Honed

I keep wanting to be more positive and productive, but all of my tools aren’t cutting it. It feels forced and false. I alternate between being thankful, relieved, at peace with feeling anxious, concerned, uneasy. I want to be cheerful and uplifting, but that feels hollow and inauthentic currently. I’ll let all the pretty pictures, sayings/quotes, poems, funny videos, and memes do that, lol.

I want to rise above it, stay distracted, skip to the letting go, immediately process it, bypass it, ascribe some higher purpose and meaning to reframe it all, but that doesn’t sit right, it isn’t honoring the truth/reality; it hints to me as a betrayal. It feels like pretending. Because it isn’t over yet, it’s hard to pin down, I can guess and hope. The unknown feels precarious. I trust that there will be massive change and growth, but it’s coming at a steep cost for so many.

We’re all living out this human story and it’s challenging us mightily, we’re being called, we’re being collectively honed, not to be taken lightly. Who do we want to be? What will we become? Surely there will be a valuable transformation?

I’m grieving in my own timetable as everything is unfolding and it can’t be dictated. We’re all handling this in our own ways. It helps me to remember not to judge, to go easy on myself and everyone else.

My usual remedy of nature walks has become complicated and tense too. I haven’t been wearing a mask on my walks as we can keep our distance and most of us walkers are barefaced. Today as I passed a backyard, the trail is parallel to houses; I heard a man say you’re supposed to be wearing a mask, hey, hey and then he began whistling as you whistle to a dog. I had my earbuds in and didn’t see anyone, and I assumed he was talking to his family member. I couldn’t be certain though and felt weird about it. Were they targeting me?

So I may stay in for the time being, and I will attempt to make a comfortable mask. I had some items left in the car trunk I hadn’t gotten around to donating and so retrieved some shirts to use for the material. The bandana mask for grocery shopping was not very comfortable, not for exercising for sure. So in case, I get desperate for nature, I will have a mask so I won’t scare the residents.

My plan to lighten things up for me is to learn the moves from The OA. And I will blow bubbles from my balcony too. And the rest of this week I will journal every day and will work on quarterly planning.

I don’t feel like interacting very much online as far as discussions. I need space, which sounds strange being that I have physical space, plus a lot of solitude but energetically, psychically it feels heavy, weighty, crushing. It’s like I’m needing to protect my energy? I don’t know how to describe it accurately. It’s like I need lots of quiet and meditation, this helps the most.

I try not to dwell too much on all the suffering and instead send love in quiet meditations. I want to watch people’s videos, musical performances, and sharings, but it is draining to me so I watch a few seconds and skim through the social media, making sure people are okay and I send hearts/love. I read many things and watch some funny videos and enjoy nature pictures/videos people share.

I’ve been reading and listening to audiobooks, plus doing the Stature course. I expect that eventually I will cope with our collective situation better and will be more productive. For now, I’m just rolling with it, taking it day by day.

I see that the Tiger King on Netflix is popular, but I can’t even stand to look at the trailer for it, yikes! It reminds me of the scariest movie I’ve ever seen, Gummo. Won’t be subjecting myself to that, lol. So I’m still looking for something to watch just for me besides what Drue and I watch late at night. Today I watched the first episode of High Maintenance. It was promising, but I think I need something less flighty for now. It’s so luxurious to watch whatever I want, to have the time and space for it.

Well, I’m keeping up so far with this blogging/creative output 365-day challenge. There’s that.