Most of us are now back to reality, adopting our regular routines after the holiday and New Year frenzy. I genuinely hope you had a really nice time off (and that you did have some time off!) My two-week vacation felt both blissfully long and short, with many hours of rest and walks with loved ones and catching up with old friends. I was so paranoid about getting sick in the months leading up to vacation that I didn’t mind terribly that my body immediately crashed and stayed sick for most of the break; the rest was good for me.
Coming off a productive latter half of 2019, I definitely overestimated how much I would be able to work on personal projects and latent to-dos over break. There are the types of people who feel the compulsion to work on vacation; I am not that type of person. I now realize that my routine and atmosphere (the calm quiet of my apartment) are hugely important for me to find clarity and get things done. I need ample alone time, and I see that this need for quietness only grows as I get used to working from home and lean into the solitude. However I recognized that I am on vacation, I am meant to rest, I want to spend time with my parents as the days left to spend with them are finite. Work and purpose and vision and all these words I have clung onto as so important slip from my grasp.
Besides one day of skipping morning pages, I keep up with the ritual of journaling and meditating every morning despite doing it hours later than I’m used to. If anything I can be proud of myself for this, I think, that I am still showing up and grounding myself and connecting the person of the past to the person now. Though I have been back in New York for a few days now, back to my quiet apartment and normal routine, I feel severely disconnected with that person from two weeks ago who was harnessing her purposeful creative energy. All I want to do is huddle under blankets and cook warm soups and read really depressing books. And yet these are not “winter blues”; I am not sad. I am happy and have been laughing lots with the people I love and feel so much love and appreciation for my parents.
I have observed many times in my life that I will swing back and forth between moods and identities, and I will swing hard, under the ruse that my past selves don’t exist and I am completely reinvented. I feel this is well represented in this “stress signature” quiz I took a while ago (take it for yourself, it is enlightening!) As a reluctant sprinter I go go go, run my heart out and then collapse. I lean deeply into one identity and tire of it. I relentlessly chase answers to mind-draining questions on how to best make a life for myself without acknowledging any signs of tiredness and then my body responds for me: I am tired, I want rest. But I also fear rest, because I know how much I let rest take over me until I one day feel antsy again.
To you who might relate to this volatile swinging, or to you who can’t relate at all but is amused/interested, here is how I am navigating the lack of motivation this week:
I am refusing to lament or feel guilt about the type of person I am. In fact, isn’t it joyous that I can really relax and ignore work on vacation, that I can really rest when I am resting?
I am doing the bare minimum while my motivation comes back to me. Again this brings up feelings of guilt and pressure to hurry and achieve, but I try to recall past moments when I was really in my flow. I know I will get there again naturally. It does not help me to badger myself into doing things I don’t absolutely need to do. Instead I do a tiny task or two related to things I have been procrastinating and call that a success for today.
I am journaling consistently and reading old entries, notes, plans, and visions. As someone who is usually very future-oriented, it helps to take time for remembering and reflecting when I am in a different mood.