Roly-poly Rage

We’ve all had a rough few months. In the midst of worries about the election, the economy, the environment and threats of new pandemics, it’s sometimes hard to disengage from the chaotic world around us and find a moment’s peace. It’s hard to remember that most of these things only intrude upon our daily lives when we let them.

Now I’m not saying that life’s pressures are all in our heads. Quite the contrary. Any of the things that I mentioned can add up to that proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. What I’m saying is that allowing such things to take up real estate in our heads 24/7 isn’t healthy.

I’m also not saying that we should turn a blind eye to the world’s problems if they’re not personally affecting us. Awareness and activism are vital to our society, and many of our country’s problems have sprouted from the fact that too many people don’t value the wellbeing of their neighbors enough. What I am saying is that too much of anything throws us out of balance, physically, mentally and spiritually. Each of the worst times in my life coincided with periods when I focused on one area of my life to the exclusion of everything else. And during those times it wasn’t just me that who suffered. It was my family, friends and coworkers as well. During those times I was a bad husband, father, son, brother, neighbor and teacher. Why? Because imbalance is a cancer, crowding out the beauty in our lives and leaving our souls diminished.

Does what I’ve talked about here resonate with the way you feel right now? If so, what should you do? I have no idea. I can’t see into your hearts and minds and wouldn’t do so if I could. What I can do is tell you what I’m doing to try and get back to the person I used to be.

The first thing I’m going to do is turn on my phone’s social app timers again, so it cuts me off after a certain amount of time. I’ll never find balance in my life if I spend five hours a day surfing mindlessly through endless reiterations of the same disturbing news. Next, I’m going to read more. Currently I’m revisiting the fantasy books of my youth. By the time I finish with those, school should be over for the year, and I’ll finish writing the last book in the Nickelville series, which I’m calling Beneath the Tree at World’s End. It’s set twenty years after Children of Nyx, and wraps up all of the unanswered questions about what lies at the center of Guarded Wood. But, this time, I’m going to try to balance my writing with living, because as Brandy and my kids can tell you, I’m not much fun when I spend 8 to 12 hours a day writing.

I think it’s easier to find balance in the spring. My tomato, pepper and herb seedlings are coming along nicely in the green house that I built out of those plastic Covid shields that we had on our desks during the pandemic. I planted my German butterball potatoes into grow bags today, and I’m eager to see if they grow well that way. Brandy and I spent the morning clearing debris from the previous year out of the garden so we can start planting later in the week. We moved all of the old straw, basil bushes and pepper plants to the compost bin where any little hibernating varmints can come out later at their leisure. We did make the roly-polies a bit upset though. It’s probably a good thing that neither of us can speak land crustacean, because those guys really looked angry.

I don’t know if this helps any of you. But if just one of you sleeps a little bit better in the weeks to come, I’ll consider the time it took to write this well spent. And I’ll let you in on one last secret before I go curl up in bed next to my beautiful wife and continue reading the second book in the Dragonlance series: sometimes the act of writing can be the best therapy there is. It doesn’t matter what you do with it afterward. Post it as I’ve done, send it to a friend, or burn it as an offering.  And no matter what you chose to do with it, I promise you that someone will hear and understand.