Next? 

https://brenebrown.com/articles/2018/05/24/the-midlife-unraveling/

When I early retired from my totally engrossing day-job of 24 years, I moved to a different state (in the US) so that I wouldn’t be (as) tempted to get called back to work as a contractor. (A previous manager did eventually call, but by then I was entirely immersed in my next thing, and not willing to disrupt what I was doing.)

Now I’ve been at this ‘next thing’ for a while. How long depends on when you start the clock. If you count when I started volunteering virtually full-time, I’ve been at it most of 12 years without more than two or three days away at a time, and no appreciable vacations. If you count when I started getting regular honorarium-style paychecks (total dollars/hours worked = less than minimum wage), I’ve been at it 7 years. This is no one’s fault. I did it to myself, on purpose. Most of the time I love what I do, and I’m a bit worn out.

My contract authorizes two weeks of vacation every year, and a month-long sabbatical every five years. That five-year mark was 2020. We all know what 2020 was like. In the panic of those early days, there wasn’t any point in taking a month off, I couldn’t go anywhere, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to, anyway. The people I worked with at the time were also a little freaked out, so I wasn’t in a hurry to leave them. 

I had also started up an online daily meditation practice that I hosted, to give people a chance to connect and spend 30-45 minutes together six days a week. I ran that for over 450 days, and finally hit the wall. I kept the (zoom) room, but other people needed to take turns facilitating the practice. A hard-core 10-12 individuals have continued, with another handful of folks dropping in when the mood strikes them. I still show up and lead the practice one day a week. They’ve been great looking after each other, and taking turns being the leader.

Last December, I took a couple days off in the middle of the week and went to the closest US beach (6.5 hrs away by car, a little more than an hour away by airplane, not counting waiting time everywhere, and driving time from the airport). While I was there, I sprained my ankle walking around the botanical garden on a flat, mostly level surface. When I came back, I told my board of directors that I needed to start taking some of my authorized time off. They encouraged me to do exactly that. On my first day off, I ended up in the emergency room throwing up blood from a tear in my esophagus, which was probably the result of long-term stress. (None of the typical causes made any sense. I appear much too healthy to have this happen to my body.) 

The other chronological thing that happened about this same time was that I turned 65, and went on Medicare, which meant I was officially old. I’ve never thought of myself as old, so this came as a bit of a shock. 

Then, after a morning pulling weeds, and hauling lumber back to a big box store, I got a therapeutic massage, which was lovely. That evening I twisted funny retrieving a book off a shelf and tweaked the muscles of my mid-back. I spent the next week under a heating pad, and it got progressively better, but not well. Finally, in the middle of the night I asked the question, “What am I missing?” The answer was instantaneous. “Are you going to take that sabbatical now?” 

That next morning, I started making arrangements to be out-of-the office and away a month. It starts next week. The board of directors, and other leaders in the organization have been reticent, but willing, to take on various aspects of what I typically do, and I’ve brought in special guests to cover other pieces that were unique to me. They’ll be fine. 

Which brings me to Brene’ article. My first unraveling was in 2008, when I quit my day job of 24 years. I’ve continued to unravel at a slow pace over this last 12 years, but I have a feeling I just got a booster.

Jimmy Buffett: "Its my Job to be worried half to death ... that's what people expect in me..." or not. 14Jul11

I'm learning some really interesting things about myself from this book study group on the Trance of Scarcity.   A continuum between stingy and lavish was introduced in chapter three; lavish is represented by wholeheartedness and gratefulness and stingy is represented by constricted, limited and tightly controlled.  I live, like everyone else, somewhere on this continuum; on different days, and on different topics, I slide along the scale between free, easy and open to closed, tight and hurried/worried. 

This was made incredibly clear to me when I went in for a massage.  My masseuse had to cancel because of a family emergency and I was desperate for someone to work on my tight back, so I called some new friends who had opened a wellness clinic in town.  Two of the three co-owners were certified in massage and I got in to see the woman that day.

There's a story I have told myself about tightness in my shoulders and upper back.   It's just the place that I store tension.  The masseuse said, as she was kneading my shoulders hard, "You know, you don't have to store tension in your shoulders."  And then it hit me.  I thought, "Hey, you are right.  I don't."  When I got in to see my regular masseuse the next time, she said, "Whatever you are doing, keep it up.  Your shoulders have never been that loose."

Nothing had changed in my life, except an awareness I had held.  What had kept my shoulders tight, holding tension, was an old story that I had to be hurting in some way in order to warrant having a massage.  You didn't just have them because you enjoyed them, because they felt good.  That was somehow indulgent, and I must have enough puritan in my history that indulgences are not OK.  Good people didn't get massages unless they absolutely needed them, they had to be for 'medical' reasons.

So my new story, that opens me up more toward lushness, and away from stinginess, is that massages are reasonable self care and that I don't need a physical/'medical' reason to need them; that I have no need to store tension in my body because nothing is wrong, or if something needs fixing, I handle it and don't let it build up and store in my body and that I allow myself to be aware of what I want and I take care of myself.  

Pretty darn cool.