"I think I can, I think I can"

I swear, sometimes all that keeps me going is telling myself I will survive. I'm very on the verge of losing my mind, not sure whether I'm about to burst into tears from a coughing fit or because I just cannot take one more thing going wrong. It all feels like it's crashing down onto me, and I always say yes, and try to keep going and going, no matter what. It's so hard and I wonder where the end is, what it's all for, and then good things happen I can foresee some time in the future where, say, I get paid to write instead of writing for free, where I can breathe a little more easily, where I'm not such a sloppy mess. I just feel like I try so hard. I don't drink and don't even want to anymore. I've given up even the possibility of dating, I have accepted my fate in that area. But what's it all worth if the work is so awful? If I can't seem to turn anything in on time? I know I will get through it, but sometimes it just seems so daunting and impossible. It never ends, and while last week I got reenergized and excited about some writing projects, money notwithstanding, I am failing to assess the time things will take me and overcommitting again. I want to be a good everything-a good daughter, a good friend, a supporter of my artistic community, but I can't anymore. I just have to focus on ME-on my writing, my time, my loans, my life, and getting it all organized. Otherwise I really will burst into tears at a comedy show, and the panic attacks will be way too frequent. I don't want to be 3 and a half weeks late turning in a book, I don't want to be this last minute stress case. I've ALWAYS been that girl and as I'm about to turn 30, sometimes I feel like I'm no more grown up than I was when I was 16, and that's sad.

In reading news, I'm reading November 3rd at Bluestockings for Stirring Up A Storm, and November 16th will be a regular In The Flesh reading at Happy Ending (readers TBA) while December 21st will be the Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z 2 official reading there. More dates when I have them, though hopefully not too many more as I'm so looking forward to spending time by myself, at home, getting all this overdue stuff and stuff in my head onto paper and out. I think I just need a long weekend or vacation and to stop trying to go to everything, like last night. It's just not healthy, the work needs to come first, I need to grow up once and for all.

Anyway, if I can make it through today/tonight, I'll be okay I think. So if I don't answer emails and turn off my cell phone and can't go out for the next few months, I apologize in advance. I just can't do it anymore, and even though the past 2 weeks I've laid low cause of this still-lingering cough, I also need that time alone, and will need more of it to try to cope with the ever-increasing amount of work and responsibility heading my way. I can't flake out on it, this time, for real, I have to get that book proposal done, get the tasks on my white board done because there are always more and I just need to buckle down. I know it, and I want to do it, I just can't succumb to the terror. Because it sneaks up and grabs me and just makes me fail like the biggest failure around. I say to myself "I can't do it, I can't do it" because it just feels so huge and impossible, all of it, but I want to at the very least try.