Lately I’ve been feeling like I’m getting dumber in my old age. My mind is slipping. Maybe it’s just where I’m at today. Maybe it’s hormones. Maybe I can’t think clearly of a Monday and it’s just that.
I do know that I have been feeling like I can’t get as much done as I would like to. I’m behind deadline on projects, multiple ones, and asking myself why I keep taking things on if I am not going to be able to get them done on time. Or at all. Maybe the best thing really is to treat this like a hobby and just poke at it when I’m in the mood. First, yea, have to deliver projects that involve people other than me. I can let me down, I can’t let them down.
January is going to slip quietly away without a publication. I’m breaking the streak of publishing once a month that I started in August last year. I’m simply too tired, too behind, and have too many things to do. I can’t get it done. I’m feeling stupid and clumsy and argh!
Maybe I should stick to smaller projects, like making a meal. I can do that. Cooking is short-term commitment, with immediate payoff. A book? Takes a long time, and may or may not pay off in the end. I dunno. I’m compelled to write. Just not compelled enough to write quickly or voluminously.
It’s Monday. I shall have more coffee. Update my to-do list. Plan for the week ahead. Plan for the month, and slot tax prep in there somewhere, as an annual chore that cannot be ducked. Make time to draw, with a pen, on paper, to ground myself.
Onward. Upward. If I stop, I slide backwards. Into the dumb. I dislike that feeling very much. I shall do better.
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3 responses to “Feeling Dumb”
I do that every January. Prior to Jan 2021, it was a combination of dread of the approaching semester, grey, grey, grey days, and an overwhelming feeling that I *had* to make this year better than the last because otherwise the whole year was a loss. Since “retirement” I still feel that way, just minus the dread of the coming semester, but the feeling that I *have* to be better, as opposed to “I’ll strive to be better” and the dreary January weather (which seems to be true for all of us except below the equator and in Hawaii). A good friend bought himself one of those sunshine lights and has gotten a lot of benefits from it. I’m considering that.
Just know that you’re not alone in this feeling, and yes, coffee helps clear the immediate cobwebs.
I’ve been having a devil of a time with blah/depression/the black dog in kind of gooshy Chihuahua form this January, maybe whatever it is, is hitting you, too?
I’ve been in the January Slump this week. Usually the entire month is a wash. Now, it’s been just one week so far, and I’m getting bombarded by ideas that I need to write, so they’ll let me work on the WIP I’m supposed to be doing. Which might get bumped by a Merchant book that is getting pushier . . . And that would sell more quickly.