Tag Archives: mental health

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Writing

Monday Musings: A Walk in the Rain, and a Quest for Solace

This is one of those weeks when I really have no idea what to write. The idea of the Monday Musings posts is that I compose something based on what I’m thinking about. But this week . . . well, let’s just say I’m not prepared to do that.

Sometimes our thoughts are not meant to be shared. Or they’re not ready for public viewing. Sometimes they are too private, too hard, too raw.

Those of us who depend on social media for professional purposes are, of course, all too aware of the many, many problems inherent in the medium itself. We struggle to find ways to reduce our lives and careers to digestible units. We strive to come across as upbeat, to announce our successes with the proper blend of pride and humility, to paper over our disappointments, to reveal enough of our private selves to appear accessible but not so much that our posts come across as creepy or maudlin or inappropriate.

I have actually shared a lot over the years, perhaps more than I should. I have written of professional letdowns, personal loss, mental health issues. At times, I’ve wondered if I’ve crossed some line by being too honest, too open. More often than not, I am come down on the side of candor, believing that perhaps my own struggles, whether private or professional, might be illustrative for others. I’ve thought that by revealing a bit more of myself, I might help someone else.

Earlier this week, I took my usual morning walk along the rails-to-trails path near our home. It was raining. Not a soft drizzle, but a substantial rain. I put on rain gear and I walked anyway. I had the path entirely to myself. I did my usual walk — three and a half miles; nearly an hour — and I didn’t see another soul, which is pretty unusual for this route.

The night before, we’d had a frenzied series of storms, one after another bringing pelting rain, angry winds, and a near continuous dialogue of lightning flashes and grumbling thunder. But by morning, the worst of the storms had passed.

As I walked, rain tapped on the forest canopy, on the brush around me, on the woodland floor. And also on me, on my raincoat. The rhythm was the same, but the tone was different, as if I were a tympani tuned to a different pitch. Most of the birds I usually encounter on my walk were hunkered down and silent, though a male cardinal flew across the path, chipping ecstatically. I have no idea what had him so excited. Streams, newly replenished, chortled among the trees, happy to be running once more.

And through it all, I walked and thought and tried to find peace, solace, strength, inspiration — anything really. I suppose mostly I wanted a path out of the musings that had gripped me for days. The musings I was, and still am, in no state to share. Nothing came.

No, that’s not true. I did feel at peace while I was walking. I did find inspiration for this post in the sounds and sights of the rain. And maybe to ask for more is to ask for too much. There may be magic to be found in a summer morning walk through a warm rain, but I don’t know if there are miracles.

This is another strange post, I know. I have written several in recent weeks and months. Times are hard. Some weeks I can find something to write about, a thought thread that distracts and even entertains me. Other weeks, I can’t be diverted. Life holds sway and I can’t pretend to care about other stuff.

Next week, perhaps, I will write something less strange, less cryptic. The women’s World Cup is winding down, and I have wanted to write about that. Maybe I will. Next week. In the meantime, you have my apologies for the vagueness, the navel-gazing. As I say, life is hard right now. And my walks in the rain can only last so long.

Have a great week.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, editing, Writing

Monday Musings: A Strange Post In Times Of Personal Struggle

This has not been the best week for my family and me. It was, actually, the sort of week that not so long ago would have convinced me to take a break from blogging at all, to say “I need some down time” and withdraw from the social media world.

I’m not going to do that. After the last time, I pledged to all of you — and to myself — that I wouldn’t do it again, and I intend to live by that pledge. The fact is, as a self-employed writer, I have the luxury of being able to slip away when I want to, to take as many mental health days or personal days or vacation days as I please. Put another way, I am spoiled rotten.

I look at Nancy, who is dealing with the same things I am, and who goes to work every day to complete projects and interact with people, and I marvel at her strength. I look at my younger daughter, who also faces the fear and grief as well as issues of her own, and who also goes to work each day, in the health care industry no less, being reminded constantly of our own family struggles, and I am amazed by her resilience and self-composure. I look at my older daughter, who lives in the center of the storm, coping with this cruel, relentless illness, and who still manages to live her best life, and I am humbled by her courage, her resolve, her spirit.

And I think of the rest of you, who face challenges of your own — emotional, physical, familial, socio-economic, cultural, and more. Obstacles are thrown in our paths every day. All of us face them. Few are as privileged as I am in terms of the freedom I have to grapple with them on my own terms. The fortitude I see around me on a daily basis blows my mind and inspires me to do better.

Yes, my family and I are working through a lot right now, and it’s not going the way we would like. But we have the resources we need to face our problems, and too many others in this country, in this world, don’t. We have friendships old and new that sustain us when things get rough, and too many others have to meet their challenges alone. We have one another to offer love and support, to share laughter and tears, and we are so fortunate in this respect, as well.

This is an odd post, I know. My apologies for that. In the past, this would have been a post in which I tried to explain, in vague terms, why I was stepping back from my blog and my various accounts. And since I DON’T intend to step back this time, I thought maybe it would make sense to explain how I came to that choice. And the short answer is, it’s because of the amazing people around me — family, friends, colleagues, fans, acquaintances. You all have given me a standard of strength and bravery to which to aspire.

