Lisa Marie Blair

It’s a late start this Saturday morning, but that was entirely by design. In fact, this whole weekend is packed with plans for extra hours of peace and rest, as much as I can fit in around my wife’s continued birthday plans and a couple of small family gatherings and events.

Now that I’m up though it’s time to get moving the best I can and make the most of the daylight I’m given. I’ve already cooked breakfast and hope to push a few updates and page edits out here. There is a half finish blackout poem on my desk waiting to be shared and dishes piled in the kitchen waiting to be washed. What I would like not to do is spend too much time on my phone or watching too much TV.

It’s no secret I have been struggling with my physical health lately, and the impact on my mental health is increasing by the day. I’ve noticed I’m giving in to harmful cravings and losing time to mindless scrolling. Screens are an easy escape but at the end of the day I always feel worse than if I had done something else or even had done nothing.

I’m considering deleting all those tempting apps off of my phone, or at least get them off of my home screen. I need a little distance. I need space to remember how it is I want to spend my days before the icons and notifications decide for me. More than that, I want to get back to not even having my phone in hand. I have limited the notifications I receive both on my smartwatch and through my headphones to only the most important, so my phone never actually needs to be near me unless I need it.

Of course, that’s easier said than done, and it has to start with my mental state first. When you have no energy, when you feel isolated and down, social media can feel like a lifeline and there are times and circumstances when it is but not all times and not all circumstances and lately less and less. I need action. I need work I can do and feel. I need real life again.

What a difference a day makes and how quickly optimism and hope can slip away. I’m not trying to be dramatic. I’m just not feeling well. I’m chronically ill, stressed, sleep deprived, and over every bit of it, that’s all.

The truth, the hard truth, is today isn’t so bad. I’ve had plenty of support and positivity around me, keeping me up, focused, and moving forward. I showed up when I didn’t think I could. I’ve been productive beyond all the expectations I had of myself and ended with more energy than most days. THe truth is it’s been a damn decent day despite all my personal struggles and pains.

And by now the day is long past half over and the end is so close I have no doubt I will make it the rest of the way. Perhaps tomorrow will bring another turn of mood and circumstance, and I’ll find myself returning to yesterday’s high of healing and hope once again, or perhaps not. Maybe all I can hope for is another day of feeling capable and useful, and maybe that is more than enough, for now. It has to be.

I just wish I had more to cling to, more to look forward to than work and rest. I miss writing. I miss my art. I miss reading and learning. I miss being able to make time and to focus. I miss loving myself and my life. There has to be some way of getting back to that version of me.

And I don’t think it’s all down to chronic illness. I think at least half is this sad and lonely “new normal” we’ve all been grappling with. It’s sitting at home night after night. It’s keeping my distance from everyone. It’s missing crowds, and strangers, and experiences. I’m treading water, poorly, and there is very little in sight to cling to, to swim to.

Of course I can’t find the energy for the things I love. I’ve had so little to nurture or nourish my creativity or passion. With so little input, how can I expect to create, share, or connect?

I’ve always been weird in that, where other people struggle and suffer through the first day of the week, Mondays typically find me at my best.

I’ve usually prepared, both emotionally and practically, for the start of the week. I spend much of Sunday worrying and walking through the day’s tasks, expectations, and possibilities. Mondays then end up being the least anxiety inducing day of the week for me because there hasn’t yet been enough time for chance, chaos, or catastrophe to work its way between my hopes and intentions, yet.

All this to say that, despite the hectic schedule and the overflowing list of things to do, today was actually a good day.

We had a class of new employees start today and that means for the next two weeks or so I will be in charge of every aspect of these people’s work life and training. It’s a lot of pressure and a lot of responsibility. I love my job. I love teaching and I love affecting change not just in the way these people approach their job and the children we serve but I love knowing there is a small chance they will take the lessons and perspectives I bring to them into their lives and relationships beyond the workplace.

Still, I expect to be fully burned out and dragging my feet in pessimism and impatience by this time next week.

Time never flows the way you want it to. Time spent in pain or exhaustion drags on and the few moments of joy or connection you get in between are gone before you can hardly mark let alone savor them.

My oldest niece and nephew are in town and visiting our side of the family for the weekend. They live in another state and at the very most I get to see them once a year but usually less so this is a very big deal, and a much needed bright spot in this dark and dreary time.

I’d doing my best to fill the time with as little worry and as much humor and delight as possible, but the responsibility is weighing on me a little. Still, part of me is proud to be so trusted, to lead, to decide.

The time has been wonderful but that means the weekend is flying by much too fast. I have a busy schedule ahead that I am in no hurry to begin. To be honest with you, the way I’ve been feeling, I’m not entirely sure I’m going to be able to keep one foot in front of the other all the way through Friday.

Last week, these past many weeks actually, have been so hard on me. I feel like I’m pushing boulders uphill. I feel like I’m drowning. I feel like a ghost and it only seems to get worse and worse the more and more effort I put into meeting expectation and maintaining some kind of normalcy.

So, I’m considering taking a break from life. I need time away from work, away from pretending I’m not sick. I need time to rest and to focus on my physical and mental health exclusively without the guilt, the pity, or the weight of weakness and failure weighing me down. I have the right protections in place, there is no reason not to use them for my benefit and healing.