Saturday, January 7, 2017

My Brain is a Studio Apartment

I've let a lot of my creative pursuits fall by the wayside and am only now wanting to wake back up to them. It was a hard year. So hard that I still feel it sitting there in my brain and stomach, like a fading hangover. But, like an actual hangover, the only true cure is a deep, uninterrupted sleep and the only way to do THAT is to allow for time to pass and room to rest and breathe.

And I've had that. I've had weeks and weeks of that. I've excused and exempted and isolated myself from as much as possible for an extended period of time. (I'm not counting social media because, in news that will shock too many people, social media is not life or connection). I passed the point of finding myself way too comfortable here. And it has to stop.

As someone who usually spends more time inside my head than I do firmly in reality (I'm not exaggerating... I usually have one foot in a daydream at any given time), I have found that it serves creativity well. But it only works if you retreat inside to gather strength or idea or energy from it. If you are only escaping the outside, it won't work. You'll (and by that, I mean ME) only find that it feels good to escape everything and then you'll (I'll) start to question why on earth I would go back out again. Why would I leave the straightforward routine of leaving my house to go to work and come home again, travelling the in between hours in anxious anticipation of returning back to my pajama wearing, distraction seeking state as soon as humanly possible? Why would anyone? That's dangerous thinking right there but it feels comforting to even type it. And that's why I have to put a stop to it.

I can confidently say that my recent, involuntary foray into total reality during those last few months of the year left me...changed. Changed is the most diplomatic way to say "cracked in half down the middle". And so I can't say I recommend a complete return to reality at any given time. Immersion in the fiction of your choice is recommended, in doses. By me. And luckily (for me) the world is spilling over with fictions in which to lose oneself. And I'd encourage everyone to do the same. Don't be totally consumed by alternate forms of reality; this isn't a very special episode about the dangers of Virtual Reality or Dropping Acid. Just make lots and lots of room for escape. Build an extension on your house for escape because, as we learned in 2016, life turns on a dime and you might need the extra energy to cope and you'd best store up for a rainy day. Just don't live there. That's your afternoon nap place. That's your reading room. That's not the kitchen. Eventually you are going to have to find food.

So, where do I start? I'm still thinking about goals to set but I find myself stuck when I think of putting a number on anything. For the first time in forever, losing weight is not on a list of my goals. As I age, I need my psychic energy for pursuits other than counting calories. I don't have room for that anymore. I don't want to measure my life in numbers (or coffee spoons) and, here's a scientific fact(oid): your brain shrinks as you age. Mine is now a studio apartment. A lifelong apartment dweller, I have the skill set for this type of living. I mean, I can cram the hell out of a space. Still, I am usually looking around my space thinking "I should get rid of some stuff." So that's what I just now decided to do this year. I'm getting rid of unnecessary things. Literally, psychically, emotionally, and in all other ways-ly. Maybe I just answered my own question. How very zen of me.