So, I will continue to write and edit. I will continue to blog and comment. I will go about my regular routine as best I can given the circumstances. I am getting help. I am taking care of myself. I am taking steps to maintain and improve my emotional health. I am enjoying time with my newly-liberated-from-an-overwhelming-administrative-position spouse. I am chatting regularly with my beloved daughters. I am reaching out to friends and extended family. And we have some fun stuff planned for later in the summer, which will help in all sorts of ways.

If you are struggling right now, facing obstacles of your own that seem insurmountable, I wish you peace and strength, comfort and compassion. Life throws all manner of stuff our way and none of us is immune to its vagaries and difficulties. One of the hardest things for me is something I listed in the preceding paragraph — reaching out to people, to my support network. None of us likes to be that person, the one who always seems to call with terrible problems. And so we pull back, waiting until we feel better, believing on some level that we ought to be able to get through this stuff on our own. Asking for help takes courage, and too often I shy from it.

But the thing is, speaking now as a friend, a brother, a father, spouse, I NEVER mind when the people I love seek my help. I am always eager to lend love and support. And I know the people I rely on feel exactly the same way. In the end, I think it’s about pride, which is silly. I know this, and still I struggle. I’ll work on that, too.

Anyway, thanks for reading this. As I say, a strange post, but one I felt I needed to write.

Wishing you a wonderful week.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Writing

Monday Musings: A Letter To My Younger Self

Dear Younger Me,

Yes, that’s really our hairline now. Calm down. It’s not— Would you please calm down? Thank you. What did you expect? Seriously. Dad was bald. Bill and Jim had lost their hair by the time they were thirty. You thought we’d make it through middle age with hair like George Clooney’s? We didn’t make it through middle age with ANYTHING like George Clooney’s. On the bright side, our beard finally filled in, so there’s that . . . .

But this isn’t about how we look, thank goodness. This is a letter to you, my younger self, about other things I wish I had known when I was your age (whatever age that might be exactly). So read on, Younger Me, and if you happen to run across a time machine at some point, remember this stuff, okay?

Let’s start with this, because really nothing is more important: You know how you feel most of the time that you’ll always be alone, that you’ll never meet the right person? Well, I can assure you, you won’t be and you will. She is brilliant, caring, funny. She shares many of your interests and, more important, she shares your values. She is strong and insightful, charming and generous. And . . . What’s that? Yes, she actually loves you. I know: I couldn’t believe it either.

What?

[Sigh]

Yes, Younger Me, she’s also hot.

And together, we have two brilliant, strong, funny, beautiful daughters. You will be blown away.

More good news — and we can discuss this more on Wednesday: You will have that writing career you’ve been dreaming of since you were six. There will be a few detours along the way, some bumps and bruises. It won’t be exactly the career we imagined; it might not reach the heights to which we’ve aspired. But it’s our career. We made it, we sustained it (with the support and encouragement and love of the aforementioned life partner and children), we earned it. We should be proud of it.

Don’t know if you can do much about his one, but I should mention it — if, around 1993 or so you have a chance to get the rookie card of a Yankee prospect named Derek Jeter, go ahead and pick one up. Or ten. Or fifty. Slide it (them) into a nice plastic sleeve for protection and put it (them) away. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did.

You know those episodes we go through, and have since we were little — nausea, shaking hands, extreme ill-defined terror? Those aren’t normal. I know Dad used to tell us he experienced them, too, and he might well have been telling the truth. But that doesn’t mean they were routine or natural. He meant to reassure. He loved us and wanted to help. But by normalizing them, he kept us from doing something about them at a younger age. Along the same lines, you know how for so very long we brushed off our tendency toward unexplained worry and stress, saying that we were “high strung,” or some such? Turns out, that’s not high strung.

We have Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and we have Panic Disorder. And we didn’t need to suffer with either for nearly so long. Do something about them. Soon. Please. For our well being. Friends have encouraged us to try therapy. I finally did when we were 58. I wish we’d done it forty years sooner.

For your sake and mine, please work harder at the guitar. Yes, we still play. Yes, I’m better than you are, which is as it should be. But with work and practice, with less laziness and self-satisfaction, we could have been so good. I can’t have expected us to work at guitar the way we did at writing — one was a hobby, the other a profession — but a bit more work would have brought us such joy.

Never ever ever take your car to Toyota of Palo Alto. Just don’t.

Look at your book shelf, the one with all the fantasy novels on it. You’re going to wind up meeting nearly every author represented there. Many of them will become good friends. Yes, including Guy Gavriel Kay. Pretty cool, right?

Spend as much time as you can with Mom and Dad. Be as tolerant as you can be of Bill’s flaws and idiosyncrasies. Love them. Cherish them. We won’t have nearly as much time with them as we deserve, and we will miss them every day for the rest of our lives. I know, Mom and Dad can be annoying now and then, and occasionally Bill infuriates us. They’re family, and sometimes family is like that. But the hole their absence leaves in our life dwarfs these temporary frustrations. Extend to them the grace and forgiveness you would want from all those we love.

