It's amazing how you can be busy the whole week, not have time to sit down and blog every night, and then come to write about the week's events and have literally NOTHING that seems relevant, important or interesting to say. And it has been a week in which we've have started to open up a bit here in Louisiana and begin the process of moving back towards the new normal - whatever that looks like. So it should have had things of interest to discuss.
The dichotomy between being busy but being unable to relate any of that to others is strange. I don't feel like I have the interest in telling you about what I've been up to, and for that reason I'm almost sure you don't have any interest in hearing! It's by no means terrible, but it just feels completely devoid of substance, shorn of any direction. It feels like motions being gone over, because that is what we do sometimes. We just grind the handle and the weeks go by.
And I certainly have plenty of things I want to be able to do one the lockdown is relaxed a bit more. But I don't think I can honestly look back on the last few months and say that I have made the best use of the time. I've not done nothing, in fact when I look at the list of things I've been up to it is actually quite full, but I just don't feel like any of it was of consequence. I just don't feel like any of it made a difference.
I turn 40 this year and, unavoidably, milestones often find you looking back and taking stock of your life and your achievements. This last couple of years have obviously been very different and very difficult but even despite that I haven't managed to make as many positive changes and progressions as I would like.
You can become acutely aware of things that you used to take for granted not being there anymore. And often you didn't even realise you had lost them. There are obvious ones, the biggies that cannot be avoided. But there are more subtle ones - friendships that you have neglected to the point where you can't remember the last time you physically saw people - hobbies or projects that you started so long ago that all they are now is a distant memory of a dream or passion you let drift. These hurt too, realising that you've missed out on experiences and memories that were often close enough to grasp, if you were just looking in the right place at the right time.
It can be disheartening, looking back on what you have done and realising that opportunities have been wasted - and in great number too. It can make it difficult to go again when you begin to question whether you have any relevance.
Like all problems, an acknowledgement of things is step one - and I honestly know that this isn't some kind of bombshell that has dropped on me. I felt this for a while, but I've found great difficulty articulating it. And again, I don't lack for people to talk to, that isn't the problem. The problem is getting the balance right, between what you can do on your own and what you need some perspective for.
We are often the worst at seeing our own lives through glasses with no bias, and some of us are notoriously bad at finding the right way to get that perspective and that balance. But the positive thing is that it is something you can control, something you can work on.
There are things I miss, some beyond what you can comfortably ignore - and there probably always will be. But when I look around I know I am in a good place, and I know I have plenty of things going on in my life. It is just tapping into that and finding the right way to get passionate about these things again.
Hopefully as we move into the middle of the year I'll find a bit of mojo, get out and about a bit more and start to find that inner peace and sense of direction and purpose that has been lacking recently.
Till tomorrow, Tom
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