I've found myself wondering a lot of things lately...
Why don't I seem to be creative any more?
Why don't I write?
Why can't I get back into writing the book that I was supposed to finish in 2020?
Why can't I just commit to writing or drawing something simple every day?
Why is it so hard to sit down and write friendly emails that I want to write?
I've been feeling pretty mentally and occasionally emotionally exhausted, but I've been putting many of the above things down to just having lost whatever creative or intellectual spark I used to possess. It's not a fantastic mental place to be.
So there was that book... I have tried multiple times without success to write one of the chapters, and I just feel stuck. It's not a chapter I wanted to write, it's just the chapter that everyone would expect in the book. No pressure there. I know that I suffer from lack of feedback. I don't work well in a vacuum. I loved classes for generating ideas (although I did have plenty of ideas outside of coursework) and for keeping me excited and motivated about ideas. This is what conferences are supposed to do, but I find conferences off-putting for a number of reasons. Most recently, I did find a conference that gave me a sense of community--the sense that some people were genuinely interested in my ideas. But it's been a few years since going to that conference was possible, and the field has gotten contentious since then, so that I'm not sure how well a book about heteronormative Tolkien would be received.
But the book is a huge project, and if there's one thing I'm hearing, it's that a lot of people have been unable to be productive over the last couple of years. (I work for a publisher, so I know there are books still coming in, but what do I know? The internet wants me to feel good even though I'm a non-productive slob--except when it wants me to feel terrible for who I am...) And being outside of academia makes writing an academic book hard. You think imposter syndrome is hard for someone on the inside? Try being on the outside some time!
Before the winter break, I had a low low--and an aha! moment. One day I just realized that I had been in a funk for several days, and I realized that there must be something I wasn't seeing. I'm not an "affirmations" kind of gal, but I have a friend on Facebook who posts "Today's Good Things" every day, so I tried it. It was kind of amazing the difference that it made going through the day keeping track of the positives so that I would have at least three to post. It wasn't perfect. I had days when I felt that the positives were a ridiculous misrepresentation of what my day actually looked like, and that writing them was a betrayal of who I really am. But I kept on, and I realized that they didn't have to be complicated: a "good thing" could be something that got a little bit better, or that wasn't as bad as it could have been. I could admit that things had not been great and still find the good. And I had a lovely crocheted blanket in progress that I could show off if I was pressed for a good thing. Even my Inkvent posts were "good things." But... then it dried up. It became not quite every day. Or recent good things. Or for goodness' sake I'm too tired to do this today. I haven't done it for a while, and I haven't missed it too much. Maybe my brain is more in tune to the good things as they come right now. I don't know. But at least this is something in my toolbox.
Meanwhile, my Facebook posting has simply dried up. I just don't have much to say that can be said in a sentence or two, and I don't always feel like I can post the negative after posting the positive.
But that's social media. There are other ways to write daily--and better ones.
I desperately wanted a very fine notebook/journal for Christmas--the Midori One Page One Day.
It just seemed so full of possibilities, and it didn't really have to be themed or ambitious. (I have a problem with journals historically; I become embarrassed about my own thoughts--or really about whatever "pose" I have adopted in writing them--and I rip them up. That's not the point of a journal, but I am not entirely sure what the point of a journal is, for me. I also have a problem with nice notebooks. I would studiously avoid using them, 'lest I "ruin" them with inferior content. The internet tells me that this is not a unique problem. Lately, I want to limit my notebooks by topic or purpose, without necessarily defining this clearly to avoid duplicating my efforts or varying from my stated purpose, e.g. "research" can mean focused research on a specific topic, but might it not also mean research on multiple topics contained in the same book? *sigh*) So now I have this beautiful blank notebook/journal with so many possibilities. I have written on several pages, drawn some little pictures, some in the spirit of "good things," some in attempts to just record what I observe... But I haven't been consistent, and I'm trying to fight the feeling that I've ruined the book. I mean, if it has more or less one page for each day of the year, and I don't use it that way, I will end up with extra pages, or *gasp* more than one partial year in the same book!! I love the symmetry of well-planned things. I just don't seem to be able to conform myself neatly to them. I know that that's silly.
So what's preventing me from sitting down and writing a bit in my little book, you ask?
Well, I was wondering the same. I thought it was, in part, the "what to write" dilemma, which is not new. But I'm trying to give myself a break and not judge what I write so harshly. After all, I have written and created quite a number of things that I'm proud of. But one thing I have realized is a barrier: TIME.
It was easy over the winter break. Or easier. As long as I didn't mind having someone else looking over my shoulder at any given time. But returning to work, I had to resume something closer to a 40-hour on-site schedule instead of the 20-hour on-site and 20 hour work-from-home schedule that I had been enjoying for half of 2021, with exclusive work-from-home for over a year before that. It changes things, some for the better, and really? I wasn't writing a whole lot when I was at home all the time anyway.