Those amazing friends we made at Brown, the ones who enriched our life there and made it the most memorable time of our early life? Yeah, they’re still our dear friends, still enriching our life. Treasure them.

The rest is pretty much common sense. Dial back the weed — we will later anyway; might as well preserve a memory or two. Don’t drink too much — you don’t hold your booze as well as you think you do. Exercise. Eat right. Take care of yourself. Life is precious, and we don’t want to miss a thing. Read more. Yes, we read a good deal. Read more. Trust me. No one ever looked back from the vantage point of their dotage and thought, “I wish I’d put all those books aside and watched more TV.” Be good to the people we love. Slow down and savor all those things we enjoy doing. Let go of grudges and jealousy and regrets. They do us no good.

Oh, and along the lines of that Derek Jeter thing — those people at Apple who early on made all those weird-looking, quirky computers? Turns out they were on to something. If you get a chance, buy a few shares . . . .

Best wishes,

Older David

 

Bell Bridge Books, Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, The Chalice War

Monday Musings: Mental Health and My Complacency — A #HoldOnToTheLight Post

#HoldOnToTheLightI should have enjoyed last week. We had the release of The Chalice War: Stone, the first book in my new Celtic-themed urban fantasy. Lots of spring migrants (talking ’bout birds here) moved through our area of the Cumberland Plateau, so I had plenty of good bird sightings. The weather was cool and clear (mostly), and my morning walks were crisp and golden. As I say, it had all the makings of a fine week.

Yet, it was one of the most difficult weeks of my entire life. And most of the difficulties were of my own making.

I’m not going to go into details as to what happened, or where our family conversations went. Suffice it to say, I did and said some stupid things and hurt both my daughters, two of the three people in this world (along with Nancy) about whom I care most. But the issues in question went far beyond my foolishness in the moment, to encompass deeper matters that go back several years. In a sense the immediate crisis triggered a reckoning with longer-term issues. And that was the painful part.

I have made no secret of the fact that I suffer from generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder. These conditions have plagued me for much of my life, though I have only identified them and started working to come to terms with them over the past few years. I have been in therapy, I have read about anxiety disorders, I have tried to work into my routines various coping mechanisms. In short, I have taken the process seriously, and have worked at making myself healthier.

To a point.

Life has been challenging and complicated these past couple of years. Much of the mental health work I have done has been geared toward getting myself onto solid emotional ground, enabling myself to get through the day, to be productive in my work, to be functional in social settings. And yes, these are reasonable goals. No one can fault me for wanting any of those outcomes.

The problem is, at some point in the process, I became satisfied with those goals AND those results. I made them not just my immediate aims, but my ultimate ones. And as I found that solid footing, those productive days, the ability to navigate social settings, I settled in to a more comfortable approach to my therapy. I allowed my goals to shift to maintenance of the improvements I had managed to make in my life. I lost sight of the more distant — and more difficult — aims of my mental health regimen.

And so this week, as the crisis with my daughters deepened, I found myself confronted by a reality I had ignored and forgotten in recent months.

Namely this: As with the mental health issues of so many, mine are not just about me. They are about the people in my life, the people who have to coexist with me, who deal with my anxiety and its manifestations on a daily basis. I am not the easiest person to be around under the very best of circumstances, but when my GAD kicks in, or when I hover at the edge of a panic attack, my anxiety can be disruptive for everyone around me. Since I tend to be especially prone to my anxiety problems when I travel, or at times when we are interacting with a lot of people, like at holidays, my kids often have a front row seat to my worst moments.

It became clear to me this past week that I had grown complacent with my therapy and the rest of the mental health work I do. I might have been maintaining an easy middle ground that allowed me to function in most says, but that same middle ground had not yet addressed the deeper problems that have impacted the lives of my spouse and my children. I needed to be reminded of this, and for that I feel badly. I should have known better.

But the important thing is I’ve learned the lesson and taken it to heart. I have already been in touch with my therapist and have arranged to resume more frequent sessions. I intend to work on some potentially curative protocols that will be more demanding, more tiring, but which could make big differences in my daily life and in these crucial relationships. And I am considering other possible remedies as well.

More to the point, I have vowed to my family — and I now vow to you as well — that I will do whatever is necessary to improve my mental health, to make myself an easier person to be around, and to be a better father and husband and friend.

Because here is the fundamental point. It wasn’t merely complacency that held me back. It was fear as well. Fear of the hard work, fear of the difficult revelations that may lurk ahead of me, fear of the emotions I know I will have to wade through to reach the other side. And because of the fear I was not only short-changing my loved ones, I was short-changing myself. I was doing less than I could for me, and so was settling for less emotional health than I deserve.

No more.

I offer this glimpse into my private health in the hope that perhaps others in similar situations and predicaments might find my experience illustrative. If that’s you, I hope this has helped.

Have a great week.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Writing

Monday Musings: About That Birthday I Was Dreading . . . .

“You want to complain about a birthday?” Life said. “I’ll give you a birthday to complain about.”

