Week Twenty-Three: On Being Overwhelmed
Friends, strangers, confidantes, there's a lot to catch up on. As you may or may not know, between my Memorial Day Weekend trip to Kansas to visit family and moving into my new apartment the following weekend, it is no small understatement to say that life has been incredibly busy. Busy to the tune of sometimes I feel like I can't breathe let alone get anything done worthwhile and I think I might collapse oh my goodness.
Let's start with the most interesting stuff.
After months of searching, convinced that an apartment within my budget that allowed dogs in Fort Collins wasn't possible to find, I did finally find a place. While it's true that it needed a lot of elbow grease (three hours worth of deep cleaning can attest to that thanks to the valiant efforts of my mom and myself), slowly but surely, it's becoming my own. I've managed to unpack a good majority of my things and keep looking for more ways to decorate, nest, arrange. It helps that I managed to find some furniture that was both wildly affordable and cute to boot. At some point, perhaps this weekend if I am so inclined, I may even take a day trip to Ikea to get some bookshelves.
I know that I've mentioned this before but it's worth mentioning again: there's something encouraging about having a place with your own things in it. I've always said that nesting is my favorite part of moving. It's one thing to just exist somewhere but it's another thing entirely to carve your own space. It's a kind of solace, I think. And yes, I know that I won't stay here forever, I do know that for right now, this place is my home. I can unwind here, hang out with my dog, relax, read, listen to music. It's my own.
The idea of intentional relaxation has been on my mind a lot lately, especially given the absolute anarchy that has been my life as of late. I don't know how or why but it seems that my calendar has continued to remain abundantly full of things to do, people to see, experiences to gain. However, there comes a point for all people, I'm sure, where it just becomes too much. The weekend before last when I was moving in, my body and mind had reached an impasse. Call it a combination of sleep deprivation, mental exhaustion, and emotional collapse but I was dangerously fatigued. Isabelle had been sick that weekend due to what I'm sure was stress and an unsavory bone I'd unearthed while cleaning out the new apartment. Couple all that with outings with friends, garage sale shopping with my mom and Aunt, cleaning, loading, unpacking, and about eight hours of sleep over the course of three days, I was beyond tired. I remember quite vividly sitting at the counter in my Mom's kitchen, sobbing because I was so utterly, completely, and frighteningly tired, the very notion that having to do anything more just seemed daunting and impossible. To my immediate knowledge, I don't ever remember being that so wiped out.
All that being said, intentional relaxation has been on my mind lately. While I was in Kansas, long after I'd left hanging out with Dad and Dyneta, I sat in front of the fire, listening to it crackle, watching as the fireflies hung about in little green bursts, and turning my ears towards the churn of the lake behind me; it was then that I ruminated on the importance of downtime. There's a book that I used to love called "Blue Like Jazz" by Donald Miller and while I won't go into specifics about the book itself, there's one particular passage that always stuck with me. The author is talking about his experiences in college, being confronted with so many people unlike himself, whose worldviews challenged his own, and he talks about this feeling of being overwhelmed. He says something like comparing himself to a rechargeable battery. Once his social energies had been expended, it was time to recharge. It was time to re-center. During my camping trip, I had that opportunity to sink into the quiet, to embrace silence.
I have been overwhelmed lately. Overwhelmed with the amount of love that I have for my friends and some of my family; overwhelmed with obligations - both self imposed and otherwise; overwhelmed with how full life can be. Overwhelmed because I worry I won't get everything on my list done and what if I make it to my thirtieth birthday without having accomplished everything I wanted to? What if, what if, what if?!
One of my dear friends confided in me her intention to see a therapist soon to manage some of her anxiety and develop skills to handle the craziness of life. There's something truly, truly special about both seeing the strength in another person manifest themselves in such an open way and about having the dialogue that normalizes mental health.
It can't be spoken loudly or widely enough: mental health is so important.
We all need help sometimes. If I hadn't asked for help last weekend, when my limbs ached and I could barely function, my eyes just desperate for sleep, who knows where I might have been? Or what dangerous limits I might have reached if I kept pushing myself to expectations that were unreasonable? Asking for help doesn't make us weak, it makes us human.
So, with that in mind, I ask of you my friends: ask for help when you need it. More importantly, offer help when you see it's needed. It's been my experience that people aren't always great at knowing what they need or recognizing when they're in trouble. Sometimes, that means calling someone up for no reason whatsoever or sometimes that means offering them the space to sort out their troubles. And you should know, that because we're fallible, imperfect creatures, sometimes you can't help at all. That's just life. It's still worth trying though.
