Recovery is going well. Physical recovery, that is. Yesterday I felt more human that I’d felt in a week since major surgery. I was able to go down the stairs in a normal fashion and get myself showered. All that in addition to making coffee and fixing breakfast. It’s amazing how the little things make such a difference.
I’ve been out of the classroom for a little over a week now, and for some reason I forget about the inevitable mindslump that happens after removing myself from the frenetically paced and distraction-ridden environment of public school. I’m accustomed to constant interruption and a necessity to complete all tasks at full speed, urgent, important, neither, or both. Wow, that is one reason I’ve been exhausted since September!
I forget that every summer it takes about two weeks to shake off the debris and pick up a new routine and mindset, only to keep it for several weeks before adjusting back to the chaos of the school year. Why should taking a leave at the end of May be any different?
I can see the things I want to do and the mindset I want to have with my third eye. It’s just there, beyond the portal to all the past selves that combine to form who I am right now. I get easily frustrated with my inability to just focus for fifteen damn minutes to finish a knit dishcloth about three months in the making. I see the books lined up on the shelf, hopeful that I will pick them up and keep them company. I see the chair on the front porch, vying for the attention I bring in the morning with my cup of coffee.
Creativity for me over the past many months has been a luxury, if not just a dream at this point. Being so exhausted from managing all my responsibilities and scanning the environment for safety for 7.5 hours a day leaves me with energy to watch TV or catch up my YouTube subscriptions. I admire the content creators until the admiration is tinged with jealousy and even envy for the life they’ve managed to cultivate for themselves.
The internal 2am alarm sounds sounds more often than not, and there I am laying in the darkness among the whirring of fans, my brain exploding with worry, frustration, ideas…. mostly ideas. At that point it feels wrong to get up and start writing to get those ideas out. But maybe I should start, maybe that would jump start my creativity again.
And more than anything, it would allay the precursor of fear that comes before creativity. The world has told me time and time again, Why be creative? It probably won’t make you famous or make you money. It probably won’t help you gain friends. And when you die you can’t take it with you anyway.
Yeah, I tell the world, but it brings me joy and satisfaction. The catharsis from expressing myself is a balm to my distracted harried soul.
mercies per mile 