Last week, as usual, I wrote two posts. On Monday, I ruminated about my approaching birthday, making it clear that I was feeling a bit down about growing older and was having trouble putting myself in the birthday spirit. And then, in my Professional Wednesday post, I began a new series of posts — “What Holds Me Back” — about the things that sometimes limit my productivity. And I began the series with an entry about coping with life issues in general.

As it happens, I managed to write both posts ahead of time. I had them ready to go before the weekend was over. And boy did those posts come back to bite me in the ass.

In the Wednesday post, I wrote this about life, or rather Life, which I anthropomorphized to make a point:

“Life is a fickle bastard, with a cruel streak a mile wide, a perverse — at times evil — sense of humor, and a preternatural knack for intruding at the absolute worst moment. But Life can also be charming, deeply attractive, kind, generous, and downright fun . . . . Life is as changeable as March weather, as unpredictable as the best storyline, and as relentless as time itself. Life happens constantly; Life will not sit quietly in a corner reading a book and respecting our need for calm just because we have a looming deadline or a new idea we are eager to explore. Life lives to mess with us.”

Given how well I seem to understand Life’s perverse nature, you’d think I would have known what would happen if I complained about an upcoming birthday.

My birthday was yesterday. I have spent the last week sick with Covid. Nancy and I made plans to travel for the weekend, to get down to St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge to do some hiking and birdwatching and photography. We had to cancel the trip. She made me a cake last weekend, while I was writing the aforementioned posts. We wound up freezing it, because with Covid stealing my sense of smell, I couldn’t taste it at all.

“You want to complain about a birthday?” Life said. “I’ll give you a birthday to complain about.”

Jokes and sarcasm aside, I have to say, “Message received.”

Birthdays, someone once said, are the price we pay for growing older. We love them as kids, of course. We want nothing more than to add to the running total, to get Older, because with Older comes perks, not to mention presents. The presents get better with age. The perks too, for a while, and then less so. But my dad always used to say about getting older, “it’s better than the alternative.”

I won’t spend a lot of time on the “yes, life is hard, but I have so much to be thankful for” thing. I touched on this last week and it remains true. My life IS hard these days. I know precious few people who have it easy. And I am deeply grateful for the life I have, private and professional. But reading back through last Monday’s post, I realize I wasn’t complaining so much as struggling to accept what I couldn’t and wouldn’t want to prevent. I was down, and I wrote about it.

And again, Life was, like, “You’re think you’re down now? Hold my beer.”

So, here I am, on the day after my birthday, at the end of a truly crappy week of fever and coughing and isolation and in-home masking and tasteless, aroma-less food . . . and I feel much better about turning a year older than I would have imagined possible when writing last week’s post. Like some Jimmy-Stewart-from-It’s-A-Wonderful-Life wannabe, I have seen that things could be substantially worse than they are, that being a youthful (not to mention immature) 60 is really not half bad. It’s not that I was imagining myself as a Covid patient forever, but rather that I was made hyper-aware of all the things I value in my routine, all the things I love to do — things that were denied me by the fever and taste-loss and social distancing. My morning workout, my walks, my regular work schedule, relaxed time with Nancy, get-togethers with friends, bird walks and photo walks and signing along with my guitar (my voice is still recovering), good wine and good whisky and all the wonderful foods Nancy and I make and eat.

The everyday, the humdrum, the same old same old — it turns out, I love that shit. My routine is pretty darn good, and the little things I enjoy each day — my morning smoothie and afternoon iced coffee, our household guac recipe — mean more to me than I realized, at least until I couldn’t taste them anymore. Life’s challenges remain, and, yeah, I’m sixty fucking years old. But I’m good, thanks. And when I’m not, I know that the people I love have my back. There are far, far worse things.

Wishing you all a wonderful week.

Bell Bridge Books, Belle Books, Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Invasives, Writing

Professional Wednesday: What Holds Me Back, part I — Life Issues

As we turn the calendar to March, I thought I would turn to a new series of posts in my Professional Wednesday feature. This month, as I struggle with a bit of work-related inertia, I have decided some might find it helpful to read about “What Holds Me Back.” Because let’s be honest — those of us who seek to make a living as professional creators face no shortage of obstacles to productivity. We have to be self-motivated, we have to be disciplined, we have to be imaginative and prolific on demand. None of this is easy and at times it seems hobgoblins lurk in every corner, threatening to undermine even the most sincere determination to get stuff done.

What — or who — are my hobgoblins? How do they disrupt my work patterns, and what do I do to keep them at bay? These are the questions I hope to address in the next several Wednesday posts.

This week, I address perhaps the most obvious and formidable hobgoblin of them all: Life.

Life is a fickle bastard, with a cruel streak a mile wide, a perverse — at times evil — sense of humor, and a preternatural knack for intruding at the absolute worst moment. But Life can also be charming, deeply attractive, kind, generous, and downright fun. This is part of what makes Life such a difficult opponent in the battle over productivity. Life is as changeable as March weather, as unpredictable as the best storyline, and as relentless as time itself. Life happens constantly; Life will not sit quietly in a corner reading a book and respecting our need for calm just because we have a looming deadline or a new idea we are eager to explore. Life lives to mess with us.

