Who can sleep with all this worrying going on?

It’s easy to see why anxiety runs rampant at night. Darkness shrouds way too much. Even familiar tangible objects appear grotesque and unrecognizable. There are physical reasons for the angst, too. Fluctuating cortisol levels, a sleepy pre-frontal cortex, and an unfiltered amygdala all conspire against us. Additionally, the middle-of-the-night brain is freed from busy distractions. It isn’t processing the information load that keeps it occupied during the day. Schedules, tasks, constant planning … all gone, leaving a void that anxiety is only too happy to flood.

For some reason, reading about this reminded me of life transitions. (Maybe this is because lately, EVERYTHING reminds me of life transitions.) Most of the major transitions we experience occupy our brains with new information. They spark busy-ness. We leave home for new places, begin new jobs, launch new ventures. We build relationships, raise children. All of this expands our minds, requires planning and engagement. But there comes a point where the transitions in our lives shift from “filling” to “emptying.” Once-new places are now familiar. Children leave home to begin their own adventures. Relationships end. Retirement takes away deadlines and the immediate need to problem-solve. There are spaces where there used to be purpose, which is a perfect invitation to the brain to kick into that default mode that fills voids with anxiety. It can feel like Night Mind 24/7.

Night mind and life transitions may not be related. But they seem to share the scary, uncomfortable root that we lack control over what comes next while careening toward the unknown.

What do you do when night-mind feels never-ending? I’d love to hear input from readers, either in the comments section of this post or via email. How do you handle either garden-variety night mind or Night-Mind 24/7?

Although I love road trips, this will be my first since 2019. I’d originally planned this upcoming one for summer of 2020 but, of course, the pandemic changed everything. Beginning in March 2020, nobody traveled anywhere. We not only didn’t travel, we were afraid to leave home.

History is marked by events that change both the courses and perspectives of those who live through them. Plagues, major wars, natural catastrophes–it’s impossible to collectively experience these traumas and emerge the same as we were before they happened. Wherever we spent the pandemic years, however we absorbed the impact, we all have some form of PTSD. It touches each of us in a different way, but we have all changed.

As I re-visit this particular trip, I’m aware of how different I really am. In the past, planning a trip was exciting. This time, I’m tentative to the point of indecision. It’s hard to commit to a reservation without my mind ticking through every possible thing that could go wrong. I probably won’t believe I’m taking this trip at all until I pull out of my driveway and make it through several states unscathed. I’ve dealt with blips on past trips–car trouble, unfortunate route surprises, days where I wasn’t operating at 100%–but this is different. I feel like a target for disaster, like if something can go wrong, it will. I’m more vulnerable, less in control (with no relief to be found in the current world situation).

This makes the trip even more necessary. There may be a few more safety nets this time (looking at you, trip insurance), but I need to prove to myself that I’m still capable of doing this thing I love. I need more than ever to escape the limitations of time, to challenge the undercurrent of fear that has insidiously ingratiated itself into my mindset.

There’s no going back to who we were before. The best I can do is engage my babbling mind in the drive so that I can get in touch with who I am now and regain clarity about what really matters.

A friend once asked if something could be considered art if nobody saw it. It’s an interesting question, one easily transferred to writing. Is writing “legit” only if it transmits an idea to someone else? If so, how many readers are necessary to support that definition? Is there a threshold number of readers needed to validate a work?

The word “validate” brings up another nagging question. For most writers, writing seldom yields financial compensation equal to the time and focus it requires. Sometimes, it’s hard to justify diverting so much attention away from other “useful” endeavors. At what point does taking time to write become self-indulgent?

I want people to read what I write. Writing is meant to communicate. It longs to communicate. Ultimately, though, I believe there’s value in the birth of the idea, that moment where thought is given tangible form through solid word. It’s the creation that counts rather than what happens next.

I need to write for other reasons as well. Writing helps me navigate the world. It’s how I interpret what I experience. NOT writing is like blocking one of my senses. We all have a super-power like this, a filter that helps us process information. It can be music, art, even math. Whatever it is, it’s inherent to who we are and how we deal with our surroundings. That can mean everything from helping us understand to giving us a way to blow off steam or cut through anxiety. (You do not want to meet me in the wild when I’ve truncated my blow-off-steam safety valve by not writing.)

