I stopped myself from tossing out a black squiggle left on the kitchen countertop. What first appeared to be a disconnected piece of felt was actually the abandoned yet determined smile of a hand-crafted froggy drinking cup.
On the second day of first grade my daughter brought home a poster. “I have a growth mindset” it reads, the letters colored in a deliberate pattern of green, royal-blue, green, royal-blue, green, royal-blue for “growth,” and purple, sky-blue, purple, sky-blue, purple, sky-blue, purple for “mindset.” There’s a little girl with yellow hair and a red dress at the bottom of the page. Three thought bubbles surround her. In Ava’s lopsided but improving print, they proclaim: “I can keep trying!,” “I can ask for help!,” “I can work together!!” and “Take a break!”
I don’t know what happened to the “I can” in the last proclamation, but I admire its candor. What first grader—hell, what 45 going on 46-year-old—doesn’t need to take a damn break every once in a while? Even that froggy cup sought fit to take a hiatus from its creepy perpetual grinning.
Breaks replenish the mind, body and soul. Breaks boost creativity and productivity. Breaks provide the perfect opportunity to grab a smoke, throw in a load of laundry, fill your cup with tepid and terrible break room coffee, stretch, meditate, power nap, cartwheel, watch 15 minutes of Dynasty, eat two or three almonds or two or three Kit Kats, compile a list of to-dos or to-don'ts, read a book, play fantasy football, play catchup on your feeds, stare longingly out the window as the sky shifts from the color of a dirty tube-sock into the most beckoning shade of blue… If you’re not getting the gist of this list, you're not giving yourself the mindless downtime you deserve.
Now go forth and do nothing. Or something different from the something you’re doing at present (unless—*insert shameless plug*—it’s reading THIS).
Just please don’t smoke. Cigarettes. I know, I know, I smoked (and wore lipgloss) back in my 20s, too, and I brought it up (up there, like a couple paragraphs ago). Smoking is the quintessential excuse for taking a break. Whatever. Do anything else (I gave you several semi-decent ideas), as long as it isn’t vaping. Because friends, I guarantee whatever trendy-flavored shit you’re puffing on is going to kill you faster than the 69 known cancer-causing chemicals in cigarettes.
Wow. You’re mom called, she wants her soap box back. And while we’re at it she wants her crocheted afghan back, too. The rose and cream one. It’s September, and the air is growing crisp. Don’t forget to pack your galoshes!
Pardon that interruption. Where were we again? Oh yeah, interruption … a synonym for … break. And breaks are pretty important. Despite what Rachel says, they’re healthy and you should take them whenever possible, as long as you sow your oats responsibly.
Even when you’re a writer. I can’t speak for other writers—I can only hope to one day play them on a sitcom called “The Write Stuff”or “Something to Write Home About” —but for me, writing is rewarding and exhilarating and challenging and soul crushing and hard as fuck. It sucks when the work is absent from your life, but it also sucks when you feel tapped out and uninspired.
Me and Writing, we were (and somewhat are) on a break. I admit, I’ve been unfaithful to Writing, with Doubt, with Parenting, with Working (for Pay), with Random Lame Excuse, with Running, with Quest for Perfection, with The Current Political Landscape, with Discarded Crafts on Kitchen Countertop, with Cooking Around Discarded Crafts on Kitchen Countertop, with Television, with Dog Walking, with Angst, with Insecurity, with Quest for Validation, with Procrastination, with Facebook, with Candy Crush (not really), with Instagram, with Toilet Cleaning, with Dwayne Johnson (nice enough guy, but nope), with Camping, with Crocheting Afghans (haven’t threaded a needle since the throw pillow resembling a turtle I sewed back in middle school).
The point of this tortured and overwrought ramble is not to showcase my promiscuity. (I remain an ardent fan of monogamy.) It’s to highlight the stuck in a rut struggle is real, at least for me this past summer. Maybe much longer if I’m honest. That confessed, I’ve already noted the perks of pressing pause, so what of it?
I don’t feel refreshed. I don’t feel recharged. I don’t feel more productive. I don’t feel more creative. I don’t feel ready to seize the day or the hour or the next thirty-five seconds. What I feel is pretty much meh.
I’m not an ardent fan of meh. In fact, fuck meh.
“The only way around these things is through them.” It’s a simple line, but one of my all-time favorites from one of my all-time favorite books, The Undertaking. While the line speaks to mourning and grief (and the book is about the business of death and dying), it applies to my current state, call it writer’s block, midlife malaise or some whiny lovechild of the two.
No matter how I label my feelings, it’s become clear the last thing I need is a break to resolve them. The only way around Midlife Writer’s Malaise Block is through it.
Thus, here I am, giving my best fake froggy-cup smile, naked in front of my keyboard for all the world to see and judge. Well, I’m technically still in a version of my pajamas and the corners of my mouth aren’t upturned, but I am slowly and surely releasing the brake.
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| Next break: Recycling some of my kid’s artwork. (Because recycling is environmentally responsible and sounds better than throwing away.) |
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