Reflex and Recovery

I played an excellent game of table-tennis in my dream. It was so vivid I could feel each stroke, hear the hollow knock of the ball, even the strain in my wrist with each slice. I don’t know who my opponent was, but they were good. We were perfectly matched, and the rally didn’t end, because I was tireless, both physically and mentally.

I woke up joyful, completely present. Then reality set in. Jetlag, from yet another transatlantic flight. Disorientation, as I’m now in a new flat. The plodding list of errands I needed to complete, bills to pay, bureaucracies to navigate. All combined with that sense of exhaustion that descends upon me sometimes, when I fully understand the gap between aspiration and reality. Times like this, I feel this Jujutsu Kaisen quote in my bones:

“You’ve faced several life-or-death situations. But that doesn’t make you an adult. Finding more fallen-out hairs on your pillow, watching your favorite stuffed bread disappear from the convenience store...the accumulation of those little despairs is what makes a person an adult.”

The thing I’ve learned from my twenties, and therapy, is how to catch the spiral early, before it becomes a full-on depressive episode. People at work sometimes think I don’t have unproductive days. That’s because I have unproductive months. Same with writing: yes, I can draft a novel in a month, but I can also go several months editing, without writing anything new. The engine’s in neutral – yes, the car can move, but it won’t climb any hills. If I try to push through it, the exhaustion gets worse.

The thing I hate the most when I’m feeling like this is optimism. I don’t want to hear about how it’ll pass. I don’t want to talk to people, not even to meet my friends. I don’t want to be reminded of how productive I was just last week (I know!) or told it’s just jetlag hitting me harder with age (really, I know). So I’m not about to offer any of that. I will say that creatine works wonders, and is much better than caffeine, even though it’s the latter I crave.

The thing I need, besides caffeine, chocolate and Coke, is time. I always plan my long flights with recovery time afterwards. I don’t just mean time to sleep and rest, but the time to think I’m recovered, attempt to go back to my normal schedule, fail miserably, get even more tired, this time with a side of guilt, and then sleep and rest some more. I totally thought I was going to swim 10 laps today. After all, according to Oura, I only have “minor signs of strain” not major ones. Instead, I’ve managed to walk out of the flat to toss my recycling. That’s it. So glam.

The thing that helps is reading. If I could nope out of the world and just be a brain in a vat reading good stories forever, that’s the only kind of immortality I’m interested in. Even watching TV is too much sometimes, an assault on the senses from the outside rather than a gentle stirring of the imagination and creative forces within me.

The thing I’m thankful for is that what, for me, is temporary exhaustion and brain fog, is for many people a permanent fact of existence. I hate winter. For some people, it’s always winter. I know that in a matter of weeks, or even days, as my mental chemistry rebalances itself and my muscles rebuild, I’ll be back to swimming-writing-working as usual, firing on all cylinders, falling in love with life all over again.

Maybe that’s what the dream was trying to tell me – table-tennis is a game that requires absolute focus. Body and mind must be in perfect harmony. And mine can be… just not today.

Today, all I’m going to manage is to watch the sunset and read.