The Healthy Freedom of Time

 Four and a half years ago, I made a Facebook post about the world shutting down. At the time, everything seemed daunting and overwhelming. The rest of that year proved to be scary in many ways. It was a year filled with grief, stress, frustration, and more. But looking back, I also see it as one of the best years I have ever had.

2020 was, despite everything, the healthiest year of my life. Mentally, physically, emotionally, and even financially, it was the healthiest I have ever been. 

Knowing that everything was on my timetable and by my choosing released a freedom inside of me that I had never had before. My husband was home. My kids could entertain and do for themselves. There were no visitors. I could walk for hours or seclude myself with a book without feeling like I was neglecting my family. Even housework was less because we were home to deal with it at the moment instead of scrambling from one activity to another.

I do not miss the fear of catching Covid. I do not miss the turmoil of dividing lines with our family members (which are still frigidly but infrequently crossed). But I do miss the way that year healed me, the way that year supported me. I miss the feeling of loving all of me and my life. I miss feeling happy, safe, and healthy in my skin and in my mind.

I realized earlier this year that I had been searching for that feeling again. It is probably one of the strongest motivators for finding myself back working from home. Four years ago, I saw what a happy, satisfied me looked like. Now that the kids are even older and more independent, that freedom to take care of me is coming back, and I am ready to seize it and see what else I can do with it to make my life happy and healthy again.

Untamed part 2

 I regularly come across a quote that suggests thinking about all the books you have, like a wine collection, instead of a to-read list. You choose the right one for the moment of life that you are in and enjoy it. I never felt so connected to this quote as I did while reading Untamed. I know that I shared my review of Untamed by Glennon Doyle a few weeks ago, but I have so many thoughts on this book, and they keep fueling my writing.

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When I started reading Untamed, it had been on my bookshelf for almost 10 months. I meant to get to it, but it didn't happen. Noticing that a local book club I was considering joining was reading it finally got me to take it off the shelf and dive into it. And dive, I did.

Oh my word, I was in tears by the book's second section. I cannot connect with poetry for my life, but she reprinted a poem that hit me deep in my soul. This was the perfect time for my soul, heart, and mind to read this book.

I have been diligently trying to follow all of the green flags the universe has been sending me this year. By consciously choosing to follow the signs and my gut, I have repeatedly been rewarded with "atta girl" signs from the universe. Untamed being read when I did was one of those signs. Not only is the late-stage life transformation of acknowledging, accepting, and nurturing your authentic self something resonating through my soul like a gong, but the book format is something I have been talking about lately.

It is a memoir in short essays, and each bit is just a couple of powerful pages. This format is fairly new to me but fits my writing style perfectly. I had been actively considering writing this style and project for weeks before reading this book. The kicker is that I had zero idea that this was the format until I got into it.

I also cannot ignore the mathematical coincidence, either. I had owned this book for around 40 weeks before reading it. I finally picked it up at the beginning stages of making some radical and rebirthingesque changes to parts of my life. This book could not have been read at a more fitting time when I needed an encouraging woman to reassure me of my new life choices.

Renewed Fears

 

I am trying not to cry. I am tired of crying. I feel unstable. The world feels unstable. I have moments of strength, but they are overshadowed by moments of weakness. The weak moments feel more powerful than the strong ones. 

Nothing is the same as it was. Nothing will ever be the same again. I am afraid to go anywhere. Fearful of any building that is not my house. And now there is rain coming down, along with thunder and some wind that makes me fearful, too.

I am so tired of being afraid. I'm tired of being uncertain and unstable. I'm tired of being tired, which is its own problem. I'm barely sleeping, and when I do, it isn't good sleep. My brain needs rest, and I can't seem to get any.

I wrote all of those words above in the early days of the pandemic. The world had been shut down for about two weeks at the time when I wrote all of those words in my journal. Little did I know just how much those words would follow me through the rest of that year.

As we move into the new election season, I feel these same things creeping back into my life and brain. My fear and anxiety for our nation and our future are increasing daily. This time, though, I am not afraid of a virus that we didn't understand; this time, it is about a virus that we do understand: people.

People are complicated, but we all want the same basic thing: to be treated kindly no matter who we are, how we worship, who we love, or our ethnic heritage. My fear is that regardless of the November election outcome, people will become meaner instead of nicer, and mean people are destructive people. Mean people destroy souls, families, and anything that they see as contrary to their (always right) opinions. 

I know that no matter who wins the presidential election, there will not be unity, even within their own party. But I do know that one side cares more about the people who make up this nation, and the other side just wants to win a trophy. So, while I don't typically do this, I urge you to remember how you felt four years ago regarding the state of our nation, and then I urge you to vote in a way that calms your fears and encourages the future you want the next generations to be proud of.

