Fear of Stasis

July 10, 2019

Top Winnipeg fashion blogger Cee Fardoe of Coco ^ Vera wears a Le Chateau midi skirt and Oak + Fort mulesPortrait of top Canadian fashion blogger Cee Fardoe of Coco & Vera wearing Urban Outfitters hoop earrings and an & Other Stories white teeTop Winnipeg fashion blogger Cee Fardoe of Coco & Vera wears a Le Chateau midi skirt and Muru Jewelry Tanit necklaceOutfit details on top Canadian fashion blogger Cee Fardoe of Coco & Vera, including a Le Chateau black midi skirt and Louis Vuitton Speedy 25 handbag, talking about a fear of stasisTop Canadian fashion blogger Cee Fardoe of Coco & Vera on Portage Avenue in Winnipeg, wearing Oak + Fort mules and an & Other Stories tee, while talking about a fear of stasis.& Other Stories tee
Le Chateau skirt (c/o) (similar)
Oak + Fort mules (similar)
Louis Vuitton handbag
Rayban sunglasses
Muru Jewellery necklace (c/o)
Delphine Pariente ring (similar)
Urban Outfitters earrings
Location: AA Heaps Building – Winnipeg, Manitoba

Stasis noun
sta·sis
/ˈstāsis/
1. a: a state of static balance or equilibrium : STAGNATION
b: a state or period of stability during which little or no evolutionary change in a lineage occurs
Basically, I can’t stop. I can’t stay still. If you asked me, I would freely admit that I don’t know how to not being doing something that will ultimately help me to reach a goal. I don’t know exactly why. And the longer I go on with my routine of constant productivity, the less time I have to think about it.

I feel a bit like I’m in a rut. It’s early July, with my annual summer vacation still two months away. For the first time all year, I’ve been home for almost a month straight. And although I complain about work travel, because it is absolutely a hassle, it is a break from monotony that, it seems, I desperately need. Every week appears to stretch out endlessly before me, with each day just another item to tick off my mandatory to-do list. I work and work and work, but generally, by the end of the day, I’m not much further ahead. It’s summer. Vacations leave us shorthanded and trying to keep up is a chore. A break, any break beyond a regular weekend, is still too far away to really feel like it’s in sight.

And so, I keep busy. I read book after book after book. And I take outfit photos and write these posts to go with them. I wake up early to practise yoga and pound the pavement after work to meet my running goals. The funny thing is, I’m not even sure why I have running goals? I don’t plan to enter any races. And while I love books, reading one more or less won’t change my life. If I missed popping up here for a day, or even a week, I think you’d all probably forgive me.

But I don’t. I can’t. Every second of my life is accounted for and I can’t seem to figure out how to let even one of them be unproductive. Because if I stop, then what?

Some people fear change. I am afraid that things will stay the same. Just the idea of stasis makes me shudder. The second I have any kind of down time – like, say, four weeks of uninterrupted time without a work trip – I am overwhelmed with desire to upend everything in my life that is stable. Redesign your blog! the voice in my head screams. Reorganize your furniture! Purge your closet! Do something new!! Anything new!!!

The thing is, stasis is not actually a negative state. On an intellectual level, I understand that balance is important – that some seasons are for planting while others are for blooming, as the all-too-often-quoted phrase goes. My life is not a straight away with a finish line that I am sprinting towards, but a series of peaks and vallies that I am supposed to meander through and enjoy. Some periods of time are meant for stillness and rest, while others will be a flurry of joyful activity.

I can understand it, but I can’t embrace it. And yet, when someone says to me, “You’re so productive!”, it worries me. Productivity is not a measure of success, but a measure of output. It could be argued that I might actually do better at a lot of things if I just did a few less things, or if I did some of those things less often. But I fear stasis. I just keep going, because if I stop, then – then I might realise how exhausted I am and not be able to start again, for one thing.

And I might realise there are things about my life I’m not happy with, that I will need to make difficult changes to, for another thing. That prospect terrifies me. (Despite what I’ve said in the past about how you can change your life.) But if I simply keep busy, I can rationalise that I don’t have the time to acknowledge it. So I pour my energy into projects and pursuits that, from the outside, make me appear successful and hardworking. To avoid stasis, I create change in the form of new shoes to reinvigorate my wardrobe and blog design overhauls to align with my aesthetic of the moment because those small changes serve as a distraction from the big picture. The constant upheaval and reinvention might make me seem daring – but that is the opposite of what I am in reality.

When people tell me, “You’re so productive!” they very often follow that statement up with the question: “How do you do it?” The implication being that productivity looks like success, that I appear, at least in pictures, to be doing it all and taking all the competing demands in my stride. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it rarely tells the whole story. And someone who looks like they are doing it all might, like me, just be doing it to avoid doing something else.

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5 comments so far.

5 responses to “Fear of Stasis”

  1. Courtney says:
    July 10, 2019 at 8:45 am

    I am also a person who can’t abide to be still for long and who feels like my existence needs to be a flurry of activity and output. If no project exists, I create one, and I feel incapable of being still for long. To be honest I’ve never viewed it as much of a “problem” but lately I’m starting to wonder why I feel compelled to do things that way and if it is because it means I can avoid thinking about things or grappling with issues that I want to avoid because they seem too “difficult.” I’m not sure anymore and that definitely makes me uncomfortable.

    Courtney ~ Sartorial Sidelines

  2. Melissa | Bubby and Bean says:
    July 10, 2019 at 1:54 pm

    “Some people fear change. I am afraid that things will stay the same.” This is SO me as well. I’ve always been this way, but I will say that in my 40s I’ve been able to find some level of contentment in not always chasing, if that makes sense. I’ve always struggled with needing plans and activities though, and I don’t know if I’ve ever stop being that way.

  3. Veronika Novotny says:
    July 13, 2019 at 7:46 am

    Happy weekend, Cee!!! ❤ And I’ll be the first to confess to the fact that I love staying still, and having zero plans. But in some ways, I guess that’s a plan too… because I’m obviously still staying busy & doing something. Even if it’s just sipping my coffee at the beach with Scout, and then heading to enjoy lunch with Martin, or a friend. But such an interesting topic, and find your last paragraph so interesting as well. Staying busy can definitely be a thing, and something we do to avoid other things. Been there too!!

    http://www.veronikanovotny.com (life + style blog)

  4. Mica says:
    July 13, 2019 at 2:00 pm

    Such a cute black and white outfit and I love your speedy with it 🙂

    I’m the complete opposite! I have productive days and times but I certainly embrace the downtimes and the opportunity to do nothing – with two toddlers I’m often too exhausted to do a lot when they are finally in bed, haha! Life seems to be flying by, especially this year, and I don’t always feel as productive as I’d like, but it’s just this season of life!

    Hope that you are having a wonderful weekend 🙂

    http://awayfromtheblue.blogspot.com

  5. Lydia says:
    July 30, 2019 at 5:48 am

    Doing something to simply avoid doing something else feels like it sums up my life. While I still wish I craved monotony less, or had the dedication for a daily yoga practice, I am doing what I can, and the hardest thing in life is convincing myself that is enough.
    https://www.iamchiconthecheap.com/

Cee Fardoe is a thirty-something Canadian blogger who splits her time between Winnipeg and Paris. She is a voracious reader, avid tea-drinker, insatiable wanderer and fashion lover who prefers to dress in black, white and gray.

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