There are two things you should know about me.

The first is that I do not believe in failed experiments.

The second is that even though I am — apparently — spectacularly bad at being two years old, I am quite gifted at one part of it: being disagreeable.

Yesterday I tried to be two, and it was, for the most part, a colossal disaster.

You know, in kind of an interesting way. Or I guess it would have been interesting, were it not for how completely miserable I was.

Anyway, no experiment is complete without a review of the hard and the good, so here we go.

The main thing that didn’t work, and why.

It turns out that in order to have the freedom and the playfulness and the delightfully hedonistic practice of following whim, you need some sort of loose structure in place.

You need things that hold the form.

Even if it isn’t routine or ritual, there needs to be something to hang the experiment on.

For one thing, you need a culture of you that holds itself.

And maybe also to have collected a bunch of information about that culture in the Book of You, so you can refer to it when you forget.

Another thing: two year olds need to be cared for. You need people or things in place that will do that for you.

Oh, and apparently it also helps to not be so crazy-burnt-out that you can’t even see straight. That makes figuring out what you want that much harder.

So here’s what happened.

I woke up in the wee hours with the worst headache in the entire world. Like the insides of my head being drilled.

Slept late and woke up confused.

Remembered to be a two year old in the bath.

Let the gentleman friend talk me into looking at some tax stuff because it was important. For future reference, this gets filed under Mistake.

Waited way too long to eat. Forgot there wasn’t heating at the Playground. Wore the wrong shoes. Left my phone at home.

So halfway through the afternoon I found myself walking down some random street, freezing cold, ravenously hungry, in inappropriate and hurty shoes, with no way to contact anyone and with nowhere to go.

Eventually I got home, crawled into bed and spent the afternoon alternating between feeling sorry for myself, and thinking about how ridiculous it was that I can’t even handle being two.

And here’s what I figured out.

Ahem. Two year olds have support. They have people who are tender and nurturing towards them.

I need some of that too.

Better structures allow for more freedom.

Also, renaming things always helps.

But you know? Sometimes you just won’t know what you want to do. There is no inclination to follow.

And when you’re exhausted and miserable and haven’t had a proper weekend since October, it’s really reasonable and okay that nothing pops into your head or strikes you as particularly appealing.

It’s really scary not knowing what you want.

I always imagine that if I have designated time for Not Working, that there will be so many things I can finally do.

Tramping as much as I want. Roll on the floor and do old Turkish lady yoga all day. Go for long walks.

But with the burnout and the tired and frustrated, there was seriously nothing that I wanted to do. But I also didn’t want to keep staring at the ceiling either.

The main thing that did work and why.

Well, first I needed my gentleman friend to ask me about 7000 things, all of which I said NO to, in good two year old form.

Do you want to re-read David Copperfield? No.
Do you want to go to a movie? No.
Do you want to take a nap? No.
Do you want to look at paint chips? No.
Do you want to eat pickles? No.
Do you want to be outside? No it’s cold outside!
Do you want to be inside? No it’s boring inside!

So the first win was just getting to say no to everything. And while it was frustrating in the moment, I did get to say NO way more than I normally do.

And then suddenly something came into my head that I did kind of want.

But it was really bizarre.

Following the trail.

I wanted M&Ms.

Here’s the thing. As you might know, I haven’t had sugar in eleven years.

So obviously, I didn’t want M&Ms because they’d have me bouncing off the walls. But I wanted something about them.

Tiny? Bright colors? Cheery? Sweet?

Then the shape made me think of Pente pieces.

And that in turn made me think of my favorite lamp.

And thinking of my favorite lamp made me think of taking a bath at Hiro‘s old place and how pretty the candles were.

Which made me think bath salts.

Do you want to go out and get more bath salts? YES!

And then!

Then when we were getting bath salts I wanted to have lilies and irises for the kitchen.

And when we got those, I wanted to eat spicy tater tots. Oh, yes. Because I was two, you see.

Except I also had whiskey because I’m not really two.

It was a neat progression.

I found this one tiny thing that appealed to me in this world of nothing is appealing right now because I’m burnt out and I hate everything now. One thing. Yay.

And following it resulted in all sorts of wants, gwishes and little sparkles of possible ideas of a something that could maybe someday who knows.

All experiments are useful.

Even when we’re really not happy with the result.

The next time I try on being two, I’m going to have more support and a better playpen. And a card deck of possibilities for when I get disconnected from what appeals to me.

Mainly I’m going to learn more about who I am when I am burnt-out, because there is stuff in there that I need.

And there will be bathsalts, of course.

And comment zen in the blanket fort.

We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. It’s a practice.

Things that are cool to talk about: experimenting, trying stuff, curiosity, play, your own practice. How much burn-out sucks.

Not cool: unsolicited advice. Which of course you wouldn’t do. I’m just mentioning this because it feels like I’m still in vulnerable mouse mode today.

I don’t share my experience to be told what to do, but because I think it’s useful to remember that we’re all in this process in one form or another.

Love all around. M&Ms to those who can have them, and bright colorful possibility-filled substitutes for the rest of us.