The Ides of June

Next time you have a bad day, remember that his was far worse.

June 20, 2021

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I should’ve known better than to take a day off from My Sunday Post last week.

It was June 13, and I forgot my Roman history - the 13th is the “Ides” day of June - the Bad Luck Day of this particular month in the Roman calendar. 

I don’t consider myself (all that) superstitious, but there was absolutely no reason for me to court bad luck so recklessly, especially since I already knew that Mercury is in retrograde for most of this month, fire season is already arriving in the West, and my beloved Seattle Mariners (yeah, I know - I’m in an abusive relationship there) somehow lost five of six games against the league-worst Detroit Freaking Tigers this season. The signs of Bad Luck were all there, and I just plain missed them.

I was courting disaster because I wasn’t thinking clearly.

But that was why I ended up taking the day off in the first place - my brain was tired. Actually, my whole Life was Tired. 

It was a realization that emerged earlier in the week, when a Beyond Trusted friend gave me a didn’t-know-I-needed-it-but-I-did swift kick in the ass about how much I was trying to (over)do in my life. “You’re exhausting ME,” they said, “And I’m just following it all, not doing it. Exactly what are you trying to prove, and to whom?”

Well, shit.

I had no idea off the top of my head, so in the following days I slowed down in order to reflect on it more. And slowing down showed me that the answer didn’t really matter - what DID, though, was that I was packing so much into my life that I wasn’t really living. 

I was burning myself out and just hadn’t noticed it yet.

I was rushing from one thing to the next, hopping from one writing project to another to prepping for the next podcast episode and My Sunday Post. In between, I was training for not one but TWO half-ironman triathlons, doing a full slate of work for my day job, and getting query letters ready to send out to prospective agents. It was a big stack of plates I was juggling.

I wasn’t taking in the joys of life as I raced past them in my determination to “make every minute count.” Then, as another friend reminded me a few days after my Swift Kick, “the minutes count anyway, so why try to pack them even more? Just pay attention to them as they happen.” 

Good point. 

So, in one final conversation with yet another friend (yes, I run my shit by a lot of people sometimes), I put everything I’ve been doing lately on the table for scrutiny, to decide what I might need to put aside temporarily or even permanently. 

A few good things came out of it, but most notable was when I floated the idea of slowing down for the summer on My Sunday Post. When I said the words out loud, I literally felt tension pour out of me. Had it been water, it would’ve spilled out all over the coffee shop booth and floor and caused a great deal of alarm for other patrons. Had it been blood, it would’ve served as a great opening scene if someone ever made The Shining 2.

But I digress.

As my head and shoulders sank from relief and exhaustion grabbed a hold of me (our attentive server powered me up with several coffee top-offs after that), I knew I’d found a key adjustment I needed to make. 

So, I didn’t write a post for last Sunday, June 13, and that felt good. But I forgot about the Ides. 

And they hit me HARD. I had a pretty shitty day in just about every way; I had a small household accident that could’ve become a catastrophe if five more minutes had gone by; I was supposed to go to a minor league baseball game that got rained out by a Seattle monsoon; I got the brush off from a friend that was likely not intended as such but landed extremely poorly;  I absolutely exploded on another friend of mine in the aftermath, and it took awhile to clean up; my right hamstring hit the two-week mark of still feeling really sore (from my Walkabout), and that meant my triathlon training / performance was at risk; and, about three different financial issues collided all at once.

It all just sucked. I felt like Julius Caesar must have when he faced his own Ides - of March, in his case - only for him it was dozens of senators stabbing him to death rather than my totally not nearly as bad of a day. 

Anyways….

It was all enough to send me to bed early that night, and that doesn’t happen very often. What was clear the next morning, though, was that my burning myself to a crisp had not set me up for success the day before - after all, my day was made all the worse by how I responded to what happened, not to the events themselves. My responses were overblown and overheated, because I was fully depleted.

Which told me I’d made the right call to slow things down. 

I had to get Present again, not race full bore for the future at the expense of the Now. So, I slowed down on triathlon training and may end up canceling my races - I enjoy the fitness I’m experiencing, but I can still have that and not push myself to the limit every other day or so as training often demands. I also changed my prep schedule for my podcast so it doesn’t take up blocks of time, thus reducing my stress. And, I decided to spend more time writing poetry, as it is the form of writing that most requires me to be present in the Now in order to do it well. 

And I need to practice Now more often. That’s the most important piece and project for the summer. To just Live.

So, with that in mind, I will be taking a much more eased approach to My Sunday Post for the summer, returning to normal around Labor Day. There will be something appearing in this space each Sunday - a mixture of re-issues of previous posts, new poems, and the occasional announcement or update of how things are going. 

It’s not really a vacation, but a breather. It’s a chance to remember why I started all these things - this blog to build an audience for my writing, the triathlon training to get myself healthier, the podcast because it’s fun for me and helps me feel like I’m contributing positively to society. In my haste and rush to do all of that at once, I don’t think I was doing any of them as well as I could, nor living life the way I want to - with ease, grace, peace, and Play. 

So, while I’ll be around,  my metaphorical “gone fishing” sign will be up more often than not.

A refueled and refocused me will be better for everyone, especially for me. 

I know you get it, and I hope all of you take the time you need to do the same kind of recharging. We all need it after the Angst Dumpster Fire of a year that we all just had. 

A giant year of Ides, really. 

Yet we survived them. Unlike Uncle Julius, that poor dictatorial bastard (not really - he deserved it). So, we have that going for us, which is nice. 

Thank you for showing up to read my musings every week these past six months, and thank you in advance for continuing to do so. I can’t express how much I appreciate your support.

See you all again soon, and enjoy your beach days, wherever they may be. 

Chins, Up Everyone.

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Thanks for reading My Sunday Post. Instead of some important updates from my past week, here is a picture of the beach I most often return to in my mind.