I’ve given myself permission to write again not only because of what it brings to me but because of what it helps me pour back into the world. I learned a long time ago that I’m hardly unusual–if I’m thinking something, there are other people out there who are thinking it, too. If my writing touches even one person at the right time, that can be enough incentive to keep going.

Of course, nothing can happen at all unless a thought is given expression. Fortunately, that’s the one part of writing I can control.

All the noise provides a good excuse to skip meditation. Whenever I do attempt it, I spend way too much time stuffing the voices away, clamping them back into whichever box they escaped from as I try to achieve pure silence.

Doing that is pretty much anti-meditation. Trying to quiet everyone down only adds to the stress I’m looking to overcome. I’m defeated before I even begin.

I’ve always thought that because I’m incapable of achieving completely silent headspace, I’m no good at meditating. But the original definition of meditation (as derived from Latin) focused on contemplation and reflection rather than on emptying the mind. Required letting go came later.

Apparently, there’s more than one way to approach a meditative state.

Lately, I’ve started letting everyone have their say. Without me stifling them, words flow through my mind and upward, released into the stratosphere. Some phrases are nonsense, word soup strung together in non-sequiturs that don’t make sense. Sometimes, images appear after the words float away. They don’t always make sense, either. Why do I often see a neighborhood I never lived in and only briefly knew? Why am I sometimes in an alternate future that might have been but never was?

“Making sense” is relative. Maybe the trick isn’t to muffle the sounds and sights that pass through my mind, but rather to hear and see them. The frazzled, busy ones tend to dissipate, curling upward like wisps of smoke. The more resonant ones stick around, even out, invite me to stay with them for a while. I think of them as guides meant to lead me through memories and issues that still need resolution.

Finding my peace may be less dependent on stashing thoughts away than on understanding them more completely. Once I better understand a presented situation or examine a lurking fear, the nagging tends to go away (at least for the moment — my concerns can be very tenacious).

I’m grateful for however I find my peace. Inward focus helps me cope with the cacophony of the outside world, where the noise can out-blab anything my own mind produces. I need all the centering I can get to keep my balance there.

I was good at the game. Very good. I learned tricks and glitches, each ghost’s distinctive way of chasing Ms. Pac-Man. Pinky was the fastest ghost, while Blinky was the hardest to shake. Sue was slow, which could lull a player into a false sense of security. There were nerves-of-steel routes where Ms. Pac-Man could brush “shoulders” with a ghost without getting caught. But when I really needed a breather, I used safe-spot glitches on the screen where Ms. Pac-Man could hide and become “invisible.” Theoretically, she could stay tucked away in her little corner forever while the ghosts sped past, unable to find her.

Hiding was not danger-free. One little toggle of the joystick, and the ghosts buzzing around in frenzied search would immediately attack. It was way too easy to accidentally jiggle that stick, because somewhere deep inside, you were never completely convinced that Ms. Pac-Man was truly safe. You wanted to stay ready to GO in case a ghost’s eyes turned your way.

I could identify with this. I liked my own safe corner of the ice-cream shop. My “ghosts” were multiple term papers to finish in limited time, cramming for final exams, and (especially) what exactly I planned to do with my life after falling off the cliff of rapidly-approaching graduation. But safely isolated in the ice-cream shop, all I had to do was play the screen in front of me while the rest of the world whizzed past.

Of course, there was another factor to invisibility. Sure, Ms. Pac-Man was tucked away where nobody could find her. But she was no longer part of the game. She never did anything or went anywhere. Since she wasn’t eating pellets or fruit, no points accumulated. She didn’t take any chances, but nothing happened, either. She was just …there.

Playing it safe meant you missed stuff.

Back when I was super-good at Ms. Pac-Man, I once turned over the game. I went through many different iterations of the Ms. Pac-Man Acts (They Meet! The Chase! Junior!) I passed through screen after screen of images and colors I’d never seen in the game before. Even then, I knew I’d never experience that again. I’d just maxed out of Ms. Pac-Man.

