I feel a bit lost right now. It’s that time in between jobs where you’ve left one and not yet started the other – something I always try to do, as I find I need a decompress period, a time for mourning almost – and after weeks of to do lists, constant conversations, stress and cortisol highs my mind is finding it hard to come down. I’ve been telling myself I’ll get all those jobs done that I haven’t had time to do, give time and energy to all those things I haven’t been able to over the past few weeks. I swapped a work to do list for a home to do list, and enjoyed the focus and the feeling of productiveness. But now I’ve kind of done all those things on the to do list, and I feel unsettled by continuing to try to do what’s left.
What I want be doing with this time off, I’ve realised a few days into it, is all the things that I enjoy. Blast away the to do list and the ‘shoulds’ and go do the ‘wants’. Go play. Walk, run, frolic. Write what I want to, not what I think I need to. Read if I want, but don’t, if it’s not what I feel like doing.
I need to put down the screens and go be outside, be away from home. Being employed can sometimes feel like a bind, so I should run free. Enjoy this time that work isn’t occupying any brain space. It’s hard to fathom that though, after several months of it occupying too much. It’s not like a switch you can just flick and-boom-all is fine. There’s things to process, and I need to move. I don’t need to relax, to lounge – I’ve done that for the last few days. I need to explore and stretch. I just need to see and be.
I find it hard sometimes to sift through all my feelings, especially with lots existing at the same time. I can feel overwhelmed, my brain busy and messy. I was chatting to a friend a few weeks ago and said to her “I’m struggling to work out what the overarching/main feeling is, so I can figure out what to do with it.” She replied: “Maybe there isn’t one feeling. Maybe you’re just feeling lots of things at once?” It was like a light bulb moment. I’d been trying to find that one feeling, that main one, like there was no way I could have more than one feeling at once. I’d been barking up the wrong tree, and no wonder I’d not always been able to deal with things in the best way.
I’d love to say that this revelation means that everything’s easy-peasy now, but that’s not how life works. It just means I understand myself just that little bit more, and can try to figure stuff out a bit easier, but that’s an ongoing process. I have much more to learn – I truly believe it’s a lifelong journey.
I’m nervous about starting a new job – who isn’t? Although I know it’ll be fine, I’ve done it plenty of times before, and I see it as a healthy reaction to something that’s important to me, it’s still that first-day-at-school feeling that takes every adult back to being a shy child.
But I’ll think about that towards the end of the week. Now is for fun and road trips.
The Paps Life 