Writer's Conference Block

 I have been in a funk, a rut, a hole of sorts. I spent days unable to find motivation for anything productive. I came home from a writing conference and was repelled by the idea of writing anything. I could only describe it like being in front of an electric fence; I'm not going through it but I couldn't figure out how to find the off switch. Yesterday, I spent some time organizing my life and my thoughts. That action alone helped me to see where my obstacle was coming from.

We had a speaker at the writer's conference who was wonderful...for a group. I had the chance to talk with this person one-on-one, and their goal was to tell everyone that their writing projects were awful. As I talked with them about an upcoming project, they interrupted me and said, "This sounds like a book about mental health." While I'm sure mental health will play a role, it is not the focus, nor did I say anything about writing a book.

I am also one of many who had this experience with this conference speaker. Everyone I talked to who had a chance at a one-on-one with them had the exact same experience. They were interrupted, and their writing visions were talked about in ways that they never described. So, while many pieces of advice from this person were great for promoting our work, I absolutely would not approach them for help with publishing my writing.

Yesterday, while organizing, I finally realized that my recent mood had been caused by that conversation at the conference. It was like the conversations I have had with so many in my lifetime, which always seem to have the same message: you might not be good enough, so why even try? The irony is that I was struggling with those ghost voices of the past while preparing to go to the conference, and then I found one there, too! Why always do the people who should be encouraging you constructively decide to be destructive? 

Now that I have realized why I have been so malaised about writing, I am doing my best to ignore the ghosts and listen to the ones who are actually cheering me on. Maybe with enough cheering, I will be able to evict the ghosts. 

A Weekend for Me and my Career

 I took a weekend entirely away from home. I spent all weekend alone in a hotel at a writer's conference. All of that is just odd. I haven't gone anywhere alone that wasn't to take care of family things since I was in high school.

But here I am, channeling my inner Hemingway, drinking cocktails at the hotel bar with my pens and paper. 

In reality, I am trying to make sense of my mental overload of information, ideas, and imposter syndrome. And as I say, an idea for a writing project pops into my head. Go figure.

I just want to find a cohesive way to integrate all the things that I enjoy—writing, reading, yoga, travel, wine—into something that helps to counter the expenses of those hobbies. Even $100 a month for a writing project would cover a book, book club wine, and at least two yoga sessions in that same month. 

Now I need to take the time to reverse engineer that goal and find the ways to do it. And that is the hardest part of all. 

Self Understanding

 I have been trying to be quiet and listen.

Listen to my body. Listen to my family. Listen to the world around me. Listen to my soul.

There is a lot of noise, but I am trying to listen.

In listening comes learning. I am learning that I don't know as much as I think I do, that I am uncertain about what drives me, and that I still have so much learning left to do.

I am also frustrated. I feel stuck and stagnant. Strides are made, forward movement happens, and then somehow, I end up stuck like I walked into a gigantic pit of mud. 

This is for every aspect of life: finances, marriage, career, dreams, goals, parenting.

I feel like I don't know myself these days. I am having trouble recognizing myself in my daily life. I don't know if I am doing the right things. Every choice feels like the wrong choice like there is a better one out there that I haven't discovered yet.

I don't feel like myself. 

I had an anxiety meltdown a few days ago that I haven't fully recovered from. Old habits were coming in hard, and it took every ounce of strength to fight them off. It was exhausting and depressing. I was doing so well for so long. I know that slips will come sometimes, but it feels like a defeat when it happens.

But now, I continue to work through the slip. I work to climb back up to where I was and then work to go further. I know that is the only way to help everything: the frustration and the feeling of being stuck. I know that they are all connected with the anxiety slip, and I know that in time, I will have forgotten all about this because I will have pushed through greater than before.

Find Yourself at Home

 Spending 20 years in the military living in military housing, it is hard to make a home feel like your own. You are a renter, and you know that you’ll be leaving within three years, so feeling 100% at home and moved in is challenging to attain. You do your best, but it’s never quite there. You cannot do big things; even something like painting a room can become a bigger hassle when it’s moveout time (I say from experience). So we hang curtains and pictures and wait for the next assignment so we can do it all over again.

I wish that I had a copy of Find Yourself at Home during those years, but now that we are retired and in our forever home, I am finding its value for my life and home to be tremendous.

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It is true that the vibe and atmosphere of your home translate to your life. Making a change, even a small one, can make a massive difference in your attitude and energy. Before reading this book, I knew I wanted to make changes around our house, but I didn’t know what to do. While reading, though, I could think through my home and feel inspired so that I could be deliberate and intentional in the changes I made. Some changes were big, like completely redoing my home office and painting our home gym; others were small, like replacing the kitchen cabinet handles and adding plants to rooms.

Those changes we have made, both large and small, have led to positive mental and emotional changes in myself and my family. As we continue to settle in, I will revisit this book for guidance to fully find myself at home.