You not only miss stuff when you play it safe, but there’s a second part, too: what’s the point of learning the game if you never give yourself the chance to use what you’ve learned? It was time to leave the ice-cream shop.

Put me in front of a Ms. Pac-Man screen now, and I’m respectable but not amazing. I could say that the game itself has changed (it has), but the truth is that once I stopped playing regularly, I lost my chops. But moving on came with new benefits. I don’t regret it.

Besides, it opened the door to pinball.

But they take a piece away from us as well. Their passing leaves one less person in the world who remembers our personal times and spaces, who witnessed our struggles and celebrated our victories. We lose stories–it’s hard to reminisce when our partner in crime isn’t physically present to chime in with their perspective of the narrative. Inside jokes fall flat; the one who “gets it” isn’t there to laugh, and nobody else knows what we’re talking about. We’re left to safeguard precious memories on our own.

The future is impacted, too. It doesn’t look like we thought it would. We lose the ability to hash out worries and hopes with a person who was always part of the scenario. We can no longer bounce ideas and solutions off someone whose insight we valued. A main character available to us in every vision of our future … isn’t.

The person we lose takes not only a part of our shared experiences with them, but a reflection of who we were in their eyes. Nobody else saw or will see us in quite the same way. Nobody will infuse us with the same energy or recognize the same potential in us.

We’re often reminded that our loved ones will always be with us and that we will see them again. Sure, but this isn’t that essay. This is the pissed-off, bewildered essay. What we lose is irreplaceable, and attempts to soften the loss sometimes feel pat.

I do know one thing: our person is gone, but for some reason, we’re still here. We still have the opportunity to radiate the essence of who they were. Did they bring joy? Clarity? Were they generous with their emotions, appreciative of the gifts others brought to a situation? We can still fill the void in both our hearts and the world with energy sourced from this. Emanating positive power won’t bring our person back, but it will reflect the best of not only who they were, but who they believed we could be …

…which may be the reason we loved each other in the first place.

The mall was more crowded than usual when I walked in. (I’m never quite sure how the stores in this place stay in business.) But busy or not, it was easy to spot a little girl of maybe two or three a short distance away to my right, holding onto her grandmother’s hand as she walked. She moved with that determined little march kids have when they realize how well they can navigate on two feet. But when I stopped to adjust my purse strap, I realized that her march had a set destination: me.

The little girl kept her eyes on me as she weaved through shoppers to come closer. She never stopped moving. Without a word, she grasped my hand and kept walking, not missing a beat. “Hello,” I said, falling into step beside her. The grandmother cleared her throat, at an uncomfortable loss for words. “I don’t mind,” I told her. “I’m heading to Trader Joe’s anyway.”

“We’re going to the parking lot,” the grandmother replied, clearly relieved that there would be a natural ending to this odd encounter.

The child stared at me as we walked hand-in-hand past stores, never loosening her grip or changing the solemn expression on her face. I imagine we looked a little silly walking as a linked threesome through the mall, but I didn’t see any reason to disengage.

“Thank you for the walk,” I told the little girl when we reached the doors to outside. “I’m going to the grocery store, now. I hope you have a very nice day.”

She let go of my hand. I waved. She waved back. Then we turned in opposite directions and left.

Never mind the cuteness factor; I appreciated the human contact. I don’t get enough of that these days.

I like face-to-face interactions with people, and those experiences are getting harder to find. I avoid self-checkouts in stores whenever I can, even though standing in line for the one or two checkout lanes still manned by real people means a longer wait. That’s okay. How else would I hear about the cashier’s surprise eightieth birthday party (and be impressed by the fact that this square-dancing grandmama is decades older than I thought she was). There’s no other way to meet the young man who knows so much about jazz, classic rock, and whiskey and who always lightens my day with a seemingly sincere compliment. And where else would I find the gentleman whose curmudgeonly comments reveal more about his interesting past than he realizes? Getting in and out of a place as quickly as possible is seldom my goal.

