I’ve been tired this year.  

Honestly, I’ve been tired for years.

I hit a point, sometime in the spring, when I needed to stop my Go, Go, Go, and curl in. 

There’s a concept “manage your energy instead of time”.  Like many, I’ve spent decades in hyper productivity trying to fit it all in – parenting, working, volunteering, time with family and friends. (With the exception of house cleaning – I can always find an excuse not to do that.)  Also like many, I was overwhelmed by the intensity of the past few years.

I measured my energy and it was depleted.  So I stopped – what I could stop.

I didn’t stop working – I continued to show up and do my best at my job. But I did stop overworking – my counselor asked if I was a workaholic last year and I made it a priority to turn it off when I was finished. I was present to my son as he made his college decision and moved to Toronto to study. I spent time with my husband, visited with our kids and baby granddaughter, and got a few visits in with my siblings and my Dad that I’d missed over the past few years when I couldn’t cross the border.  David and I took our trip to Scotland.

What did I stop? Mostly outward things – Facebook. Blogging. Most socializing (except for here and there when there was a celebration, or I received an invite from a friend).   

I turned inward. 

I’d love to say I filled the time productively, but I didn’t. I didn’t exercise much – my lower back wishes I did. I read books. I watched A LOT of movies and TV.  I wrote. Instead of writing outwardly, ie. with short things like blogs that I could share with my friends and family, I worked privately – mainly on my Middle Grade novel (that I’ve been writing intermittently since 2017). I joined children’s writing programs.

After many months of what could be described as the equivalent of lying in the fetal position, I’m feeling myself slowly unfurling. I can feel my energy returning. Turning in, and tuning many things out was what I needed.

In waking up, I’m waking up to the aches and pains and tightness in my body.  I’ve basically been in a relationship with my heating pad over the past years – we start the day together in the morning with my coffee, and we end the day together as it lays under my back in bed at night.  

There was a synchronistic moment earlier this week.  I was searching online for yoga studios and thinking of the last time I was in good shape and felt good in my body, and it was when I was in my neighbor’s yoga class. She has been teaching remotely throughout the pandemic. I tried zoom yoga a couple of times and was much too lazy for it. The next day I got an email from her announcing she was returning to teaching in person yoga.  I signed up and showed up this morning, 8:30 am on a Saturday.  I felt my muscles protesting, and then relaxing as they were called into action again.  It was the physical embodiment of curling in and unfurling back out.  

On my way home after class, I felt energized. I could feel the old writing/blogging desire coming back – I wanted to write what I was experiencing, and share it. I wanted to reconnect with my friends and family in this way.

The energy stayed with me when I returned home. If you worried that I’d abandon my heating pad – don’t – it was close by and remains my trusty writing companion.

I look forward to sharing more stories soon, especially the full travel stories from our Scotland trip that I promised. I hope to hear from you as well.  

Thank you for reading,

Alison