Back To Shore

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.

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“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?

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“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.

Lyrics: “The Next Storm” – Frank Turner, 2016

At some point in the last few days, I noticed the urgent impulse to put myself in some kind of “retreat” mode this weekend. Stay off the news. Stay off social media. Spend time inside my head, but in a good and healthy way: Mediate. Listen to mindfulness / self-care podcasts. Journal. Read. Be more present with myself. If that makes sense.

I know myself and I know that I wouldn’t / couldn’t be able to do that while I’m staying at home. Because home is full of “fun” distractions and also has too many things (laundry, stacks of stuff to sort through) which remind me of my failures, and which dial up the volume of the critical voice in my head. The weather here was awful so any nice weekend getaways idea would have been a stupid idea. In the end I just booked myself into a small self-catering apartment in a small town I know well enough about 1.5 hours’ drive away.

I had actually planned to not leave the apartment at all, because the weather forecast was dreadful. But when the rain stopped yesterday, I went out for coffee and cake. I resisted the impulse to take a photo for an Instagram story, because… off the grid and all. And what really is the point of all of that anyway?

I listened to a lot of podcasts (episodes): About self-compassion. About distractions. About focus. I would love to say that I stayed offline all weekend, but that’s not quite true. I downloaded podcast episodes from the internet. I managed to read about 15% of the over 300 saved articles in my bookmark feed. Which of course also happened online. Articles about (current and sometimes not so current just interesting) political / social / science issues.

I finally got back into reading one of the many self-help / self-care books in my stack. I managed to read a few pages each of my current fiction and non-fiction.

I’ve decided to startre-listening to the Outlander audiobooks (starting from book 6, because the first five I know / remember so well) to remind myself of all the things that’s been going on before book 10 will be published in 2025 or 2026.

I’ve also finished my latest “meditative drawing” if that’s what I want to call it. I did that while listening to podcasts, which works fine for me. Focusing on one or the other – listening OR drawing – might possibly have been more beneficial in the grand scheme of things of “focusing”, but one step at a time.

Now back at home for a few hours I notice the distractions (tech, entertainment, food) which want to grab my attention much more clearly. I still gave in for a while this afternoon. But at least I now seem to have a better idea of why they want to distract me from uncomfortable thoughts and emotions or from boredom. I hope I’ll find it a bit easier to stay less distracted and more present for the rest of the year. And also beyond of course…