The Green Study will return on September 1, 2016.
Please note: I’ve received emails regarding phone calls from a Green Study Survey Company. This entity is entirely unrelated to me or my blog and from minimal research, seems to be a nuisance robo-caller reported on several spam tracking websites.
My time away from this blog over the last few weeks was unintentional. I’ve been losing myself for hours in the silence and solitude of gardening. In addition, I’ve been spending an increasing amount of resources towards changing habits that will help me reach some personal goals. Digging in on all fronts, as it were. It’s made me mute, as if opening my mouth or typing words will drain away much needed energy.
Life online has become unpalatable, as we lose each other in the maelstrom of ugly politics. We’re neighbors, fellow citizens, and human beings. Most of us don’t have the “real” story about these candidates and we’re all myopic about the course of history. Regardless of who our next president is, we’ve seen the underbelly of our citizenry – all the blaming and the racism and the misogyny, ever present, ever corrosive.
My angry post drafts remain unpublished, relics of confirmation bias and infinite regression. Hate begets hate. So, I step back from my computer, knowing that I’ll learn nothing relevant before the fall, knowing that I owe my country my vote, but not my mental health.
The novel that never seems to get finished, even though I wrote the first draft 4 years ago, is getting a hard look these days. I’m re-writing most of it, learning how to craft and not just spew. It may never be published, but it means something to me and how I view myself. No investment in the outcome, only in the process.
I’ve been working on changing some personal habits, which seem to require a lot of energy and focus. I’ve started with small changes – less time on the computer, longhand writing, getting back into painfully regular workouts, decaffeinating and changing my evening routine so that I sleep better. One small shift at a time, adding a new step every few weeks.
It weighs on me that in a year or so, I’ll turn 50. It weighs on me not because of numbers or wrinkles or irrelevancy. It weighs on me because I’ve waited so long to let myself be happy. To let myself just be. I live my life like an apology, never reveling in the happier moments, always downplaying successes and never allowing myself to rest. I need rest.
I suspect many of us do. I read an article about busyness being beneficial to your brain as you age. Between that one and the one about breakfast, I’m doing it all wrong. I want a life that isn’t busy and if I don’t eat breakfast, I’m homicidal by 10am. It tends to make it a rather important meal for me.
Sometimes, too, we get stuck in a loop without even realizing it. I’ve been going around in circles for the last few years. It’s Groundhog Day. I’ve spent a lot of time getting better with each loop – learning how to get up, brush myself off more quickly and calling bullshit when my mind does its little depressive dance.
A few weeks ago, during yet another sleepless night, a thought plunked itself down in my brain and it has stayed with me ever since. I’m ready. While that phrase could be subject to wildly inaccurate interpretation, I figure it means one of several things: I’m ready to be happy, I’m ready to let go of old ideas or, just when I finally get the point of things, I will get hit by a bus. While I’m still upright, I’m going with the more positive and less bus-flattening of the interpretations.
I’m ready for what is to come next. I’ll put down my guard. I’ll stop justifying why I do what I do. I’ll shorten my to-do list. I’ll not make excuses for happiness or success (I’m sure it won’t last. It was just luck. I don’t deserve this.).
But for now, I’ll just rest.
I wish you a wonderful summer and all the joy you can muster!
The Green Study will return on September 1, 2016.
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