Tag Archives: stress

Searching

“I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.” – Emily Dickinson

9.27.26

Today was the first day in a long time that I did not have an impending sense of doom. Not doom in the normal sense, but the inability to be fully in the moment because there’s too much hanging over you, a backlog of to-do’s that may or may not ever be done, trying to hold all the pieces of staying in touch with others and with myself.

I’ve been in some level of survival mode for months now. Life doesn’t care or slow down. I’m busy and overwhelmed daily…except for today.

I think I’ve been searching for a me that I remember fondly. One who held to a routine, sang for the sake of singing – and posted it for strangers on the internet, one who got home from work tired but would still make dinner feel far from mundane; the one who wrote, who relaxed – from the past. I miss her. I don’t know when she left or the real reason, but I’ve wanted her back ever since.

The version of that me I have been desperate to have back, is highly romanticized. All of the pain and struggle that existed simultaneously to this version of me, has been muted.

So, I realized today, that I can never be that person again – and that’s okay. Current me, future me, are just as important as the one in my memory I’ve been trying to hold on to. Instead of looking for those pieces of me, and trying to make them fit into my current life, I must accept the me that exists now. How sad to leave her waiting, while I conduct a pointless search for pieces of the past.

I am not the same person I was, and yet I still am me. Celebrating that sounds silly, especially since I don’t harbor as much love for this me as the other, but what might be a turning point, a perspective shift, that is worth a small celebration.

How else do we move forward, if we do not let go of the past…

So hello, Strangers and Friends. It’s so good to speak to you again. I’m hopeful for the future, even though unknown.

Restless

Hello Strangers and Friends,

Sitting in my bed, still un-made from washing my sheets and mattress pad, the sunlight is glowing through the sheer window shade, reflecting off of the foot or more of sparkling snow we got last night. I’ve been sick; in concentration, the past two days. I’ve been unwell a lot longer than that.

It’s been drilled into me, whether by society, work, people I know, or my own perfectionism, that rest is not only something you need to earn, but the sleep you get at night should suffice. Rest in itself is not worthwhile. I’m no professor or renowned researcher on the topic. All I have are my own observations and experiences. Still, I’ve been finding the above sentiment altogether wrong.

I don’t “feel like death” today and my brain is jumping at me, telling me I need to do EVERYTHING productive, right now. My body attempts to plea it’s case. I am still sick, recovering. Ragged cough still drills it’s way out of my chest, nose still drips, body still aches. Gently, I stand up for it against my mind. “Just because I can get out of bed now, doesn’t mean that I no longer need to rest.” The long list of things I need to do right now, are they really more important than listening to the needs for my body’s health?

Lately, I’ve realized that I exist in almost a constant state of guilt. I’m not accomplishing enough, never doing enough. Instead of being happy with the things I do accomplish, there’s always the next thing looming. Cool, I dealt with the trash, gathered dirty dishes, followed up on X, Y, and Z, but those accomplishments dissolve into the black hole of tasks unfinished, or even worse, un-started.

Guilt translates to stress and stress is not good for your health. So what am I supposed to do? When I rest, the tasks pile up around me. When I don’t, I lose the ability to do them. This isn’t an issue of motivation, an upheaval of laziness. It feels like I have been tired since the dawn of time, to put it dramatically, and all I want to do is accomplish everything.

I guess there isn’t much resolution to this spot of brain dump but I thank you for joining me once again in my thoughts. What a journey we are on. Be kind to yourselves.