Four ways I'm returning to myself
awakening from this depressive episode in which I've gone missing
When I began my job as a grant writer for an education non-profit in June, I didn’t know how much it would demand from me. It’s been good, mostly, and I’ve learned a lot about myself in the process of being fully employed.
Since 2006 until a year ago, I was a freelancer. I chose projects one by one, and I had no boss but me. Now I’m writing for someone else, a worthy cause but not my own interests.
I like it, but I miss me. Between work and parenting, I’ve lost who I am, and I didn’t realize how destructive that was for me. Who am I?
I forgot.
I stopped writing for me. My current book proposal floating around to different publishers is one I wrote to sell, not one I wrote because I wanted to. I became so good at managing appointments and deadlines that I stopped living.
I’m in a process of rebirth. I’m coming back home to myself, breathing for the first time in many months. I don’t have a plan, except that I am recentered as the main character in all this, the life I’m returning to with intentionality.
Here’s some elements of what that looks like in the near future, including humbling myself to ask for scholarships where I need them:
Movement. I’m emerging from a deep depression. Well, let’s be honest: I’m still deep in it. But I know I feel better when I can get my ass out of bed to be an actor and not a spectator. This looks like me taking walks in the neighborhood and maybe going to the gym a bit during the window between school drop-off and Simon pick-up. (I’m holding this loosely. I will do it as I choose, rather than moving like an automaton who is still being drug along in life when I want to be leading myself on purpose.) Our local YMCA subsidizes our membership, so that’s where my movement will be based.
Centering. I haven’t been grounded in a while. I do find myself anchored in my work, but grant writing is fickle, with some of my best work resulting in rejections because funds are limited. This will look like yoga, specifically Yoga with Adriene (highly recommended by a friend) and possibly Yoga Girl (assuming a scholarship comes through for me, which I’m hoping it will because I want to take classes with a couple of instructors specifically, including my friend Jennifer Pastiloff). I’ll also continue therapy regularly, which saves my life every week.
Writing. I’ll be writing as a hobby, as a craft, and as a job. In the coming weekends. Hobby writing will be here and in private. Writing as a job will come from refining an old book proposal and doing some contracted writing for online and print publications. As a craft, I’ll be learning, from reading the works of other writers and from workshops. In the next two weekends, I’ll attend Michael Tyrell’s 20/20 Revision: Using Instinct, Found Poetry, and Fragments in Rewriting and Transforming Your Poems on April 14 and Jennifer Pastiloff’s Allow writing workshop on April 20. (And last I checked, both had slots available, so join me?!?) I’m also hoping to read more, which is vital for any writer.
Connecting. For me, isolation and depression go together. I’m reaching out to my people, including texting one to please bug me consistently because I need it. One friend and I are committing to getting together once every month or two, and I’m asking two others to do the same, one in person and one via Facetime. I need to let in a few more folks, because people = health for me.
The biggest question seems to be “how will I make time for this?” But the real question is “how can I afford not to?”
I can’t keep not showing up to my life.
I do commit to do these practices imperfectly. By that, I mean I’ll quasi-consistently keep up with at least one of these each week, and maybe I’ll hit them all some weeks, but perfection isn’t my goal.
Being here is. Wanting to live my life is the goal.
And I’m going to not only function, but I’m also going to be fully alive. Going through the motions isn’t working for me.
How do you come alive?