Deadly wildfires. Killer hurricanes. Mass shootings. More mass shootings. Then there are the political scandals… For weeks, every time I sat down to put pen to page, news of the latest catastrophe or partisan outrage crushed my desire to write. Simply stated, the enormity of recent events had silenced me.
Other than occasionally scratching out a few lines in a small bound journal, I stopped writing. And I stopped worrying about writing — or rather, not writing. There is so much more to worry about, don’t you think? Besides, haven’t you ever felt that you’ve spread yourself too thin? For years? And you just can’t do it any longer?
Now, even if we’ve honed our skills as Jugglers Extraordinaire courtesy of pop culture dictates of “doing it all,” that doesn’t mean that living in uninterrupted overwhelm won’t take a toll.
It will. It does.
Eventually, you need to take a breath. Eventually, you wind down — or break down. Eventually, you need to step out of your own head and your own situation with whatever energy you can muster and… drumroll please… you look at the bigger picture. You begin to evaluate your life, your relationships, your contributions, and dare I say it… what you will leave behind.
You focus on needs beyond yourself, your family, your immediate circle. Because finally, at least to a degree, you can.
Of course, you can only do so when you aren’t fighting for your very survival, or the survival of your family.
For me, this process of stepping outside my routine involves an increasing emphasis on staying informed. The America I once knew in terms of honesty and idealism writ large has been losing its way at an alarming pace. No thanks to me or others like me who assumed that those leading our critical institutions would make progress in eliminating systemic inequities rather than try to turn back time.
Sure, we probably used to read enough to stay minimally informed. We probably voted in presidential elections. Perhaps we volunteered in our immediate communities. But otherwise? Political engagement may not have been on the radar.
Does that mean we’ve all been sitting on our dainty derrières?
Hardly. Just getting through each ordinary day can be mind-numbingly complicated.
And what if you’re struggling? What if you’re battling illness or addiction and trying to access health care with too few options and too many obstacles? What if you’re drowning in debt and demoralized following job loss? What if you’re terrified of losing the roof over your head because each month is about rent or prescriptions and not both? What if you’ve already lost the roof over your head?
Even without such commonplace “unusual” challenges, it’s easy to feel swamped and depleted by the demands of our daily lives. If you’re like me, the emotional freight of those demands is exacerbated by the staggering speed and distressing content of the news cycle. (Cue the capitulation of my virtual pen.)
If and when we aren’t feeling quite so overwhelmed, then maybe — just maybe — priorities begin to shift. We reflect and act on what we can do rather than what we cannot.
My shift?
In the past three years I have dedicated significantly more bandwidth to learning about our political system and its players. I continue that effort as the 2020 election approaches, spending even more time educating myself.
In addition, I persist in my journey toward what I hope will be a saner (healthier) lifestyle, a subject I have written about in terms of managing chronic pain, healthy eating, growing older on one’s own, and related issues.
Though my baby birds have flown the nest, I remain in their lives in any way that is useful to them, and to say that doesn’t at times require considerable emotional energy would be an understatement. (Oh, the gray hair!)
Last but hardly least, surprise, surprise… I still need to make a living. Earning my keep as an independent worker means constantly soliciting and chasing down leads – and once secured, delivering the best possible results.
This all takes time.
Netting things out: I did not expressly decide to forgo writing for a month or two, but keenly aware that I was spreading myself too thin, a few days respite turned into a few weeks, weeks into months, and here I am — at last! — placing a few (ponderous?) paragraphs on the page.
As much as I fantasize about returning to a rigorous regular rhythm of spontaneous sharing, these days I am more likely to write on a whim rather than a schedule.
Frankly, doesn’t that sound like more fun?
Besides, this unintended break has helped me to refocus.
To be honest, as much as I believe in “the more you do, the more you can do,” trying to do it all – or at least as much as I have for three decades – became ludicrous. Something had to give. And it was the writing, here, that took the hit.
What has replaced a small measure of my need for creative expression? Quilting! (No kidding.) If you’re curious, pop over to my Instagram to see.
So… What have you been up to lately? What have you given up to pave the way for more time to pursue other priorities? Do you find your everyday concerns growing or lessening in light of larger social, economic, political, and cultural issues? And I am curious to know what sources you rely on when it comes to staying informed.
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I’m very much in that same place too. Over the years I drifted into helping people with an old hobby I used to enjoy but have long since outgrown. It had increasingly grown more burdensome, to the extent it was actively interfering with my life and causing distress. I’ve recently started feeling the constricts of age and time remaining. When I realized my own preferences, and even daily living requirements, were being crowded out I knew it was time to bring the focus to myself.
