It’s 8:20 now, and the last two hours have not been especially productive. I’ve answered a few emails. Waited 20 minutes for an obscenely expensive yogurt parfait in the hotel lobby because I didn’t feel like putting on pants to go to the cafe down the street. Eaten said yogurt. I’ve got an hour before I need to be packed and out the door, and I still haven’t written my script for today yet.

I started a 50-day self-identity script writing class/challenge this morning. For 50 days, I will write the same script, over and over, that articulates the future I envision for myself. I will write in the present tense, trying to embody the vision as a reality.

I (we) also started marriage counseling.

This doesn’t feel like liminal space—the transition space between two states of being or knowing. I can’t be with myself. I can’t access my meditation training. I’m teaching a class on creating space and sitting with your emotions and I can’t do either of those things for myself. I am antsy and planning and anxious and trying to do anything but be

I don’t want to be questioned for my constant questioning, my need to know why and how and what can we do to make this life better.

I do want to show my kids that rules are meant to be learned and questioned and then broken in the spirit of love

It’s only been a week since the Roe v. Wade ruling, but what’s unfolded in that time period is the undoing of centuries of progress, and my heart and brain can’t keep up with it. Humans as a species were never meant to handle this much chaos and uncertainty and constant bombardment all at once. We’re not neurologically wired for it. It’s not our fault we’re crying all the time or can’t focus at work. But we still have to deal with the consequences of it, regardless.

I don’t think Tom Cochrane got it exactly right when he wrote “Life is a Highway” back in 1991. I mean, I get the intention of the metaphor. But highways are linear, generally well-paved, have clearly-marked exit signs, and show up on maps so you can easily plan your route from one place to another. They also typically have Starbucks dotting the side streets every few miles. At least if you’re in somewhat populated areas of the country, anyway.

Life is exactly none of those things.

I’ve always felt more in control of written words than spoken ones. Once they’re out of your mouth, they’re gone. There’s no undoing them.

I have to acknowledge the incredible amount of privilege I’ve received a middle-class, college-educated, cis-gendered, straight white woman. While I wasn’t in a position to hire folks until the latter half of my career, I was likely complicit in contributing to the homogeny of those workplaces by not advocating for more diversity. It wasn’t intentional. But intention is only half of the equation. In hindsight, there was likely more I could have, and should have, done. But that’s what hindsight is for, right? “When we know better, we do better.”

Nothingness is where I was living for the last two weeks. But instead of something being wrong with that…what if something was actually right? What if I didn’t consciously know that I was experiencing overwhelm, but my subconscious did? What if my mind and my body retreated and shut down to allow me the space and time I needed?

Last Monday night, I was laying in bed in a hotel room in DC, unable to sit with my thoughts and feelings for longer than three minutes at a time. I was exhausted from more than a week of travel, socializing, and being perpetually “on” as a wife, a mother, a colleague, and a friend. I was physically by myself in this 200 square foot box, but there were 10,000 voices in my head. And it was all just feeling like too much.

I keep trying to remember that just because I am experiencing all of these hard, empty things does not mean I AM all of these things. Experiences and feelings are impermanent. They are rooted in thoughts, and thoughts aren’t always the truth. But even knowing this, the fog of feelings-and-experiences-and-thoughts is so thickly wrapped around every part of me right now that I’m having trouble finding the “I” who’s behind them.

I don’t like being so uncomfortable in my skin. Or my pants. But I’m not sure how to accept them changing, either.

I know that all the fucked-up systems and cultural standards were designed to mess with my head. But even after all of the work I’ve done in the last 10 months to overcome my disordered eating habits and orthorexia, intellectually knowing “my body is good” just the way it is doesn’t always mean I actually believe it.

Universe, Higher Power, Inner Goddess, whatever nametag you feel like wearing today, help me let go of these parts of myself that are so hard to release…

i dont know to make promises to you that i wont break

i’m trying so hard not to be my mother that i’m failing at being yours

Some folks find their “people” with other parents from their kids’ schools, or through hobbies like yoga and pickleball. I’ve found that most of my good friendships have started at work. Usually it’s with colleagues, but every once in a while, there’s also a client who I just click with, and the rest seems to just fall into place.

I spent three hours writing about medtech this morning. Heads down. Blinders on. Writing. Creating. On a Saturday. In bed. I didn’t plan it, and yet…it felt so freaking good. I realized when I finished that not only was I satisfied with the work, but I was energized from it, too.

This is the first time I’ve written a post in 10 days, which feels strange to me, but also completely fine. I’m in a place where I’m not feeling compelled to analyze everything. I am working on being more present, more future, less past.

WHAT IF all of this ping-ponging in my brain, between anxitement and spaciousness and idea overdrive, doesn’t actually mean that there’s anything wrong with me? What if, like leaning into my process for campaign concepting, I just need to accept and lean-into the fact that this is how my mind operates?

Sometimes I seriously wonder if I have a mood disorder. I can fluctuate between symptoms of anxiety and depression, and complete contentment, in what seems like an unreasonably short amount of time. The heaviness that was weighing me down yesterday has been replaced by lightness, and dare I even say, delight, today.