Finding my way

Something happened for me over the last five years. Things that seemed easy before became much harder: small talk, getting up at 6am, untying my shoelaces. Things that felt near impossible became more effortless: setting boundaries, identifying my feelings, and (critically) listening to them.

In some ways, it has been like a track-shift for a train. One minute I was on one track, and then I was on the other, instantaneously. As an example, I really can’t do small talk anymore, even when I try. It feels forced and weird and pointless.

In other ways, I am still feeling my way. These past two weeks, for example, have been massively overfilled, due to delayed boundary-setting. And the jittery, nervous-y, unsettled feeling this brought about was eerily familiar.

But where I might at some point have mistaken it for excitement, I now know that it is stress.

I thought about it this weekend as I drove 275 km away from home to get to a place where I could think. In the quiet I found, it took me a while to settle. Almost as if my body resisted the calm and wanted to get back to the jitters. What’s next, my brain kept asking, regardless of how many time I told it: nothing is next, and that is the point.

Randomly, I shared space with a one-year-old child, who, after a day of excitement, also resisted the sleep he so clearly needed. You and me both, bro, was the thought that surfaced and shook me back to what I know to be true: spaciousness and quiet work.

Why is this so hard, I wonder? I know this less frantic pace is the actual speed of my presence. Any faster, and what gets done is not connected, not deliberate, not real. I also know that nothing is gained be beating myself up over the time it takes to truly know this.

And so I sit.