I don’t like crowds (and my definition of “crowd” has a low threshold), but I do appreciate opportunities for exchanges with people who … well, aren’t me. How do we learn to appreciate other people if we obliterate our chances to deal with them in everyday life? Online communication isn’t enough.

Kids need that human connection, too. I’m not sure what this says about me, but I still have fond memories of childhood lollipops from bank tellers who weren’t ATMs and book recommendations from librarians who either checked out my new stack of books or checked in the ones I returned. I remember the reminders to say good morning, please, thank-you.

My little friend’s grasp reminded me that despite a barrage of internet/text messages and the convenience of breezing more quickly through automated errands, something inside us still longs to just reach out and grab someone’s hand. We haven’t evolved beyond an innate need for physical human contact.

I hope we never do.

Of course, I was not the only one. So many women I knew juggled care, schedules, and appointments for four or more people, along with property maintenance, groceries, bills, and battles with the various institutions attached to all of the above (looking mostly at you, insurance companies). It made perfect sense that we would do this. Most of us had stepped away from careers to raise families, and our minds were still in achievement-mode. We arrived at our new stay-at-home frontier primed to organize and accomplish. In that world where very little stays finished and instant gratification is hard to come by (looking mostly at you, kids), there was satisfaction in knowing we could provide stability and security for the people in our lives. We were quite possibly the reason everyone stayed afloat.

I still have a lot to do, even though the scope of responsibility has changed. My household is smaller. School schedules and extra-currics no longer fill my calendars, and I’m not making medical appointments or arranging activities meant to keep my children in one healthy piece. But although taking care of kids can be exhausting, their wellbeing was one of the major gratifications of multitasking in the first place. Without the kid component in the picture, the tasks on my list often feel like dreck nobody else wants to do.

Resentment is not a particularly satisfying emotion.

According to NIH, multitasking is defined as trying to perform two or more tasks at the same time. Research shows it isn’t good for our brains. When we multitask, we switch back and forth between several tasks all at once, leaving one job unfinished while we flit to another. We’re constantly processing competing streams of information, most of which is completely irrelevant to the other tasks we’re trying to complete. This can increase mistakes, decrease efficiency, and lead to memory problems.

Apparently, our brains are wired to work on one thing at a time … which sounds great to me–almost like a vacation–so why am I still multitasking?

I can’t blame the world for this. This one’s on me. Other people’s expectations don’t even enter into it. Somehow, I’ve let “more” equal “best” in almost everything (looking mostly at you, weight). This ability to do too many things at one time has morphed into more than accomplishment: it’s become the measure of my self-worth.

This is not a stop-and-smell-the-roses post. (Like most multitaskers, I can do that at the same time I do everything else.) This is about giving ourselves the grace to stay in each moment and trust that our response to it will be enough. It’s possible that the layers of busy-ness and piles of action we cram into our brains prevent us from accessing wisdom and value that’s uniquely ours. By doing less, maybe we’ll offer more.

There will always be things to do. They just don’t always have to be done at the same time. Who knows? Given space, we might even do them better.

I have a manuscript box like that. Stashed in a dark part of the basement, it’s filled with stories that, through no fault of their own, just … well … stink. Yeah, I wrote them. At one time, I even thought they were good.

Fortunately, we all get a chance to evolve.

Looking at my earlier drafts (as if I’d ever let you), it’s clear my writing has been character-driven from the start — especially if you consider character sufficiently developed when he/she can be summed up in a word or two, as in “the sassy one”; “the troubled one”; “the one who surprises even herself.” (My earlier work is more accessible if you like stereotypes.)

You always knew exactly how my characters were feeling, because the adverbs attached to the dialogue tags told you. Readers were subjected to a lot of stuff like “she said questioningly,” and “he said evocatively.” If it still wasn’t obvious enough, there were many different ways to “say” things. Characters purred, chirped, and grunted. It was a regular zoo in each chapter. And, to make sure there was no doubt whatsoever, sometimes the dialogue tags were double-barreled, a fun reading experience for everyone: “she whimpered miserably,” “he snarled angrily,” “she commented pertly.” Dialogue tags, meant to be unobtrusive, were prominent enough to become their very own characters.

