Rewilding Capacity

My capacity has been tested many times over the past six months, in a variety of ways. I have been learning all sorts of limits for myself. Which in a way feels silly because I am in my mid (too late 😳) 30’s. Shouldn’t I have learned all the limits I need to by now in life?

Jokes on me! There are limits we will constantly be learning during our lifetime. Some because they will be brand new, no matter our age. And others will simply change with time. Life is not something we figure out once we hit a certain benchmark or timeline, it’s a constant unraveling. It is my choice whether I embrace or resist this inevitability.

I’m choosing to embrace it, because a lifetime of resistance has worn me thin. I no longer have it in me to think I know or understand it all. Which, honestly, is an absolute relief. As someone who has always walked through life wanting to know it all and thinking I could, getting to this place has been a journey.

I suppose I could just end this here by saying my capacity to bullshit myself has dropped dramatically. I can no longer live in a world where I see simple solutions and answers to every problem. A world where I swallow the lies I have been fed about what is right and wrong and how life should work. The stories and ideas that in many ways kept me safe for so long are crumbling around me.

It sounds dramatic and maybe my capacity for drama is low so I’m feeling it more than usual!? Or perhaps, this existential crisis I have been wandering through for the past few years is meant to be dramatic. Because if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t grab my attention with any kind of force.

Let me rewind myself back to why I started writing this, capacity. I am currently in Ohio, the closest thing I have to a home at this moment in life. When you return home after a long trip, what do you do? Adult chores and tasks! Those parts of life that are not the most fun but are quite necessary aka adulting. My capacity for adulting has diminished to nearly non existent and it hurts.

It feels as if completing one or two tasks wipes me out for the rest of the day. I catch myself scrolling endlessly on my phone, unable to get off the couch or be a human in any form. This is a huge departure from the adult I was six months ago. Honesty, I prided myself in my ability to get shit done efficiently and use my time well.

But as I was walking this morning I realized that of course our capacities will fluctuate throughout our lives. My “adulting muscles” are out of shape currently. That doesn’t mean I am weak or worthless, just that my training has been differently lately. It is impossible to keep all of our “muscles” at full capacity despite what society tells us. If we try, eventually something will break and we will inevitably fall into the dreaded pits of burnout hell.

It is actually impossible to hold a high capacity for all the things at once. I can’t be the best in all my identities at once. Each part of us, each identity we hold, is a muscle group that needs trained. There simply are not enough hours in a day to train them all well. Adult, employee, partner, friend, parent, coach, student, on and on it goes. Each of us takes up space in many different identities throughout our day. This unrealistic expectation that we should be great and successful in each of them at all times is torturing us slowly.

It comes back to how we shift our capacity in any realm of life, training and graded exposure. If I want to run a marathon, it requires an intentional and gradual increase in running over time. I cannot run one mile every day for a month and then assume I can run 26.2 miles at once since I just ran 30 miles over the stretch of a month. I must run one mile the first day, two the next and slowly work my way up to five. With time and proper training, I can run ten miles at once, then twenty, and before I know it, 26.2.

This slow and graded training leads to sustained capacity. A capacity that creates strong muscles that can adapt to many situations. The other option, pushing ourselves to the edge or past our limits without gradual training, can lead to disaster and injury quickly. This physical example can be extrapolated to every aspect of our lives and each of our identities.

We don’t often think about needing to gradually train our other muscles but we all have. Think how many times you had to stumble through being a new employee before it felt natural to work. Or how many times you started and ended relationships before you learned how to be in partnership in healthy ways. Or for the parents out there, how the anxiety and fear of parenting gradually shifts with the more kids you have or the older they get.

The challenge for me right now is the remembering that if we set an identity down for a bit, we can’t expect to pick it back up and have the same capacity we once did. Back in the day, (yes, I am old enough to say that now!) I used to be able to run any distance at a moments notice. I once ran a 25K trail run without any real training and felt great the whole time. I’m learning, as we age, this training becomes more and more important.

I have been focused on my training as a student and friend lately. These two identities have capacities higher than I’ve ever known because my ability to dedicate time and energy here is vast. My training to maintain my capacity as an employee or a generally responsible adult has been severely lacking. So of course, I will feel extra weight if I need to slip back into these roles.

I needed the reminder that capacites shift without the judgement of it being good or bad. I am no less of a person because certain aspects of life feel harder than others right now. We can’t do it all, we never will be able to. If you see someone who looks like they are doing it all, perhaps you’re simply not seeing the whole picture.

Think of any superhero for a minute. Just about any plot consists of this idea. If Superman is thriving as Superman, likely his life as Clark Kent is in shambles. Spider-Man can’t be his best self as Peter Parker while also being the best Spider-Man. It’s always a struggle to find a balance between the two identities. Now realize that each of us carries far more than two identities in any given day. If superheroes can’t do it all, then maybe we can’t either. And that is okay!

As I continue to trudge through my adulting tasks over the next few days, I will give myself a bit more compassion. Perhaps life is always a training run and even when we think we are running the race, it is simply more training. The proverbial finish line might not actually exist until the very end. And today is not the day we tackle that conversation!

So remember two things, even superheroes struggle to do it all and everything we do is helping to build our capacity in one way or another.