I've had a busy, out of sorts week. As I'm sure you've noticed, I haven't even been writing my gratitude posts this whole time.
It wasn't that I didn't experience those moments though. I would snap a pic, or record an audio note. I just wasn't ready to get back to it. But I knew I'd get there eventually.
There is always time to catch up.
Sometimes I do forget that. I can be really hard on myself. I'm always doing a hundred different things, juggling many dishes, and it's never enough. That's been my chronic pattern for years.
Lately though, I've been almost obstinately the opposite. I go to work, and I work. I come home, and I relax. I haven't been writing, and we have some episodes of the podcast in the can, so I've been letting that go, too.
It's not like me. Or rather, it's not like the me I have wanted to be, and been, for a long while.
But I think I get why, and I can feel myself pulling out of it. I have had a lot on my plate.
Missy's mom passed away in September, which rocked our world and is still rocking it, although the waves of that get smaller each day. I changed jobs back in February, and hunting for a new job was a nerve wracking thing. We've had various little pressures upon us as a couple, and as a family, and I see that I'm sensitive to them. (As would anyone be, because I'm just a regular human being, like anyone else.)
It's not good and not bad that this is so, it's just so.
My friend William recently hooked me up with a Pema Chödrön book I hadn't heard of before, Coming Closer to Ourselves. I'm in the midst of listening to it now, but it's already wonderful. It's about compassion for the self, something I struggle with. One of the things Pema talks about are the different yanas in Buddhism, and the lessons that they teach. Funny enough, they all boil down to variations of one thing, one command, one idea:
"Stay."
Stay here, stay with yourself, stay with the moment. Stay and be gentle, be kind, to yourself. It's not "STAY!" like the way you shout it at a disobedient dog (although sometimes I do treat it that way), but more a gentle invitation.
It's a great book, you should check it out.
It's really okay that I've been out of sorts. It's really okay that I'm coming back to it in my own time, at my own pace.
Last night on my way home from work, I spent the commute listening to the book, and then made the decision that I'd spend this morning catching up my blog. One thing I heard Pema say yesterday was that when you're tired, or angry, or have some negative feeling going on, that can be your wisdom.
If you stay and listen to not just what you feel, but why you feel it, you can come closer to yourself. The truth is that my day-to-day life has been overwhelming for a bit. I don't have to be some superhero about it.
I'm so grateful that's true.