Resentment and Reminders

I’ve had to put myself on the clock today. There have been a million distractions and a million reasons not to sit down and do some writing and I admit that I am giving into all of them. It was a long weekend, in both senses of the word and starting tomorrow, there’s a rapid-fire series of events that will leave me hopping for sure. And part of me wants to cocoon with a book and pre-rest, even though I know that’s not a thing.

In my quiet moments, I wonder how I will muster up the energy to be all the things that my life requires me to be. And then, when the moment comes when I need to lead the meeting or chaperone the field trip or write the 90,000 words, I find it. I’m constantly amazed at my own ability to rise to the circumstances placed in front of me. It’s very reassuring, this knowing.

But it’s also a dangerous secret, because if I lean on my extra reserves too often, if I don’t refill that gas tank, then I end up on empty. I wish empty looked like a robot that ran out of energy. I wish I could just slow down and sink into a quiet corner. But that’s not how it is, is it? Because when I end up empty, I keep going, pushing myself, but everything that was good and positive takes on a harder edge.

I already have a pretty hard edge. I’m not the softest of people, but I mostly avoid the bitterness and resentment that a hard edged person can easily stumble onto. Unfortunately, when I’m out of energy, That’s immediately where I go. So quickly that it’s usually my first real sign that I need a break.

And that small seed of resentment can ruin everything. It can turn cooking a meal into an exercise in being unappreciated. It can change a trip to the park into a criticism-filled excursion. It can allow an act of kindness to become an act of self-importance. If I don’t stop it in its tracks, resentment and bitterness can take all of my work and make it ugly.

Iit’s so easy to think that I’m the only one out there working hard, only one cleaning up this mess, only one trying to make the world a better place. Rest alone won’t fix it, of course. The only fix I know is to realize that all this work I do - to care for my family, to volunteer, to write - it’s a choice that I make. The other choices would make me terribly unhappy of course, but I could choose them. People do.

Rest, however, gives me the space to remember that the choice remains with me. That no one is forcing me to cook from-scratch dinners or show up to the band concerts. And rest reminds me that I make these choices because my happiness derives far more from those things than from any hedonistic pleasure.

My eldest and I were out on a walk yesterday and it was cold, bitterly cold. She remarked that she likes going out on cold days. She responded with something like, “You get the benefit of the exercise, which is nice, and then the benefit of being back inside and warm when it’s over, and then the benefit of feeling really virtuous and good about yourself because you went out even though it was freezing.” She’s right. and today, I’m feeling the benefit of that virtuousness, for putting in the time, even though it required reminding myself that the choice was mine to do it - or not.