My life is feeling much more open, and more simple. The downside is I’m losing touch with a major circle of friends, but that’s OK. I’ve needed to give more attention to family and closer friends anyway. When I began turning loose I felt pretty conflicted, but that is fading with time.
For me, the political state of recent years has actually simplified my tracking of it. Since a sizable portion of the electorate has shown it doesn’t follow, comprehend or care about governing competence or how a person works within existing frameworks, and actually seems hell bent on destroying the whole existing system, details now take a back seat. The nitty gritty of each day’s new outrage has become irrelevant in the new context. The *only* issue now, in my mind, is trying to discern who would be best able to reverse the outrages, and who is most electable. The difficulty now is in trying to triangulate based on your perceptions of other people’s perceptions. I don’t like it when other people vote in that way, but this time I may end up doing it myself.
And quilting? There are some serious artists in that field, doing eye-popping work. At one time I would never have deliberately gone to a quilting show. But having been accidentally exposed, I might do so now.
It can be hard to say no, but sometimes it is the only way to be true to yourself especially with time, energy, and other resources increasingly scarce – something which is so true for many of us. I get where you’re coming from, Robert.
Very glad to hear from you, an it’s another thoughtful post.
I also have stepped back from writing, but above all I have felt turned off by what used to be my escapism–fashion, decorating, travel (not having a budget to travel, I contented myself with vicarious thrills of reading about faraway places).
I am focusing on changing my life in unglamorous ways–more exercise, less waste, less consumption, being healthier. I hear our friends complain about the environmentalists–most of our social circle is older than we are, retired. They want no impingement on their convenience. Then I hear my kid, still a teen, talk with real worry and urgency about what life will be like in 20 years. Our friends don’t care about 20 years from now–they are up front about it–they are likely to be dead or near the end of their lives. How they can be so selfish toward younger generations boggles my mind. And then there are relatives back in the US who insist that I’ve swallowed the climate change “hoax” and who are doubling down on polluting as a way to protest against fun-killing environmentalists.
I’m nodding, I’m nodding, I’m nodding… (Lovely to hear from you as well, ToF.)
ToF – Your friends and U.S. relatives are like the circle I’m withdrawing from – a not insignificant part of the reason for my discomfort, withdrawal, and now relief. I no longer had any meaningful way to relate to them, the gap in belief systems had become too much to bridge.
I have missed you and wondered what was up. I am here to read when you post. I follow on Instagram. I wish you all the best each and every day and I am here rooting for you from afar. I understand where you are coming from with being stretched too thin. Take care of yourself. Know your fans are out here in the universe or Texas where I live.
Thank you, Vicki. Your words make me smile.
I guess I’ve given up career advancement to any great degree for the time being, in order to recover psychologically and physically. I was unemployed nearly a year, then I found contract work that was forever at threat of being cancelled. And I got sick, not sick enough that I didn’t work of course, I worked. Doctors didn’t find anything. I might have fallen victim to one of those illnesses due to stress, it could have been psycho-somatic. Or else chemical exposure, I was also potentially being exposed to toxic chemicals known to exist at that contract job (which also caused some stress, being sick and knowing it could possibly be the toxic chemicals, because I wasn’t the only one who had gotten sick working there). Whatever the cause, the symptoms were plenty real.
Eventually I had multiple offers for full time work and could escape all that, I took the one with the short commute to recover physically and psychologically. It wasn’t the one that will advance my career, and maybe I’ll yet pay for that with another period of horrible economic precarity, but I needed a break. And with full time work I got better health insurance (ACA type plans are horrible), and time off to see the doctor, although no doctors have ever found anything. And I’m less sick. And I can hardly think about the last couple of years without extreme stress, but I’m learning to forget them. Which is maybe the best I can do.
The political situation is horrible. Political involvement (I’m unabashedly on the left) is near the top of my priority list, below only health, work, and maintaining a few human relationships. We need people to make it top priority as well, but it’s not me right now.
You’ve certainly been through it, jrs. I’m glad that you’re in a healthier environment and in a FT situation. I hope you continue to feel better and better. It can be hard to shake off years of tough times, but the more you can trust your improved situation, the more that may help. Yes to your other points; I get it. Very glad you stopped by.
Soon I will be stepping away for a while from blogging to work on my memoir. I can’t do both because they use different mindsets and voices. In this case it will keep me from spreading myself too thin.
xoxox, Brenda