I have this friend that isn't so good with the "relaxing." We'll call her Kristie (because that's her actual name), and it is safe to say that she is a total rock star. She has two littles under the age of six and a pre-teen stepdaughter, she's entertains frequently, is a kick ass cook, and can tackle a house project involving sheetrock and sledgehammers like nobody's business. In moments of stress (i.e. her daughter starting kindergarten this week), she's been known to "bake it out" by making, say...three dozen handmade cinnamon rolls (unlike me who, in stressful situations, has been known to eat three dozen handmade cinnamon rolls.) Oh and she has an insanely important/busy/powerful job that has her testifying in front of congress and what not. She's on the go, making things happen... You get the idea. (For the record, she regularly cops to this inability to wind down, so I don't think I'm outing her here.)
Here's the thing, Kristie used to be the exception among women I know, but now this state of non-stop productivity seems to be the norm... Downtime is so 2011. Or maybe it's just me, either way, I can't for the life of me wind down.
My past three weeks were a literal blur as I was finishing the first issue of D Moms and getting the girls ready to start school. I was up at the crack of dawn, go, go, go, then fall into bed exhausted and start all over again the next day. And then, well...I finished. The first issue was done, and I got the girls all settled into their first day of school on Monday. When I arrived at work, I was hit head-on with a major wave of melancholy. It felt like the day after my wedding. I had post-project depression.
This is normal, I realize, this sort of "coming down" from something so intense, but four days later, and it's still hanging on a bit. I'm worried that I'm losing my ability to function like a normal human much less recharge. In this small and precious window of a relatively relaxed schedule, I should be hitting the museum or tucking into a book (or at least the mountain of September magazines that have taken over the corner of my bedroom) or you know, doing anything productive. But instead, I'm in a perpeptual state of "dazed and confused." I stare at my computer screen for unreasonably long stretches. I stood in my closet for a full 10 minutes this morning trying to figure out what to wear before eventually putting on a black t-shirt and black pants. I pondered the ingredients of some fancy margarita mix in the aisle at Central Market for an embarrassingly long amount of time yesterday after work. I feel stunted. It's a bad scene.
My current thinking is that my inability to motivate means my body and mind might just need to do nothing at all...I might just need to sit and stare at a wall for a bit. Sadly, we have a culture that doesn't really support that kind of inactivity, but I'm going to do it. I'm not afraid (well I'm a little afraid). And if the staring doesn't work, I'm going to walk over to Kristie's house and bake it out.
I feel a lot of cinnamon rolls in my future.
