How many times in the past several months have I said to myself that “today I will write another blog post” only to see the day pass with me occupied with all the other activities that can consume our daily lives, especially those of us who are older, and/or having to manage health issues and limited energy. Today is really no different, except that I seem to have finally come to the end of my laziness, and decided to start writing without having first selected a topic. Because choosing a topic was one of the many “excuses” I had to cover what I have resisted identifying by its proper title, laziness. I mean, how could I call myself lazy when I am as active as I have been with running a home, caring for animals, supporting friends who are dealing with illness, family member deaths, troublesome children, plus responding with resistance as best I can to the trashing of America’s institutions and its standing in the world, plus preparing for major changes in my daily life at home? All while my body is controlled by the random whims of an autoimmune disorder that reacts with increased pain and decreased energy whenever there are even minor shifts in weather.
I suspect the answer lies in some aspect of self image, or how I define my sense of self. I had no trouble keeping up regular posts throughout my last, time demanding period of employment when I was also running a household and doing all the activities listed above. When I retired, in 2020 at the age of 76, I thought I would be a more prolific writer with so much newly freed time. Instead, my posting declined until it virtually stopped. Yes, I became ill with the autoimmune disorder that took much of my energy and required almost two years to be diagnosed so that I could begin what has proven to be a moderately effective treatment regimen. Yes, the changes that Covid wrought throughout our society affected me as well. And yes, retirement brought about a greater change in my sense of self than I anticipated, given that I was fully aware of how this transition impacts people.
What I think I did not anticipate, despite the warnings from my acupuncturist, was the extent to which removing the stress and pressure I had lived with for most of my working life would collapse rather than free me. Running on adrenaline from stress, deadlines, meeting others’ expectations is what kept me going, Removing that pressure left me not just exhausted in body, but disoriented and adrift in mind and spirit. Adding in Covid-caused distancing and long days of isolation pushed me further into “the blahs” which in turn morphed into an ambiguity as to who I am without a persistent drive to do, and to be recognized as a do-er.
A dear friend whose own physical challenges forced him into an earlier retirement than he had planned described the challenge I faced as the do-be-do-be-do of the music he loved. He and I both noted that we needed to run counter to the end of that theme, as we were both striving to settle comfortably into self definition as be-ing rather than do-ing.
I suspect that my mind conflated “being” with laziness – if I wasn’t “doing,” I was lazy. Gardening, poultry care, house chores were readily available ways of doing that could convince me I was not lazy.
Writing, on the other hand, is part of my being-ness, part of my sense of self, of the spirit centered entity that I have known all my life but have only lately been given the opportunity and circumstances to fully develop.
Two quite different gifts from friends have now, I hope, pushed me out of the need to self-define by doing, into the actual freedom I expected retirement to give me. The first was a request from a college classmate to write a blurb for the cover of a book she translated that will soon be published. I read the manuscript, offered a few editorial comments, and quite enjoyed the challenge of condensing my appreciation into a short paragraph for the blurb. That activity resurrected my awareness of the pleasure I take in language fluency and writing. The second was the gift of All In For Love, the first of a trilogy of books by Leslie S. King, given to me after I had posted an online appreciation of her third volume, I Am Love. Leslie’s poems and short essays detail her spiritual journey and express the essence of Be-ing that she, like I, have been working our way towards. Her courage and lucidity in putting that challenge into words and sending them out into the world have been a great inspiration for me.
So what do I conclude? Probably that I was not being lazy, but rather that I was not yet ready to accept a total change in my sense of identity, just as I had not felt ready to take on a rather radical change in my outer living circumstances that will now most probably manifest by mid-May. It is neither positive nor negative – just majorly different. If nothing else, it will give me plenty to write about. I hope you will care to follow along as this familiar but also new me expresses itself.
1eclecticwriter 