How Are You?

Day 336

I keep wanting to write and not knowing where to start. (Sound familiar?) You'd think years of writing practice would have made this particular problem go away, but no. It doesn't. So, I've been not exactly avoiding writing but also not exactly diving in, until now.

It's 6:15. I just ate a bowl of leftover pasta shells with sauce from a jar, plus some steamed broccoli. I actually cooked a dish prior to fishing leftovers out of the fridge, but it failed miserably, i.e. the rice was crunchy and inedible, and I pitched it. I feel terrible about this and I'm inclined to omit this small detail, since food waste is no small thing. But it is real life and I'm pretty committed to telling it like it is.

Telling it like it is is actually part of what has kept me from sitting down to write. I mean, yes, I could say it's because I'm busy with work and life, and that would be true, but "busy" is also a lie of its own.

So, telling it like it is. Why that's been keeping me from writing has to do with something that hit me two nights ago. I was getting ready for bed even earlier than usual as I had to be up unusually early the next morning. "You know," I called from inside the shower stall. "I realized something today. When someone asks me how I am, I immediately tell them about Pearl, Aviva, and you." Mani spit out a mouthful of toothpaste and rinsed. "Yeah, I've noticed that," she said.

Obviously, it's not inherently a "bad" thing to be focused on my family. After all, they are a huge part of my life and what's going on with my wife and each of my kids does take up a lot of my mental and emotional energy. They all have big stuff going on in their lives, the details of which aren't mine to write about.

Noticing that not only do I answer the question of how I am with news about my family members but that I am at a loss right now as to what to write about says something to me. It's not that I need to be more "me" focused, but it is that I need to develop my relationship with myself in new ways, not to mention perhaps it's time to expand my writing repertoire beyond the familiarity of my familiars.

I am such a relational person. I say I'm an ambivert, an extroverted introvert, and I hold fast to that. Lately, I've craved that quiet even more than in the past; my desire to be social has shrunk with the pandemic, as making plans with people usually involves either Zoom or masks, and neither is terribly appealing. I have a few folks I'm in regular touch with, and then usually between eight and 12 client calls a week in addition to my writing groups.

My boundaries around my life are changing -- I am changing them -- and it's a metamorphosis I can tell I'm very much in and not yet on some other side of. This translates to a quiet quality internally. So when you ask me, "How are you?" I think it's just easier to say, "I'm fine/good/hanging in there," then deflect to what everyone else is up to. But as not only a relational person but a connector, my impulse is usually to share more, and I find myself wondering what it is I'm up to and how I really am.

Who cares? Those words come without kindness, carrying a harsh edge that I recognize as an inner voice as known to me as my own. That same voice might say, nobody really cares about all of this process-y stuff. Just live your life and write when you have something worthwhile to say. Youch. I care, I say back. I am writing because writing is how I find out how am. That is reason enough. 

So, how am I?

I'm tired so much of the time I sometimes wonder what on earth is wrong with me. I remind myself that we are nearly one year into a pandemic that has taken the lives of half a million Americans. I remind myself that we live in a country that -- even during said pandemic -- expects folks to fend for themselves. I remind myself that parenting two teenagers is a big deal, and parenting two teenagers whose entire lives have been disrupted by a pandemic is a really big deal. I remind myself that my expectations of myself are probably -- no, definitely -- distorted by years of conditioning, and that now is a perfect time to continue the practice of altering them.  

I don't just mean lowering, but literally re-envisioning what I expect of myself and why -- and letting that take however long it takes. I also remind myself that this tiredness is seasonal; late February in New England is as drab and dull as it gets. Thankfully, we get some beautiful blue skies, but the months of winter and quarantine together have dragged on.

For the first nine months of the pandemic, I was running 5-6 days a week. About a month ago, I stopped running. My body simply needed a break, and not just a day or two but a longer period of rest. So maybe some of this tiredness is just cumulative, and to be honest, I'm not fighting it. I am starting to miss the running, and find myself wondering what it will be like to begin again. Will it be awful? Will I enjoy it? Will it be like starting from scratch? I guess we'll see. But I am going to wait until the snow melts and the temperatures go up a bit.  

When I'm not on fire with an idea or project, when I'm just going along with my days, when things are relatively quiet and stable, it's interesting to notice that this is when I'm most prone to FOMO, comparing myself to others (usually folks I admire and look up to), and vulnerable to the narrative that I should be doing something bigger, better, or different. The BBD story is an oldie and frankly not even a goodie. I wrote about so much in the past, it makes me yawn. Yet here I am, aware of it cropping up once again.

It's connected to that shitty inner voice, the one that points out who is publishing a new book and who is launching a new program and who is getting another degree and who is writing essays that make you swoon. I cringe a little even writing this, as if I should be "above" it already. But the "should" in that sentence is a flashing neon sign, directing me to return to what I know to be true.

What do I know to be true? Well, first of all, none of that bullshit. I mean, yes, people are doing and making all kinds of amazing things -- art, advocacy, you name it. Why on earth would that make me question myself? I will tell you why: the myths of competition and keeping up are deeply ingrained in me, in us. They feed on fear -- if we stay scared that we're going to fall behind and be forgotten, then we will stay good little consumers who always have an unfillable void to fill.  

Writing this is my way of catching myself when I start falling down those rabbit holes. Reach out your hand, I call down to myself. How are you?

This time, when I hear the question, I pause instead of responding with how everyone around me is. I take a moment to just wait. I put a hand over my heart. I listen. Here's what I hear:

Let things unfold.  

Let there be space.

Take care of your spirit.

It's really that simple.