing more, working harder, and I realized recently that I have this weird internal core belief that I am only valuable/important/worthy of love (ACK! I hate admitting that) if I am useful to other people. Which is very gross.

The challenge with chronic illness, and in particular invisible illness, is that you don't LOOK sick, so it feels like you're always having to explain why you're not doing the things that you feel like you should just be able to do. And internally, for me at least, I am often fighting against that desire to be and do more vs the need I have to rest.

An interesting thing has happened since I started this blog though, and that is that I spend a lot less time on my computer. I rest a lot more. I'm actively seeking ways to bring more joy and pleasure to my life. I've discovered that hanging out with the right people feeds my soul, and that while I need (and currently get) hours of solitude (hello, 3am dog alarm), I need my people too.

I've also discovered just how much I enjoy voice notes. This book loves the idea of phone calls, but I find them hard for a number of reasons, however, I fucking love voice notes. I love hearing the voices of my friends and family. I love being able to listen to something again if I feel like I missed something or want to confirm what was said, or if there is a message that just makes me smile. When one of my co-writers sends me a 9-minute ramble on messenger, I love to listen to her tell me about her day, her ideas, her thoughts, her processes. I love listening to her surroundings too, knowing she's chatting to me as she walks along a busy street, or when she's sitting in her spa, birds trilling in the background. I love hearing her voice because the book has this right - we can tell SO much more about how a person is feeling by hearing their voice than we can over text message. And I get to do that in my own time, when I am ready. I love hearing from another pal whose sarcasm and wit comes through via his voice notes so much more than it does on text. I love hearing my friends. My people. I can tell how they are feeling, and my brain/heart/love/compassion for them swells. I swear having had many conversations and voice notes with my Canadian co-writer was a huge contributor to the way we instantly gelled when we met in person, as naturally as if I'd known her in the flesh for years but just hadn't seen in her an age.

I really should have made Ode to the Voice Note its own post, huh? lol

Back to the main point of the post...

I don't think I'm less productive than I was when I was spending a lot more of my time here, butt in chair, eyes on the screen, fingers hovering over the keyboard. However, I am less stressed. I no longer feel constantly busy. I feel like I have plenty of time to get things done (most of the time anyway lol). I have less guilt about enjoying books or time with family/animals/people.

Note: I am still doing so many of the things I was before, but now that I'm not sitting at my computer letting myself feel overwhelmed by them, now that I'm taking breaks and giving myself more space and time to just breathe, I can see that I HAVE the time, and I'm using it more wisely.

This book explains a lot of why it works out that way. It provides ample research and evidence to show that actually, staring at your screen isn't the best use of your time. That taking breaks is vital. That hobbies and social time are incredibly valuable, and that while we resist things like phone calls and going out to catch up with people, those things give us way more value than we're aware of. It pulls from history, neuroscience, and social science to show how important it is to change our habits (and not just in the 'stop being on your damn phone all the time' way) in order to better thrive.

Because, despite the fact that we're so technologically advanced and should theoretically have easier lives, it feels like a lot of people are sad, stressed, overworked, exhausted, and really fucking done with the status quo.

Admittedly, there was a lot more of the history and theory/thinking stuff than I thought there would be going in, but it was fascinating to read how we've changed over time and consider how quickly technology has advanced vs the speed at which humans evolve (ie: nowhere near as fast). Ultimately, it confirmed all the things I've been trying to change already, which, let's face it, is always something we humans like.

*Pats self on back* Good job, Cassie.

I recommend this if you like this kind of history/social dissection or need convincing to quit working so hard (because you'll probably still get as much done as you do now, but you'll be happier/less stressed, and I would love that for you).

In fact, sometimes that seems to be when I do my best work. 

I'm always looking for these correlations though. I want things to make sense. I want to note down adaptations I make and look for how that results in change. This scientist-like curiosity runs through my family line, we always seem to be seeking answers, poking things to see what happens, and I love that.

But sometimes I wonder if I need to poke less and observe more. Control less, and witness my nature unfold. 

I've been trying that lately because I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm not actually designed to be the person who does things in a staid and steady way. I've always said that I am the tortoise, not the hare, but maybe in some ways I AM the hare. Maybe I should be embracing the whirlwinds of energy and focus and follow those up with periods of rest.

Evidence that backs this up: after I finish a stage of a project, I always have a slump. My energy drops, my desire to push drops, and I just want to curl up and hide. 

When I am IN the zone with a thing, it's the only thing I want to do, it takes up my focus and I can't really do anything much outside of that (it was totally a lie I told myself that I could work on several projects at once. I have never been good at this. One project is always leading the charge, and the others are sidelined. I'm ready to accept this.) 

When I am ON, I am a whirlwind of activity. I can get so much done and it feels amazing (these are the days when I worry I'm going manic and have in the past tried to suppress myself) - and I've come to consider that 'crash' that happens after big activity as part of my chronic illness/mental health stuff, when maybe it's just part of the ebb and flow of my energy cycles. But maybe it's not? Because...

Even when I am doing my best to be staid and steady and not over-extend myself, I still need to have those rest breaks. I still slump. It's not directly related to 'over-doing' it. Also, I can be doing all the right things and still have lulls, still have health flare ups.

I think this is just me.

And I suspect that leaning into those high focus periods and not forcing it during the low focus days is going to be more productive and happiness inducing than trying to be level and steady and make progress in a straight line. I always said I was the tortoise because my progress is slow, because I thought I needed to be steady. I think that was a moral of the story I took too far.

Because maybe my natural rhythm is that of the hare.