That moment when you find yourself with so much to do, and so little time, not to mention mental energy, that you are sitting in front of the bookshelf indulging in a little light research instead of doing anything else. Even the research is kinda useless, because there's no writing brain. The writing brain has gone wherever my egg rack for the InstantPot has wandered off to.
It's not just the move. It's not just the radical shift in sleeping schedule. It's not just a new job with all the learning. It's not just the feeling unmoored while I'm separated by a thousand miles from my First Reader. It's not just the clinging insecure teenager who needs commuted to his first job (part of the time). It's not just the constant rain that prevents me from any outdoors time. It's not just the small living quarters that don't feel like home, or the balcony garden and no dirt to ground me. It's not just that.
I keep telling myself, and friends keep telling me, to just be patient. I am not a patient woman. I want to be back on an even keel, and I know, I did this to myself. I don't like being out of control. I like all my processes to be in control. Huff.
On the other hand, there are some wonderful things about this move that make me happy. I'm close enough to friends to be able to see them in person. I can get lunch with a friend. I can head up to a Memorial Day cook-in (out was far too rainy for that), I can meet a friend at a bookstore. I'm in a new biome and if it ever stops raining, I can explore. I am close enough to meet up with my daughters for a picnic. Yes, I am an introvert, but I think all of us learned in 2020 just how much isolation can affect any of us. I was already hurting from isolation, and researching the affects, before 2020. It's not just a mental health thing. It has very real and measurable physiological affects as well, on the brain. Prolonged isolation in humans leads to profound declines in cognition and mental elasticity.
It will all shake out in time. In the meantime? It's too much, and I'm going to occasionally retreat into a book for a while.
I've decided not to bring all my books into the apartment. But at least my myths and lore books made it. Some of them.