For now, not for always.
“What if we bought a house in the country and homeschooled the kids?” I thought out loud in my husband’s direction.
Miguel, ever-patient listened as I played out my daydream before I came to the obvious conclusion that I would be miserable after two weeks. I felt isolated when we originally moved from New York City to a walkable suburb of New Jersey. I am not suited for a country life.
Still, life suddenly felt too fast – not that it was going by too quickly, but that there was just too much happening. I was capable of keeping up, but for the first time in a long time I didn’t want to.
The feeling felt a bit like depression, but more nuanced. It wasn’t that I wanted to crawl under the covers, instead it felt like my motivation and ambition had tapped out. I wanted to be with my family and do stuff around our house and that was where my interests stopped.
I was craving simplicity and on that day had decided the easiest way to accomplish that was by fully uprooting our family’s lives, moving away from all we knew, and starting over.
Don’t worry local friends, we are not moving and I have not lost my mind. Well, not entirely. After some introspection, I realized what I was actually feeling was out of control. More specifically, that the world was out of my control. So my understandable response had been to make my world as small as possible so that I might regain the illusion.
Just our family. Just our house.
Thankfully, I am not an impulsive person. I never even made it as far as exploring properties on Zillow. But I am giving myself permission to turn a bit inward. For now, not for always.
I’m not reading the news in the morning as I usually do and I am severely limiting the amount of time the television or radio is turned to a news station. I’m still (doom)scrolling headlines, because I can’t go completely cold turkey, but overall I am giving my psyche a break.
Instead, I am focusing on what is happening in our home: making plans for the holidays, responding to work emails, and really focusing on the emotional, social, and academic needs of our children. I have mostly muzzled the voice in the back of my head that says, “but you could be doing more, you’re wasting time, stop being lazy.” We have watched more Netflix and played more board games as a family in the last week than we have in the last several months combined. And I’ve gotta say, it’s pretty nice.
Now, I don’t think going full isolationist is the answer to my emotional well-being. After all, I’m pretty sure that’s one of the reasons we’ve come to this place as a country. Outside of disease quarantining, isolationism is rarely the answer. But as with alcohol or dark chocolate, most things in moderation are fine – sometimes even healthy.
If you’re the sort of person who needs an excuse or requires permission to slow down, allow me the honor of granting it to you. I’m not sure how long this phase lasts, or rather how long that obnoxious voice in my head allows it to last. Ideally, I will find some sort of balance between the fast and the slow, between fellowship and isolation. But let’s be real, if balance were a language I don’t think I would even be conversational.
That said, next week I head to LA for a couple events and in a few weeks I will receive the next deadline for my book. I will always meet my obligations because that is something I am masterfully fluent in, but right now my priority remains healing and stabilizing.
For now, not for always.
ID: Kelly is sandwiched between her daughter and son. Her daughter is kissing Kelly’s cheek while wearing a dark shirt. Her face is covered by a strawberry sticker. Kelly’s son is smiling at the camera as Kelly squishes is face into hers. He is wearing a black baseball hat with a yellow bill. Kelly is wearing a tan sweater and a staircase can be seen behind them.
