The Rest Day (Or, The Pest of Expectation)

“A bad fairy tale has some simple goddamn moral. A great fairy tale tells the truth.”
-Victor LaValle, The Changeling

What do you write about when you don’t feel like writing? Well, I guess I’ll find out by the end of this.

I don’t have anything profound or long-winded to say this time. No poetic nuggets of wisdom to impart, assuming anything I ever say is wise. The inconvenient truth is this: even though I’d designated Sunday as my day to write and publish these posts, I don’t feel like writing tonight. Like, at all.

When I woke up this morning, it wasn’t exactly with the refreshed excitement that makes words flow effortlessly from the tips of my fingers. Rather, it was with the clouded confusion of someone jolted back to the waking world I wasn't quite prepared to return to yet. I couldn’t remember details from the dream I had last night — I think it had something to do with an acquaintance and a secret room. Frustrated and agitated, I tried to gather the mental scraps that I could.

That wasn't the only reason today has been different. This whole day, I’ve had a lingering feeling of unease, a sense of something being missing. I still can’t quite articulate all of what that is. It's been getting in the way of my usual thought process, though, and from early on I knew that that needed to be honored.

It was obviously time for me to do something about my mood. What better day to take care of that than Sunday, right? And so, I burned some scented oil, turned on my dim, warm bedside lamp, played some soft instrumental music, and cracked open a new book.

Oh, and I made sure to meditate. Productivity looked a little different today.

I think this is just one of those days where I have to ask myself: who am I doing this for? Who am I letting down if I don’t keep doing this on a weekly basis? Is it someone who may be reading this? Is it my own ego? Is it my future self, looking back on 2020 and wondering why I didn’t throw myself into this tiny blog when I had the chance? Maybe that’s a question for another post.

Honestly, I do this for myself. I do this to free myself from all of the chains restraining me, one by one. Anyone who wants to come along for the ride is welcome and appreciated. But really, my number of readers, whether 10 or 10,000, won’t change the goal. The goal is freedom from dogma and mirage and coldness and easy untruths.

I like having this space. I like the consistency of it. I like knowing that someone out there is reading this and maybe resonating with the whirlwind of thoughts that somehow make it out of my brain and onto the screen. I found out rather recently that I really appreciate writing to another person, and I’ve missed that a lot lately. This blog of mine has served to fill that void for me somewhat, and I remain grateful. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? It’s mine. I can write 5,000 words a day on here if I want to (assuming I have the energy), or I can go entire months without so much as logging on. It all depends on what’s going to be best for me at that time, and for some reason I have to keep reminding myself that.

It’s funny how the things we find most natural are so often the things we’re taught to push against.

So, what do we do when we don’t feel like persevering? Assuming it’s something worth the perseverance, we persevere anyway, except maybe we take a nap first.

I know I just wrote that I don’t do this for anyone but myself, and on some level I stand by that. However, if by some miracle you actually made it to the end of a lackluster blog post about how the writer of said blog post had to force herself to write it, thank you. I hope you get the break that you need, and I hope you make good use of it. We all need rest days, even if that means rest from the expectations we place on ourselves.

The one thing we’re always doing is breathing. How we’re breathing matters, though. Make sure you’re taking time to breathe deep and rich and slow, relishing the feeling, basking in the free gift. And if your lofty plans have to wait until tomorrow, or the next day, maybe that’s okay. Just maybe.

-D.