I’m having the best day I’ve had in ages. Weeks. Maybe even months. Definitely not years, but probably months. And I have no idea why. I wish I knew, because if I could figure it out then perhaps I could replicate it consistently. One day, maybe I will figure it out. But for now, I will just be thankful for it.
When I say I’m having the best day in ages, you might be inclined to ask what happened to make it that way. Something amazing must have happened, something went my way, someone did something for me or was extra special to me in some way. Nope. Nothing like that. Nothing happened at all. There is no external reason of any description to make this day any different from the humdrum monotony of any other day of the non-life I have been barely living for most of my adulthood. The difference is internal. I feel different. All of the pain is still there, but it’s really faint today, and in those moments when it has become pronounced, it hasn’t overwhelmed me like it usually does. It isn’t numbed or suppressed or being controlled, it’s genuinely faded and distant, like a shrieking gull you can barely hear. So why could that be? It’s worth exploring.
I feel, in a way, as though all of the previous weeks, perhaps months, when it seemed like I was getting nowhere and achieving nothing but survival (and only just surviving at that), I wasn’t achieving nothing because my unconscious mind was busy formulating a solution, amalgamating all of the new and old information I recently absorbed, working away tirelessly like only one’s unconscious can. And then today was the day that it presented that solution, like a page coming of a printer or (more modern) an object coming out of a 3D printer. It just arrived, fully formed, no instructions required, because implementing it was so intuitive as to be automatic. I wonder if that is what happened.
But what made today the day? Does this just happen to be the day that the design was ready to print and be brought into reality? Or has my emotional anguish just ebbed enough today for the solution that has been ready for some time to become accessible to me? In other words, was I just waiting for a day like today? Or is it the final, beyond final, last ditch, failure is not an option way past deadline that I imposed upon myself yesterday? It could be that, because that is really the only thing that makes today different from any other day. So let’s look at that.
Exactly a month ago I was sent a few articles to edit. About a decade ago I started working as a freelance copyeditor, primarily on academic journal articles. Having had extensive editing experience, I had to work hard for a long time to restrain myself enough to not make editorial changes and stick to copyediting changes, which is basically just making corrections with a view to also resolving bad grammar, poor sentence structure, ambiguity, sense, narrative flow, and so on. But authors – particularly some of those arrogant academics – really don’t like it when you change their wording, even if they aren’t half as good at writing as they are at whatever their academic specialism is. So there’s a constant battle within myself to make changes because they are a genuine improvement and not just a subjective improvement for my personal preferences.
Anyway, about two years ago I went through a particularly stressful period of my life personally and also professionally, working on moving house while working through some of the most God awful articles I’d ever read in a journal where I did have a full editing remit. So I ended up rewriting a lot of these articles, and because I’m paid by the word not the hour, my hourly rate was terrible and my stress levels were high. And gradually, I began to doubt and second guess myself until I became paralysed and unable to really process sentences, sitting reading the same sentence ten, twenty, thirty times, and not really making sense of it, paranoid that I had missed an error or if I made a change I would introduce an error without realising it, until I was missing deadline after deadline, and over a period of months I failed to complete literally dozens of articles that had been sent to me, that I had accepted and then failed to even start because of this paralysis.
As my career and more importantly my reputation went down in flames, and as editing went from being easy to painfully difficult, and as my inner emotional turmoil intensified to the point that it became unbearable every time I diverted my full energy and focus from keeping it under control (i.e. by undertaking a fitness workout or trying to concentrate on editing an article), I began to be traumatised every time I tried to do anything, be it get physique or an article or any other aspect of my life into some kind of decent shape. Because those feelings would spill out uncontrollably, and the pain was extreme, like nothing I had ever experienced before. And believe me, I had experienced plenty of extreme emotional pain before that point.
Fast forward to today and I have one journal left where the very kind production editor hadn’t ditched me, despite missing every deadline (sometimes by weeks) and repeatedly breaking promises of when I could return assigned articles. I was honest about my “depression” (or whatever it is, my emotional problems such as they are), and she was very compassionate. I know the quality of my work is very high, but I can’t believe it’s anything other than kindness that kept those articles coming.
But that editor moved on recently, sending me five articles before she left, and they are now over three weeks overdue, and it’s been two weeks since the second email sent by the new production editor asking about the articles (in a very kind and unassuming manner), which I have yet to reply to.
So for the past month or so since I was assigned these articles, every day I’ve been tormenting myself, without meaning to. Trying to build up the fortitude necessary to sit at the keyboard and suffer through them. To endure the emotional agony that becomes so pronounced whenever I try to really concentrate on editing, and lose control of it so it comes to the surface, unrelenting and devastating. Some days I have tried and failed. Occasionally I have managed to get a couple of pages or just a few paragraphs done. Mostly I have failed altogether to even sit down at the keyboard. And I have kept telling myself, “today you either have to get an article done or send them back”. But I don’t want to send them back, and not just because this is the only money I’m currently bringing in.
Copyediting is the easiest gig I’ve ever had. Working from home, my one-step commute as I used to call it from my bed to my PC (now my bedroom is bigger so it’s more like ten steps). Choosing my own hours. Reading through generally well written articles that barely need any changes or corrections, some of which are dry and dull or technically difficult to understand but many of which are very interesting and educational. I’m so spoiled, and I worked very hard and smart to build up my career and reputation, that are both now in ruins.
