Not to belabor the point, but I’ve been going through some issues lately. I write about them because I feel people can relate. The same way I relate when I read other people’s writing about their similar issues. So, here I continue to write about my journey. If you feel that these posts speak to you, please feel free to mention that in a comment below.
I would like to blame it on my cell phone. Or, as Milli Vanilli offered, to blame it on the rain. In this case rain makes an excellent scapegoat; I love sleeping in the rain. I mention the phone because it is very easy to spend hours looking at it, interacting with other people around the world that I’ll probably never meet in person.
I always have excellent plans for a day off. I have a list of things to accomplish—either written down or in my head. Then comes the day. I don’t have to get up to go to work, so the alarm gets silenced as soon as it goes off. (This might be my favorite thing in the entire world.) Then, I fall back to sleep until it’s embarrassing. I get up, make coffee and read while I drink it.
Between sleeping in, morning naps and afternoon naps nothing gets done. Nothing. If it weren’t for lunch with Barry I might not even eat. He was out of town the other day and I started shaking from low blood sugar around 2PM, because I hadn’t eaten that day. Fortunately we had left-over tacos. And bagels & cream cheese.
Today I woke up from my nap, stepped over the unwashed clothes, around the furniture that is waiting to be emptied and removed from the room, right past the clean clothes waiting to be folded, and out the door. I came into town because of a 70% off custom frame deal. That ends tomorrow. So, I could have waited until tomorrow, except that I couldn’t stay at home any longer. I didn’t bring my computer so that I could write, because I suck at life. I did, though, bring my journal because I’m not a heathen. Now I sit and contemplate all that I could have already accomplished. I sit in a coffee shop in Austin, not home where I should be and where I pointed run from.
I had my first therapy session yesterday—post-assessment, that is. I was really looking forward to working through a lot. He gave me some things to watch for, and a few things to think about as I go through my day. Not sure how much I expected from the first meeting, but I feel like I’m not cured yet. I haven’t had another episode, but I still feel not-completely-cured. I need something to work on from one session to the next. I do know that I need three exercise sessions per week. I was told to watch how I talk to myself (such as declaring that I suck at life) and to learn to have a more constructive dialogue with the more hysterical, irrational voices that scream at me. I’ll watch for that.
In the meantime, I think setting up better routines would be beneficial. I’ve already begun straightening the bed as soon as I’m out of it. Now I just need to do something else before my coffee, because that’s where the slow-down really starts. And I should make it a habit to fold a load of laundry every day.
Barry is the example to look at. He is working from the moment his feet hit the floor. He sweeps before his eyes are completely open. I don’t necessarily want to be a workaholic, but I can spot where things begin to stall for me, and I can intercept. Twitter and Facebook are time-suckers, but it’s not all in vain if it helps build a following who might someday buy a book. And I enjoy interacting with all of the people I’ve met so far. So, when I get home I should immediately sweep or vacuum, then I can look at Twitter. Tamara said that her rule growing up was that they had to clean at least one thing before they could leave the house. That is a good life plan.
These are great habits and I can visualize myself incorporating them into my life. But, depression is real, and the thought of laying down, seeking the escape of sleep, is too easy, the need too strong. I rarely am able to resist it.
Nobody has said that this would be easy or that change would happen overnight.