Lately it’s all hot chocolate and long walks. Therapy appointments at 8:30 AM and enthusiastic customers right before close. I smoke cigarettes outside of Andrew’s apartment and hope that someone will come out or go in. Phone left at home and so I start debating throwing rocks at the window.
An exercise in writing a blog post every day turns into a exercise in looking for things to say. And I often find myself scraping what feels like the bottom of the bucket. Sludge. This is sludge.
This weekend I will go to the baby shower of my best friend. Then head south to meet my nephew for the first time. Surrounded by new signs of life even as winter approaches. The days are dark earlier, but I haven’t seemed to notice. We keep our heads down and keep on going.
I noticed it when I started glaring at my walls. Sighing heavy when I moved into my office to start writing for the day. When I couldn’t make myself get up and go running in the morning because what does it matter anyway?
The bounce slipped out of my walk and heavy feet trailed around the apartment. Thick socks dragging dirt from wood floors to carpet and back again. I sat on the couch and played Mario Kart instead of writing. Started watching Jane the Virgin on Netflix. Crocheted my first scarf. Anything to keep my mind, my hands, my eyes busy so I wouldn’t have to write.
Losing momentum. Maybe that’s the best way to describe it. Momentum lost. I love our new apartment and the fact we both have separate offices to work out of. But having a commute that consisted of walking from one room to the next made me feel like I was always and never at work. And not being around other humans during the day really started to take its toll on my emotional well-being.
So last week I joined a coworking space in Portland. I gave myself a thirty minute train ride every morning. A desk surrounded by other desks. People to go to lunch with. A big, warm room filled with folks like me.
And as soon as I got there, I started writing again. Words spilled from my fingertips onto the screen. I careened through blank space, filling it with letters that mattered to me. I took deep breaths and could feel the vibrancy returning to my being.
It’s often the simple things, isn’t it? We have so many monumental battles we’re fighting on any given day that it’s easy for us to forget the small ones. Forget the leaving the house ones. The talking to a friend ones. The making a phone call or reading a book or taking a walk ones. The little battles that make the big ones seem like maybe they’ll be okay.
It’s easy for me to want to change it. To assume I’m going about it all wrong. Tell myself there ought to be a better way to do this. A “right” way. I fight hard against the current. Watch the people around me. Compare, question, make lists of how my life falls in line and where it differs.
I press my shoulders hard against the wall and slide down. Place the heels of my hands against my eyes and stretch my fingers up my forehead. “Why isn’t this working?”
The fight is exhausting. It takes on fights of its own. Grows two heads for every one I manage to dispatch. No longer a simple list of things I want to do, but a more detailed collection of all the ways I think I’m supposed to do them. As if forcing myself into a mold is going to do me any favors. At some point I forgot how to play to my strengths. Maybe I never learned how in the first place. Instead, I made models of characteristics I admire and tried to benefit by acting like I have them.
Of course it doesn’t work like that. No matter how delicious the scent of that promise is gliding in.
Again I find myself wondering how I can go about all this different. Wade into a river already flowing in the direction I’m interested in. I make lists of all the things I respond well to. Outside accountability and words of encouragement. Someone leaning over my shoulder and telling me, “You’re doing great.” High fives and deadlines.
So I knit myself into those situations.
Make it a point to always smile at the staff in our new apartment building.
Stop going to meetings which make me feel broken.
Apply for a full-time job in my coworking space before the position even exists, then work hard to earn it. Return to the workforce after almost exactly two years absence. But not at another coffee shop, not in some customer service position which only fulfills my desire to help people. This strikes a deeper chord. This is belonging, mattering, creating.
Sign up with a personal trainer and tell him about how I want to do pull ups and back squat more than I weigh. He nods, smiles, and says, “Okay. Let’s do this.”
Find myself in weekly meetings, telling people what I want to do over the next couple months. They stop me in the stairs and ask me how my writing is going. Ask me what time I got up that morning. If I’ve been getting my cardio in.
My grip on the idea that needing external accountability is a weak trait loosens.
I grant myself permission to just do what works for me. Remind myself that if I’m successful then I’m doing it right. There is no “better” way to get from A to B.
Kid, life will beat you up enough, you don’t have to do it yourself. That’s not where you need assistance.
Ruby Pipes 