The baby deer made me do it.
I realized this past weekend that I am falling back into a familiar pattern.
One that threatens to remove me from life outside of my own mind. From people, from friends and family, and from engaging in anything more than a quick status update or Instagram photo.
Lately, I've been cocooning.
And not in a good caterpillar-turning-into-a-butterfly way, more like a "this seems like a nice warm place to stay and not have to deal with anything" kind of way.
The problem with this, is that we as a family kind of have a lot to deal with at the moment, and me being in a state of trying to hide away from it all is not that helpful.
So, to combat the forces in my brain that tell me to hide away from it all, I am forcing myself to do certain things that bring me joy, even if the effort of doing them right now seems particularly joyless and a hell of a lot of work.
I am currently in a Starbucks, drinking a fancy coffee, and writing this post. I just bought new frames at the attached Chapter's to make a gallery of inspirational artwork on the wall in front of my desk. This morning, I cleared the clutter filled surface that was in fact my desk, in order to make way for my creativity and my desire to write (which has been completely GONE) to find it's way back to me.
It has taken me nearly 45 minutes to write these few paragraphs, but you know what? Here they are. They may not be pretty, they may seem disjointed and all over the place with some weird ass metaphors, and they may not be good writing at all. I mean, it is taking all I have in me not to just trash this whole damn thing and say FUCK IT! (Like I have for the last three posts that are sitting half started in my drafts folder).
But I won't. I am not going to succumb to this self-inflicted Giant Scary Spider scene from Lord of the Rings, and let myself become paralyzed by fear and wrapped up in layers of sticky web. I may not have Sam and his shiny elf-light thingy, but I do have all of you, and I have three people at home who light up my life and June is almost over and I AM going to get out of this funk.
It is now almost 10 pm. I got through today and my kids still love me, even though C came home with a story he had written at school about me being mad at him. I made a menu plan for this week, and managed to whip up a pretty decent paella for dinner. I know it sounds silly, but doing that one thing - making a meal plan for the week - makes a huge difference to my mental health and general having most of it together-ness. Want to know how I know this? Because I didn't make one last week, and I was a shouty, angry, miserable person all week with no desire to actually feed the beasties that I live with (don't worry, I did and no one starved).
I just finished putting up the aforementioned gallery wall in my office and now I am feeling OK. And today, OK is better than not-OK. Plus, it's kind of hard to not feel at least a tiny bit of wonder and delight when this little baby deer is staring at me while I write. I've surrounded myself with images, words, and my kid's artwork to remind me of why I do what I do and why I love it.
My soul is happy right now, my mind is calm and my body is not in too much pain (more on that later).
Tonight, I'll take that.