So here’s a thing. Are you a creative? Maybe a freelancer? Are you on winter break?

You scared yet?

Because I fucking have been. Relaxation, the idea of going entirely tools down, frightens me and we’ve spent some time today interrogating why.

Part of it is the nature of the beast. We co own a business, we have weekly podcasts. The fun never stops and if you do the bullshit demon starts whispering about how you’ll never gets caught up.

The rest of it is recent and ancient history. For some reason I feel the survivor’s guilt from events almost three decades ago now more keenly at this time of year. Coupled with the lockdown and the things we can’t do, it can feel like ever decreasing circles.

We’re fighting it, and it’s working. I mean I didn’t nap before this holiday and today I got back from an errand, put Twilight Zone: And When The Sky Was Opened on and saw maybe ten minutes of it non sequential chunks.

(Favorite episode by the way)

Plus the errand. I used to walk 10,000 steps a day. Now I hit 3000 and I can feel the limitation. Tied in with mask panic and ancient body image problems it doesn’t help. At all.

So I’m running daily errands. Necessary ones. Gets me used to regular distance again, gets me some sunlight,.

We’re working on other stuff too. Alarms on the new office Sonos(!) reminding us to move, ‘commute hour’ which will hopefully see us both read for actual fun.

It’s all doable, and all solvable. And it’s all scary. This year has chipped away at everything, and it’s not done and next year wont be different, at least at first.

So it’s really easy to be scared of relaxing, of letting your guard down. Because what the Hell is next, right?

Practice. Small regular practice. Be okay with not doing things. Be okay with doing things for you. Be okay with naps.

You’re all good. And so am I. We just all need reminding every once in a while.