There was just an article in The New York Times about this “blah” feeling that most of us have been experiencing recently. The other day on Instagram, I posted some beautiful words by Anneliese King and so many people commented that they could relate. I was told that what I was experiencing was languishing, but when I read the article from The New York Times, that was only the very tip of the iceberg for me.
It’s languishing but it’s so much more than that. It’s mental overload. It’s mental fatigue. It’s having way too many tabs open at once constantly. It’s multitasking and finding ways to relax and recover that also aren’t the same as numbing out. It’s about trying to stay present so I don’t miss the good parts but also trying to set boundaries so that I don’t feel like I’m suffocating or drowning.
Maybe if I didn’t have any other responsibilities besides myself and my work I would fall under the languishing category, but as a mom, wife, business owner, friend, survivor of sibling loss, temporary teacher during remote learning for an entire school year and chauffeur to 7 different therapies a week for my youngest son who has Sensory Processing Disorder, it’s so much more than just “languishing” for me.
It’s a state of “blah” that cuts so much deeper. Sometimes there is joy, but at any given moment that joy can be engulfed by a flame of anger, brought on by something seemingly simple or irrelevant. Or tears can suddenly start flowing as if out of nowhere because a friend casually mentioned how her favorites TikToks are the ones where the delivery truck drivers showcase the furry friends they see everyday on their delivery routes, and a jolting memory strikes me like lightning that the last two text messages my brother sent me before he passed away were of a gaggle of dogs sniffing around in his delivery truck, or some “visitors” as he called them.
It’s trying to eat healthy and exercise and still not losing a single pound. (Ok not the exercise part, but I’m getting there). It’s crying so much that your eyes sting and your skin burns and wondering if maybe it wasn’t the best idea to wean off your Zoloft. And as you’re frantically searching for your cooling eyemask to soothe the puffiness, you find this book, which you have ZERO recollection of purchasing, cannot find any evidence in your Amazon order history and can tell it’s never so much as been opened due to the stiff nature of the cover and pages. But this book. It brings you back to the present. It’s a quick read, thankfully, because the kids need something every 3.7 seconds, so it’s something that can easily be finished even on your busiest day. I figure best case scenario it changes my life, worst case scenario it distracted me from my momentary despair and allowed me to reset myself for the afternoon.
It’s wondering if this is exactly where I’m supposed to be. Maybe that book was a sign from the universe, I know I definitely would have never found it if I hadn’t been searching my bedside table for my eye mask. And if I had found it during some random cleaning spree, I can almost guarantee you I wouldn’t have read it right then and there. So even though things suck right now, and they royally suck, maybe this is all part of it. Maybe this is the part of the story that we look back on in 10, 20, 30 years and say “yeah, that really sucked, but it provided me with life changing lessons that made everything better than I could have ever imagined.” Just maybe.
