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The announcer on Radio 3 this morning reminded me that it will be Christmas Day three weeks today. For the last decade I've spent the big day (and most of the rest of the festive season) on my own, eating too much and feeling sorry for myself. But I'm not going to do that this year. This time last year, I had absolutely no idea that my sense of who I am or my approach to life was going to get the radical shake-up that it's been given over the last twelve months. I'm literally not the same person I was back then, and because I've changed so much, I think my festivities are going to have to change accordingly as well. For one thing, I'm going to be out in the world rather more than I've become used to in recent years. This December I have multiple events to attend and lots of people to see. My social calendar in January is already looking a lot busier, too. That's not usual for me at all.

But this will be the first Christmas I've experienced since I discovered how neurodivergent I am. I'm hoping that my new-found self-awareness will help me to focus on simply enjoying the festivities rather than spending most of them wondering why they were making me feel anxious and stressed out (which I'm sorry to say they have done for many years). I want things to be different this year, and I do not intend to spend the next few weeks shut away at home like a hermit, not seeing anyone. Doing that had become a habit (because that was how I'd learned to protect myself). It wasn't doing me any good, and it has to stop.

It's unlikely to be plain sailing, I know. I'm still learning where my limits and boundaries are these days. But this year I will be watching myself carefully to make sure I'm managing my stress levels, checking that I don't get overwhelmed, and practising some self care if things get too much. If I can manage all that, it should make this a Christmas worth celebrating.

Before you get to Christmas, though, there's another Bandcamp Friday for you to enjoy. I don't have a new album for you this month (I've been working on music, but it's mostly been for other people's songs) but should you wish to support my work by buying an album or two of mine you can find an extensive discography on the Bandcamp site.

There are still some albums there which are marked as name your price, and that includes free.

And even if you don't buy anything of mine, please remember: never, EVER give any of your money to Spotify. Seriously. Because they're dodgy, skeevy, fascist assholes who don't pay artists for their work.

At present it looks like work on the new bathroom will be finished on Monday. Today Ash, Jamie, and James are at work finishing off the tiling and installing lights in the alcoves at the end of the bath. It's really beginning to take shape now; I've got a much better idea of how it's all going to look when everything's done. It's looking good!

Not gonna lie; yesterday I was very tired and run down and I ended up feeling rather sorry for myself. You can see exactly how low I was if you read yesterday's blog and by early evening I really didn't feel like staying up any longer, so I gave up and went to bed...

...where I spent the next couple of hours turning the events of my life over and over in my mind and completely failing to get to sleep. That has become a habit for me every night recently, so that didn't come as a surprise. But then something new and unexpected occurred to me, and it's something which casts my mental health, particularly my struggle with chronic depression, in a different light.

I'm still thinking about it this morning. It feels like I may finally have achieved a form of closure on a particularly painful part of my past. I've felt like this before, though—and each time it happened I would realise after a month or so that I was just kidding myself and that nothing had actually changed, so I'm not going to jinx things by discussing what happened yesterday here. I need to process what I discovered and give it a chance to either sink in and do its work, or fade back into the general tumult that passes for my inner thoughts. But today, I don't feel as down as I did yesterday. I hope that feeling continues to stick around.

I still feel as exhausted this morning as I usually do. But for the second half of last night I slept like a log, and that never happens.

Tired or not, I got some work done in the studio yesterday afternoon and even did some work on graphics for the blog. That's more than I've managed to do in quite a while. I hope this means that I'm beginning to get my creative mojo back. It was largely absent for the second half of last month. The bathroom refit is still under way here, so I'm unlikely to get much done this week, though. Today the ceiling is being painted and more of the tiles are being fitted.

I'll be very glad when it's all finished and I'll have the house to myself once again. And I can't wait to have a bath.