Lively Lately #73: Being Aunt Liz, progressing in biz + feeling like prey

Last month was adventure and chaos. ✨

1. Spent time with the nieces

…while their parents and brothers went to a city in the Midwest to explore it for a place to move to next year.

When Char told me about her plans to move to another state last year, my first thought was, “OMG, the only person who knows me and accepts me for who I am isn’t going to be here anymore.”

My second thought was that I would be far away from the girls. 🥴

I also envied her escaping Texas. 🧐 Then she said, “I mean, you could leave, too.”

And I started daydreaming about it or imagining it — my life in another state.

I’m less codependent or attached to her than I was before; the idea of moving across the country has had me growing in the way of wanting to be more independent and express my individuality.

This is also a trait common in autistic people, based on the monotropism theory and regarding “tunnel vision”. I tend to zero in on certain friends or interests in my life and struggle to focus on people or interests outside the “tunnel”.

I was punished for being myself and being different growing up and even well into adulthood, so don’t criticize me for that. 💁‍♀️

She’s also the closest person who is like a sister to me, specifically a big sister. There are some more details here to support this, which I’ll share next year if it pans out. ✨

They had van trouble when getting back. My cousin has one of those van lifer vans as her everyday transport vehicle for her kids and then some.

When the van has issues, finding a mechanic who knows how to fix it AND the parts is difficult. Having had a 2005 PT Cruiser myself, I know those struggles; in my case, PT Cruisers were being crushed so parts were rare.

At one point, that opened me up to theft. Another PT Cruiser in Kaufman had tape over the back of their PT Cruiser light sockets and then I didn’t see that vehicle anymore after my tail lights were stolen.

I started missing Galaxy on Saturday night, because I’d left her at home so she wouldn’t have panic attacks here due to the children and two residential cats. 💁‍♀️

2. My email list keeps growing 📈

I partook in two collaborations in July — Low Ticket Live and Bookmas in July — which helped grow my list by 200-300 subscribers. 🤌 Kylie’s Birthday Bash attendees also continued signing up for my freebie.

I’m trying not to think about it too much, because I tend to step back when my follower count grows and am starting to feel that way about email marketing. 😅

“This is a business,” I keep reminding myself, “I need it.”

I think of this song in a new light now:

I already related to it before via the exact role that sister had. 😭 Why do I gotta relate to it like this now? 😂

I started my list over earlier this year, so my current list’s sustainable growth has happened between May and July. July was a definite jump up from what it was in June, which doesn’t give me much time to adjust:

“Sustainable growth” may happen in some major jumps, like 8th July and 23rd July, but they continue growing steadily. Dips in growth may occur, though never too drastic or continuous.

3. Struggle to keep up momentum

My chronic illnesses are flaring up altogether, possibly from the increased stress and my attempting to do “more now so I can rest more later”. 🤔

It’s not sustainable for me, so I’m trying to figure out systems for myself so I can either maintain the pace or find a way to balance.

Because of monotropism, my attention zeroes in one on or a few things at once. I can start doing something at 1:25pm and “come out of it” several hours later.

This is both good at bad — the latter because I need to feed and water myself. At least my cat knows how to grab my attention for food. 😅

My chronic pain is playing a part in this, too — my tooth hurts, and my knees are doing what they do every summer and winter where they go slightly out of place…which is just enough to hurt extremely bad when I step/put pressure on them. 🥴

4. Not wanting to be perceived 🙈

I don’t know if this is a mere human thing, a trauma thing, an autism thing, or a chronic illness thing: When my chronic conditions are affecting me, I feel wayyy more vulnerable.

I feel like prey, and I daresay I behave like I am during these bouts, too.

Oops-I-didn’t-wear-a-bra-around-my-creepy-relative vulnerable.

Or is-my-period-showing-through-my-pants vulnerable, though I’ve not experienced that in years because my cycle is gone due to anorexia. 🥴

I’ve become more privy to how allistics perceive autistic people in the last couple of years, which doesn’t help matters. 😅

So I’ve been needing to self-regulate a lot and feeling vulnerable, and trying to cope with that myself because allistics perceive a lot of mundane autistic characteristics as “poor mental health”.

Until next time 💖