All strange metaphors aside, in my experience, relating to my own work output and also my interactions with other professionals, general life disruptions are responsible for the vast majority of missed deadlines and punted obligations. Sometimes it’s the (relatively) small stuff — a kid with a bad cold or stomach bug, a blown car engine or flat tire, a flooded basement or loss of power. Sometimes it’s more serious than that — an ailing elderly parent, a dire illness in the family, a failing marriage, the death of a friend or relative. I’ve faced my share of such things — not all, but enough; every one of us has.

And in the short term, there is nothing we can do about them. Life imposes its own exigencies. When our kid is sick or our parents are fading or a relative or friend is in need, we have no choice but to prioritize the people we love and the obligations we’ve taken on as parents and partners, offspring and siblings and friends. No one with a thread of compassion or decency should punish or blame us for this. Those who would, do so at their own risk, because eventually they, too, will be on the receiving end of Life’s caprice.

The problem comes later, after the crisis has passed, but while the aftermath lingers. Nearly two years ago, when our daughter received her cancer diagnosis, I withdrew from . . . well, pretty much everything. I told my agent and editor that I wouldn’t be able to make a deadline that was still a couple of months away. I stopped seeing friends. I hunkered down with my fear and my grief and my anger, and I essentially surrendered to this terrible thing Life had done to my family and me. I was sure I couldn’t work through it, and so I didn’t even think it worthwhile to make the attempt.

Nancy responded differently, not because she is better or stronger than I am (although she might well be both . . .) but because she deals with emotional strain differently. She is great at compartmentalizing, which is good, because at the time she had a high-stress, high-profile job. In the time since, she has advanced to a position that is even more high-stress and high-profile. Her ability to compartmentalize has served her well.

I don’t have that ability. I can’t compartmentalize. But, I realized, I had a different ability I could harness. I had learned years ago — when we lost my parents, and later when we lost my eldest brother — to channel my grief and pain into my art. And it didn’t take me long after hearing the news of our daughter’s illness to understand that was precisely what I needed to do. Within a week of calling my agent and editor to tell them I was pulling back, I sent them new messages. I am working through this. I will make my deadline.

INVASIVES, by David B. Coe (Jacket art courtesy of Belle Books)And I did. The book was Invasives, by the way. It contains the best character work I’ve ever done, and that is no coincidence.

I suffer from anxiety and panic disorder. I sometimes walk the edge of depression. I know as well as anyone that coping with life is hard, and that glib, easy-fix solutions to the shit life throws at us are worse than useless. Such facile responses can actually hurt, because they suggest to those of us who struggle that the problem isn’t the circumstance but rather our inability to deal with it.

But I know as well, from my own experience, that we don’t have to be whole to create. Life elicits emotion and those emotions can overwhelm and paralyze. The thing is, though, we’re creators, and emotion is our bread and butter. Yes, at times the emotions we feel in life’s rawest moments are like a downed electrical wire. We touch them at our own risk. As I found a couple of years ago, however, we can be resilient in the face of the worst circumstances. Long before I was ready to interact with other people, I was ready, even eager, to take hold of that live wire and use it for something constructive and healing.

Life can disrupt our art. We all know this. But we are alchemists at heart. We can turn grief and hurt and fear and anger into golden moments on the page (or the canvas or the guitar or the stage — whatever). And, for me at least, that is how I keep life from holding me back.

Keep writing.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe

Monday Musings: Facing Down a Big Birthday

I am staring down the barrel of a big birthday. This time next week, I’ll have passed a dubious milestone, and the fact is, right now I’m struggling a bit with the whole getting older thing.

Yes, I know the clichés. Even on my birthday, I only get a day older. Age is a state of mind. Growing older beats the alternative.

None of them is helping right now.

I remember feeling similarly ten years ago, as I neared my last milestone birthday. I was (and am again) acutely aware of being far closer to my dotage than to my youth. Since that last big birthday, I’ve lost a brother, watched as my older daughter battles serious illness, lost my mother-in-law and a brother-in-law, and more friends than I care to count. Life has been challenging, and at the same time wondrous and fun and rewarding, making it feel all the more precious.

Sometimes I write posts with a lesson in mind, or as a way of dispensing what little wisdom I might have. Other times, I write searching for answers. This post doesn’t fit neatly into either of those patterns. I have no wisdom today. I don’t know what lesson I might offer to myself, much less to someone else. And, frankly, I am not seeking advice from others. As I say, I know the platitudes. I am deeply grateful for all I have and all I have accomplished. And I am certain the answer for what ails me right now lies entirely within.

I think in part I am eager — impatient, even — to get on with the next phase of my life. Nancy and I have raised our children, we have enjoyed our careers, we have worked hard to set ourselves up financially for what we call “retirement,” although I don’t think it will really be a retirement in any traditional sense. I don’t intend to stop working, and while Nancy is ready for whatever might be next, she is also open to any and all possibilities in that respect. All I know is that I am looking forward to changing the pace of the life we share so that we can enjoy each other and the things we love doing together.

