A note about this piece: I am aware of and acknowledge the many painful things that this pandemic has brought to so many people and on so many levels. There is no shortage of bad news. This is a snapshot of my experience, my truth at this time. I hope it helps lift you up.
For so many years now, I have lamented the feeling of leisure that I remember from my childhood. Lazy days slowly lived. I know, many of us know, how tired we are from running all the time. This pandemic-enforced pause is one that I embrace and intend to continue embracing even as our world re-opens. As a writer, I now have internal permission and spaciousness and freedom to commit to longer periods of writing, and I don’t have to navigate through the relentless decision tree and feeling of FOMO or needing to “maximize my time.” I had no idea how tired I was. Or how far I had traveled away from a balance within my life between good work and good leisure.
Running
Keep running. Faster, better. Whatever it is, improve upon it. This has been my (our) existence for so many years. What do I have to get through, so that I can get to the end of my day to do what I want? To sit with a book and truly relax. Even fun events, like parties or dinner with friend, even just cooking dinner – given all that had to occur during the day, any activity was just another thing to check off the list. Overwhelm and anxiety have been ever present. Joy often absent.
“Stay Positive”
For five years, I’ve had a commute that was a minimum of two hours a day. All the work of “staying positive”– it is only now that I don’t have to drive every day, that I realize how much it contributed to my anxiety. The blinders are off, and I now can see that my anxiety was like a light on a dimmer switch slowly being turned up. Every day, an incremental increase, such that I didn’t realize the slow toll it was taking. Right before the shelter in place order, this took the form of a consistent and pervasive sense of worry, and I just assumed it was this season of life – that of a working parent of a teen-aged boy in this world. A prison that I both accepted and hated. In the words of Paul Simon, “I don’t expect to sleep through the night.” Being able to take this true and lengthy pause has shown me that the all the running I had been doing for all these years slowly eroded my ability to let down and experience some inner quiet.
A Different Woman
In work and business, we already have so many decisions to make. This hasn’t changed, but after work, now, what delicious relief! There is a settling in, a less fidgety, uncomfortable questioning of if I am spending my time in the right way. I have started to unwind, becoming aware of what it is to exist with a sense of leisure. I can happily let our dog sniff every bush on the walk. I don’t have a million plans to “get through.” I can again enjoy making dinner.
I am a different woman today than even six weeks ago. In brief moments, back when things were “normal,” I would occasionally catch a glimpse of the life I hoped to someday return to. One where an hour over coffee in the afternoon was a comfortable reality. Or regular unplanned blocks of time, without the voice in my head urging me on to the next item and the next. Now, day by day, I am embracing the changes both within and without. And what is manifesting now in the microcosm of family life is much more family time, laughter, relaxed dinners, cooking, meeting the neighbors, helping others, sharing, reading, talking…fulfillment. A sense of soul nourishment.
With Love and Light, K
Resources:
Song for the Playlist: The Obvious Child, by Paul Simon
Photo: : Photo by Hamza Bounaim on Unsplash