Tag: 132

I spent another night tossing and turning, waking in the night, and struggling to fall back asleep. I can’t even remember the last time I slept soundly through a night or didn’t wake up with dark circles and heavy limbs. Still, considering the chronic sleep deprivation, I’m feeling pretty good today.

I feel light, like a weight has been removed from my chest for a time. I wouldn’t quite call it happy, but something very near it or something very far from melancholy, anyway. It’s more of a lack of pain than a euphoria. Sometimes when you’ve been low for so long, just getting to neutral can be a major sense of hope and pride.

Perhaps it’s only that the sun has finally returned, and the workday is scheduled to be an easy one. I feel ready to focus, ready to work, ready for a few steps forward for a change.

I read a blog post today from someone lamenting that they had fallen short of their goal and only finished half of a draft for their next book. I am by no means invalidating the feelings of failure, but couldn’t help thinking how proud this person should be to have had the courage to start at all and to make it halfway! I’m still working on ideas and anxiety. I hope one day to have gathered half the resolve, focus, and determination this blogger has. I hope they know I’m in awe of them.

The most I can ask of myself is to get through a scheduled hour of real writing. Not reading or research, not image editing, not journaling, real writing, followed by some time spent actually editing. When I say real writing, I don’t mean profitable writing, though someday soon I’d love for that to be my pursuit. I mean, writing that is meaningful to me. Writing I hope holds some value for you.

It may only be a personal essay, a poem, or a book review, but it’s writing I take seriously. It’s practice for something bigger and it’s purifying for the psyche and, for now, that’s all I ask from myself and from writing. I suppose it’s all I can ever ask.

It’s a gloomy, rainy kind of day today. Neither my wife or I wanted to get up and go for a walk, but the dog was begging so badly I decided to take her on a quick jog around the block. It was misty and miserable out when we went, but I’m glad we did. I’m trying my best to get outside, to get some sun and get moving every day and as good as it feels I still find every excuse not to go.

A little cold, a little tired, a little sore or grumpy, all to me are reason to skip it but once I’m up and moving I see how flimsy those reasons are and how easy they are to overcome. That is, I’m learning to see through my own bullshit.

I don’t know if it was the clouds, the late nights lately, the new daily walks, or the IBD flare-up I’m worried is coming on, but I am feeling especially exhausted today. After lunch I found myself overwhelmed by the urge to curl up under a blanket and sleep. I could not have fought it if I’d wanted to. I’m glad I didn’t try though. I need the rest and without it I know I would have spent the evening dragging my useless body around and accomplishing nothing.

Sometimes we have to fight ourselves to get anything done, and sometimes we have to give into ourselves for the long term good. Much of life lately is spent trying to discern between the two.