A Vacuum of Activity
Wanting nothing is not the same as contentment
My month of June was hectic, with work commitments, travel, and music, all on top of still learning each day how to be a better partner and father at home. And from next weekend on, the rest of my July will also be busy. More travel, more work commitments, and the ominous end of Elizabeth’s maternity leave that will mean a start to Remy’s daycare.
But, for the last week or so, the first half of July, it’s been calm. My work has felt more balanced, I have no music performances to prepare for, and my social calendar was mostly events with other couples in the same stage of life, so I’m not over-extending myself.
And it mostly sucked. After I get home from work, I have less than two hours with Remy before we need to get her into her bassinet for the night and for those two hours I’m all action.1 But the minute Remy goes to sleep, I’m bored. I can’t think of what I want to do, so Elizabeth and I have been watching TV. We’ve watched season two of the live action Avatar: The Last Airbender series. It’s a great show and I don’t really have anything against watching TV, but unless it’s a big series, watching TV is a sign that I’m dependent on passive activities.
I’ve noticed this pattern before, when I have a period of high-intensity activity followed by a vacuum of responsibilities. This was common in college and during my time in consulting, when I would spend weeks moving on from one thing to the next, using what a less-busy-version-of-myself would see as an impressive level of self-control to stay on task and get things done. Then, a project phase would end, or a series of exams, papers, and other commitments would come to pass. Ahead of those end-dates, I would look forward to being done. “After I get through this, I’ll play guitar and work out and read in the sun.” But then the day would come and I would find myself stretched across my bed staring up at the ceiling and waiting for sleep to find me.
Doing things in general becomes difficult, both the things I want to do and the things that I need to do. Parkinson’s Law kicks in, and I never really find the free time to do the things I was looking forward to, in part because I didn’t make the time when I could have, and then because I don’t want to do them the time comes. The list of things that I want to do is always the same, some activity that I genuinely like to do but it still dependent enough on extrinsic motivation that I’m never intrinsically motivated enough to do it in this state. Getting better at jazz guitar, getting through the pile of books on the shelf, learning Chinese, etc.
The things I want to do become hard to want to do, but the few small things that I need to do feel impossible. For example, I like to make iced lattes using the espresso machine in our apartment, which is a nice short ritual, but I’ve known for the last several weekends that I need to replace the filters and run the descaling cycle, so the calm morning ritual is shrouded by guilt, the fact that this is not the time when I’m going to take the 15 minutes to complete that need. Or another example is a baby book where Elizabeth and I have been recording updates based on certain dates or milestones in Remy’s life. I have a few pages that I need to fill out, and it stresses me out. I like writing, and I love my daughter, but for reason the act of filling out a page is something I need to mentally psyche myself up for.2
I recognize that this is just part procrastination and part depression. In the past, I would have started the Wellbutrin prescription that I’ve cycled on and off a few times. But, this time I don’t want to do that mostly because I feel guilty. Why would I need anti-depressants when I have a daughter that brings me so much joy? (and a lovely wife, too!) The fact that I don’t really feel this way so intensely until after Remy goes to sleep makes me feel a little less guilty, but not enough for me to really consider drugs. And even with the baby-book-stress, I don’t think I have anxiety and have no “issues” to work through. I just need energy and renewed interest.
Elizabeth wants me to do something about it, but I think I can ride out the next week before I get busy again and then see where I shake out come August. In the meantime, I’m curious if this is all caused by gut bacteria. Maybe I’ll increase the kombucha budget and be miraculously healed.
Remy is also moving into a crib next week, which is a scary representation of time on it’s own. Also, because of the way our apartment is arranged, I had to remove two wall-mounted guitars from our bedroom because I don’t want them suspended over Remy’s crib for safety reasons. My instrument-to-case ratio has forced me to leave only my 4-string jazz bass out for quick access and that has me thinking about if I should downsize the instrument collection down to a singular guitar and bass. When I’m busy, I have GAS (gear addiction syndrome), but when I’m less busy like this, I want to thin the herd.
This is also my issue with text messages. I like the people that I text, but I’m bad at it. I frequently go several weeks without sending off something, because I’m stuck between finding it hard to have conversations over text message because thinking of non-logistics questions can be hard, and being afraid that every text I send just prompts a response and that I’ll end up going postal over the inbound messages. It’s a first world problem, but it is also somethings that our brains (or at least mine) might not be ready for, like our relationship with photography, which might be the topic of another post.