#TransparentTuesday: Airplane Mode

Hello and welcome to another edition of #TransparentTuesday! During #TransparentTuesday, we remove the rosy filters of social media and share real life. 

It's been a while since I've written a #TransparentTuesday post. Not because I didn't have anything to say, but because I've been operating on what I can only really compare to as airplane mode on your phone. I've focused on the tasks that I HAD to get done as a function of life and anything extra fell to the wayside.

I've been traveling a bit and have more travel coming up in the next 2 months, so I'm going to use another airplane analogy. “If there is a lack of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will fall from the panels above your seat. Place it over your nose and mouth and breathe normally. Please secure your own mask before assisting others.”

When life got thrown in a tailspin several months ago (nearly 9 months ago – it all happened before I wrote about it), the plates that were spinning in perfect unison crashed to the ground. The plates of work, family, friends, home, love – you lose 1 and they all start to get wobbly. You lose multiple and you end up having to pick the pieces – and yourself- off the floor. Life hits you over the head with the oxygen mask and it takes all the energy you have to put it on and then you feel selfish for helping yourself before others. (I know this isn't true, it just felt like it at the time.)

I have these weekly accountability calls with friends who work in a similar space as me. We talk about ideas and projects we want to pursue. I can't even count the number of times I've reported the past several months, “I'm so tired guys, I haven't made progress on my list this week. I have nothing to report. Maybe I'll have something next week.” I was operating under this fog of processing so many changes that powering down certain things was the only way to survive. The airplane mode: it's functional in the ways it needs to be and conserves energy, but it's not full-featured.

You do the work to pay the bills. You try to take care of the basic life functions: eat, sleep, exercise, shower, repeat. Some days you forget to do some of those things. Other days you feel like a champ because you simply made it through. You operate in a space that doesn't feel like yours, but has just enough of a hint of familiarity that it's maddening.

As time goes on, the fog starts to clear. You have good days and bad days. Then you have multiple good days in a row and you realize you might have a little more energy to start dreaming again. You are tested and make it through and realize you've survived in this new life you're building. And things start to feel good again. Oxygen is reaching the brain. Life's not ever going to be the same, but you have enough clarity to see beauty in the possibilities. You recognize the possibility of a life that can be even better than it was. You start to dream again.

This all might sound a little new-agey, or not make much sense. To be honest, it's late at night but I wanted to get SOMETHING from my head to this space. I was excited today because while I'm tired, it's because it's actually late – not because I didn't have the energy to try.

I've been operating in this space of clarity for several weeks now, minus being sick and the whole ER visit. But being on the other side of that even feels like a victory. Full power mode is activated.

Thanks for hanging in there with me!