Existential Yardbed Thoughts
A little check in with my biggest insecurity, and other cute things!
It is officially YARDBED weather!!!!
Yardbed weather is actually kind of rare and special.
It happens about twice a year—once in the spring, when the weather is fresh and the breeze is cool and the sun is warm and delicious.
The other time of year is in the fall, around September, before the leaves have fallen off the trees, but not so hot that you’re still dripping sweat on the sheets.
Last week? PRIME YARDBED WEATHER!!!
I had it up for three days straight.
I journaled, napped, ate dinner, thought, spiraled, read, cried, and watched a show on yardbed last week. I finally took it down when I found two bird poop stains on the sheets, but conditions are looking right for another session next week, maybe??
I “invented” my yardbed after learning more about my Enneagram 2-ness. Enneagram 2’s are very good at feeling and doing, feeling and doing, feeling and doing, but are “thinking” repressed. 1
Ope. Yes. It hurts my ego a little bit to admit that it is sometimes hard for me to think, but it rings true. I navigate the world through feeling my way through it, not without thinking, but my default is feeling and doing. I have to pause and be intentional about thinking super logically sometimes.
I like to think on my walks, while sewing, while driving, but active thinking is a different kind of thinking, and I’d often rather listen to an audiobook or podcast than be forced to conjure up my own thoughts. Eye roll.
And so, in an attempt to make myself stop doing, (there is always something to do, right!?), slow down, and think, I wanted to make an ideal thinking habitat.
Thinking in bed, either as I am trying to fall asleep, or in the morning, when Ross is in the shower and I am in bed, barely awake, produces deep, visceral, wise, undistracted thoughts and ideas. I am laying down, immobilized. My hands aren’t folding laundry or sewing or doing dishes. My body is still and I am with myself. And then, of course, I lose all that thinking wisdom as soon as I fall asleep or get out of bed and look at my phone!
But, laying down in bed during the day just to think isn’t it. I try to keep the bed reserved for sleeping and pre/post sleeping thoughts.
And here enters: YARDBED!!
When I came up with this idea, I was gainfully employed, so yes, I spent money on an air mattress just for the sake of putting it outside! I put it on an outdoor rug so I can easily move it every day so I don’t kill the grass, and can choose my preferred sun/shade situation, or move it to be able to watch the sunset!
To be able to lay down and think, surrounded by green and life and birds and squirrels and fresh air and sunshine: The Ideal Thinking Habitat!
So last week, I erected this perfect thinking habitat to try to make space to think about my current situation. Maybe THIS is what will help me figure out…my life. Maybe YARDBED is the missing voice/space in my life!!
Oufff.
Enter—the existential crisis of last week’s yardbed thinking sessions:
For context: I am on my fourth month of being unemployed, while not actively looking for commercial employment, but trying to…become an entrepreneur? Find my true vocational north for once?
I have worked with an amazing dream doula/life coach, read Body of Work, Big Magic, Let Your Life Speak, The Currency Paradigm, Everything is Figureoutable, and a million other self-help books, I’ve worked with my therapist, reconnected with friends, spent hours at the sewing machine, meditated, verbally processed, been in solitude, yardbedded, gone on daily walks, etc, and I still, stilll, still, I STILL…
DONT
KNOW
WHAT
IM
SUPPOSED
TO
BE
DOING.
That’s what I came up with while thinking on Yardbed.
It feels like the truest truth.
It made me cry big hot tears.
Maybe this is why I don’t slow down and think!! Because this hurts! This sucks! I’m squirming!
I don’t know what I am supposed to be doing.
Fuck! Ouch! This feels like the thesis of my life that I am supposed to be giving myself space to figure out right now, and it looks like I am still where I was four months ago. With some more tools, ideas, resources, but still…
I don’t know what I am supposed to be doing.
And it’s not like I’m not doing anything! I am very good at doing, please, let me do! Tell me what to do, I love to do!! Doing makes me feel safe!!
It has been surprisingly pretty easy to fill my days with the doings of a life: laundry, meal planning, grocery shopping, cleaning, yardwork, walking, sewing, social maintenance, chores, etc—I really haven’t been bored, or haven’t really let myself get bored. There is always something to do, right? To be honest, I am feeling pretty balanced and happy, for the most part, puttering around the house, taking care of life’s chores and my friendships and marriage and basic needs. It’s a small life, but it is steady and mostly predictable and nice.
Until, these little moments, where I let myself get logical, where I wake up and become conscious of what I am doing, and what I am not doing.
I am not starting a business or making a website or “networking”.
I am not being motivated by my deepest passions.
I am not figuring out how to sustain a life where I can be my own boss.
I am not “taking advantage of this time to figure out my life”, like I think I should be doing??
I am not putting money into my 401K.
I am not making a plan to replenish the savings I am running though during this life transition.
