a lot of things really don’t matter. And you don’t figure out what does actually matter without retreating.
May 2025
I am retreater.
I met a friend for tea the other day and I said “I tend to retreat during Spring and Summer.”
She responded “You said that back in the Fall and Winter.”
So I retreat all the time.
Because I am a retreater.
I’m not surprised. I want to make sure I have time. It is vital for me to make space, to have space, to have time and space to make the time and space.
It is the necessary things that take up the most time and space. At least mentally.
In a conversation with another friend, we talked about keeping the four things going: food, sleep, water and rest.
They are the first to go when I get stressed, things start to go badly and I start to feel more pressure.
But having all four of them going is the key to bringing me the time and space that I long for – feeling safe to create and just be. My tendency is that something is ALWAYS missing and I should have energy and space for that missing thing to pop up. I’m trying to calm myself out of that feeling.
I just had some heavier stuff move through my world in the last two months (culminating a heavy year). A toxic situation recently came to an end which brought up all that stuff from childhood I thought I had processed (or more realistically, buried). It all came back and threw me for a loop.
I focused on food, sleep, water and rest more than ever before. Plus staying employed and the other adult things that make it look like “Nothing going on over here!” while I’m frantically repeating over and over to myself “It will be okay, it will be okay, it will be okay…”
My older self knows the games I play and it goes “Really? You sure? Feels like we’ve played this game before and it didn’t end well. You really want to do this? Got any better coping mechanisms?”
So I doubled down on all the basics, the every day stuff that has to be done over and over and over again. Maybe it’s getting older, maybe it’s the fact that I’m dealing with the traumas I never dealt with (and keep getting re-traumatized over and over because that is my current reality), ALL the things, the basic things take more time than I would like to admit.
It’s not for lack of planning or foresight or awareness, I have that in spades. I have systems, I have schedules, I have built in time for Murphy’s Law even within Murphy’s Law.
So my wise self is calling my bluff. “This time might be different. And your coping skills might not work. You might have to get more tools than a hammer.”
All which takes time, less pressure, less stress and more retreat from the things that don’t matter.
Which if you really think about it, is a lot. A lot of things don’t really matter.
Which also makes it look, to your nearest and dearest, that you are pulling ever more away when all you are trying to do is make sure you don’t self-destruct in the middle of the grocery store on a Saturday.
There are people who understand and there are people who think I’m crazy. Both of them are correct. At least I know how I feel, I know how I look to other people.
I am retreater. Always have been and always likely will be (for whatever the reason.)
So I get it. I get it when friends stop calling or people change. I reach out but I let them have their space because I know that I need mine. And since I’ve found these people, these people who get it, it’s all of a sudden easier to show up and not feel like I need to retreat.
Isn’t that the way it is?
It’s a big holiday weekend, the big to-do that starts the summer season, a season of socializing and gathering (which makes me tired just thinking about it) and just being on.
Every year I think I can’t get more anti-social and then I find more ways!
Because I am a retreater. And a lot of things really don’t matter.
And you don’t figure out what does actually matter without retreating.
I think it’s the most important work you can do.
If you are feeling anti-social, not into going out in the summer and doing all the things, and just want more time and space in general, I get you. You are not alone.
“Introverts unite! Alone! In our own houses! Reading books! In the quiet! And go to bed by 9 pm!”
Happy Summer.
