Sundaze 275: Navigating feeling stagnant

Happy Sunday, my loves!

Perhaps it’s the persistent rain that we’ve had in England for the past six months, but I’ve been fighting a cloud of malaise recently. I sit down to journal and out pours pages and pages of sadness. I open my laptop to do my favourite thing – write – and end up hating everything I say, deleting it and choosing to be unseen. I have so much I want to say but it feels like there’s a murky wall blocking me from the world.

Spending time with old colleagues and loved ones has helped though. So often it feels like our problems are just our own, but a problem shared is a problem halved and I feel marginally lighter having talked about even 1% of what sprints through my mind daily. Although things might look peachy keen online, I feel a bit scrambled if I’m honest!

Navigating feeling stagnant

Life recently is mundane and slow and, if I’m honest, not quite filled with the usual magic that I can always tease out. It started at the beginning of the month: I panic and panicked into the night about feeling stagnant and not quite being where I thought I’d be right now. In fact, as we zoom past the four-year anniversary of the pandemic lockdown, I’m almost exactly where I was.

Or am I?

When we tentatively stepped out of lockdown and out of our home sanctuaries, it felt as though the entire world was desperate to return to normal. Back to busy schedules, back to not covering mouths when coughing and sneezing, back to mindlessly checking off arbitrary things from an arbitrary to-do list. Of course, I chose to step out slowly. To be honest, I barely did that. I felt completely changed post-pandemic, yet I couldn’t put my finger on how or why. Years later, I finally feel like I’m settling into that. But with this butterfly period comes a feeling that I’ve been stagnant.

Towards the end of the final lockdown, I ended a long-term relationship, quit the job I’d been in for 2.5 years, cut my hair, and was terrified of both the general public and Internet. Change had never been greater for me and I suppose it’s strange and scary to no longer need to chase these big changes. A settled life is a good life.

Perhaps stability has been my goal for the past couple of years. Perhaps the shifting goalposts of adulthood has confused me and all of the big hitters from these years actually served for a period of quiet evolution, not stagnation. It’s all too easy to constantly compare yourself when it feels like everybody is constantly shouting about their latest achievements.

What is the answer here? I’m not sure. I’m now happier than ever before in a new(ish) long-term relationship, I’m in a job that I absolutely love, and I’m even happy about my hair. Amidst feeling stagnant, it’s hard to sit in my feelings and trust the process. I want to make a bid for change, despite not quite knowing what the change should be. I want to be driving forward, but I don’t know why or what that looks like. Perhaps stability is the goal.

Links I’ve Loved

  1. I’ve ordered my next bullet journal notebook, since I’ve filled my current one up extremely quickly! I stuck with my beloved Notebook Therapy and chose their ‘Sweet Ballet’ design.
  2. Continuing on my big investigation into social media and its effect on me, I enjoyed Jordan’s Substack newsletter about why it’s okay to be curated online.
  3. Also loved Stylist’s story about navigating sunk cost fallacy at work, something I often find myself worried about.
  4. Hand Luggage Only continues to be one of my favourite travel blogs and I loved their recent guide to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.
  5. While our bookish tastes are quite different, I enjoyed seeing what The Lilac Scrapbook has been reading lately with their April reads and reviews.

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