And so in a way, my resistance to this birthday is rooted in that impatience, but also in the understanding that the work we did to get to this point in our shared life took thirty-plus years and swooped by in a flash of laughter and love, struggle and grief. The time we have left to enjoy the fruits of that work feels potentially too brief by comparison.

When Nancy and I started dating (in our mid-late twenties), we told each other we would give the relationship eighty years, and if at the end of those eighty years together we felt the relationship wasn’t working anymore, we’d go our separate ways. Obviously, we said this with tongues firmly in cheek. But in all honestly, I want my eighty years. Every one of them. Right now, that romantic fantasy is bumping up against the reality of my 60th birthday.

I have written before of my emotional health issues. I have been candid about my struggles and also about the comfort and growth I have found in therapy. I have learned that whatever I am working on at a particular moment rarely impacts my mood and health in a vacuum. It’s all connected, even if I don’t always see the connections right away. I am certain my current hyper-awareness of my own mortality is tied to my brother Bill’s death five years ago, and also to my ongoing worries about my daughter’s health. I know it is connected as well to lingering professional ambitions and dissatisfaction with elements of my career path.

This is what I meant when I said the answers lie within. I know that next week I will only be seven days older than I am now, not a year. I know as well that the coming decade will be filled with . . . well, with life — with pleasure and pain, joy and sadness, good days and bad. Many have told me that they have LOVED life in their sixties. I intend to as well.

But to draw inspiration from the incomparable Ned Ryerson, I also know that first step is going to be a doozy . . . .

Have a great week.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Writing

Monday Musings: What Matters? Part II — Time

Last week, I began a series of posts addressing the question “What matters?” My point in doing so was to focus on the simple fact that we have finite amounts of time, of energy (physical and emotional), and of the other personal resources we allocate to various parts of our lives on a daily basis. To be honest, I don’t know exactly where this conversation is going. I only know that it interested me when I started thinking about it, and I figured it might take the blog in an interesting direction.

I don’t expect to come up with a lot of answers in these posts. In a way, the questions are the more important element of the conversation. Ultimately whatever answers I might find, whatever choices I might make, will be idiosyncratic, tailored entirely to my life, my priorities, my needs and wants and obligations. Again, the questions and thought process are likely to be far more informative.

Today, I want to talk about time. I mentioned in a couple of paragraphs last Monday that for much of 2022 I had failed to make time for two pursuits that I care about a great deal. And I glibly stated that I wanted to make more of an effort to play music and take photos in this new year. Of course, it’s not that easy. Not by a long shot. I want to make clear up front that I am not complaining about any of what I’m about to discuss. I love my life. I know how fortunate I am. But time issues are not easy.

To state the obvious, time is finite. Time is immutable. Some of us may have more money than others. Some of us may have more energy than others. But we all are allotted the same amount of time each day, week, month, year. We can’t buy more. We can’t hoard it for a “rainy day.”

I write about time management a fair amount in my Professional Wednesday posts. But work time is only one variable in the equation, and, I would argue, far from the most important. I can pledge to myself that I will find more time for the things I enjoy doing, but where is that time going to come from? It’s all about choices, about deciding “what matters.”

Look at most people’s daily habits and it becomes clear that we spend the vast majority of our time doing two things: sleeping and working. Nancy and I tend to be early-to-bed, early-to-rise people; neither of us does well on too little sleep. We’re generally in bed by 10:30 or so each night, and we’re both up by 6:00 or 6:15 each morning. I devote the first two hours of my day to exercise — a workout and then a lengthy walk. I work for much of the day, only winding down when Nancy gets home from her job in the early evening. She generally has a bit more work to do after she gets home, and I take that time to tie up my loose ends from my work day. We have dinner, clean up, and then will generally watch an episode or two of something on TV before retiring. Rinse and repeat . . . .

The point I’m trying to make is this: There isn’t a whole lot of room in there for squeezing in the things I want to add to my day. I do take small breaks from my writing periodically. I could — and should — use those breaks to play a song or two on my guitar. Slotting in my music that way would likely get me to play a lot more over the course of a year. And I can (and sometimes do) take my camera with me on my morning walks. The places where I walk are quite beautiful. I could easily take photos then. These are not perfect solutions, but they help.

What about that TV time at the end of the day? Couldn’t I play music then?

Yes, I suppose watching television may not be the best use of my limited time. Except the hour or two we spend on the couch isn’t necessarily about the shows themselves. It’s about sitting with Nancy, unwinding together, sharing the experience, talking about the shows, the characters, the plot twists. We don’t get a lot of time together, and time with my sweetie matters to me. So watching TV together is a choice.

Weekends offer time for doing stuff as well. We always have errands on Saturdays and Sundays. We do our laundry. Nancy gardens. I write blog posts like this one. But yes, I can play music and maybe take photos on the weekends.

