Post #3293: Changing the lock

I feel like my “real life” has been on pause the last couple of months. Between a very difficult tenancy situation in my parents’ home (and by difficult, I mean that police intervention was required repeatedly as the tenants harassed and attacked my elderly parents), and perimenopausal symptoms that have seen a real uptick since turning 50 — I have been a bit of a wreck. Frozen at times, hyper-reactive at others; it’s been a roller coaster ride of reactions lately. Fortunately, the most acute situation (the tenants) was fully resolved this week and my brother and I changed the lock on the suite Wednesday. It’s remarkable how much my mood has lifted in just the last 48 hours.

Pretty much as soon as I got home on Wednesday night I started to drop back into the normal routine of my life – getting into my studio and finishing up some yarn that had been languishing, yesterday I wove two napkins on the small loom, and started plotting out my next weaving projects. This morning I found myself thinking about rebranding this dormant blog, or possibly another writing project. Though I am still exhausted from the last few months, my creative life seems much more do-able again.

I’m going to be careful though, not to take these signs as license to start a million more things right now. I’m making a pact with myself to get some studio work finished over the next couple of weeks, and then we’ll see about new projects over the summer. My theme for 2023 is “Making Do” which is something I landed on after realizing that task lists and daily goals just weren’t working for me anymore – so I’m going to continue to touch base with that – working with what I have at hand and taking things slow as I continue to recover from my period of perpetual anxiety.

The immediate resurgence of energy and interest has been a reminder of something I recognized after the whole work debacle last spring (when I quit a work assignment due to toxic dynamics and unrealistic work expectations). That experience taught me that no matter how on point you are with all the practices – creativity, exercise, meditation, eating healthy, etc. – they can only do so much for you when the stress valve gets turned onto high. When big stressors like high stakes conflict, abuse, or violence are present, the goal should always be to get away from/bring an end to the situation, not to find new ways of tweaking our psychology or spirituality in order to tolerate it.

There are, of course things that we can’t escape from, like perimenopause and past trauma – things we have to face head on using all of our skills and practices. Since changing the lock on Wednesday, I’m a lot more free to work on those things since I’m not getting out of this body anytime soon (knock on wood). So onward with the healthy practices! Not to mention the therapy and journaling. I’m just glad to be back in myself a little bit more as this week closes out.