I Feel Very Ho Hum

I don’t know how to explain it other than saying I don’t feel excited about anything at the moment. I’m not depressed and I’m not manic. For a bipolar person, that is success. However, I feel bored and not as alive as I think I should feel. 

I have been writing every day for almost two months, but I’m not even feeling passionate about that. I talked to my therapist about it and she told me that there are times where you have to be okay with feeling so so. 

I agree with that. I think that what I’m feeling is perfectly normal. It’s just that I’m not a particularly normal person so it feels odd. And sometimes even if you are doing something creative, it’s still work. And work is not always fun. 

I think part of the problem is that we are taught to measure our lives by excitement. We are supposed to be passionate, inspired, motivated, thriving, crushing goals, living our best lives, and whatever other phrase the internet is using this week.

Nobody talks much about the middle.

The middle is where you do the laundry. It's where you answer emails. It's where you write because you said you would write, not because a lightning bolt of inspiration hit you.

Maybe this is what consistency feels like.

When I was manic, everything felt important. Every idea felt brilliant. Every project felt urgent. The world glowed with possibility.

But it was mostly all a delusion. 

Now things feel... regular.

I wake up. I drink coffee. I write. I go to therapy. I do the things I'm supposed to do.

And maybe the reason it feels strange is because I spent so much of my life swinging between extremes that ordinary feels unfamiliar.

I keep waiting for excitement to arrive and announce itself. Instead, life has quietly settled into a routine.

The strange thing is that this is probably what I wanted.

Stability sounds wonderful when you don't have it. Once you have it, though, it can feel surprisingly unremarkable. Nobody writes songs about having a reasonably productive Tuesday.

What's interesting about this whole thing is that I am feeling passionate about other things. Lately I've been putting more effort into taking care of myself and actually feeling presentable when I leave the house. I am a person of extremes, either I look like a homeless person or I dress to the nines.

I spent hours organizing all my jewelry and realized I have collected many beautiful pieces in my fifty years. I’ve actually been wearing jewelry almost every day, my pierced ears almost closed up because I was never wearing earrings on a regular basis. 

I have started to wear makeup more often and actually try to feel good about myself. My focus on these things brings me a different kind of contentment than writing does. It’s not replacing my love of writing at all. It is just that I’m trying to think of myself as a whole person, body, mind and soul. 

I meditate every day to nourish my soul. I write to enrich my mind. Now I'm trying very seriously to lose weight and also feel good about my body. I think balance is a very key word here. I’m striving to balance the different parts of my being. 

Also, I’ve been more excited about socializing. Writing can be a very solitary pursuit, so meeting with people is something I have been more focused on lately and this is actually bringing me joy. 

It's not that I don't feel happiness right now. I think my biggest issue is that I'm not as excited about my writing as I expected to be.

Maybe I believed that writing every day would solve all of my problems. Maybe I thought that if I found the right passion and devoted myself to it completely, everything else would fall into place.

But life doesn't seem to work that way.

Writing nourishes one part of me. Meditation nourishes another. Friendship, laughter, movement, feeling comfortable in my own skin—those things matter too.

I keep saying that I feel ho hum, but maybe that's not entirely true. Maybe what I am feeling is balance.

And balance is a lot quieter than excitement.

It doesn't arrive with fireworks or grand revelations. It arrives slowly, while you're organizing jewelry, meeting a friend for lunch, writing a few pages, and learning to care for yourself in ways you used to neglect.

Maybe some seasons are meant for chasing inspiration.

And maybe some seasons are meant for becoming a whole person.

nina