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.

I am an affiliate member of Amazon and bookshop.org, so any purchases through this post's links will earn me a commission. Check out the about page for more information on that and how I get my hands on these fantastic books.

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.

Work Related Headaches

 I have been trying to listen more to my body when it is telling me something, but lately, I am beginning to have a love-hate relationship with it and its cues.

Yesterday, I finished a large project I had been plotting for over a year. It took over a week, but my home office is finally done. I have created a space that is mine and will help bring productivity and inspiration to my working hours. I have been looking forward to finishing this space for so long, and it felt amazing to finally get it done yesterday.

Today, I woke up with a massive headache. It's not quite a migraine, but you know it will get to that point if you don't medicate quickly and take it easy. It did not take long for me to connect the headache to the finished office space.

Now that the office is how I want it, there is no reason not to get writing projects going and out to places where they can be published. This is daunting
and a bit overwhelming. It means that I am the only barrier to the next stage of my writing career. And since I also spent the last three nights dreaming about one of my projects, it is no wonder I woke up with a headache.

So now it's a matter of getting out of my own way, pushing through my insecurities, and using the perfect office that I've created as it should be used. And keep the ibuprofen handy for any other writing-related headaches that pop up.