If you've made it this far, I want you to know that I love you. Whoever you are, wherever you are, I love you because you're worthy of love.
That's all. (Also, who replaced me with an alien? I'm never this weird and sappy! Loveyouallokaybye.)
Let's start with the most interesting stuff.
After months of searching, convinced that an apartment within my budget that allowed dogs in Fort Collins wasn't possible to find, I did finally find a place. While it's true that it needed a lot of elbow grease (three hours worth of deep cleaning can attest to that thanks to the valiant efforts of my mom and myself), slowly but surely, it's becoming my own. I've managed to unpack a good majority of my things and keep looking for more ways to decorate, nest, arrange. It helps that I managed to find some furniture that was both wildly affordable and cute to boot. At some point, perhaps this weekend if I am so inclined, I may even take a day trip to Ikea to get some bookshelves.
I know that I've mentioned this before but it's worth mentioning again: there's something encouraging about having a place with your own things in it. I've always said that nesting is my favorite part of moving. It's one thing to just exist somewhere but it's another thing entirely to carve your own space. It's a kind of solace, I think. And yes, I know that I won't stay here forever, I do know that for right now, this place is my home. I can unwind here, hang out with my dog, relax, read, listen to music. It's my own.
The idea of intentional relaxation has been on my mind a lot lately, especially given the absolute anarchy that has been my life as of late. I don't know how or why but it seems that my calendar has continued to remain abundantly full of things to do, people to see, experiences to gain. However, there comes a point for all people, I'm sure, where it just becomes too much. The weekend before last when I was moving in, my body and mind had reached an impasse. Call it a combination of sleep deprivation, mental exhaustion, and emotional collapse but I was dangerously fatigued. Isabelle had been sick that weekend due to what I'm sure was stress and an unsavory bone I'd unearthed while cleaning out the new apartment. Couple all that with outings with friends, garage sale shopping with my mom and Aunt, cleaning, loading, unpacking, and about eight hours of sleep over the course of three days, I was beyond tired. I remember quite vividly sitting at the counter in my Mom's kitchen, sobbing because I was so utterly, completely, and frighteningly tired, the very notion that having to do anything more just seemed daunting and impossible. To my immediate knowledge, I don't ever remember being that so wiped out.
All that being said, intentional relaxation has been on my mind lately. While I was in Kansas, long after I'd left hanging out with Dad and Dyneta, I sat in front of the fire, listening to it crackle, watching as the fireflies hung about in little green bursts, and turning my ears towards the churn of the lake behind me; it was then that I ruminated on the importance of downtime. There's a book that I used to love called "Blue Like Jazz" by Donald Miller and while I won't go into specifics about the book itself, there's one particular passage that always stuck with me. The author is talking about his experiences in college, being confronted with so many people unlike himself, whose worldviews challenged his own, and he talks about this feeling of being overwhelmed. He says something like comparing himself to a rechargeable battery. Once his social energies had been expended, it was time to recharge. It was time to re-center. During my camping trip, I had that opportunity to sink into the quiet, to embrace silence.
I have been overwhelmed lately. Overwhelmed with the amount of love that I have for my friends and some of my family; overwhelmed with obligations - both self imposed and otherwise; overwhelmed with how full life can be. Overwhelmed because I worry I won't get everything on my list done and what if I make it to my thirtieth birthday without having accomplished everything I wanted to? What if, what if, what if?!
One of my dear friends confided in me her intention to see a therapist soon to manage some of her anxiety and develop skills to handle the craziness of life. There's something truly, truly special about both seeing the strength in another person manifest themselves in such an open way and about having the dialogue that normalizes mental health.
It can't be spoken loudly or widely enough: mental health is so important.
We all need help sometimes. If I hadn't asked for help last weekend, when my limbs ached and I could barely function, my eyes just desperate for sleep, who knows where I might have been? Or what dangerous limits I might have reached if I kept pushing myself to expectations that were unreasonable? Asking for help doesn't make us weak, it makes us human.
So, with that in mind, I ask of you my friends: ask for help when you need it. More importantly, offer help when you see it's needed. It's been my experience that people aren't always great at knowing what they need or recognizing when they're in trouble. Sometimes, that means calling someone up for no reason whatsoever or sometimes that means offering them the space to sort out their troubles. And you should know, that because we're fallible, imperfect creatures, sometimes you can't help at all. That's just life. It's still worth trying though.
If you've made it this far, I want you to know that I love you. Whoever you are, wherever you are, I love you because you're worthy of love.
That's all. (Also, who replaced me with an alien? I'm never this weird and sappy! Loveyouallokaybye.)
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