Monday, September 28, 2020

Drifter

Floating.
Just floating along.
The uncertainty, the months of it, it leaves you in this gelatinous puddle of apathy. This feeling has become normal. It's become okay, to just drift day to day, being pushed along by whichever way the tide decides. 

This sway, this drift, how can I modify it? Consciousness dictates that I acknowledge these feelings, that I recognize them. This is an amazing tool. How do I become the person who changes my own story? It's a pretty fundamental question, what defines us, how we define ourselves. Soul searching, or whatever the fuck you call it. These last several years I have struggled to define my own identity. Hell I have struggled with a predefined identity, one that society creates, my job creates, my friends create. The many masks that I wear that create a pretense of who I should be, but none are an actual reflection of who I really am. Years of pain related to a sad medical diagnosis, months of inward self reflection have me questioning who I am as a person. The answer is I just don't know.

But who am I? How do I define me? How do I define the predefined constructs of the expectations of everyone else? How can I give myself the room for this self expression? What do I want out of life? 

Sorry for this dribble of liquid brain contents. Sometimes just getting this out is like a small piece of therapy for me. 

Thursday, September 17, 2020

Defining the calendar.

Finding beauty in simple acts seems like such a cliche. It probably is, but I love cliches. There's comfort in a cliche, a familiarity. 

I was mindlessly stuffing my head with a trip down the youtube rabbit hole, when I caught some dumb advertisement for a prescription. I can't remember what they were advertising but the ad was filled with 2 people just sitting at a dinner table talking and laughing. It wasn't anything special, they were probably advertising some new IBS drug, I don't know. What I do know is the comfort that I felt when I saw 2 people with a connection (I know they're actors), taking comfort with just each others' company. It was a beautiful thing, idyllic and serene. It made me ponder my connection to simplicity, appreciating just living and not the trying. 

2020 has been a fucked up year to say the least. Everything this year has taken so much effort and energy. Just getting motivated to get the day started is an infinite expenditure from a very empty well. You wax and wane between wanting to better yourself or just staring at your phone screen for mindless hours. You feel guilt when you simply can't muster energy to 'better yourself', but you feel exhausted the minute you try something new.

It took some envisioning, but I think I have it. 2020 isn't meant to push you to new heights, it's not here to bring you down, it's here to put your life back into perspective. Despite hardships, despite anxiety, pain, exhaustion, apathy, 2020 has shown us to take a hard look at what's important in life. Sitting on a couch with my husband, just sitting with him, is so comforting. Before the world fell a part, we would have been running out the door to do whatever we 'needed' to do; seeing friends, eating out, shopping, idk what the fuck ever we had going on, but it never felt like it was just the 2 of us. Now here we are, it was hard at first, not seeing our friends all of the time, not leaving the house on a whim, but I've never felt happier that it really is just the 2 of us until the end of the world. 

Organically building what it means to 'better yourself' is more important than ever. Once I decided that bettering myself really meant just living life, then things sort of evolved organically. Developing an appreciation for each other's company was the beginning, the weird hobbies came later. My music tastes changed completely into something unexpected but it has been my other companion through all of this. Roller skating to said music has also given me an outlet to unburden my mind. Having these outlets that developed organically makes them feel less burdensome and more of a fun hobby and dare I say, passion. 

TBH 2019 was a bad year for me and my little tiny family. Between bad medical news, a lot of sad things happening in the ER where I worked, and a full readjustment of my career and goals; 2020 was supposed to be an improvement, except now the whole world suffers and not just me. A wise friend at work who I frequently confided in told me some extremely sage advice that I have forever taken to heart: 'No matter how hard it gets, at the end of the day you still have each other'. I am so grateful for that advice, it has provided me with more comfort than that person probably even knows. It has gotten me through back to back hard years.

Moral of the story: thank you 2020, but like you can also fuck off.