On fretting

Here’s a problem for my retirement. Left to its own devices, my mind does not spin out charming stories. It does not reminisce fondly on happy times of the past, or dwell happily on my wonderful family and friends. It does not ponder great philosophical conundrums or invent creative solutions to social problems. Left to its own devices, my mind frets.

Some of my friends’ minds do, too. They fret about the latest outrage from our erratic President or whether the Dems will take back the Senate. They fret about the opioid crisis, the homeless problem, global warming.

I kind of envy them. If not given tasks to perform, my mind frets about really, really petty stuff. Where the heck did I leave my favorite black sweater? What will we give my brother and his wife for lunch when they arrive? Can I run the dishwasher plus the washing machine and still have enough hot water for a shower?

Instead of the famed “monkey mind” of Buddhism, I seem to have hamster mind. My brain likes to run and run, but it also likes the safety of its little, repetitive round of worries. It’s willing to take breaks to nap and chew a few pellets of food, but then it wants to jump back on the wheel and run some more.

This is one reason I love reading fiction. When I’m reading, I’m fretting about the problems of fictional characters – characters who I know are fictional even as I worry about them. It’s a relief.

This is also the reason I loved my work. For forty or fifty hours a week, I thought about great novels, poems, plays, and memoirs. I worried about why this or that student was having so much trouble organizing a paper, what writing assignment would challenge a bright but closed-off boy, what book would speak helpfully to a depressed, cynical girl. I weighed various themes that we could start discussion with and which one would pull the class’s attention in most quickly.

Now that I’m newly retired, my mind is trying to spend way too much time on the hamster wheel. I can explain the causes of my tendency to fret. (Simply put, my fretting arises naturally from a childhood of life-threatening asthma overlaid on an introverted personality.) But knowing the causes does not solve the problem. So what is the solution?

Some people (including my husband, when I give him the chance) say that meditation is an excellent, if long-term, solution. Several of my good friends swear by it. Over time, it quiets the mind and gives greater mental focus. Or so those people say. Unfortunately, daily self-discipline is not my strong suit – I tend to motivate myself through enthusiasms – and in the short-term, each attempt at meditation bores me and wears me out. So, maybe someday.

When the hamster-wheel won’t shut down at night (more rare now that my mother’s health crisis is over), I listen to Calm sleep-stories. Rumbly male voices reading descriptions of train rides in British, Welsh, or Scottish accents can usually send me right to sleep. I love drifting off somewhere outside London or Venice and then surfacing back to consciousness three-quarters of the way to Penzance or Paris. It usually takes me three nights’ listening to make it to the end of one of these stories.

Uneventful sleep stories don’t work for everybody with a buzzing brain. One of my friends listens to audio books: she lets good readers shepherd her gently through Dickens’ many novels, which are deliciously long. She’s read them before and knows how they’ll come out. Other friends lull themselves to sleep by re-reading their favorite romance novels, with feel-good plots and happy endings. One friend sets the television to comedies she’s watched before. Some read history or listen to instrumental jazz. When I was in college, people used to say “Take two paragraphs of Hegel before bed, and sleep like a baby.”

Some people, like my husband, toss (once), turn (once), and are asleep within five minutes. Lucky them.

During the day, what works to keep my brain from overheating is ACTVITY – or at the very least, preparation for an activity. If that action keeps me grounded in the body, that’s good. If it seems useful, so much the better. If I enjoy it too, that’s the best.
Riding my bike in the fresh air and sunshine almost always pulls me out of fretful thoughts. I love both the actual ride and the diffused mood of benevolence afterwards. In the absence of good weather, a spell on the treadmill or elliptical will do. (For me, as for many other women, it works best in front of HGTV. In fact, I’ve gone through periods in which I’ve had to forbid myself from watching HGTV unless I’m actually pushing my feet up and down on an exercise machine.) Now that I’m retired, I can’t wait to try Zumba.

Of course there’s golf, but not for me. My dad was one of those salesmen whose company paid for a country-club membership, so I grew up around golf. Both my parents played often and well. My brother played until back trouble prevented him from getting out on the course. To them, golf offered outdoor exercise (especially when played without a cart), social interaction with lively people, and a challenge. It still does to lots of people.

I, however, am a total klutz. I will always be pathetically bad at any activity that requires hand-eye coordination. I once brained a college boyfriend trying to play racket-ball. From then on, I stuck to gymnastics. I could – and did – hurt myself, but no other human beings were harmed. For the past twenty years, I went to a women’s gym near my work. Maybe I’ll find a friendly one again. Until then, I walk.

Other things can lure me away from my fretful thoughts: fun activities, podcasts, an excellent novel. But that’s a topic for another post. In the meantime, what about YOU?