Back in the day, we were a social household. Friends and family regularly dropped in for a chat or to share a meal.
The property we live on originally belonged to my family and was part of the farm owned across four generations for a hundred-plus years. There were four households on the land, all family, and the younger generation were small children growing up together, cousins living next door to one another or close enough that they were here every weekend.
The kids grew up – as they do. After the death of my father, one after the other of the family moved away and the farm was sold a couple of years ago.
We got busier and busier doing our things, as did our friends. Some moved away overseas. Then Covid hit and everyone went into their shells, hunkering down like hermit crabs retreating inside.
I don’t know if you’ve ever watched hermit crabs. I used to love them as a child. They scuttle across the sand so quickly with their wonky shell homes on their backs. At the slightest disturbance, they scoot inside, poking one feeler back out to test the environment before venturing out again.
My husband and I started a business during Covid. It was probably not the smartest move, given the economic climate, but if not then, when? We’re not getting any younger.
Between the long hours and stress of running a new business, the family moved away, and both them and friends hunkering down during the Covid era, we became those hermit crabs (a lot of people did).
Amid those major life shifts, I also stepped away from a very public role. I was burnt out from six years of serving my community as an elected member of our regional government and the eighteen years prior working in the public service, both employed and contracting while running my own business as a writer and communications consultant.
I was throwing myself into our business enterprise, working long hours seven days a week while already overwhelmed post-politics, going into menopause to boot – yeah, it’s not exactly difficult to see a crash coming!
In hindsight – don’t you love the 20/20 of it – the time was ripe for a major shift and heady life lessons.
We saw the writing on the wall for our business at the end of 2023, which meant hubby returned to his previous occupation having learned that running his own business wasn’t for him. Great lesson. We gave it a shot and some stunning small buildings in the world would not exist had we not designed and built them.
I finally had the time to stop and figure out what the hang I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I’m still in hermit mode, happily so. It’s taken months for me to recover from a tumultuous and stressful working life, at the beck and call of the public.
What I’ve learned over the past few years and looking back on the last thirty of those on our property, is that I’ve never stopped long enough to just be me, to figure out who she is, and to enable myself to heal. I’ve always been in fight mode.
Life will always throw stuff at you – that’s life. I’ve always been a fighter, so pushing back, busting through, and staying strong are how I learned to cope with life’s ongoing challenges. I’m a highly sensitive person, which means that I feel everything intensely, every sense is heightened, and I’ve been fighting for survival my whole life.
Now that I’ve stopped, I can finally focus on building a healthy, balanced life. It’s a work in progress. I’m slowly putting out feelers, tentatively testing the environment to see who I let into my shell and whether it’s worth venturing out.
This week, visitors have been each of the first three days. I’m rekindling the connections I want while leaving those that no longer fit - I’ve learned it’s okay to let sleeping dogs lie.
I’ll continue to be a hermit because I’ve discovered that I don’t need a lot of people, just a select few who enrich my life. My creativity has returned, and I can finish my first novel – hallelujah! It’s been in the works for more than ten years.
I’m slowly healing from a lifetime of being burnt out and overwhelmed.
It feels like I’m not alone in my hermit-ness. Societies globally took a hit through Covid, and many people are still tentatively putting out feelers. Others continue in fight or flight mode, struggling to find solid ground because everything jolted sideways during the height of the pandemic, and nothing has looked quite the same since.
Finding time to appreciate nature and the small gifts of life is the first step towards regaining your balance. No matter where you are post-Covid, or what life has thrown at you, there is still something to be grateful for.
I’m not sure I’d be here, healthily discovering my balance, had we not changed direction, and stepped away from the business. I’ve finally given myself permission and time to breathe.
There were opportunities presented over the past few months, roles I could throw myself into. While they would help alleviate our stressed budget, I finally realised it’s not worth the toll they’d take on my health – writing is my passion and where my focus is meant to be.
I need my hermit shell, our property, being in nature, and the quiet away from too many people to be myself and live my best, balanced life. I have faith that the money will come because it always has – and I’ve made a living in one way or another from my writing for the past twenty-odd years.
Maybe it’s time for you to step back if only for a few hours, to spend time in nature, breathe, and just be. You never know what might come of it. At the very least it will give your nervous system time to calm down. We all need that to find a balanced life rather than continuously running and fighting.
You may not need to go full hermit but it’s okay to duck back into your shell daily, and if you don’t have a safe place to retreat to, somewhere that you can recharge your batteries, that’s priority one. We all need a hermit shell.