My schedule right now only allows me 8 "off-site" hours to play with, and since I have (older) children doing school online, I feel like I need to be present for them for some significant chunks of the day. So I go to work in the morning, come home around lunch for a chunk of time that includes lunch and some "wellness release time" for exercise (to minimize the pain in my back and hip from sitting all day) or a brief trip to the park to give everyone some fresh air and exercise. Then I return to work for an hour and a half or so, come home and almost immediately start trying to figure out what kind of meal to put together (I am not a meal "planner." If I plan to eat something too far in advance, I can almost certainly guarantee that I will not want to eat it. I like raw materials and options.) We eat, and I settle down on the sofa to watch The Repair Shop or something else suitably British and intelligent, occasionally reading or crocheting if I find I can still hold the hook. There are some variations in there, but that's the big picture.
Now, it might seem that that sofa time would be good for writing or creative or intellectual activity of some sort. This has occurred to me. But how wrong we both are! Note the "if I can still hold the crochet hook." I have tried to muster up the energy to write or create something in the evening, but I am mentally if not physically exhausted. Add to this my odd practice of not sitting down in front of the computer or paper. This is because sitting down is very bad. Not really very bad. But it does seem to be a major determining factor in my hip pain, which does not bother me when I am sitting, but significantly hampers me when I stand up again and try to be mobile. So until meal time, sofa time, or the time when I have to be working, I try to stand as much as possible. Managing pain is, itself, exhausting sometimes.
So I have to steal middle-of-the day time, which is work time. Which is "fraud, waste, and abuse" according to the ethics training. This does make me feel guilty, but sometimes I don't care. I get my work done. It's not a job that is demanding for me, or demanding consistently. I could work part-time and still get everything done that I need to get done. (I will say that my split schedule is itself exhausting with the back and forth, but it is productive for me. Having shorter blocks of time to fill and changing scenery and switching gears is much more how I prefer to work.)
But something else occurred to me, too. So far, I have given only a picture of how my time is used, not a picture of how my brain and energy are used. I probably should have remembered sooner the post from Darwincatholic about parenting older children--particularly since I can't find it now. (Here it is! Mrs. Darwin sent it to me!) It rang true then, I remember, but it did not strike me at the time how much this different time of life--mine and theirs--could determine my own creative and intellectual output. Yes, I do demand too much of myself. And somehow, with more self-sufficient children, it seemed like I should be even better able to create and produce. But that's not the whole story.
I find myself much more in demand, in fact, than ever--though I don't really think they are demanding. I have three intelligent and stable offspring, one who can't really be counted as a child, and hasn't been one legally for 7 years now. They trust me, and they value my opinion. They know that I listen, and they respect the feedback that I give. And they have issues with the stupidity in the world and that displayed by other people; they have friends with spiritual crises that cause them to want to get to the root of what exactly the theology of certain sensitive topics might be; they are dealing with the hoops that every student has to jump through to get to the point of being able to choose what course of study to pursue; they are dealing with the realities of the chosen (or de facto) course of study not being what was promised and expected; they are dealing with bad teaching and require someone to commiserate or fill in the gaps; they are dealing with the low motivation that comes from recognizing the pointlessness of the hoops; they are dealing with their own meticulousness and high standards... And I have to hear about every trouble, trial, success, accomplishment, shortcoming, frustration... You get the idea. And this is on top of my own struggles related to work, self-confidence, self-perception, hypochondria (or at least hyper-awareness of my body), spiritual crises related to where I am in my life, oh, and a pandemic thrown into the mix.
Is it any wonder I'm mentally exhausted? I'm starting think... maybe not.
While on the one hand, I spend far too much time in my own head, I don't actually have a lot of time alone with my thoughts. I don't even have a long commute. I literally live 7 minutes away from my workplace. At every other point in my life, I have had time to think. Observe. Create. I do not have that time or space right now. I begin to understand why so many of our authors at the publisher where I work are in their eighties. I am still impatient with their demands that we make sure they have their goal of being published before they die. No one needs that pressure--certainly not me. But it does make sense that they had to wait until the calming of the many, many voices and pressures in life in order to have the space for intellectual activity. My issue is that I used to have that space. I used to be able to make that space. When they were babies and toddlers, the demands were simply different. They were not intellectual. I engaged on a different level. People talk about being at home with their children as not being around adults. I don't actually feel that way. I have three people in my home besides my husband and I who, while they lack experience, certainly engage on a sophisticated level with the experiences they are living. And they do so out loud. To me.
I should say that I am very proud of this. Even as sometimes I want to scream and run away, I feel like I have done something right that they do come to me with things. But... I am exhausted.
Having recognized this, however, I can maybe give myself some space--not to write. Not to be creative or intellectual. And not to feel like I've lost part of myself because I can't produce. Maybe I still have the potential and the capacity. Maybe it's just not the right time.
To every thing (turn, turn, turn)...
