It's okay to crawl to the finish ❤️

Feeling weary? You're not alone.

A few weeks ago, I experienced my first public, large-group gathering (of several hundred people) since before the pandemic. I was a speaker at a book festival, so I already had enough nervous energy to electrify a small city. But, beyond that, I was hyper-aware of every interaction. As a sensitive spirit I was picking up on some vibes in the crowds I was moving through.

Yes, there was the oddity of doing something we should be more attuned to, but after 2+ years of isolation from one another, we’ve gotten to be quite inept at it. There was certainly the excitement and joy of seeing one another again. But, I also felt a collective sense of fatigue. It was so palpable; I’d never experienced anything like it before.

I put my finger on it this way: through the pandemic, we were all affected negatively in varying degrees and intensities. Most people lost something or even someone. Some people have told me they weren’t particularly affected (chalk it up to life stage, levels of responsibility, dependents, job security, and other factors). But others, like me, had a piece cut out of them that feels irreplaceable. With that comes grief. So when I gathered with others, I could feel the collective sense of loss or depletion (15% here, 35% there, 50% somewhere else) — as though each person was wearing a pressure gauge.

With our tires blown, we can’t move anywhere fast.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio.

Some of you may be feeling full of energy, optimism, and verve. I love to hear that some of the Universe is realigning itself. ❤️ For me, 2022 has had some good times, but it has also been a year of false starts. I have had all the good intentions and just as many curveballs. I’ve found myself shaking my head countless times, wondering who is orchestrating the madness. It’s downright hilarious sometimes. Yes, it’s directing me to focus on the present moment.

But if I’m being honest, I want better for myself. I want to feel at my best, inside and out. But when I look inside and in the mirror, I’m not. It makes me feel like a shadow of my old self.

I’m in this constant pendulum swing between accepting myself as I am, right now, and aspiring to something better. Without discipline, I sure as heck won’t get anywhere. But at the moment it feels like I’m crawling to the finish line. Ever seen those videos of marathon runners where their legs are jelly and they’re literally clawing their way across the pavement? 🤣

Okay, it’s perhaps an exaggeration. But all this stop-start-stop-start has me feeling like my legs are jelly, too.

I think this is what this comes down to:

It feels like it’s taking so much longer to rebound from the pandemic fatigue (and fallout) than I thought it would.

This is ultimately an issue of acceptance. Years ago, I heard the Carl Jung concept that what we resist persists. I believe this is currently at play in my life. I’m having a hard time accepting what is, plain and simple.

Crawling, then, can be a way of moving forward while accepting my current limitations. It may be the key to finding that centre on that pendulum swing between acceptance and aspiration.

So, I’m here to tell you it’s okay to be crawling right now. Soon enough, it may look like a walk, then a jog, then a sprint. Or, it may not at all. But my job is to just be in it, and if right now that looks like scraping my knees with every inch forward, that’s where you’ll find me.

How about you? Are you finishing this year off strong or commando crawling your way to the end of it?

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What’s caught my attention lately… ✨

• The Age of Social Media is Ending via The Atlantic. “The possible downfall of Facebook and Twitter (and others) is an opportunity—not to shift to some equivalent platform, but to embrace their ruination, something previously unthinkable.” Of course, the demise of social media would have impacts on creators and artists like me… but this is part of why I started this Substack. I can’t afford to let go of my social media communities just yet, but I love what we’re creating here on Field Notes. 📒

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