If this isn't nice, what is?
AKA 'What I did on my holidays'
Hello! Another different one from me this week as I let my nervous system slowly reduce to simmer. Enjoy!
My sleep tracker tells me that this week I haven’t been doing my usual routine of waking up multiple times in the night, ruminating about some worry or other.
Wow, how did this happen? I’m always stressed about something, so what is it? What have I forgotten?
It’s weird to say, but this week has been so peaceful. I even feel… rested. I know right, ridiculous.
Some people go abroad when they are on annual leave. Not me. All the logistics make me feel ill. The thought of being away from my safe space (my home and my cat) is discombobulating to say the least.
Instead, I took the week off to just potter about and do the things I want to do.
I’m ever so slightly what you could call a raging stress-head, as you may have guessed by reading previous newsletters. The stress-headedness is encouraged by my ‘inner head girl’; that irritating, over-achieving Hermione-Granger-esque brat who clings to efficiency and output as a way to validate themselves. This mindset is even worse when you are a neurodivergent person prone to regular periods of burnout, regardless of what you actually do day to day.
Readers of this newsletter will know that I’ve been trying my best to prevent further burnouts, so what better way than a whole week of slowing down, gently engaging with the outside world on my own terms, and creating things?
It’s a bit like the ‘no dig’ method of killing weeds - putting big bits of cardboard around my brain and hoping it rots down and suppresses anything I don’t want growing out of it, like my awful, compulsive mindset of ‘always be the best or why fucking bother?’ As Britney would say, ‘Don’t you know that you’re toxic?’
The big bits of cardboard in this case are all my creative projects and pursuits. If I can pad them around my brain, maybe the weeds of my people-pleasing, need-to-over-achieve self will slowly die back. In the place where my toxic productivity thrives, I want my creativity and playfulness to bloom.
These past few days have been filled with visiting beautiful green spaces, eating delicious food, and finding plenty of bargain clothes and books at charity shops. Inspired by the second-hand books I’ve acquired this week, I’ve written a lot more of my own book (you can catch up on my book-writing adventure here). With so much time on my hands, I even had space to figure out how exactly my new film camera works.
Days by myself and with the people I love. Enriching creative hobbies. Space to breathe and just be. There have been so many wonderful moments I could cry. The bees in my head have not been buzzing this week and that has felt both strange and liberating. I’ve started to untether myself from whatever was making me stressed and now I am wobbly, giddy and hopeful.
I want more days like this.
I can’t hack days sunbathing at the beach (a. it’s unbelievably boring and b. I don’t tan, I crisp up like a KFC bargain bucket and c. long periods in silence are invitations for my head-bees to do the conga from one ear to the other.)
But I also can’t hack full holiday itineraries because the weird over-achiever morphs into some kind of deranged vacation drill-sergeant: ‘AREN’T WE HAVING A FANTASTIC TIME?! IT’S ONLY 10AM AND WE’VE ALREADY VISITED ALL THE MUSEUMS IN BERLIN. WE’RE MAKING THE MOST OF OUR TIME HERE… OR ELSE. HAHAHAHAHA. WE ARE HAVING FUN!”
Yes, I feel the need to be the best at holidays too. Reader, let it be known that although I strive to be an amiable human being, I can also be fucking insufferable.
The perfect middle ground has been reached. Pottering about and creating things. Not only has it forced me to slow down, but it’s also kept me interested and engaged enough to consistently write and make things.
For any readers familiar with the Artist’s Way1, it’s been sort of like one big artist date. Highly recommend if your circumstances allow.
We really do hurtle through life at a million miles an hour, not taking much in at all. It’s an overwhelmingly glorious mess. I often joke that flowers literally did not exist until I turned 30, because I’d never really noticed them before, so they surely couldn’t have existed, right?!
Until recently, I’d never taken the time to just marvel at everything and fully appreciate it all. Yes, very ‘double rainbow all the way, what does it mean?’ vibes, but seriously.
Kurt Vonnegut once said:
“And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.”
This is me doing that. Peace out, man.
Hope you enjoyed this one. Leave me a comment or a ‘like’ to let me know my words reach actual humans with souls. Your support doesn’t go unnoticed (every time I get a new subscriber I tell my cat).
I’m also planning more content for paid-subscribers, including a monthly media favourites round-up, more essays on creativity and more Book Diaries posts. Your support means I can write and create more, including the book I want to write. I am extremely grateful for the support.
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As always, take it easy,
Ren
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