2/4ths OF A MONTH

Before you say a word about my fractioning, you shouldn’t. This is my fun ship. I’ll sink it as I see fit. Though saying “two-fourths” does make my skin crawl a little bit. I’ve been gone a while. The longest stretch in almost two years. I’d say it’s because I’ve been stockpiling brilliance but that’s not the case.  The 90 day cycle of my brains came crashing in during the last week of February and has been mingling like the Catalina Wine Mixer. Social and gregarious on the outside, harboring something else just underneath. For you though, I’ll fly. 

I loathe when I write like I’m about to, but I don’t know how else to do it sometimes. I need to write. Sometimes that hits speed bumps. I have to talk my way over them in real time to seemingly get through to the other side. 

For me, I’ve always been the type of person who prefers to keep driving when traffic occurs. Motion soothes the mind more than sitting there. It makes me feel like an active participant in the game and the time goes by faster. That’s what paragraphs like this are. Longcuts through the traffic of my mind. Motion over waiting for the train to start moving again. I’d say it always works. It does when I put things back into drive. 

If I could surmise my last two-fourths of a month, I’ll say that I’ve been moving but at best I’ve felt purposeless (here comes the drama). I wrote about 300 words about 2020 and pandemic stuff a few weeks back but it rang hollow and repetitive so I let it lie. No one needs a reminder of the 10 best things that came out of last year. Or maybe we do. That’s the thing about the last month or so. I either can’t decide or really don’t care. 

In early February I had a strong feeling that I needed to devote more time to my writing. It was getting better and I felt energized by it. I set a goal to double the length of these posts and did so. Today that feels like another time. Crazy how this can happen. Fifty two days or so later I’m not there, but to be fair I am not really anywhere. That’s the theme of the last 52 days or so. Astray. Not led, not lost, maybe adrift is better. Yes. That’s the feeling. In a life boat in a shipping channel, watching the boats pass a bit to far to hear my calls. 

I can’t help but think the on again off again “snip, snap, snip, snap” of the last year has had something to do with it. While we have all wanted to return to something, the last year feels unfinished. Like we put the puzzle back together without any of the straight edges, a lack of rigidity (read overarching purpose) to hold us firm. It’s like I don’t have any idea why or what I’m even doing a lot of days and so I just keep on moving. Not closer or towards, just around. If I could dance at least I’d be moving like that.

I can’t say the last year isn’t to blame, but blame is a losers game. There should always be some way forward and for the most part I found ways but chose “ignoring” as a way around the rest that didn’t fall into a place. Now pieces need to be put back in place, or at the least thrown away. One of those little dust brooms with the soft bristles, cradling the times and things we don’t have a place for while we take them slowly to the trash. What day does the garbage man come again?

So this is where I restart.  Where I do the things I tell you to do over and over again. I tell you that there’s no fault in it. That it has to be done lest we flounder, just like I feel like I’m doing. I can see how hard it is. How each day  of not doing it builds on the day before, brick by brick and then one morning there’s a knee high wall. You can step over. You’ll probably hit your shin. You do. You always do, because you are a walker through-er, not a walker over-er. 

A recent physical goal behind me. I took almost a week mostly off from the exercise practice. A walk here, some yoga there. Yesterday I went for a run.  The four mile loop I’ve run hundreds of times (I wonder if this is possible.  Seems like it.).  I wore no watch. I played no music. I just ran and opened myself to the magic of what running can do. I didn’t save the world, but for 35 mins or so, the lost feeling of the last 1 and 2/4ths month went away. I had ideas. I regained focus. I put numbers on a couple of things I said I’d do by the time I was 50 (67 days). Things were looking up. 

This morning, all of that feels distant and so I did this (so far). To grasp at the control. To take ahold of what I can. To change the things I can. I’ll give it another go today because the way forward doesn’t need perfection. It needs consistency. Consistency isn’t stacks of first place trophies. Consistency is the dirty game of bad days that you see through. You face what doesn’t really matter that much and slough the weight of it to the side. 

For 20 mins of exercise.

For 60 mins of writing. 

For returning to the work projects you’re stuck on. 

For remembering yesterday’s positivity after making a move. Grasp for that feeling as you know it can return. 

For giving yourself a chance. 

Streaks start with one motion. Today marks number two. Maybe this will be your push. 

I hope to see you again tomorrow. 

#hugsandhi5s