Languishing

An Honest Self-Assessment

Languishing. According to an article in The New York Times, it’s what many of us are doing in this moment in pandemic time. Defined as “the absence of well-being” languishing is felt as a dull aimlessness that can lead to severe depression. “Part of the danger is that when you’re languishing, you might not notice the dulling of delight or the dwindling of drive. You don’t catch yourself slipping slowly into solitude; indifferent to your indifference. When you can’t see your own suffering, you don’t seek help or even do much to help yourself.”

This worried me, and got me thinking about what’s changed over the past year. Oddly, I stopped getting a burst of endorphins after my daily run. It doesn’t stop me from running, but man, do I miss that feeling. Also, rather than anything new, I have been re-reading books by two writers, Joan Didion and David Sedaris. I find I am equally emotionally dependent on Didion’s keen reason and Sedaris’s oversharing. Finally, pretty much every night finds me watching reruns of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” (why does cringing feel so good?) and Anthony Bourdain’s “Parts Unknown”. I didn’t mourn Bourdain until this year; now, it fucking BREAKS MY HEART that he’s gone.

Plus, I am newly madly in love with my bed, my pajamas, and all three of my pillows.

But…am I languishing? I think not. It feels more like stasis, a stillness protective yet porous enough to admit breakthrough moments of joy. Joy as in watching Jeopardy as a family. Joy as in Charlie the dog climbing into bed to snuggle every night. Then, there’s writing, which never fails to “shed the light on my own suffering” and save me from indifference to absolutely everything. These days, I might be missing those end-of-run endorphins, but writing as well as I can about something I care about and sticking the landing at the end feels not so much like joy or drive or delight as some kind of small salvation.