Adjust 🗞️ Slow News Day #76

Hey,

Time for a proper Slow News Day classic. A reflection about slowing down and how it isn't easy, despite all my efforts otherwise.

I’ve written more than enough times to you about my struggles in the last few months. Resurgent anxiety disorder, ill health, you know the score.

Without wanting to jinx it, I’m somewhere closer to balanced right now. Well, I’m not getting worse. I’ve levelled out and, overall, started to feel a bit more normal. But I’m still pretty stacked with struggles, day-to-day.

That’s really, really frustrating for me... so I push myself and demand that I change. A fat lot of good that’s ever done, eh?

Thus, I need this reminder. If I’ve settled into a new normality… I need to accept that that’s my new normality. No amount of desperate clamouring for my previous levels of energy, health, or resilience will get me there. I have to play the long game.

The long game asks me to settle into a slower, reduced-activity rhythm. One that accepts each day that feels good and ‘normal’ is usually followed by a day of stepping back and recovering or dealing with after-effects. That many days in the week, I’m simply going to feel a bit rough.

I’m no good at it, frankly. Even though I know I need to adjust, I can’t help but want more—to reach out towards the ease I previously felt in life, to grasp at it and huddle it to me—but that’s not happening right now.

Or, more to the point, I can do all the reaching out and straining and aching and complaining I want… but I won’t find anything there.

So I’m in the slow process of adjusting to the slow process of adjusting. There’s beauty to be found here—joy in the sunny, easy days. Small moments of calm and comfort in the stormy ones. A flexible schedule and the support of loving friends and family. Kind newsletter subscribers who tell me about the geekiest hobbies (update coming on that, you beauties).

Small stuff means a lot. Slowing down just gives me more time to stop and stare at it all.

I hope all this work will be worth it. I think it will.

Slow down guide

Need a little help moving slower?

Ease your way out of Friday afternoon with this newsletter, a nice cup of something, and a little background music. Steal my setup if you aren't sure where to start.

After I press send, I’m heading to that noisy old been-to-cup machine and asking it to churn out a long cup of Union’s Revelation roast. A classic espresso: bold and treacly with caramel and chocolate somewhere in the cup, too. Ah, why not, let’s make it a double.

Whilst I’m sorting out the coffee, the DJ (who is also me, tapping the mousepad on my laptop) will queue up Dorsal Fins’ Sister. One, because it was my sister’s birthday last weekend (👋) and two, because it’s a lot of fun. A nod-your-head and sway-your-shoulders bop, layered with some nice mystical floating-cloud-feeling guitar tones, and some excellent breathy vocals. It sounds a bit like slowing down and staring out a window on a day when you need some peace. Funny, that.

Take it easy,