Gifting myself August

Time to rest, renew and replenish

The Third Shoebox. Where The Good Stuff Lives.

Take a breath. 

August is here.

The month where there are more out of office messages than midges, where the early evening light softens all frown lines and the clock appears to tick a little slower.

We are deep into summer and while the evenings are already significantly shorter, there’s still plenty of time to relax and enjoy the balmy air and longer shadows of sunset.

Joints ache less. Sleep comes easier. Nature is more tactile (unless you’re picking blackberries in my garden and then it’s carnage).

August is that kindly relative who dotes on you, cooks your favourite food and lets you stay up as late as you wish.

If ever there was a time to give yourself a break from whatever your particular trials and tribulations are, it’s now. 

For me, August is a month that lies fallow. 

Like a field that’s been left to rest, renew and replenish, August has those same properties.

This summer, I’m yearning for a break from what has become my fractured norm. My body is crying out for respite, my brain needs to slip from fourth to park, and my spirit needs to just sit on a bench and read a good book. 

A break won’t come easy. One of the most challenging periods in my life continues to retain its vice-like grip. Things have been too difficult for too long and I need to somehow box myself out of this paper bag and let the light in. 

To do that, I have decided to gift myself the month of August.

In my search for answers, I’ve been rewinding the clock. There was an incredibly dynamic, open and softer version of me in this world for a long time. I need that old version to reappear in some form and give hope to this current gnarly, ever-frowning, muddled version.

I need to stop thinking and over-thinking.

I need a break from fretting about who I am now.

I need to remember who I was when I was at my best. 

I need to work out where I’m going.

But I can only do that if I take my foot off the accelerator. Acceleration is fine if you know the direction you’re heading and are desperate to get there. 

Right now, my foot is stuck fast to the pedal and the steering wheel has disappeared. It’s chaos.

The panic of the last 18 months has been real and when you’re living in a constant state of panic, you cannot flourish or thrive. And I’m certainly not thriving. I’m resolutely thrive-less.

Here’s the thing though. To all those people who say, ‘You’re never be as young as you are now’ as if that somehow is the key to instant happiness, I say ‘Yes, I get it, but that in itself is not enough’. 

We need to take that idea a step further.

I’m in my mid-fifties and recently, it truly dawned on me that I’m now in the primary era of my old age. 

This is the youth of my twilight years, and I need to find a way to give them meaning. 

I cannot allow me to erase myself because I know that the third act version of me can be brilliant, dynamic and warm but in a different way to the second act version. 

I just don’t know yet how to repurpose myself. It’s akin to a bag of recycling before it ends up being sent to a place where it can be magically turned into something equally wonderful.  

There’s surely a spark, an idea or a flash of inspiration just over the horizon but I’m going to miss it if I continue to live in this exhausting, flip-flopping state of high anxiety.

And that’s where August comes in. 

By wallowing like a smug hippo in past successes and triumphs my hope is that I’ll find an answer or two. Maybe even learn to like myself a little bit again.

This month, I intend to have conversations with old friends, drink some wine, look through well-thumbed notebooks, old photographs, keepsakes and ancient laptops to rediscover who I was, who I am and what I’ve done. 

I’m going to try to remember me. Not this hollowed, fragile version but the glorious, full fat one.

I’m going to look inside the third shoebox.

Visualise this. The first shoebox, the one that is sitting in front but slightly to the left, is filled with all the echoes of youth and past success but also all the fears and failures that brought me to this moment.

The second shoebox that sits directly in front of me is my current panic, disappointment and melancholy, mixed with exhaustion, anger and irrationality. It’s a maelstrom of unrelated ideas and muddled intent.

The third shoebox to my right is the one holding the good stuff. The clarity. The gold. The wisdom. The positive energy. 

Part of that process is to acknowledge that I had – and still have - ideas. 

That I was, and still am, relevant. 

That I have created, and will continue to create into the future. 

That I can, and must continue to love with all my heart, despite the many scars of the last five and a half decades.

I will try not stress about all that boring stuff that keeps me awake at night and paralysed during the day; money, age, work, exercise, calories, old torments and emotional heartache.  

Instead, I’m going to allow myself to live through this warmest month and just be. 

Every day will be a chance to greet the day with a side order of calm to go with my coffee. 

I will enjoy listening to the birds in the garden, watching the squirrels eat the nuts I put out for them and also, wondering how the hell I’m going to eat all those damn blackberries.

I will rest, renew and replenish. 

The challenge is on. 

So, here’s to a slower month, a gentler month, a gift of a month.

Fallow but not fallen.

Lisa