RESTING

The Muse is on vacation. I have no energy for....much.  I'm intimately familiar with burn-out.  Hello.  I see you.  I feel you.  

Here's the thing.  The Truth.  ALL of my energy is going into recovery, resilience, re-defining, re-making, re-ordering my life.  I turned 70 in December.  Some shift is happening..."something's happening here; but what it is ain't exactly clear..." (Those my age will recognize this song lyric.)

I recall in my 50's and early 60's I had the motto: "There is no time left to waste", so I went on a "public-ing" binge of no longer hiding and postponing the things I wanted to do that I'd long put off or talked myself out of, thinking I was not capable enough to pull any of it off.  

I wrote and did "performance poetry" publicly at Open Mics.  I contributed to a chapbook of original poems with a group of women poets. I organized and facilitated a monthly Ecstatic Dance (meditative movement) experience attended by about 20 people.  I organized and facilitated a support and sharing group for women over 60 (WISE: Women Investigating, Supporting and Experiencing) as we moved into an age where many women become invisible.  I wanted us to be examples, not of the stereotypical "elderly" but of the vital and energetic version of what it means to grow older with so much to contribute: smashing cultural stereotypes.  I was in leadership at my Unitarian Universalist church, as a regular Worship Associate, on committees, MC'ing special events.  I attended women's personal growth experiential weekends and the follow up growth groups that changed my life.  I started taking yoga classes.  I learned to meditate.  I struggled through getting boys through high school and college and a mother through independent living, assisted living, and home care as her dementia progressed until her death.  I also worked full time.  And did all the other life stuff people do.  It was a time of tremendous energy output and tremendous reward.

I think of all of that fondly and know I do not want to repeat the frantic pace of those years.  But lately I wonder what my life is about.  I feel directionless and rudderless.  Plus, shit's been hard.

My political assumptions about our country and my naive innocence about people doing what's right took a huge hit with the defeat of Hillary Clinton and the victory of a Republican president and party that resembles nothing like Democracy.  For over 4 years I felt abused and betrayed.  The heart sickness, the mental shocks, the physical responses to all of it, as well as the non-stop calls to action and activism took a toll.  By the time he was defeated, although he is still claiming he won, I was just relieved and burned out.  These days I've become one of those I have always denigrated -- vaguely aware of what's happening, but not engaged; not devouring news 24/7, not taking any meaningful actions, not interested in engaging in long diatribes or discussions of policy or politics.  I almost have an aversion -- I just watch Rachel Maddow and occasionally skim my news feed without the ability to read more than a paragraph or so before I feel agitated enough to click out of the story.  I cannot tolerate the intolerable anymore.  I think I'll get my mojo back, eventually, because if anything inspires me to care it's voting rights issues, so that may be where I'm headed, but not now, not today.

While delicate to write about and without any desire to reveal intimate details, for the past two years Hub and I have struggled with some marital issues that have consumed me...and us.  It has been a time of tremendous pain for me.  We recognized the need to attend to long-standing patterns of being in relationship together.  We've made a commitment to deeper understanding and acceptance of the ways in which we are very different.  One would think all of this would have been worked out years ago.  But ages and stages of development, and how people just naturally change over time, bring different challenges and this age and stage feels like a transition born of crisis into a new and healthier way of being together.  At times we feel like honeymooners, having gotten past the initial "thing", but underlying that there is still much work to do.  (It's never just one thing and often it's not even the "thing" but the "why" behind it.)  Why one person decides to do something and how the other reacts to that doing requires examination.  To our credit, we are (no hyperbole, it's true) excellent at talking things through.  We have huge individual and collective toolboxes of personal growth and communication tools and know how to use them.  We have spent hours and hours and hours sitting in our living room chairs telling honest truths to each other, revealing our deepest thoughts and feelings, fighting, crying, giving up, starting again, and holding the hope that this will all make us stronger.  Lately I think it will.  I am so grateful for our shared perseverance and willingness to be vulnerable as a means to an end we both want.  I have found my voice and my strength of conviction, setting boundaries, and honoring my values.  He has looked inside and found areas he wants to work on as well.  We both think the future holds great promise and we are excited about sharing it together.  But Jesus, it's been so hard, so draining, so sad... and so important.  

And then a year ago along came the Covid-19. Besides the fear of catching the thing, came the difficult realization that I felt so alone with my adult children seemingly unable or unwilling to be as attentive as I'd hoped.  They rarely reached out to check in, rarely answered my own reaching out to them with much more than a few words in response.  I felt I'd completely lost one of my DIL's as her work in health care consumed her.  I know they love me, but still, I had to learn hard, hard lessons about letting go.  They were consumed by their own lives, busy, and stressful. I grieved mightily that my dream of a close connection to my family was not to be.  At least not the way I had defined it.  So, I worked and worked and worked on finding out more about why connection was so important to me. And I figured it out and went on to working on how to heal that wound within myself.  (Fodder for another post.)  

So, all of this has left me in a state of numb exhaustion for several weeks.  I've neglected friends, have been unable to write or read much, or even laugh enough.  I've been reclusive with no social energy to expend.  I truly feel like I'm recovering from an intensely emotionally demanding and draining few years of concurrent challenges that converged to overcome my sense of safety -- which is a HUGE challenge for me.  Feeling safe and connected are my core needs and these have been thwarted.  I have to come up with a new definition of safety and connection and to find those things within myself, not relying on others to supply me this life-saving emotional oxygen.  

So, yeah, it's hard and from it all I have grown so much, learned so much, feel hopeful and determined.  But I need to retire to my sofa, with my mandala coloring books and watercolor pens, my crocheting, and my TV for a while longer.  I need quiet walks, daily meditation, and regular yoga practice.  I need a few close friends, occasional family gatherings (thank you Covid vaccinations!), and more time to figure out what's next for me, because I do not know.  But I do know I'll be a different me when I emerge.

At least, that's the view from here...©