My desire to write right now feels really hard to wrangle, and then, suddenly, appears out of nowhere in my net, ready to surrender. I am trying to get a more consistent sleep schedule together, and cutting caffeine at the same time which means that I am tired almost constantly. My brain feels unfocused, my schedule is unmoored and I am trying my best to not carry around a deep disappointment that feels akin to a boulder.
I don’t write fiction (ever) but I woke up a few days ago with the first couple of pages of a space story floating around my brain. It felt relentless and unwilling to let me press snooze, so I got out of bed with my eyes mired with the remnants of sleep and I threw on the clothes closest to me. I fumbled my way to give in to writing it down, picking up my laptop in transit from my bed to the couch. I wrote a few pages of the most nihilistic shit I’ve ever written, and then fell back asleep on the couch for the most gratifying sleep I’ve had in a long, long time.
I am actively resisting the urge to feel like everything I’m doing is incorrect and in need of fixing. By “resisting the urge” I mean fighting back against it with all my might and talking about it constantly to anyone who is willing to listen.
I feel like I am leaching my worries and insecurities in a purification process that feels almost sticky. I keep a bottle of hand sanitizer in my car because I hate the smell of metal on skin and every time I have to handle keys it bothers me. These two things feel alike. Sometimes I feel like I can’t help myself and other times I feel like I just need to get off of Instagram and cast off the to-do list that’s strangling me. Most of the time if I go outside to walk around a pond or lay on a blanket and bake in the sun I feel like a new woman.
A few weeks ago I tried to make my way through a 140 page book and each time I sat down to read I struggled to stick with it for long enough to make any progress. That was how I knew my attention space was shot. To remedy this I have been setting alarms for 25 minutes at a time and dedicating myself fully to a task. I told one of my consulting clients that it feels like I am a puppy in training, but it is working. My screen time is way down, my mind feels quieter, and I feel like I’m not in a constant state of needing to glitch from one task to another. Now I can read for long stretches and not worry about what emails are coming in or who might be needing me.
On Sunday I cried because I wanted and needed to garden but it felt so indescribably hard to make myself get dressed to do it that I wanted to go back to sleep. Instead of fighting the tears I just let myself cry. I let my husband hold me while I told him all of the things that were floating around my head and how bad they were making me feel. I sobbed and sobbed and when I was done I got up and got dressed in a linen shirt, long pants, garden clogs, a bandana and straw hat— the perfect gardener’s outfit. No point of the process felt easier, but I did it. I gave the garden 100% of my effort which looked like 40% of what I’d have liked to give it. When I was done I was sweaty, mosquito bitten and glad to have done some work. I was totally exhausted from the vulnerability and the manual labor. I came inside and read the entirety of Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk.
I think I am in the process of processing.
Everything feels within my grasp. Time feels stretchy, which is both welcomed and overwhelming. I feel firmly here, and hellbent on the lifelong dance of understanding myself more completely.
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I don't know how to say this other than this way: I'm in exactly the same space - it is very new for me yet it also feels like it's what I've needed for over a decade.
Can we still blame the eclipse for this head space or???