The Apathy Undertow
There’s an undertow pulling at my legs, subtle but undeniable.
Apathy has become my default setting. Not the dramatic kind that makes for good stories, but the quiet erosion that happens when a consistent force is exerted on something. I know at least to some degree what I should be doing, then spend my days doing everything else. Not that I don’t do any of the things I should be, but they’re squeezed in and haphazardly crossed off the margins of to do lists.
A while back I got through 31 pages of “This Naked Mind” by Annie Grace before putting it on pause. Thirty-one pages. As someone who’s parents used to accuse him of “swallowing books whole,” that tells you a lot about where my head is at. There was a time, not so long ago, when I went nearly two years without drinking or smoking weed. The energy, the focus, the genuine optimism about each day. It feels like a faded photograph now. It’s not that there weren’t the usual trials and tribulations of daily life, but it felt like a resistance had been removed from the equation.
A breakup gave me permission to let go. What I didn’t anticipate was how comfortable wallowing in the mud would become. Beer most nights, cookies, ice cream, fried everything. Seemingly (but obviously not) over night I gained twenty pounds, after having achieved my healthiest weight and maintaining it for a good few years. My 40th birthday sits on the horizon like a deadline I can’t ignore, and my father’s death at 46 whispers from the back of my mind.
Here’s the paradox: I’ve done years of inner work, learned to reframe damage as experience, developed genuine self-awareness. Yet lately I can’t seem to apply those lessons to the simplest decisions. The ones that happen every evening when I open the fridge or buy the junk at the grocery store.
In spite of all that, I also try to treat myself with grace and recognize even the small victories. Like the fact that I’m writing this up and sticking to my goal of a blog post per day since my last birthday (minus that one day I missed).