Restriction Resentment

 

 

 

There will always be times when we feel ‘STUCK’, that we are just not walking forward, that we seem to be, if anything, walking backwards in life.  It seems to release but then cage us again and we know there is a way out, but we do not have the energy to walk away from the feeling and seem to let it reside within as long as it wants.  Yes, aging has something to do with it and is compounded buy the fact that we want to do all we can in the time we have left.

As we age, and are retired, we have no real deadlines to spur us onward.    It is not a miserable space, but it is niggling.  It is just Bleh!  Perhaps, whether aging or not, we have some anxiety or some fear that triggers the feeling.  At times, we can distract ourselves, but it seems to return.  Is it the covid restrictions and reactions within?  Sometimes it feels like a never-ending cycle of thinking about how to change the feeling, to planning a way, to become determined to change the feeling, to taking action, to relapsing to… on and on around the cycle of Bleh!  It is bouncing around across and beyond the cycle, but it seems to return.

Life can get in our way, and yet, with being the age I am, there is not much pressure to do anything other than pay bills and buy groceries and the occasional foray out to get groceries.  Sometimes, I am just ‘off’:   my body is off (OK, most times) as I am clumsy and bumbly;  sometimes my mind is off and I think a lot but not always is my thinking clear;  sometimes my emotions can try to run rampant, although I can still rein in the negatives;  sometimes my spirit is low and I can feel it weak.  I can sometimes be running in circles at a slow steady ‘old-woman’ stroll. 

 I am also more prone to procrastination.  Things that will not bring instant gratification simply are not appealing.  Our Evil Inner witch (inner critical voice) has a field day with out changes and labels us lazy, lacking self-control, unmotivated, avoiding, and simply unmotivated.  And, it is true that we have changed, but it is not necessarily a negative thing.  It is time that we slow down.  It is time that we seek peace.  It is time that we learn self-comfort in more positive ways (pop[corn, making new recipes that make comfort food a new way, diets thrown out the window…)  Perhaps our new normal will be that we are more passive, more graceful, gentler us that does not need to evoke stress in order to be driven. 

We are made aware of how we were rushing through life and how our inner drive has been a slave-driver.  I know that my sleep patterns have changed and rather than lay there and rehash the same old, same old, I get up and do art, I go out into the night and listen to the birds sing morning into being.  It is so beautiful and I can nap later in the afternoon with no gilt, no shame, just simply a lovely rest.  We have learned a new way to be ‘fine’.

 Things we used to enjoy might just be ‘bleh” and offer no reward, no instant gratification from completing things we used to enjoy.  Perhaps we feel numb at times.  Just bleh-numb.  Our psyche is aware things have changed and we are discovering that gratification comes in layers through many mediums throughout a day.  Now most of those things are restricted; no tea with friends, no one over for dinner, no team meetings, no recreation…on and on.  Our psyche would like to blame someone rather than the logical idea that it is a long haul of restrictions we have been under.  It will start to pick on us and pout like a petulant child, because restrictions are…well…restrictive… and refuse to give us peace, a sense of calm, which is a far cry from lazy or frenetic as we ‘normally’ were.  Life has changed but, perhaps, our thinking/psyche has not. 

Give yourself a break enjoy this time that is less frantic.  Enjoy a nap, don’t read a book if you just cannot get into it, find something else to distract us.  Know we are not alone in this.  Retired people may be feeling the empty spaces more and since we have pared down our lives, to keep things simple, now there are not enough options to fill up spaces of time.  Ride it out, sisterfriends.  Ride it out!  Rock it out.  Dance with your broom under the moonlight.  Dream.  Imagine.  Fill spaces of time with something brand new that you never even thought you might enjoy doing.  We are lifetime learners.  Our brain needs fodder.  Research things you have wondered about.  Do not let your psyche rule you and take away whatever calm and peace and serenity that might come because we have time to sit and listen.  Blessed Be!

©Carol Desjarlais 5.29.21