Remember the Cycle

Dear future self, why do you worry so much? Why do you stress about the way you are? The sadness, the lack, and the distress always ends. The joy, creativity, and energy always comes back.

I have an arrangement with myself when going to the gym. I have always found static workouts to be boring to the point of torment. What is the purpose of cycling in place? What is the purpose of swimming laps? If I were biking a new path or a new trail every day, I would be going somewhere and seeing new things. If I were swimming in a bay or a lake, the unbounded freedom of the swim would captivate me. The ability to plunge to the bottom and search for shells would (and often has) delight(ed) me for hours. Still, going to the gym is useful and convenient and I feel worlds better after a strenuous workout. So, in order to keep my mind occupied while I exercise my body, I listen to Audible.

Audible is for my non-fiction reading only. Those who have known me most of my life know that over half of that life was spent reading strictly fiction. I read it to the point where I naturally developed speed reading techniques and could plow through a novel of standard length in a single day. In recent years, I have become emotionally stable enough that I do not need to escape reality so much as I used to, and I find I am starved for learning. This desire does not allow me to absorb non-fiction at the same rate as I inhale fiction, so I have to slow down to the speed of the spoken word in order to understand what I am reading. In fact, hearing it read aloud to me has been the most reliable method of absorbing non-fiction in my situation.

That being said, sometimes I am oversaturated with "real life things." Sometimes I am too distracted or hurting to focus on reality. Sometimes I just don't want to look at it.

For the past week or so, I could not focus on the audio book I had chosen (A Life Without Lack by Dallas Willard). I kept hitting the rewind-thirty-seconds button. Within five or ten minutes at the gym, I had to give up. I switched over to a fantasy web novel that is familiar to me, slowed down my elliptical workout, and read that while jogging at a slower pace.

How do I get myself back on track? I berated myself. I'm being lazy and I know it. Why can't I focus? Why am I repulsed by the idea of ever listening to the audio book again? I don't even want to hit the weight machines anymore, I just want to check my brain out in a novel for hours. I thought I was past this. Why...

And on. And on. And on.

Dear future self, stop. Calm. Rest. Let yourself absorb all the fiction you want. Sit and wallow in the familiar for a bit, if it helps you. Do a little less than your optimal best. You are still moving some, are you not? And if you are not moving at all, even that is not forever. You are not wasting your life if you do your work and creativity in fits and spurts. You are not lazy if you take it a little slower. Give yourself the grace to re-fortify the way you know how and keep going.

Dear future self, you live in cycles. You have many of them, in different areas of your life. Some are longer, some are shorter, some are more painful and some are merely troublesome, but they all pass. They all change. What is now, whether good or hard, will not always be.

Today I rewound to the beginning of the audiobook chapter. I could focus on what the book was saying as I pushed myself on the elliptical, then took turns on my favorite weight machines. Today it is good to exist, and I feel like I am existing as optimally as I am capable of at this time, and I appreciate my existence while I am in this cycle.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.