Fall is kicking my ass.

I’ve never needed the slower, fall season more than I do now, but it’s honestly kicking my ass.

I expected and relied on balance. With summer being even busier and more energetic compared to summers past, I didn’t expect or even fathom that the fall season, one that I have come to expect as a transitionally slow period (don’t we all?) would meet me with a similar intensity. I’m finding myself focusing on the painful, the negative - it’s a place that I’m familiar with, but honestly haven’t had to confront in such an aggressive and overwhelming way in some time.

I can try to trace it back to probably around end of July. At that point in the year, I felt a perceptible shift in how much I felt like I could take on - whether it was actual tasks or plans to meet up with people or scheduling just a shit ton of things in a day. It was actually a conscious choice. As someone who typically prefers balance, as I briefly mentioned, I wanted to deliberately change things up and do the most this past summer; what would it be like to move as fast paced and packed as I thought most people moved around me? What could I gain?

After several weeks, though, I noticed that it didn’t feel like my choice anymore. By the time I realized I was exhausted, it was harder than I thought to change my pace and slow down. The momentum of several weeks of plans and end of summer swells was driving me and my daily life instead of the other way around. It’s a lesson that I’ve had to learn and relearn time and time again; after phases of intensity, I need an equal amount of time of rest. I need more brain space. I need more free time. I need less rapid connection and more mindfulness. However, I think that trying to meet my desired pace (I actually wrote this as achieving my desired pace at first - which I think is really telling) is harder than I’ve had to confront before in recent memory.

On top of that, life continued to deliver the unexpected; I don’t really want to get into the weeds, but I think everyone can agree that on a macro-level, it’s been an extremely distressing month. For me, on an added micro-level, it’s been a rough few months.

So where am I now? I’m in therapy as I have been for the last three years - except my therapist who I’ve seen all throughout that stretch has brought up starting meds for the first time. I’m reading, but more often I’m reading things that bring up feelings of grief; it’s cathartic in ways, but maybe not what I need right now. I’m watching YouTube videos of people who picked up their lives from the metropolitan centers and prioritized the slow life in the country. I’m taking days off of work not to recenter, but to visit friends going through hard times and to complete my civic duty as a juror. I deleted Instagram, but found myself missing knowing what my friends were up to (I’ve since reinstalled it). I’m putting a mask on just enough to not get too attached, but I think anyone that knows me even moderately well can see right through me. I feel a bit groundless, a smidge brainless - it’s feeling a bit half in/half out, whatever that means.

I don’t mean to write this to make people worry. I think for me, it’s more of an exercise in capturing where I am right now. And it’s okay that it’s not the best place or even a good place. Honestly, I feel like things are more on the up and up, and maybe that’s why I can start to assign meaning and pattern and perspective to the last few months. As I’m starting to climb out of my hole, I’m regaining the sense that the things that I’m romanticizing (namely slow living and less touch points) are things that I can implement in my life without having to pick up from Brooklyn and move to the country. Why can’t I drink my tea and have my toast on the balcony before work in the mornings? Why can’t I have many nights at home in a row, filled with creating and ideating and taking baths with epsom salt? And even, radically, doing nothing at all? Who am I answering to? Who is my day for?

I’m not really sure what the rest of the year will hold, but I do know I am on the precipice of change. This change, though, encompasses things that I’ll need time, introspection, and preparation for. They are goals that will shake up what I’ve become accustomed to. And as someone who is more familiar in quickly reacting to situations and stimuli, it’s hard to take slower phases of progress in stride without getting discouraged. But, I do know that what I’m working towards or about to work towards are things that I’ve known I’ve wanted to do and that the slower progression of change will take even more commitment to see through.

Above all, the future does excite me. As easy as it sounds, I need to practice shaping my day or week to one that reflects what energizes me, provides opportunities of rest, and honoring my priorities. Otherwise, I won’t be able to follow what excites me and that would be a real shame.