Five years ago, I could decide something and actually finish it. Projects got completed. Ideas turned into things I could look at and say “that’s done.” I wasn’t racing, exactly, but there was a forward motion that felt reliable and satisfying. Now it feels like I’m constantly running myself into the ground and still ending up with a pile of half-finished everything. The effort is there. The exhaustion is definitely there. The completed work is… not. What used to take me two or three hours now seems to take three days once the interruptions and other life stuff I have to pause for get factored in. And it isn’t just metaphorical - the whole-body aches and pains are constant, so physically moving at a faster pace isn’t an option the way it used to be. 😭 I can’t do some of the things I used to do. Somewhere in the middle of all that are the constant interruptions, the delays that weren’t supposed to take this long, and the steady drip of other life issues and dilemmas that keep pulling me sideways before anything can actually get finished. It is incredibly discouraging.
Back in October, when I started scheduling and taking custom orders again, Lucy and I had a full day planned to film. I was energized & ready to go - focused on knocking out the videos and pictures that were already coming in. Then it turned into one delay after another. The initial shoot got pushed two weeks. The first day Lucy was actually here, the Monte Carlo had battery issues and we got very little done. A week later we had to reschedule because of Lucy’s back. The day we had planned to work this past week got canceled because they decided to do road work on our road.
It’s been a nightmare of rescheduling. I hate having to reschedule so much because, even though most things are out of my control, it makes me feel undependable and unreliable to my customers, to the ones ordering custom videos or pictures. That is not the Scarlet I want my customers interacting with. Lucy is scheduled to come today, and I already know we won’t have time to get through everything on the list. That piles even more pressure onto something that already feels stretched as thin as it can go, which is why I've closed customs for the time being. At the least until all outstanding orders/customs are finished. Honestly, the currently paid-for cranking customs might be the last batch I ever do. It’s been so difficult over the past year to get them done in a timely manner - between everything else and all the car issues I’ve had with them (and not the good kind of car issues).
I keep catching myself thinking, what’s the point? If I move this slowly, if every single thing takes ten times longer than it used to, does any of it matter? Some days the answer feels like no. It’s also hard to get motivated to do anything when you feel so tired all the time - mentally & physically. I start something, hit the wall earlier than I used to, and then spend the rest of the day (or week) just trying to recover enough to start again. It’s a cycle that makes even small tasks feel heavy, and the bigger ones feel almost pointless to begin. I know, rationally, that getting something done is better than nothing at all, and to get something done, it doesn't have to be perfect. But knowing that hasn’t made the finishing any easier.
And yet, I am still here, even if it’s not nearly as much as I need to be or should be. I know I haven’t posted updates to the site in forever, and I apologize for that. I plan to start posting more this weekend. I have to start posting more to the video updates. Not today, since Lucy will be here filming, but hopefully starting back up tomorrow.
I don’t have a neat ending for this. I’m not going to tell you I’ve figured out how to work faster or that the burnout is magically lifting. I haven’t. I’m just trying to be honest about the fact that the version of me who used to finish things more easily isn’t the version of me who’s writing this right now. I don’t feel like the great and wonderful Scarlet I used to be. I’ve sucked at so many things these past two or three years. I don’t know how to unfuck my life, but I’m still going to keep trying, even if it runs me into the ground! I simply don't know how to quit. The current version of me is just slower and more easily derailed, but she is not a quitter!
If you’ve been in a similar place, where the effort is high and the output is low, and it starts to make you question whether any of it is worth continuing, I see you. I’m there also. And for now, at least, I’m still here.
On that note, I need to pull it together this morning and get into a filming mindset and start working on compiling the custom scripts in an effort to make things flow more smoothly when Lucy arrives in about an hour and a half. I think I am going to piece together a little behind-the-scenes video of today and post it later for everyone. Also, I post a lot more personal stuff on my public (free) Patreon blog: Scarlet's Blog.
self-filmed customs with Scarlet, customs with other models, & some ramblings from your favorite redhead
