Waiting it Out

Going on vacation is like a reset button for me. This summer has been strange up to this point: disjointed, off-kilter and emotional. I have felt like a fish out of water with no logical reason for this out-of-step sensation.

Then I went away. I had high hopes of learning something profound or life-altering, as has occurred in the past, but instead it was just more of the same. Scratchy on the inside, easily irritated, a rising wind of discontent pushing my peace out of reach.

We all have crappy seasons that we just have to walk through, whether we want to or not. I find them easier to bear when I can pinpoint the cause of my malaise (“Oh, that’s why!”), but this time around no source for my frustration made itself evident.

waitingWhen the time approached to head home, I felt disappointed that no great revelation had descended. Like most people, I wanted to feel happy and relaxed; to embrace the summer heat with its long days and pleasant evenings. I yearned to flip a switch and feel like myself again, but nothing was working.

Then we came home. Suddenly, a heaviness lifted and I knew a shift had taken place. I still couldn’t identify a reason for this change, but somehow it ceased to matter. Our inner landscape is a tumultuous place. We can’t hold onto the good and avoid the bad. We must accept what comes, learning from what is unsettling as much as from the things that bring us joy.

I long to be patient with my own humanity. I want to extend mercy for my flailing vulnerabilities instead of hurrying my soul through its inevitable rough patches. And yet I fail miserably at this. I want to assign a scientific meaning to everything I feel, like pencil points on graph paper, instead of accepting that feeling blue is part of the human condition.

We can’t be skilled at everything. There is always more to learn and to achieve. Perhaps, for today, it is enough to simply rest in my own soul, without forcing any one specific outcome. I know from experience that a painful season leads to a fertile, peaceful one. Hurrying growth along breeds nothing but resentment. Patience is a better plan. Too bad it’s so damn hard.

We are all doing better than we think we are. I tend to make it harder than it has to be. Sometimes, we just have to wait it out, finding the good and the beautiful in the midst of the difficult. Answers come to us later, when we stop fighting the power of the current and find ourselves back out on the sand. Labour is agonizing for a reason. At the end of it, you get new life.

Disconnected

Is it a hallmark of being human to feel disconnected from time to time? Adrift, from oneself as much as from another, off-kilter and irritated?

I must say that these vague and shadowy elements of human nature tend to piss me off. No matter how close I get to genuinely accepting the many unknowable mysteries of this existence, at my basest level I continue to long for stability. I prefer certainty to doubt, even though the latter opens the spirit and the former tends to close it down.

Perhaps the issue here is specificity. When I’m talking about human frailty and loneliness in the abstract, I understand its value and the lessons it teaches. But when my life is running smoothly, stacking up peaceful and happy days in succession like Lego bricks, I don’t want to be derailed by this ethereal loss and a gnawing discontent.

Especially when there is no damn reason for it, other than my own stupid expectations. I may have abolished my paper to-do list, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still draft one in my brain. To-do lists equal expectation. They generate that rat-on-a-wheel sensation of picking up the pace while not actually getting anywhere. And it feels miserable. It takes my joy and sucks all the air out of it, like those machines that prep meat for the freezer.

disconnected

Life is what we make it. We all have certain obligations to meet, which rev up our stress level, but I tend to forget that my reaction is squarely under my control. I can feel as if I’m failing and behind, or I can celebrate the accomplishments I’ve achieved and let go of the rest for this one day. That choice belongs to me.

I’m lost when I start projecting into the future. What I have is this moment, in the middle of this day. As Victor Hugo put it, “The rest is only the rest, and comes afterward.” Borrowing ahead brings a churning mental and physical stress, with the added kick of removing the pleasure you could have felt today. I am so unbelievably awful at staying in the moment when future deadlines loom in the distance.

I can see now that this is a big practice area for me. The summer is particularly difficult because I long to relax with my kids and simply play, making memories that will sustain me later on. And yet I worry I’m falling behind, not meeting my own expectations, or worst of all, being lazy.

I have no bloody idea how to strike this balance, but I do know that pretending to rest when I’m actually worried about future projects is not a sustainable plan. It brings about this sense of disconnection within myself, extending to those I love, and I’m going to have to find another way to make this work.

Welcome!

This is my first post at my new WordPress site! I started my author website in the summer of 2011 but now I wanted something with more elaborate designing options. So I picked a WordPress theme and I’m excited to be in a new stage of my online adventures.

I was hoping to bring my 2011-2015 blogs over to the new site, but the previous host has proprietary software and it’s not going to be possible. So I get to start from scratch with fresh writing over here. But I’ve saved all of those postsĀ and will be releasing some curated essay anthologies in the coming months so that work will not be lost. Welcome to my new home online and I welcome your comments on the new look!

View More: http://stillsbyjill.pass.us/harvey