Short-Circuited And A Brief Reset

(Warning. This is a post about process, my process of working out my own process, and as such is pretty rough around the edges. I am pretty uncertain about tossing it out into the world of the internets, but I also know it is the kind of post that can never be finished, just as process is never really finished, until I toss it out to the world. Part of the purpose of this blog is just that, the tossing out, the letting go, my ongoing journal of the various projects and processes of life. I am not looking for help or sympathy or anything else.  Also, as tends to be the case, the process of writing serves both as a means to understanding my own thoughts, and a jumping off point in the evolution of that same thought.) 

Energetic. 

The past few weeks have been very busy, busy in a good way.  I needed to be very organized and focused and I was and the whole process fed that part of me that is happier with a fairly high level of busy-ness, that likes to be challenged, to be pushed, and yes, even to be a little bit unsettled.  That sense of purpose, that sense of doing feeds me, feeds my energy level and drives me onward.  Even last Sunday, after spending two days at the event, after spending 6 hours on my feet, in my element, inspired by everything going on, I felt simultaneously tired and full of energy, ready to move on and tackle the world.  As I drove home I was making mental lists of all the things I wanted to do next.

Exhausted.

Until I got home of course.  I walked in the door and all energy drained away.  My foot started throbbing, crying for elevation and ice.  As soon as I settled down with my icepack, a small dog took a flying leap into my arms and a lonely cat snuggled by my hip. Contentment enveloped me and by 5 PM I was down for the count. 

It didn't help that I had broken my toe on Wednesday, nothing serious mind you, a hairline fracture at the terminal joint of the second toe of my left foot.  Not my driving foot, thank goodness.  Not a fracture that anything much can be done about:  tape it, wear a firm shoe that doesn't bend, stay off it.  Oops, well I didn't stay off it on Sunday (but I had spent a good deal of time icing and elevating my foot the previous Thursday and Friday in anticipation even though I know healing doesn't work that way.) But its a toe, a minor fracture of a toe, and I am perhaps a little too conscientious at times, and perhaps not always attentive enough to self-care. 

But I would have been exhausted regardless of my toe.  The weeks of focus take a toll, the weeks of pushing at personal boundaries take a toll,  The hours in a crowd, much as I revel in it all, simultaneously exhilarated me and drained me, and I needed to withdraw into myself to take it all in.

Inspiration.

But the ideas in my head were spinning away, and I couldn't stay down long. Down time was good for organizing my thoughts following the dyeing class I took with Liana two weeks ago, and for thinking about creating a small dyeing space in the upstairs bathroom.  But going upstairs prior to further healing was not a wise option. 

I still needed to do something however, not just dream of doing something. I had a bag of fruit that needed to be used, fruit that had been offered up by my church community and needed, as I saw it, to go back to the community, perhaps the wider community.  I imagined pies.  I probably could have brought the bag of fruit to church for people to pick up and eat.  But there was an overabundance and, having been offered, I did not want it to go to waste.  I was still tired on Monday, tired enough that I realized that there could not be pies and crusts, at least not homemade, so crusts were procured.  Thank goodness for modern grocery stores. Tuesday became baking day and 5 apple pies and 3 loaves of banana bread went out into the world. They were not the best pies I have ever made; in fact store bought may have been better, but they were a gift, a gift from one community to another, channeled through me,  into the homes of people who needed a small gift. The intent of that offering was hopefully realized: gifts of the earth, gifts of our labor, gifts of intention.

But the gift I almost forgot was the gift of time, the gift of rest.

Overwhelmed.

At the end of the week I felt overwhelmed.  I felt like my brain was scattered and my thoughts had short-circuited.  I also felt frustrated with myself. I felt like I had done nothing all week. Exhaustion dominated my thoughts and erased all else from memory:  I remembered feeling drained, coming home and collapsing into mindlessness, the naps, the hours spent with a book. I remembered the things I felt I should be doing but wasn't. Fatigue ruled.  Weariness opened the door to the demons of obligation and inadequacy and those things I had done, the normal weekly responsibilities and activities, the extras like baking pies, all of that slipped into the mists. I felt like I had wasted a week and I was still exhausted, and I couldn't explain it. 

I couldn't explain it until I actually started to rest, until I gave my thoughts permission to be still.  Friday rolled around and I took a day to rest, a day without obligation or responsibility to the wider world.  I try to take such a day each week, and I often turn off internet distractions as well, taking a personal Sabbath of sorts.  Sometimes I garden, or walk, or do something fun, just for me.  Sometimes, like this past week, I just let myself be still.  

As I rested, and later, as I wrote this post, I realized that this sense of failure and laziness was not at all true. It was true that my efforts had been more scattered, but that does not mean they were any less meaningful.  Even when I am at or close to my limit, purpose and meaning will push me further.  Especially when  that sense of purpose is fulfilled by doing something for someone else, even a small thing, the sense of revitalization and peace cannot be duplicated.  I realized that I needed that period of transition between being totally focused on some big thing and being able to shut down and be completely at rest. Between the grand and the small, between the world and the soul, there needs to be a liminal space, a place of transition. I needed to bake pies, I needed to work, I needed to transition to restfulness, to let my motors slow at their own pace.   

 Perhaps the winding down is as necessary as the rest…. not quite a full stop, but a slowing, a scattering, a laying of the groundwork before settling in for a full recharge.  Mind, body, soul, all need time.  We are not machines that can be switched on and off at will.  The recharge will come if given time and space and respect.  Release the demons and honor the process.