ShoH Update (April #1) (Patreon)

Hi everybody, just a brief-as-possible, personal update for you today! I hope you are all well and enjoying your start of April! I have a good feeling that things are starting to return to normal slowly, so hang in there and stay safe!

As you've probably deduced, I didn't get as much as I wanted done on the alpha build last month, and I've also been a bit absent online. Although I did add 15,000 words of new content to the game, they were unexpected side activities--the quest system, the trading card system, and everything that came with those. I struggled with disappointment that I wasn't able to finish Riel's day off interlude (I'm about halfway through though!) and more content on Chapter 6. But I'm working on being more forgiving and flexible towards myself, so I've resolved to just try again this month! I'll get into the reasons for why I was slow last month below, but I'm not often personal online, so if you want to skip (it's all just rather irrelevant personal context that I want to share), that's totally understandable and I hope you will tune in next time--I've got a nice goodie planned for April!

Personal stuff below: discussions of medical issues as well as racism, please don't read if you're sensitive to these topics! I am also always concerned about over-sharing, so skip this if you don't want that!

Last month was a fairly frenetic one for me. We were busy volunteering to help administer the COVID vaccine in our area, and then received the shots ourselves, the latter of which knocked me out for a few days. (Totally worth it, though!)

I also felt rather ill (I have been since around December, really), and was experiencing dizziness and fainting spells as well as a very fast heartbeat and heat sensitivity and fatigue. I've had the heartbeat issue (a kind of tachycardia) for years and was told it was just something I had to live with, but things got intense enough that I finally decided to go to the doctor for a second opinion. And it turns out there are some underlying issues! To cut a long story short, it's very likely that I have an autoimmune disease, and the last month has been full of appointments, tests, scans, and bloodwork to help diagnose that. Thankfully, I'm hoping I've got a fairly mild form of the disorder, as I don't have the more severe symptoms (some of the worst being symptoms leading to death or blindness), and it's lucky that we caught it now--hopefully, a few years of medication and treatment will take care of the problem, and I'll be back to "normal" (though I've likely had this baseline problem for years, so I guess it will be like my Limitless version) then! But for now, we are continuing with lots of appointments and tests, which is why I've been so busy in the last few weeks and will continue to be into April. I bring it up so you all know what's going on in my life if my connection is spotty--I'd rather you know than not know, if that makes any sense!

Also, my partner took me glamping/to the beach in the Bay Area to relax and get me to take a break from work for a week, but I ended up working anyway LOL. We had a lot of fun and are looking forward to traveling again regularly soon as well!

I have also been preoccupied and struggling with (and there's no good way to segue into this) the recent attacks against AAPI and Asian-Americans in the US. I'm sure most of you have heard about this, but these attacks took a slight toll on my emotional health in the last few weeks, added on top of the medical stuff, where, for a moment, it looked like things were a lot worse than they thankfully are. 

I've always loved where I live and believed in the general good of the people around me, but the viciousness and randomness of these attacks was very... jarring isn't the right word, but it's close. And for one of the first times in my life, I felt truly alienated due to my race. There was a lot of fear and anxiety as I woke up to more news of Asian-based hate crimes every day, and one video forced me to question something I hadn't before: if I was attacked in broad daylight due to my race and appearance, would others actually intervene and help me? In the video in question, it looks like the bystanders didn't, and the apparent indifference to human life--to Asian life--chilled me. In a way, being violently attacked out of nowhere wasn't as scary as the idea that others wouldn't come to help me during that attack; that they might just look on, or that they may agree with the attacker (who I could mentally dismiss as a "one-off" awful person, an aberration, not a statement) that I or people like me are subhuman, invisible--undeserving of human empathy and attention.

I've always had deep, whole-hearted faith in the general goodness, kindness, and courage of others, so this was an upsetting doubt to reckon with. It made me feel very alone, and scared, since my entire family is (obviously) Vietnamese. I have been trying to reckon with making sure they--from my cousins to my 95-year-old grandmother to my parents and sister--are safe, doubly so due to COVID; even as we are all busy doing our parts to be active in the community. I had to bring my sister to a candlelight vigil for an elderly Asian man senselessly murdered a few miles away from where she goes to school, and the whole time we were wondering if violence was going to occur during the vigil; no one felt very safe even as we tried to mourn. Even when we were traveling in the Bay Area, we kept hearing stories about how someone had been attacked a few streets down from us earlier that day; or how someone's car had been set on fire overnight due to their race; or how a man at a basketball game with his kids had a beer bottle thrown at him by a racist fan. Here in AZ, I also live in an overwhelmingly-White, affluent, fairly conservative neighborhood. Going to the grocery store always earned me looks, double-takes, and sometimes long and baffling stares: I've always chalked it up to people (in a non-hostile way) staring at a "novelty", being surprised by my presence, since I can count on two hands the number of Asian people I've seen around this area. Now, every time I go shopping for groceries, I get this sense of anxiety and unease, wondering if those stares actually mean something different. 

(Some guy tried to roll his window down to talk to me while I sat at a red light today; I didn't acknowledge him, but I wondered what he wanted. I've had a car chase me and try to drive me off the road before, and I didn't want a repeat, if that's what was going on. Or maybe he just wanted to tell me my gas cap was off, or ask for my number, or just chat with me. Due to the current climate, I was too scared to take the chance. I guess that shows my state of mind right now: it's been a disturbing time, and out in public, my anxiety is at a high.)

Anyway, all this to say is that I've been trying to process all of this: my health and what it's going to mean in the long-term, what's been going on around me, fear for my family first and foremost, distrust and unease over a shaken (but still present) faith in others (and in kindness and love). I have ups and downs, as I'm sure everybody does; some days my faith is strong, and I think everything's going to be okay, or I'm not worried about it, or it doesn't quite register. Some days I start to cry because I start thinking about what would happen to my grandma if someone attacked her on the street, the way so many others have lost their parents and grandparents already. 

I'm not usually this honest when it comes to posting online, so I'm sorry if any of this is upsetting or uncomfortable. I'm just sharing what's been on my mind for the past few weeks, and why--even when I've had the time--it was hard to focus on writing during certain moments. But, the point is also that I'm getting through it! I am beginning to cope, and none of this means I'm going to stop writing or let anything slow me down (where I can help it). In fact, in many ways writing is an escape, the world of Blest a comfort and solace. I truly love my job, and it's thanks to all of you that I can have it, and that it can bring me peace when I really need it. So thank you, and thank you for your patience as I work this out. I am truly thankful to have so many kind, wonderful, supportive, beautiful, inspiring people in my life: it helps me bolster my courage and strengthens my faith in others and the goodness of the world!

TL;DR - I had a rough-ish (but also great!) up-and-down month, and it made me slow and distracted. I feel better today, and I might not tomorrow, and that's okay. I am still here and still writing, and still excited to be a part of this awesome community! It's you guys and ShoH (among other things, of course) that stop me from feeling too discouraged! So thank you for everything you do!

And thank you for reading through this! In general, I feel healthy and strong, the same as I always have, so you don't need to be too concerned about my health. And emotionally I am figuring out how to master myself! It's just that sometimes I'm preoccupied, or the appointments take a lot of time, so that's where we're at right now. Thanks for understanding, and have a great weekend!