The End of the Road?
Much as I like to think I am a unique human, I doubt that I am the only one on the planet who feels that some days they have nothing to give. Back in the “old days” this feeling would have had me do cleaning or organising. I had, as I expect everyone has, a whole bunch of life admin tasks that I could be getting on with. Mundane stuff, like filling a stapler, cleaning the bathroom, or emptying the bin. Such days could in fact turn out to be positively therapeutic as I gently pottered through cleaning and light organising, knowing that I was deftly avoiding “real work” while still ticking that “getting things done” set of boxes.
Looking back, those were good days, even meditative days, where positive things were accomplished. Getting the admin of life done, what some people call “chores”, which is a term I really quite despise because of its negativity, is an essential and neglected part of being a functional human being. Like anything, this rag-tag mix of tasks wasn’t always fun, but it wasn’t always drudgery and somewhere in the years there were parts of it that I came to enjoy. I liked the process. There was something to being orderly that appealed, and fighting the inevitable adhd chaos to appease my autistic side led to a personal balance, of sorts.
All of which is to say, today I woke up, and I did not want to do today at all. Today would have been the most perfect of life admin days. I have a bathroom that is in desperate need of a proper deep clean, and my place isn’t far behind. It is a mess and more that is driving me ever so slightly nuts. If I say this is frustrating, I am being polite and slightly disingenuous; it’s soul destroying. It’s not that today is anything exceptional; it is that today comes after the weekend, which came after last week, and that was a week at the end of what feels like months.
It is not that I haven’t been chipping away at the things that excite me and gently moving projects forward. I have a great print from my project “Banana for Scale” framed and ready to put up and I have only a few letters left to draft to have a complete Abcdarian that will be my first poetry zine. I have graphics and material for my website and social media in various stages of readiness. I absolutely have been moving things along.
However, behind this progress, I have been fighting the feeling of personal physical deterioration. This weekend it became clear that I was fighting reality. In a way, I wish I could say that I had an off, or downbeat weekend, and my not great physical assessment is somehow a reflection of that. Nothing could be further from the truth; it is precisely because it was a very enjoyable weekend that my physical capabilities became debilitatingly apparent. My degeneration from just a few weeks ago became painfully clear starting on Friday. On Saturday, the effect of my worsened physical condition continued and was joined by a psychological addition from out of nowhere. Being a human became painful, difficult and unpleasant. This happened in safe spaces with supportive people; nothing was a potential trigger. That is physically and mentally I wasn’t pushing; quite the opposite, plans were well within what I have been doing up until now.
Mentally, I am still up for doing things; there isn’t a lack of motivation. Somehow, malaise would be helpful; lacking the ability to do things that I don’t actually want to do feels like it wouldn’t be so bad. Especially when compared to this desire to do things, being chopped down by the actual inability to do them when I try. That is the kicker, all my life I have had the ability to push through and past limits. I am likely paying the piper for that in many respects. Somehow, somewhere, part of me held the belief that I had that ability to push and that I was simply respecting my limitations; not, as it turns out, facing a brick wall against which I can only smash myself into more pieces.
I feel more than a little sorry for myself, physically I am sore, and pain is intrusive. I want to be creative, but that’s not happening right now. I have, of course, been here before, but it is worrying because people with chronic conditions don’t always make it back from what they call a crash, and even when they do, oftentimes they don’t make it back fully to where they were beforehand. These are days where I wonder how much physical capacity I can recover and the implications of that. I didn’t like where I was; I certainly don’t like where I am now.
This is not where I want to be, but it is where I am, and thus sets a boundary on what I can do and the time it takes to do it. Completely counter intuitively, I plan to not push my physical or mental limits while staying focused on the things I want to achieve. To steal a quote, it’s not impossible, it is just going to take longer and cost more!
It is therefore onward with the process of being and becoming a poet and writer. To keep on keeping on with writing and preparing my projects and material, little by little. You are reading my blog, and I plan to have a poem on Instagram and to have done updates to my website before this blog goes live. You can check on me at lesliepoet.com and @leslie.poet.poetry.
