Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Welcome to my annual life assessment. If you’ve followed along from the early days of this blog, you know the drill. For those who are new here, I write these birthday posts each year as a way to take stock of where I’ve been and where I’m going. And, if you have followed along for awhile, you know my personal motto is “keep moving forward.”
Reaction fatigue
So, how do I sum up my 53rd lap around the sun? Boy howdy, what a doozie. It’s been chaotic to say the least. Another year on the hamster wheel.
The chaos is only partly self-induced. My dear man and I are working to launch an ambitious and complex new project that we have high hopes for. And my role as the president of our local art association required way more time and energy than was in the brochure when I took it on last year.
And then there are the surprises. In the last few months, there have been a pile of external conflicts thrust upon me. Insults and wrong-doings that have required sudden demands on my time and energy. Any one I could probably absorb well enough. But all at once? Not so much.
With all of this, the overarching theme of year 53 is reaction fatigue. And not a whole lot of moving forward. Which really chaps my ass as someone who strives so hard not to get stuck in life.
Life-suckers
During the height of the pandemic I wrote about the anchor of routine. My dear man and I were suffering from reaction fatigue managing life as full-time RV-ers during the Covid chaos. What a shit show. But here we are, settled down into a house (such as it is) with the pandemic crap largely in the rearview mirror.
And yet, I look back at this year and think life should be a bit easier at this point. But it isn’t. I’m still battling things that steal my time and energy. The details aren’t really all that important just that they have to be dealt with. I can’t ignore them. (Think stuff like property damage inflicted on us, copyright infringements, and the like.)
Navigating the unexpected is part of the whole life gig. But as I look back at the year and the current issues I’m facing, I realize the sheer volume of them is unsustainable and it leaves me feeling very much not in control of my life.
Throw in our baseline heavy workload on top of those other disruptions and you’ve got a recipe for failure. It’s a nasty negative feedback loop. When my time is stolen by the unexpected bullshit, I’m left scrambling to find a way to still tend to the business. And important tasks aren’t getting done when they should be which creates another layer of reactivity needed.
Fallout
The fallout of living in a constant state of reactivity has critically impacted our ability to do the things we love most—you know, the things that make life worth living. Travel, motorcycling, camping, etc. have been tiny blips on the life radar this year. We’ve barely traveled and explored our new stomping grounds here in New Mexico. Riding time has been minimal. House renovation progress is nearly stagnant.
Happy hours this year have largely involved exhaustedly flopping in our chairs, looking at each other, and saying WTF. Many of our discussions surround why the hell is everything such a mess and how do we fix it?
Self doubt
One of the things I’ve known about myself for a long time is that I’m pretty tenacious. This year has challenged my tenacity to the point I started to doubt it, though. I’ve been feeling worn out and defeated. When that realization hit me a few weeks ago, it stopped me in my tracks. It was a substantial wake up call.
For year 54 ahead, I have to answer that wake up call and change this negative life pattern or what I am even doing?
Other victims
Through all this my health has also suffered greatly. My weight is at an all-time high which just makes everything harder. I haven’t tended to some orthopedic issues that are escalating. Sleep has been disastrous which creates another horrendous negative feedback loop. My doctor is unhappy with my lab results and has ordered me to get my shit together and eat better.
One of the other victims I’m saddest about is that my energy on this blog has suffered. It’s been suffering for years actually but it’s fallen to an all-time low and it bothers me. This is the mother ship that launched so much and I’m very fond of it. I hate that it has taken the backseat especially how important it was to me when I started it.
Changes
The big moral of the story for this year’s post is shit isn’t working and I have to change it.
My first job is to take better care of my health. That’s a no brainer. Physically, I feel like shit. And it sucks. This falls in the “If you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything category.” And it is something I do have control over in the chaos, even if it’s a tall order under stress.
The next step is doing a better job of managing the things I willingly take on. That will go a long way in making sure I have enough time for self care and some fun.
The “unknown zone” is how to manage the surprise life-suckers. I can’t keep them from coming at me but I need to improve my response to them so they don’t drag on and on, sapping my time and mental energy for months on end.
That will free up time for doing more fun stuff and making progress on the house. Living in a renovation zone and getting nowhere for so long isn’t exactly recipe for good mental health, in case you were wondering.
And as for mental health improvement, that dovetails with my desire to revive this project. It’s hard not to see that something has to give, right? But I don’t want it to be this project. Let’s face it, this is my baby. It’s gone through a lot of changes, grown a lot, and birthed so many other projects, but it’s still my baby. And I’m not ready to let it fade away.
In my current life here in New Mexico, people mostly know me as a photographer, artist, and entreprenuer. But I’m really at my best when writing. The catharsis of the process is what keeps me grounded and level. And I haven’t been doing very much of it on any of my outlets, much less here. No más.
So I’m challenging myself to get this old blog back on track. I hope you’ll stick around for the ride.
Embracing year 54
This isn’t the happiest of birthday posts but it might be the most important one I’ve ever written. This life assessment exercise helps me step back and take stock. And the stock isn’t good, y’all. But this process has helped me get pissed off enough about it to reclaim my tenacity and fight back.
First up, I’m celebrating with a motorcycle adventure once again. Granted, it’s a work trip but it is still a motorcycle adventure. One baby step forward.
Adventure on, friends!
Epilogue
Just as I finished writing this post, I watched this TED talk and it reinforced why I do this reflection exercise every year so I thought you might enjoy it, too.
In the wise words of Paul Catchlove:
…examine the events and experiences of your lives. What worked, what didn’t, and why. And then to think about what you would like to do differently next time. When we practice reflection as a habit, we gain even more powerful insight because we see patterns that reflection on standalone events doesn’t provide.
The Birthday Series
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