Calmer

For a short while now, I’ve been experiencing regular moments of calm. Not just experiencing these moments, but recognising them too, sat in serene peacefulness.

This is slightly difficult to write about. It’s not difficult to write down, but it’s certainly not a subject that lends itself to enjoyable turns of phrase. Calmness isn’t a state in itself, it’s a lack of something. You only notice that you’re calm when somebody asks you, or when you run through a list of other emotions and recognise that none of them apply: you’re not stressed about work, or coursing with adrenaline from exercise, or worrying about whether or not you can even trust this hypnotist.

There are innumerable songs about euphoria, happiness and appreciation of the little things in life. There are very few songs about how calm the writer feels. How steady their heart rate is. How easy they find it to sleep.

And while it’s at first an enjoyable observation of a weekday evening plopped on the couch in front of the television, I don’t know how long I want this sense of calm to last. Yes my sleep is coming more easily to me, but I’m missing the nights when my brain buzzes with thoughts and ideas. The opposite of calm isn’t necessarily panic. In fact I suspect it’s anything else at all: anything that drives your thoughts or emotions and stimulates your brain for better or for worse.

Yes, I’m getting to sleep quicker, but I’m also missing those moments of lying in bed and allowing my thoughts to fly about my head for a bit – not just processing the day that’s been but anticipating the one that’ll follow it, and the one after that, and all the diverting little projects I could undertake if those days just keep on comin’. Without the burden of having to worry about speech, or balance, or whether I’m supposed to be somewhere, my brains turns completely over to pottering about creatively. But not so much at the moment. Those enjoyable wee thoughts before sleep – those little crackles and snaps that indicate that your creativity isn’t quite ready for bed yet – have been a little thin on the ground.

I’ve recently completed a few big projects that for a time I couldn’t see beyond the end of, and so it’s natural that I might want to mentally take a bit of time off and let my head sit around in its dressing gown for a bit. But it better make the most of it while it lasts, because I’m finding this lack of crackle and snap frustrating. And all this calmness is really starting to piss me off.