Dear Writer,
Oh my god, baby, how are you doing?
Look, I don’t know if you have it all together and figured out, but almost everyone I know is maxed out on their energy credit line right now. Unable to do stuff they used to do. Overwhelmed. Exhausted. Everyone I’ve talked to about it has the same complaint.
It’s all too much.
I feel that way, too. Maybe that’s why I see it so much. You know how when you start driving a particular kind of car, and suddenly you see that car everywhere? I’m driving the 2021 Toyota Verge of Collapse, and now that’s what I see all over the roads. Because I see it, I ask others, “Hey, looks like you’re in this car, too. Are you also struggling?” And the answer, usually accompanied by a look of extreme relief as they admit it out loud, is an emphatic, “Yes.”
Often followed by tears.
We’ve talked about creativity this week and it’s been really fun. I always have a moment of wonder and awe when I think about the fact that everything in this world that isn’t naturally occurring is human imagination made manifest.
I think it’s incredible. And yet, with my ability to imagine creative ways to fix what’s broken around my house or construct a sock I’m knitting or deal with that story problem I’ve been having, I cannot imagine, no matter how hard I try, having the space in my life to accommodate my overwhelm.
How can I imagine, and thus create, that space? And I’m not just talking about time. I have time during the week, but I’m too tired and overwhelmed to do anything with it other than stare at a screen and vibrate with tension.
It’s not about time; it’s about energy.
Everything I need to do takes more energy than it used to. Emotional, mental, psychological energy; everything requires more of it than before. Maybe it's age, maybe it’s living through an apocalypse, maybe it’s Maybelline, but I need to apply my creativity this week to my life. I need to punch a hole in a wall somewhere and create space. But first, I need to imagine that space as even possible, and then somehow figure out a way to make it manifest.
Oh, were you hoping for answers at the end of this? Then I have seriously oversold my ability to figure shit out. I have no idea. Ideas and suggestions are welcome.
In the meantime, baby, how are you doing?
Everything,
L
Oh my god it’s not just me! I needed to read this, for no other reason but to give myself a break. I’m not losing my mind, I am overwhelmed and exhausted. Thank you for reframing this for me.
Since March 2020 I've been participating in a weekly online writing group that gets together on Saturdays to write to prompts for an hour. It is, for all intents and purposes, the only consistent writing I've been doing; and it's a lifeline. One of the recent prompts was, "How are you doing, really?" And it just broke me. It feels like we've all been holding our shit together through sheer will power for so long ... the idea of someone asking me to get real about how I'm *really* doing was like a punch to the gut. You are definitely not alone. We're all swimming against the tide right now, for a million different reasons. xo