But I’ve yet to address the unexpected, or the things that we don’t schedule but have to do or want to do. Seeing friends, talking to our kids, visiting with our kids, going to doctor appointments, dealing with house issues, paying bills, shopping for groceries, going to a concert or play or movie, attending university functions, which has become a HUGE part of our lives since Nancy became acting president of the school. And I haven’t even mentioned travel — for work, which both of us have to do from time to time, and for pleasure, which we LOVE to do, but which can be quite disruptive to our routines.

What matters? What can we give up or shorten or stretch? I blithely give advice to new writers about finding time for writing in their lives. “Just an hour a day, enough to write five hundred or a thousand words, can put you on the path to writing professionally.” It’s true. But where the hell would I find a spare hour? I have no idea. And I don’t have small kids in the house. I don’t have pets. I don’t have a job other than writing and editing.

These choices are hard. They demand sacrifice. All of us are spread thin. None of us has tons of free time. I don’t want to sleep less, or exercise less. I don’t want to give up time with my spouse. I want more time with my daughters, not less. I don’t want to cut back on work. I enjoy my job and — oh, by the way — I enjoy getting paid. I want to travel and see friends and family; I don’t want to be a hermit or a shut-in. But I also want to play music, take pictures, birdwatch (I always take my binoculars on my morning walks, so I do birdwatch each day). These things are good for my mental and physical health as well.

What matters? The hard truth is that all of it does. And I have no doubt that when you look at your life, and try to figure out how you might fit in something new, be it writing or exercise or time for a new friend or romantic partner, you encounter the same problem. Each choice involves some sort of sacrifice.

I don’t know if this post has been helpful or interesting for any of you, but I find these issues fascinating. In any case, thanks for reading along. More to come in the weeks ahead

For now, have a great week.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Writing

Monday Musings: What Matters? Part I

When I was a kid, I always had an Etch A Sketch. Honestly, I’m not sure why. I sucked at it. I didn’t have the patience or the dexterity to create anything of quality on that silver-gray screen. I tried often enough, but I couldn’t manage to draw much more than squiggles and odd shapes. Still, what I always loved about Etch A Sketch was the ease of starting over. Lift the screen, give it a hearty shake, and the slate was blank again, ready for my next attempt.

As it happens, that is also what I love about New Year’s. I have always seen the turn of the calendar as an opportunity to give my routine, my goals, my emotional approach to life a hearty shake, and build them again from scratch. Yes, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but it does capture the spirit of how I approach the holiday. Last year’s achievements and disappointments are done — I don’t want them to be either a source of discouragement or cause for complacency. I start each year with a blank screen. That’s the goal at least.

In the past, I made resolutions, an exercise I eventually decided was rather useless. Better, I decided, to set out goals and aspirations, to keep practices and habits that were working for me, and at least attempt to jettison those that weren’t. This may sound like semantics — what’s the difference between “resolutions” on the one hand and “goals and aspirations” on the other? To me, I guess, it’s the difference between attempting to draw something on paper with pen and ink, and making the attempt on an ever-erasable plastic screen.

With all this in mind, I begin today a series of posts that will span the next few weeks. The general idea of the posts is to answer a question that is deceptive in its simplicity: What matters to me?

Over the course of a year, or ten, or fifty, we pick up . . . stuff. I’m not speaking just of physical things — indeed, that sort of stuff is really the least of it. I’m referring to tasks; habits; pastimes and hobbies; ambitions and fears; passions, loves, and things we find repellent; professional goals and responsibilities; personal relationships; chores and obligations; etc. In short, anything and everything that consumes our time, feeds or saps our energy and our emotional strength, informs our decision-making at home or at work or in between. Everything.

As I say, this is going to take a few weeks to get through. But I think the exercise will be worthwhile for me and, I hope, informative and perhaps even inspiring for you.

Today, I begin with a big picture approach — the 10,000 foot view, as it were. And I do so by focusing on two examples of stuff.

As I take stock of 2022 and look forward to 2023, I see things in my life that I have neglected and others that I have focused on with too much intensity. I am a musician and a photographer. I take much joy in playing my guitars and taking my camera out into the field to capture images. That is, I usually do. As I reflect on the past year, which has been an emotionally challenging one, I find that I have neglected these hobbies. Too often over the past twelve months, I have gone days at a time without playing any music at all. I have gone weeks at a time without taking photos. And this is about more than leaving expensive equipment to gather dust. These pursuits feed my soul, allowing me to create in ways that are entirely separate from my profession. I need to do these things. I know I do. They keep me centered, happy; they bring me peace. My emotional health depends in part on my commitment to doing these things. Just as I wouldn’t go weeks without eating fresh fruits and vegetables, I also shouldn’t ignore my creative passions.

At the same time, I have allowed anger to creep into my everyday life. I harbor resentments — some personal, some professional, some related to circumstances that I’m really not at liberty to discuss publicly. And really, the roots of my anger are beside the point. Too often, as I take my morning walks, I find myself fixating on wrongs and the righteous anger I feel in response. I imagine finding and taking the opportunity to speak my mind to those who have hurt me or those I love. (That really is as far as my imaginings go. I’m not a violent person, but I know the power of words. And I know that I’m quite capable of cutting someone to the bone with a well-turned phrase.) The point, though, is that this anger, and these imagined conversations do me no good. They keep my focus on my grudges; they allow me to wallow in my bitterness.

