I think part of the reason I’ve started this little writing project is to cope with a life unstructured. I’m sure that’s familiar to a lot of you. It speaks in some senses how much work provides a defining quality to many of our lives. My work is pretty social, it’s also pretty hard and tiring. It’s in an industry I want to be in, although not perhaps the sector I want to stay in forever. Like a lot of people sometimes I get into a flow with it find it rewarding, sometimes it’s frustrating and I come home demoralised. I suspect it’s a fairly typical experience.
What I wasn’t anticipating was quite how much I’d miss the rhythm it puts into my day. Whilst I’m sometimes guilty of wasting my time away from work, I’ve always appreciated my job for its lists of things to get done and goals to be achieved. At work my focus tends to come environmentally, there’s not much space to procrastinate and the feedback from working hard is too obvious to be ignored. It’s a busy shop after all, if you’re not on top of things life gets difficult fast, it might otherwise! It definitely will if you so careless as to let it though.
So initially my idea was the obvious one. If I loved crochet I’m sure I’d be swimming in scarves right now. The first irresponsible thought was: “I am going to ride further then you could possibly imagine, every, damn day.” That didn’t last too long, I’m not an idiot (citation needed), this isn’t the time. Nonetheless a great deal of cycling is well within my capabilities whilst remaining clearly on the side of respecting the spirit of the exercise exception in our lockdown. As my work requires me to be present I am fully furloughed this means, like a lot of people, each day stretches on further than you’d thought possible. I know how to make my own fun, it involves getting out as far into the wild as I can, don’t do that screams necessity.
The world is a sudden mixture of zero stakes personal minute to minute and anxiety inducing wider circumstances. Having only myself to decide how to fill inside time I’m turning to things like this to start to fill the twin holes of purpose and exercise lead mental focus. I’ve had several bouts with depression in my life. The most recent one started around 5 years ago and lasted somewhere between 2 and 3 years to fully, is the word escape? It might be, I’d probably end up saying I came to terms with it. Cycling was central, really it was the purpose it gave me, the drive to move and the time to think it afforded me. Common anti-depressant drugs called SSRIs don’t really do much for me. When my Doctors feel I need something, what I end up on tends to leave me in what feels like a waking coma. Better than the alternative but far from ideal. I end up sad when I’m stuck in place, I begin to panic and have violent stabs of anxiety if I think I can’t escape and might sink back into a depressed state. Depression is terrifying! Months of your life in dark hole.
Luckily, we’re advanced from where I was. I think I can do this! Keep moving, whilst staying mainly indoors, keep my brain convinced we’re moving forward. This sort of thing helps! I’ll be talking about some of the other things I’m doing as well as exploring mental health a bit more in these blogs going forward.
They’ll remain trains of thought for the time being though! Planning comes when my fingers are really moving.
Peace!
Z
Zackonnabike 