Getting back on track

It has been a good while since my last blogpost: September came and went without me writing anything here. A quick scroll back told me that April 2017 was the last time I didn't publish anything for a whole calendar month so it is certainly high time to polish off this one which has been a work in progress for a good while.

Needless to say, I have been busy (there is at least one other, also half-written post, to follow about some of that): but not exceptionally so by my standards, so that only offers a partial explanation for not putting pen to paper (or cursor to screen). I do know, more or less, what the explanation is, so we'll see whether this attempt to express it succeeds where my previous attempts to force the words to coalesce into something coherent have spectacularly failed.

Summer 2024 was a complicated mix. It was filled with loads of wonderful, joyful activities, with trips and visits and parties, with good food and lots of dancing. It was also marked by both good and bad news for people I care about, by hard conversations as well as jokes and laughter, and significantly, by the eruption of far-right, anti-migrant violence which rocked the country and deeply affected the communities I love.

In the midst of all that, in mid-August, I had a really lovely week in France staying with very dear friends. I was in need of a break, and I switched off, far more successfully than I had though I might manage. We did a few sort-of-touristy activities, but mostly I read good books, ate good food, and chatted endlessly about both silly and serious subjects, spending time with people I love very much. 

And then I came back.

I came back to an overflowing jobs list, populated with the things I expected to have to do, the inevitably unexpected additions, but also the things I had promised myself I would get ticked off before I went away but hadn't because everything had been put on a back-burner to deal with the fall out and impact of the riots.  

What I needed was a burst of productivity to get back on top of things, but instead I found myself feeling paralysed and overwhelmed, and lacking my usual motivation. Not to say I achieved nothing, but I definitely didn't feel like I was doing what I needed or wanted to achieve. As a person with a universal reputation for boundless energy, that hasn't been an easy thing to admit, even to myself. And while rationally I could tell myself this was not, perhaps, surprising, given how heavy the year had been; part of me definitely also felt like I was failing, not able to do what I "should".

To some extent, the life I have chosen means this is a reality I will always have to live with: I will never be able to do all that needs to be done, meet all the needs I would like to meet, solve all the problems I would like to be able to solve. Generally this is something I have made my peace with and a tension I manage relatively well: but for a few weeks in late August / September, I really struggled. There were tears in both a Birch staff meeting and my Stories supervision, as well as more than once on my sofa. I read up (again) on burnout and vicarious trauma, recognising elements of both in how I was feeling. The absence of blogposts was another symptoms of the space I was in: writing is often one of my ways of processing thoughts and emotions but my attempts to put this or anything else into words in the midst of it came to nothing. 

It was a tough few weeks: something I knew at the time but perhaps recognise even better now, from the other side. Because now? Now I am very much back on track, and I am grateful for the many things that have helped, including:

• I thrive on variety and would hate for every week to look exactly the same, but even I had perhaps hit a point where at least some semblance of return to routine, with a few fixed points has been beneficial. 
• I forced myself, at the point when I least felt like it, to re-establish, again, my routine of fairly regular morning prayer, something which always helps my equilibrium, in ways I can never explain. 
• At least some of the jobs in my jobs list, including some of those that I don't particularly enjoy have been successfully ticked off. There are still too many jobs to do, some of which I am inevitably still putting off, but it is back to feeling within the realms of achievable.
• I have also made conscious choices to take time off: ignoring the call of the jobs list and reminding myself not to feel guilty for making space for doing things I enjoy. 
• Stories of Hope and Home celebrated its fifth birthday with an incredible party and in the midst of the running around, I was able to pause and appreciate all this little project has achieved.
• A few weeks into the new academic year, every school age child in the hotel where I offer support to families is now in school: offering a sliver of normality for both them and their families.  
• Most of all, perhaps, I am surrounded by an incredible, supportive community around me who, knowingly or unknowingly, have played an important part in keeping me going and restoring my spirits.  

Onwards!