I wish everyone a safe, happy, and blessed holiday season

No matter what holidays you celebrate, or even if there are none, I earnestly hope it treats you well. I know things are rough for a lot of us; just remember that no matter what is going on in the world, the one thing you can always do is to show some kindness and caring, to yourself and especially to others. I say this as a generally grumpy, frustrated, borderline misanthropic person who struggles with it: kindness is truly the ultimate power.

I am making this post both to express the above wishes, and to announce I'm going on holiday myself. I'll be taking the last two weeks of December, or however much of that time is still left, to try to recover my energies. Those who follow me on discord are probably aware already that I've been struggling mightily; I think the seasonal weather isn't good for my already depression-riddled brain. But regardless, I'm still pressing on, and have once again come up against one of those points where my desire to keep working and pushing out content has become counterproductive as it's rammed up against the mental health issues slowing me down. I'm never satisfied with the amount of work I'm able to get done, and have been particularly frustrated with myself lately as my mental issues seem to be gradually worsening and my output is dropping.

I've been here before, and doubtless will be again. Sometimes the only thing to be done is to pause, regroup, and recover.

I am currently struggling through the early steps of trying to get a diagnosis for my mental health condition, and optimistically some form of treatment. Since I live in America, every step of this is an unnecessarily difficult slog, particularly the first ones I'm still stuck on. To be honest I have zero expectations and don't anticipate anything remotely helpful resulting from this. But...I've gotta at least try. The stories are not flowing as they should; I want to have more for you guys. I haven't been managing to create nearly enough and it's stressing me out.

So a merry whatever to you. Be excellent to each other, be good to yourselves, be the light in the depths of winter, and be back here in January for more stories about wizards and dragons and elves and whatnot to help take the edge off living in this world we do.

I appreciate you.