I always feel like summer is a time to kick back and relax. A lazy languor takes hold and I don’t feel like doing much.
That feeling must be a holdover from childhood, because the reality of adulthood is that nothing is slower in the summer. If you have younger kids that need entertaining, it can actually be more hectic than school time!
I do get more sleep in the summer, because I can sleep later now that I don’t have to get up when my daughter does. And being self-employed, my boss is very flexible with my hours.
We had Covid in the house the past few weeks, as my husband had it. While that did require juggling to keep him quarantined, my daughter and I did not get it from him.
It’s funny how much a disruption in routine can knock you sideways. As someone with anxiety disorder, I do best with routines. Because once my anxiety starts to inch up, things fall apart. And with the state of the world lately, my anxiety is always simmering very close to spillover.
But things at home are back to normal now, and I am starting to regain my footing.
Now I just have to convince my adult brain that summer is not, in fact, a vacation.
The Return–CoronaLife Day 852
My daughter used to do ninja warrior/parkour classes. She stopped in about 3rd grade. But lately, she’s been wanting to try it again, so we went back this week.
She had a great time, wants to go back again.
One of the reasons she stopped was because she kept comparing herself to other kids who were better than her. Kids who were at the gym for hours literally every day, practicing, while she was there 2xs a week. Kids who were on the competitive team.
She was too young to understand that a) there’s almost always someone better than you at everything in life, and b) this was about having fun, not competing, so the only judging she should be doing is if she enjoyed it.
Now she’s heading into 7th grade, and I think she’s finally learning that not everything in life is a competition, and she can do things just because she finds it fun.
I can learn some lessons from her as a writer, because the pandemic killed my creativity, and my writing ground almost to a halt.
I am slowly coming back to it, and I have to remember to enjoy it, and stop comparing myself to other writers. I am not them. They might have been able to write 8 books and get them all published during Covid, but I couldn’t. I spent much of the pandemic struggling with out of control anxiety, where I was lucky to simply accomplish the necessities of life each day.
I can also learn from my daughter because she is not in the same physical shape she was in when she was in 3rd grade. She was actually really good when she was younger. But pre-teen couch potato syndrome has set in (compounded by the pandemic isolation). So she has to build herself back up to it.
I, too, need to build my writing muscles back up. My concentration is not what it was. Just a few hours of work is exhausting. It’s mentally taxing to create! So like my daughter, I need to work back up to my old level.
I’ve just completed the final edits to my middle grade historical adventure, The Curse of the Pharaoh’s Stone. My co-author and I will now decide whether to make one more attempt at traditional publishing, or go with self-publishing.
And so the return begins.