I'm Afraid of Naps

Beyond the Book: Trying to be still.

I have now been back in the US for a little over a week and honestly, it’s been rough.

Even the wonder that is the Montgomery Boat Brawl hasn’t done a lot to raise my spirits - ok, well to be honest I’ve watched it like at least 20 times and every time I do it brings me so much joy, but there are only so many times that you can watch a boat brawl a day. When I’m not watching the Boat Brawl or sharing memes about it, or laughing at memes about it, or making sure that everybody I love has seen it…I’m trying to adjust to life back at home after a month away.

I felt safe in Paris, you know, the flip side to the whole boat brawl situation that reveals a harsh reality of being Black in America - I had a month away from a place where white folk here can get a drink or two in them and think they can gang up on a Black man - who is just trying to get through his workday - and beat the shit out of him in broad daylight surrounded by onlookers.

In Paris I was not the primary target of a state’s hatred (not that they don’t have targets, I just wasn’t a main one). I was in a place made for movement, and for gathering. I was in a place where people got together every night to talk over a glass of wine. Seattle is….not…that place.

So I’m back at home in the suburbs, my teenager is on vacation with his dad, my book is turned in, my partner is back at work, and it’s just been me and this here ole brain. I haven’t been handling it well.

I had therapy on Tuesday and was explaining everything to my therapist and how I don’t have any work to do but I’m not motivated to do any of the things that I want to do for fun and the kids aren’t here and I need to keep busy but I can’t muster the motivation to do anything that isn’t work. After about the 8th time (my therapist said that they weren’t counting exactly but that was their estimate) of saying that I needed to “keep busy”, my therapist asked me why I was so set against not being busy.

I started to answer what I thought was a simple question and immediately fell apart. My throat closed off, tears started running down my cheeks and I felt like I was going to explode with grief. I think we were both shocked by how quickly it all happened.

We spent a good part of the rest of the session getting me re-centered. Once I was feeling better, we talked a bit about the difference between doing things I enjoy or making time for breaks when I have a lot of work to do, vs accepting stillness or making time for things I want to do when I don’t have a lot of work on my plate. Because we’ve worked on making time for stillness and rest and rejuvenation this past year as I’ve been working on the book, and I’ve made great progress at it. But I haven’t been not busy in at least three years now and this brief window where I don’t have to write or fix or mother is really undoing me.

I’m just now looking at this, and I don’t know if I’ve made any progress, but I can tell you where it comes from: ADHD, or to be more specific: the way that people treat people with ADHD (oh, and capitalism - which is a root cause of a lot of ableism and well, almost everything bad in the world). For much of my life and my entire childhood, I’ve been told that the things that pull my attention and the things that bring me joy are my weaknesses. I’ve been told that because I couldn’t turn things in on time, because I couldn’t pay proper attention, because my dishes weren’t done and the laundry pile was still a mountain - I hadn’t earned the right to enjoy things. So in therapy, as I was working to build more balance in my life, making time for rest or joy was something that I was able to justify because it allowed me to get more work done.

But what about when there isn’t work to be done? What if I just took naps and worked on crafts? Wouldn’t that prove everyone right that I really am, when I let go, lazy?

So that’s what I’m trying to work on right now. I’m not doing great at it! I bought a bunch of snacks for dinner last night, telling myself that it was not selfish to go to the store just for snacks for yourself and to eat them in front of the television. And I was repeating that to myself over and over as I was making my snack plate, but then my older son and his girlfriend came over and I VERY DESPERATELY invited them to stay for snack dinner and they did and I spent the entire night refilling the snack tray for them and asking them how they liked everything. It is terrifying how happy it made me.

So yeah, it’s likely going to be a process.

I have a few days of work coming up, and then a few days of nothing until I get back into book stuff and the kiddo comes home. I hope to be able to take a nap without feeling guilty, or work on some art because it sounds fun - and not because it just sounds more fun than writing a book. Even if I can do it just once, I think it will be a victory for now. Wish me luck!