I like very ordinary things: coffee, good books, house plants and old movies. I’m basically the 20-year-old version of your grandmother… if your grandmother spent an occasional Friday night at the club. In the heart of lockdown pandemic life, I invested a lot of my time into plants. I basically became a walking, talking plant encyclopedia. I was also recovering from a very low point in my mental health journey. For the first time, I really looked at my mental health as a top priority item, not just another thing on the bottom of my to-do list. I think without realizing it I attached my mental well-being to the well-being of my plants. Whenever I felt out of control or in a low point with no foreseen rope to help pull me up, I’d dive deeper into my plants. It was a feeling of control. Something I could study and find answers to; something that was within my grasp and fixable.
The only issue is now I have a hard time separating the two. When I notice one of my plants has stopped growing or is sick, whatever it may be, it tickles a point of my anxiety and makes me question how I am doing internally. During the root of the pandemic, I had nothing but time. Time to research problems, time to pick up new soil, time to experiment with lighting and time to figure it all out. The same goes for my mental health. I had time to go to therapy, really sink in with myself, fine-tune my routine to fit my overall needs and as a whole, allow myself patience.
Now that life is returning to normal, I can’t help but feel overwhelmed. I feel as though I was thrown back into a life that was put on pause. Like someone hit play on the remote and everything is the same except for the person I was before the pause button was pushed. It can feel confusing and overwhelming to try and re-find my place in a life that a different version of myself created.
The beautiful thing about working on yourself mentally is that you learn so much about yourself: limitations, boundaries and the things that make you feel good and enjoy life. Now that those things have been uncovered, it can feel hard to go back into an existence where those things were overlooked and ignored. I constantly am playing a balancing game of living life ‘normally’ again and leaving myself the room to grow and continue to expand into this new person I was letting myself become.
In all honesty, I can’t describe this time as anything more than beautifully frustrating. Waking up in a place where I once felt so lost, and now getting to have another chance to be kind and allow myself the room to breathe and feel. It can also feel hard to not fall back into the same negative mental health patterns I used to allow myself to indulge in. There’s that balancing piece. The reality is, I will never again have that space I did in the middle of the pandemic. No serious responsibilities, no commitments, no social plans and no focus on anything other than diving deeper into myself. I will never have that time to sit and journal through every emotional moment that I had. However, I don’t think sitting in lockdown for another year would have really helped me learn any more than I already have. Having to apply them into real-life feels so scary and hard sometimes, and a lot of the time I still let those bad habits win. Sometimes I go for days watching my plants wilt and turn brown knowing that the water is just three feet away and all I have to do is use it.
I ignore my plants a lot of the time when I know they need more than what I can give them. I am still able to recall that encyclopedia-like knowledge and identify what it is they really need. However, I’m not at home anymore surrounded by space to repot a plant whenever I notice it’s necessary. I don’t have the time to google and research answers to the questions I have. Sometimes watering them feels hard, because I know they need a lot more care than I’m currently able to give them. Sometimes dealing with my own problems feels hard because I know I’m lacking the attention I need to give myself mentally, even though I have all the tools in front of me to make it feel easier. Then I remember that balancing act again.
The reality is even though it’s frustrating at times, you don’t get to live in a responsibility-free bubble for eternity. Sometimes all you can do is water your plants and acknowledge that they need more, even if that ‘more’ can’t be handled immediately. The acknowledgement is still better than the willful ignorance to pretend it’s all okay when it isn’t. That’s the biggest lesson I’m currently trying to learn in this new phase of myself. Sometimes I don’t have time to sit with my emotions and work out an anxious feeling when I work or have an assignment due in an hour, and other times I need to allow myself the opportunity to be behind on a reading for a night if my body needs a break. Sometimes I need to high-five myself for taking a shower or not get mad at myself for not feeling happy on a perfectly good day.
I get told a decent amount that it’s cool that I’m able to be vulnerable about my feelings or that it’s awesome how open I am about my mental health. Truthfully, it’s not easy and feels a bit embarrassing every time I do; like I’m fake for talking about something in such a ‘strong’ manner when I feel so weak because of that same feeling majority of the time. It’s not easy and being open about it doesn’t make me any stronger, better or able to cope any easier than those that suffer in silence. I talk openly because talking about something that feels so powerful and strong in such a plain and ordinary way can take away the fear holding me to it internally, even just a little. It’s the same with the fun game of balance I often find myself in. I find that being open and honest with myself about where I’m at, even if I’m not happy with it, is so much easier than making excuses. I’m learning to become okay with needing to take a day to do nothing because I feel like my body needs it. I’m learning that internal ‘wins’ don’t have to hold any weight to anyone other than myself. I am learning that unlike with most house plants, not all problems can be identified or solved immediately after a Google search. Sometimes identifying that there is work to be done and feelings to be further uncovered is a good place to start, as long as you have intentions of coming back to it.
The funny thing about balance is it’s not always 50/50. Sometimes balance looks like spending more time resting than being on top of everything in your external life. Other times it looks like pushing yourself past your limits to make a deadline and celebrating with a good cry after you get there. I’m not a master of balance by any stretch. I still apologize for feeling my feelings and beat myself up for not being exceptional every minute of the day. However, just like those plants I am growing every day and with every response to an emotion, good or bad. I may need more soil occasionally and have nothing but water to give, but I acknowledge those needs and allow myself the room to get there.
We are in such a strange time of life right now, entering adulthood after a year-long lockdown. There is so much to discover, and I promise you that every single person around you is dealing with some sort of insecurity, struggle, or internal battle- even if it’s not being called out by name on the surface. Treat yourself and others with kindness, whatever that may look like to you. At the end of the day, life phases, people and places will come and go at an unknown timeline. The one person you can be certain will be there until the last day is yourself; don’t take investing in your own wellbeing for granted or not as a priority. Find your own understanding of balance.