I climbed into bed Monday night and grabbed the book off my nightstand. I bought it while on vacation a couple of weeks ago and was about 70-pages in. Propped up on my pillows, I cracked the book open and… zoned out. 

It was reading time, so I kept trying to get myself to come back to the book, but within a few minutes, I’d find myself skimming through passages and flicking pages to see how far I was from the end of the chapter (too far to convince myself to power through, it turns out). 

My gut instinct was to beat myself up. I hadn’t written anything that day, and I’d been holding out for my ah-yes-a-moment-of-creative-recharging moment of the day on my nighttime reading. And yet, there I was, feeling like a major hypocrite as someone who shouts about reading and writing from the rooftops but just couldn’t bring myself to focus on my book. 

This week, it hasn’t (just) been my phone and work demands keeping me away from creative priorities. I’m also feeling drained. Overwhelmed. Exhausted. 

I’ve been recovering from a virus that still has me coughing and full of snot, work has been incredibly intense, and every time I get an email or get on social media, I’m confronted with a million horrors on the geopolitical landscape. Prioritizing my reading and writing has felt silly and inconsequential in light of everything else that is going on. 

And maybe it is a bit silly. But in light of how absurd everything is in the world right now, is it really any sillier to create than to doggy paddle in a pool of anxiety?