Plots were linear. Sure, there were stories to tell, but they lacked depth. Sometimes there was no hook, no compelling reason for anyone to want to turn the page to discover what happened next. Basically, I was writing for myself. Self-indulgent? You bet! Awful? Right again. And, yet, those stories have a special place in my heart. Those characters and I were friends.

There are some manuscripts a writer puts away knowing that they’ll be back. The plot, although in need of editing, is compelling enough to revisit. The characters have something to say. When the time is right, that manuscript will be revisited and edited into something sharp and readable.

The manuscripts in the box downstairs are not those stories. There’s a reason they live deep in the basement, out of sight.

If I remember my Rudoph correctly, the inhabitants of the Island of Misfit Toys are eventually picked up by Santa and delivered to children who will appreciate them. While nothing quite as heartwarming happens on the Island of Misfit Manuscripts, those early drafts do serve a purpose. Every once in a while, almost by mistake, I wrote a description or phrase back then that was actually good. There was effective use of imagery. There was a character who didn’t inspire cringing and/or eye-rolls. Like old cars that have outlasted their use, these old manuscripts can be mined for “parts” to use in newer stories.

Sometimes, when I’m feeling frustrated with my current manuscript, I re-read one of my oldies-but-baddies. It never fails to make me feel better.

(This post was originally published on Sept. 15, 2015.)

It was “like-at-first-sight” between them, but nothing more. Their roomies were the love-birds, falling so hard for each other that one or the other of my parents found themselves locked out of their room on a nightly basis, forced to spend much of the evening waiting for re-entry outside on the playground swings. My parents began keeping each other company, talking late into the night until the door to the room unlatched and they could finally turn in. Soon, friendship blossomed into something more. My sibs and I grew up hearing stories about how Dad, a vocalist, would serenade Mom out there in the summer evening. By the time the season ended, my parents had not only a relationship that flourished despite a Brooklyn-Bronx subway commute, but a song to call their own: the jazz standard “Autumn Leaves,” which my multi-lingual father sang to my mom in both French and English.

My parents married in mid-September 1954, a week after my mother turned nineteen. Their anniversary and Mom’s birthday became two of the September celebrations and new beginnings I looked forward to each year. In addition to those two events, there was a fresh school year and the start of autumn. From there it was a short hop to Halloween, Thanksgiving, and the winter holidays. September launched a happy time that I could ride straight through our household’s February birthdays, making it one of my favorite months of the year.

That’s changed a little over time. Both of my parents passed away in September, my father at the beginning of the month, my mother nine years later at the end. These days, September can be something of an emotional landmine, although it remains as jam-packed with memories and new possibilities as it ever was.

I write a lot about change, because it’s inevitable. No matter how much we wish otherwise, nothing stays the same. We don’t get too many choices in the matter. Usually, we can either cling tightly to what no longer exists or do our best to continue in a changed reality.

My mom passed away after a slow, obvious decline. Her final week with us was a hard goodbye, knowing what was coming but not sure when it might arrive. By the time the funeral and life celebration were over, we were exhausted. While driving my daughter back to college in central New York, I reached into one of my car compartments to blindly pull a CD from the stash kept there. Although I thought I knew every CD in the pile, the one I selected from the middle of the stack was unfamiliar. I inserted the mystery CD and pressed “Play.””Autumn Leaves” filled the car.

Maybe I could find an explanation if I tried. The CD turned out to be the playlist a friend had compiled for the gathering following my father’s funeral nine years earlier. Still, I can’t explain how it got into my car, nor do I know how it remained undetected through two long cross-country road trips, nearly eight years of college dorm/apartment hauls, several trips to and from Chicago, and a few drives to Canada. It’s also unclear why out of the more than twenty CDs in that compartment, that’s the one I randomly chose.

Fact is, I don’t care if there’s a “logical” explanation. I welcome all reminders that no matter how many changes life throws us, love remains eternal.

As strains of “Autumn Leaves” enveloped us, my parents were out on the swings again that first summer, laying the foundation for a lifetime they didn’t know they’d share. And, on the other end of that journey, “their” song let me know that they were together again.