When I thought about if or what to post here this weekend I was going back and forth between
- this short slightly introspective post about what I have been up to and what it’s like in my head at the moment
- the long overdue post with photos and stories from my trip to Paris about a month ago
And I had been determined to do the Paris post today, because in general I didn’t want to do those public soul-bearing introspective posts anymore. On the other hand, why the hell not? Maybe someone reading this will find it helpful to know that most of us are a bit of a mess and struggling to make sense of our lives.
I also realized that the Paris post will need much more time, and I wouldn’t be able to finish it today. To avoid feeling like a failure over that, I’ll postpone it and share a few random personal thoughts after all.
So here are three little prompts. Lyrical ones, because…it’s me.
“All in my head is worry“
“Worry”, Lottery Winners, 2023
To be honest it feels like I have been worrying much less than I used to. Again “Three cheers to therapy” I guess. I still worry quite a bit as I will probably always do. But more often than not these days I quickly catch and stop myself from going down the spiral of negative thinking. And that feels good.
On Friday a work thing was worrying me, but instead of letting that ruin my whole weekend I decided to make use of one the many tools I’ve learned from all the self-help advice (books, podcasts) I’ve consulted over the years: Set aside a limited time for worrying – I do that by putting my thoughts on paper – and only think about it in that time slot. It worked ok this weekend, though I have to admit I still need to do a bit of that today, because I haven’t really found a solution /strategy yet for the work thing that’s worrying me, and I need to deal with it tomorrow. Obviously. But at least I mostly managed to keep that worry out of my head or at least stored it well in some backroom of my mind and didn’t let it ruin my weekend.
“Choose to be me, to be free, to be my way”
Sunrise Avenue. 2006
This year or the past few months at least I’ve realized I’m more comfortable in my own skin. And I mean that more intellectually, emotionally than physically. For most of my life I felt alienated from others and felt like I wasn’t living the life everybody else was. The life I was supposed to live. I’m single with no kids, living on my own. I see people half my age putting down roots with a partner (buying joined property, getting married). I see people changing jobs or getting promotions. I see people try or do lots of new things in or with their lives. Trying out new hobbies. Travelling to foreign places.
I sometimes felt like I was (too) stuck in my ways. Too boring. That I should have achieved more in my life. That I should / need to leave my comfort zone more often, because that’s what being an adult is all about, right? And that I didn’t do any of that bothered me for such a long time and made me feel less than. I don’t know what changed over the past few months, but I recently realized that “being me” bothers me much less than it used to. I’m fine with being “me”. The nagging voice in my head telling me that I should be ashamed of being so boring and that I need to be different, isn’t nagging me nearly as much as she used to. And that feels good. It’s a bit sad that I needed to be almost 50 years old to get to that point, but better late than never, right?
“Let us make little changes”
Frank Turner, Little Changes, 2018
The time away from home last weekend did help a bit to make some changes. Be more mindful. Be a little bit more organized. Get more sleep. Be more forgiving with myself. This all might go hand in hand with the “choosing to be me” part. Bit by bit and step by step.