Music and photography have been fundamental elements of my happiness for decades. Wouldn’t I be better off if I again found time to make those activities central to my daily existence? Of course I would.

Hostility toward those who have angered me matters far less to me than love for my family and my friends. Wouldn’t I be calmer, more content, if I focused my emotional energy on the latter? Of course I would.

What matters to me? What matters to you?

These are, I believe foundational questions. The things we care about — the things we love, the things from which we draw strength and joy — these are what define who we are and how we live. At least they ought to. As I navigate the coming year, I wish to be guided by those things that bring me happiness rather than those that take me to dark places.

Deceptively simple, right? And yet, it takes work and careful thought.

More in posts to come. For now, have a great week.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Writing

Monday Musings: A Tree and a Post — It’s Not About What You Think It Is, Or Is It?

#HoldOnToTheLightThis post probably isn’t about what you think it is.

Nancy and I are nearing the end of what has been an exhausting and at times terribly difficult year. I won’t catalogue our burdens because they are, frankly, no worse than those faced by many of you. We have things in our lives that mitigate the challenges, things for which we are incredibly grateful. But we’ve had a rough year — the third in a row, actually. Again, this doesn’t set us apart from others. There may be differences in the specifics, but there are far more similarities of kind. We have all faced struggles.

That’s not really what this post is about.

After Thanksgiving, as we were mapping out a very busy December, we made a decision not to have a Christmas tree this year. Mostly, I made the decision. I am the one who goes down into the valley to buy a tree. I’m the one who sets it up, who waters it daily, who takes it down at the end of the season. And I just didn’t feel like dealing with it this year.

When I informed our daughters of this they were disappointed, to say the least. They don’t live with us anymore, but when they come home for the holidays, they like to have the house looking festive, the way it did when they were kids and Christmas was everything. I justified the decision to skip having a tree this year by assuring them this was not something permanent. We would surely have a tree again next year. But this year it felt like too much, everything was too fraught. We went back and forth, but eventually they accepted my decision, albeit reluctantly.

And then, this past week, on a rainy afternoon, I went down and bought a tree after all. Nothing had changed, of course. Nothing happened to make the past year suddenly, magically turn easy. The work of setting up and maintaining the tree remains. I changed my mind.

To be clear, this is not a post about the Christmas spirit suddenly moving me to want a tree, though in a way I suppose it did. It is not about the importance of doing something nice for my kids, although that is, of course, incredibly important, and it was gratifying to know how pleased they were by my/our change of heart.

Christmas Tree

In the end, my choice regarding the tree was about me, about what I needed, what I realized I had to do even though I didn’t really want to.

I have written a bit recently about my uncertainty regarding my next writing project. I have been unable to choose from among several possible projects, and I am starting to understand that my inability to make that choice is not about creative impulses, or marketing uncertainties, or even an inability to decide what possibility excites me the most.

I’m simply stuck. For reasons I haven’t sussed out quite yet, I can’t get myself to make that professional choice and move forward with it. And, I realized this week, the whole Christmas tree thing was sourced in a similar lack of motivation and momentum. I was stuck personally as well as professionally. Too many things going on, too much occupying my thoughts, too many emotional impulses pushing me one way and another. And my first reaction to all of this was to stop. The push-me/pull-you of life was more than I cared to address in any way, and so I simply dug in my heels. The tree, ridiculous as this now seems as I type it out, was the bridge-too-far, the thing I decided was too much.

What made me realize this I was doing this?

Honestly, I’m not sure. Maybe it was the reaction from my kids. Maybe it was the recognition that, despite knowing it meant a bit of effort and work, I actually wanted a tree, almost as much as my daughters did. I love having a tree. There’s a reason I’m the one who usually does the work required each year. I enjoy the smell, the lights, the ritual, the departure from routine, the sight of the tree with its lights on, glowing in the middle of the family room. Suddenly, denying myself that pleasure, denying Nancy and the girls that pleasure, didn’t make much sense to me.

And in the same way, I know I want to begin work on my next writing project, even though I feel stuck, even though none of the projects is really calling to me right now. I believe I need to do with my work what I did this past week with the tree. I need to get off my butt and start working on something, even if I’m not sure it’s THE project I should be writing now.

All of us find ourselves in circumstances like these now and again. Sometimes they manifest in the professional realm; sometimes they show up in our personal lives. For some of us, the inertia I’m describing works its way into everything. I have glibly written of my decision to “snap out of it” with respect to the tree. I don’t mean to make it sound easy. This week has been hard for me. I suffer from anxiety and panic disorders, and recently both have been troubling me more than usual. Breaking out of these patterns takes work. For some it takes enormous courage as well.

I see you. I understand and I sympathize. Perhaps that’s why I chose to share this story with you today. The holidays can be a struggle in all kinds of ways. These past few years have taken a toll. Maybe this post was about all of that after all.

I wish you peace and health and happiness.