Emotional Scurvy

“Being alive is insisting that you are a soul first.” [Alok] 

51° F (10.5° C)  / 28 mph (45 kmph) wind

The wind and rain are making their best efforts to keep me indoors with my thoughts. That actually works out perfectly, because yesterday (Walden, Day 1) was sunny, and we walked for over an hour through the parks and canals to the south of our house. Today’s mind is being fed by yesterday’s perambulation. 

Cobwebs have taken over much of my brain since we made the decision to move abroad. Once the decision was made, the switch flipped, there was no more time for free-range creativity — all of my mental resources were needed for logistics and management and planning. I could talk for days about tasks and decisions and interdependencies of an international move, but I desperately need that to be filed in cold storage, at least for the time being. 

That time of my life was so difficult, taxing, and unnerving, that I coined the term “emotional scurvy” (at least I think I coined it; I’m not going to dash my own hopes right now by Googling it). Emotional scurvy is when you become so emotionally exhausted, for so long — down to the marrow of your bones — that old emotional scars start to open up. There’s a certain type of prolonged emotional fatigue that lets old traumas and grief and anger creep to the surface and stay there. That’s where I was for months as we sold most of our possessions and put our home on the market, and then I was physically separated from my wife, packing the remainder of our things alone, saying goodbye to our friends and family and town and country, and of course, reading the headlines reminding us of why we had to leave. 

There are two main ways (that I can think of) to recover from emotional scurvy. One is to develop deep connections with friends and family and community. While I hope that will be an option for me soon, it’s not as immediately accessible as the second option, which is to reconnect with myself. 

And so, on yesterday’s walk, I set out to think about how to reclaim myself and rediscover my free-range creativity.