So the truth is, if I send these articles back and ask for a break, that break will become permanent when I am forced to ask for the journal to be reassigned, and that will be the last journal gone, and my tenuous, fragile grasp on my final tiny shred of independence from this brutal emotional and psychological dysfunction that has wrecked me and my life for so many of years so far will be lost. Once it’s gone, I won’t get it back. I won’t have the will or the desire. And the easiest gig ever will be gone.
Maybe that would be a good thing. Maybe it would give way to something else. But I don’t want it to end like that. If I move on from this, I want it to be because I’m giving it up for something better.
So, yesterday – despite having told myself at least a dozen times “today is breaking point”, this is it, you must do or die, you must return an article or ask for them to be reassigned – I told myself that this really is it this time, that I must have two articles done by this evening, and reply to the email by 10pm, which is 7am Monday morning in Melbourne where my new contact is based. I haven’t met that deadline, but I’m close. Close enough. I should be editing now, but I just had to get this out, get this recorded.
So I got up today, feeling very tired, and not at all like editing, but after an hour or so of waking up, instead of watching TV or playing videogames or going back to bed, I sat down at the keyboard and started working on the article I was about a third of the way through. The difference was though, I didn’t just sit down and force my way through it. I was very kind and caring and compassionate to myself. I went to the mirror and told myself “you can do this” and how proud I am of myself, and how it’s okay that these articles are so badly overdue, all that matters is where I go from here, that today I can turn things around. I reassured myself that I would figure out a way to take breaks without being away from the keyboard too long, and a way to manage the pain if it got really severe, that I wouldn’t just try to push through it like usual. And these reassuring words and this quiet resolve calmed my anxiety, not quelled it completely but calmed it to the point of it being easy to manage, and I let go of the guilt of having let things get so out of hand with this batch of work and making such a dreadful first impression with my new contact, and I just focused on the job at hand.
I edited slowly. It was still relatively painful. I still read some sentences dozens of times in anxiety. But it was quicker than usual. And less painful. And I managed to break out of the cycle of repeat reading more quickly. And I trusted my judgement to change or not change something better. It was still tedious work. I had a number of author queries to raise. The article is perfectly well written and the topic is interesting but the writing style is dry and tiresome. So that has not helped. There are a lot of lengthy tables, also a chore to work through (but anything is better than the actual text, where I keep coming unstuck through this anxiety spiral I get stuck in). But the article is almost done. As soon as I submit it I’ll send the email, not by 10pm but definitely before 11pm. And I’ve already started work on the next article, and I managed to send one back the other week. So that will be two down, another one underway, and three to go after that, with the one I’m working on now being the longest one.
It’s such a massive victory, but it’s the reverse to most people, who feel good because something goes right or they achieve something. For me, something goes right or I achieve something because I feel good (or at least, like today, don’t feel too bad). As soon as I’m free to achieve, because this indescribable emotional pain I’m afflicted with isn’t entirely crippling me, I get straight to work without delay. That’s what happened today.
Was it that I really made a decision and that caused me to control my feelings better or gave me more hope or strength to counter them? Was it just a coincidence? Was it my unconscious printing out the design it had been working on for months? Or a combination of all of the above? There is no way for me to know, but I can at least say this: I am fucking glad it happened, because the stress is subsiding, I am regaining some semblance of control over a challenging situation, and I now have a foothold and a decent shot and climbing out of this pit and having these articles done by the end of this week.
I walked to the shops earlier, through a beautiful park that I’m blessed to have right by my house. And for the first time in ages, I was actually glad to be outdoors, in nature, on a sunny summer evening slowly fading to twilight. I was enjoying it. It was astonishing, because I haven’t had the capacity to enjoy anything like that for pretty much this entire year so far. It’s such a great sign. On the way back from the shops, weighed down by two heavy bags, working up a sweat, the handles digging into my palms, I was grateful to be breathing harder and doing some exercise, and I began to think about starting exercising again.
I am so badly out of shape now, and it’s incredibly disheartening, but sitting around being disheartened and eating yet more junk food isn’t going to get me fitter. And I was thinking that even if I can’t maintain it because my emotions cripple me again, something is still better than nothing. Even with a lack of consistency, even if I’m backsliding, just exercising sometimes will mean I am slightly more fit and backsliding slower. And that is better than nothing at all. Something is almost always better than nothing.
And as I returned to the house, I thought of something cool that I wanted to share with you, something that I am going to try to remember as I work to get out of this shitty situation that I’m in. And it is this:
Whatever state you’re in, however you have ended up, whatever you don’t like about yourself or your life, whatever is going wrong, just remember that although this is where life has taken you or where you have allowed yourself to end up (probably a combination of the two, part choice and part fate), who you are and where you are now is not permanent. Who you are now isn’t who you really are, it’s just how life has shaped you for now. Damage has been done. Wounds have been suffered. But there is yet hope, not of changing yourself, but of changing back to your true self, who you have always been since birth, who you tried to be during childhood but then were steered away from by both well-meaning and malevolent people and influences in your formative years and beyond.
So when you’re working on yourself, whatever the work is, don’t think of it as change. Think of it as restoration.
Musings from the Imaginarium 