Stagnating in a New Apartment

It’s been a while since I posted here. Thankfully no one noticed or missed anything, including myself.

Maybe I’ll keep going this time.

It got cold recently. Cold, as in the normal temperature for mid-November in Ontario. Before last week, we were basking in day after day of +15 weather. Some days went above 20 degrees.

And of course, the cold came all of a sudden and it brought reality with it.

All of the energy and excitement of summer has drained away. One look outside - the grey, the snow, the bare trees - it’s easier to just stay in and not deal with groceries or real life.

The sudden arrival of deep winter this year feels personal. Like an attack on all the forward momentum I wanted to build up. If I felt stuck before now it’s like someone gave me a shovel to start digging.

I need change and winter is standing in my way. Maybe I have too many big needs right now: a new apartment, a new job, a new diet, new friends, a new family, plus also, new rules in my relationship. Hopefully not a new one of those too.

It sounds like I want to be a new person. Maybe, as I get closer to 40, I actually do and I feel the weight of that need holding my feet in place. It’s scary.

Do I stand still and sink deeper into the Swamps of Sadness? That’s not really an option is it.

But since winter and rental prices have halted my “new me” train I decided on the next best thing: rearrange the entire layout of my apartment. It’s the closest to ‘new’ as I’m going to get right now.

I do this often. Move my furniture around. Especially when I feel stuck and as I just compared my life to being in the Swamps of Sadness, any movement is welcome.

I think reorienting your home from time to time is a good thing to do. I’m a firm believer that physical change precedes mental/internal change. So when I need new energy and new thoughts - I start with my furniture. You have to learn to navigate your space in new ways. Much like navigating unexplored mental pathways, walking around a newly placed bed or coffee table without stubbing your toe can be tricky but the fresh perspective you get is worth it.

I like my new layout. It’s cozier and it gives me more space for yoga or something. But it’s not entirely permanent. I’ll have to move things around pretty soon since I want to host Christmas dinner at my place this year. My desk, chairs and couch will need new homes for the evening. So many news all of a sudden! Maybe it’s an important reminder that life is always only in a state of flux. No permanent state exists, only temporary stops on the way to new configurations that will change again in their own time.

So am I really in a stagnating? Maybe it’s not winter weighing me down. It’s the realization that the momentum of the 38 years I’ve lived thus far isn’t going to take me much farther.

My new momentum will start inside. I move my bed. Watch TV on a different wall. Stub my toes a few times as I walk around in my ‘new apartment’. Maybe winter’s aggressive arrival is meant to wake me up to the obvious truth that change and growth take time. Even if it hurts along the way, slow is not stopped and fresh momentum is still possible.