I am not using my potential or following my dreams.
I am not planning for the future me, the future of our family.
I’ve been conscious of what I am not doing a lot these past two weeks. I’ve been feeling the scarcity of not having an income—girl, I want to drop some COIN at the Lowe’s garden center!!!! I want to buy some new fabric! A million cute summer dresses! Plan a vacation, host cutesy dinner parties! Feel some levity and security around money.
Shit—is money going to ultimately be what motivates me? Not passion or zest or moxie? Damn, this “vocational wilderness/jungle” journey is going a lot differently than I had idealized it in my mind, but money is real, rent is real, bills are real, and I feel them.
I did look on Indeed (ugh) this week, and almost applied for a job. A job I don’t really want, but the steadiness of a paycheck and the steadiness of someone “telling me what I am supposed to be doing", was and continues to be, tempting. Sheesh.
It feels like there is something missing, some key that I am needing to actually be figuring all of this out. It’s like I am waiting for clarity, I am waiting for a knowing that I haven’t encountered yet? It feels like I am waiting for something, someone. I am waiting for a feeling?
Is it a voice I haven’t yet heard?
Is it a book I haven’t yet read?
A certain podcast?
Is it wisdom from a certain friend?
A poem, a quote I haven’t heard yet?
Is it someone I meet by “putting myself out there”?
Is it a silent retreat?
Is it Mel Robbins? Please, please tell me it’s not Mel Robbins.
Is it discipline?
Is it someone I meet at a coffee shop?
Do I need to harder on myself?
Do I need to be softer on myself?
Am I waiting for someone to tell me what to do? (Yes, 100% I am lol)
Is all of this actually just excuses and fear??
Is this just my privilege and illusion of not being absolutely forced to hustle as hard as I can??
OR is it like, my own timeline, my own instinct, my own pace?
I DON’T KNOW!!!
I don’t know what I am waiting for.
I don’t know what the next step is.
At the beginning of this unemployment/vocational wilderness stint, I made this poster about myself and some of the words and markers and labels I use to understand myself….
…hoping that if I stared at it long enough, I would have this type of moment:
And that moment has not happened.
Not even on Yardbed.
Not even after four months.
Not even after working with professionals.
Not even given the time and space to figure out it.
I am not sure how to end this post, because I honestly don’t have the answer or clarity.
Although, after writing this all down,
I am curious if the answer is just to do what I know how to do best: DO.
If I just need to DO SOMETHING, start something, even if I don’t have the clarity or illusive but powerful knowing.
Maybe I just have to DO SOMETHING, even if I don’t know if it will work out, or if it is even 100% my calling, or even if it is what I want to do long term.
DO SOMETHING, even if I don’t know what I am doing or supposed to be doing.
Maybe I just have to get messy and uncomfortable.
Maybe there is some hustle hustle required here.
Maybe I do without clarity. OUF.
As someone who leads with feeling and intuition, doing without the “THIS IS IT, THIS IS WHAT IM SUPPOSED TO BE DOING” feeling, doesn’t feel right.
But maybe that feeling is found through messy, un-clarified DOING??
Sheesh.
OKay. That’s all for that ramble for today. But honestly, if you have any wisdom, ideas, encouragements, I’ve-been-there-befores…I am open to hearing them!! This jungle/wilderness is thick and lonely.
OKAY!
And now, five cute things to end on!!!!:
Okay, over and out! Thanks for reading my silly rambles. And—don’t miss the yardbed window!! Go make a thinking habitat ASAP so you, too, can bring up your cute little insecurities and fears in the great outdoors! ;)
With love,
Kate
I believe I read/heard this from a podcast that Suzanne Stabile was on, but I don’t remember which one!
I'm a big proponent of UBI because of this. We want to do... to be purposeful... to be in commune with self and others, but nothing in our world anymore has meaning. I mean meaningful meaning! And that's when we get back to creating... but we need money. It's a shitty social contract they sold us, but they haven't kept up their end of the bargain. No meaningful work, meaningful care (like healthcare), meaningful wages, meaningful outlets. They've stolen on the backs of generations of our labor (no... I'm not even sure who the they are... but I think it's the rich who bought our government, only to consolidate so much wealth into their hands, and out of ours.) I look at your work and I love it. Your quilts, and color, and writing all makes me smile... I see meaningful toiling, and that makes me smile... and if I could fund you, I would. But I can't even fund my own self! What a disaster for all of us doers and makers and writers and wanters. So many of your sentences have flowed from my mouth... but all I can offer is solidarity. And that ain't worth enough!
You are definitely not alone with this feeling. The sense of not knowing what I even WANT to be doing (let alone CAN/COULD/SHOULD) has come and receded multiple times in me these last years. Honestly... I absolutely hate it. I feel stupid....