Grump Be Gone, Part 2
Photo by Vladislav Balakshii on Unsplash
Right now, at 10:56 AM, I’m not feeling particularly enchanted by the human experience.
I’ve been away from Sam for three weeks and I’m sick of it. I’m sick of living in a country with closed borders and I’m sick of contorting ourselves to make it work.
I’m irritated that the hotel I’m staying at only serves instant coffee and it makes me too jittery to drink, so my nice, flowy morning routine doesn’t work here.
I’m fuming because a mosquito at the coffee shop has managed to bite me four times in the last ten minutes and I have itchy welts swelling up.
Oh yeah, and also my dad died a year ago today.
Maybe that has something to do with it. Probably not though, right? It seems more likely that I’m feeling out of sorts because this planet is a abysmal place to live.
Might as well accept that bleak truth and move on, I suppose.
That ode to stubborn gladness I wrote? Drivel.
Same with my musings about enchanted living.
What’s so great about sharing a planet with mosquitoes, I ask you? Hmm???
Alas, Keely of 2022 knows how to play this game. Sometimes, a foul mood creeps over me. Sometimes I’m not joyful or grateful or delighted or attuned to awe.
Sometimes I’m a grump thinking, “This human thing is BS.”
And you know what I do in those moments?
I pause.
I stop doing things. I stop making decisions. I just stop, period.
Except I don’t, apparently, stop writing. Which is fine. Writing is, in its own way, a pause for me.
In the years between being a human who struggled with chronic depression and becoming one who wants to start an enchanted living movement, I’ve learned something very important.
Foul moods really aren’t a particularly big deal — if you let them be.
They’re not anything to stress out or worry about, so long as they’re actually a mood. If you live under a constant black cloud of rage, grief or despair, nothing I’m saying is applicable, because there’s a different solution for someone in your situation.
But if you’re a person who’s well-ish, who’s generally content with being a human on this planet, except for those moments when you’re not, I want to share my favorite trick.
This foul mood, the one that’s making me shake my fist at the world – I intend to use it as a permission slip.
If I want to spend my entire day curled up in bed reading a trashy novel, guess what I’m going to do? If I want to book seven hours of spa treatments, you best believe I will (thank you, Thailand, for being a country where seven hours of spa treatments costs about as much as a dinner out in the US).
I see no need to proceed with any plans, intentions or to-do-list-y things when I’m having a garbage day. You know why? Because that’s how downward spirals and REALLY BAD DECISIONS happen. Do you think it’s a good idea to contemplate the intricacies of my most important relationships when INSTANT COFFEE PROVIDED FOR FREE BY A LOVELY HOTEL fills me with contempt? Nope.
Fortunately, I knew that today might be rough, so there’s nothing to clear off my schedule. I have no plans or intentions. I pre-signed my permission slip, knowing that it was a good day to do so.
The interesting twist is, for the first time in my life, I also communicated my intention. Instead of just doing what I wanted (which I’m quite good at, thank you very much), I also gave people advance notice that I planned to do so.
And, now that I’m back to feeling like myself (thank you writing), I’m sitting here filled with tenderness while a stranger in the coffee shop slathers on sunscreen. What an interesting planet, I’m thinking, where we do things like protect our skin from the sun. How preciously human is that? How adorable are we?
And, yep, that’s how these brain grapes work. That’s how I self-soothe. I’m also hoping that the stranger at the coffee shop is about to take himself for a lovely trek. Maybe he’s heading off to an adventure that he’s dreamed about his entire life. Wouldn’t that be so lovely?
Wishing you a day full of whatever you need,
Keely
