Journal – Page 23 – Lisa Marie Blair

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Today is nowhere near as relaxed as yesterday. My anxiety has returned along with all my bad feelings about how much time I’ve wasted these past weeks and how little I’ve accomplished over my lifetime. Too much time in your own head can cause some pretty dramatic self-esteem swings, it seems.

I think it’s because I have a feeling my little corona-quarantine-staycation is coming to an end and I’m feeling a little panicky for a lot of reasons.

For one, I’m afraid. The novel corona virus hasn’t gone away and I haven’t seen anything that makes me believe we are past the worst of it. I’m dreading having to wear a mask all day too, and to spend so much mental energy of remembering to disinfect surfaces and equipment and not to obsessively worry that I haven’t. I’m also sad. It’s hard to admit because of all the suffering going on all over the world, but I kind of enjoyed this time at home. It felt like time outside of time, something I have been wishing for for a very long time.

Still, it looks like I won’t be working long hours and maybe not even every day. Summer might still be saved after all.

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I didn’t get around to setting my goals for the week. I may not set them at all. I want to have a week of freedom from expectation, especially my own. Perhaps I need a break every once in a while from all the things I (think I) want to do. I want to do nothing. I want to not think so much or worry so much. I want to be a little more here an now, a little more focused on what is material and real, what I can control.

The upside is I feel like taking care of myself a little more. I’m walking and exercising more, eating better, and taking my meds. Getting up on time is easier and I feel less anxious about how I should spend the days. Moving, cleaning, taking care of things, this may be what I need most now.

Still, even if I’m not doing it I’m thinking about writing and there is a chance that that is the real goal. Maybe I just need to do more in order to create more and with so few ways to experience or explore the world I have to delve into dark corners of the yard and the basement and fish out what inspiration I can find there instead. It’s sad, but inspiring. There is a part of me that is trying to thrive even in these uncertain and confining conditions.

Today I am grateful for:

My new phone. It got delivered today, and it’s as awesome as I hoped it would be. I didn’t need it, but it’s been a long time since I’ve upgraded and this was a little congratulatory gift to myself for the promotion.
Overnight oats and chia pudding. I’m trying to eat healthier and while the snacks are a hurdle I have yet to overcome, I’ve got breakfast in the bag. When I’m not eating chia pudding (the oats are for my wife) I have fresh fruit and sunflower or almond butter instead.
Walking without my phone. I always want to take my phone on walks because I want to option of listening to music and I don’t want to miss any great photo opportunities but walking without my phone has forced me to be present, to look around, and to get to know and appreciate my neighborhood.

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I woke to thick fog outside this morning as the moisture left behind from last night’s rainstorm evaporating in the rising sunshine. I started the day with a quick shower and rather than a walk I did a quick but effective warm up followed by a few each of lunges, squats, and bicep curls. I’m still taking it easy on my knees while I wait to order a second compression sleeve, but I’m trying to do some activity every day so I can get ready for a short hiking trip in a week or so.

This Sunday is a strange one. I don’t feel like doing my usual Sunday thing, so I won’t. I want to be up doing projects sround the house and cleaning out corners that haven’t been touched in years. I guess the season is really getting to me. Nothing feels more important than this house, not writing, not reading, and definitely not learning. I feel guilty for it but I suppose I would no matter what I did.

I think I just miss going work and taking care of the house is the closest I can get to that feeling I used to get after a hard but satisfying work day. It’s a funny thing to learn about yourself. That day job you resented and thought was getting in the way of your dreams and fulfillment iturns out to be the things you end up missing more than anything. Your hobbies are still your hobbies and your work is as necessary as love.

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I was woken up early by the dog loudly announcing packages were being delivered. It was infuriating but effective.

My new compression sleeve came early this morning and before breakfast I was back out walking around the neighborhood. When I came home, I tried some squats and lunges and felt my other knee protesting so I think I will buy another and accept the fact that my joints are never going to be what they once were, not that they were ever what they should have been in the first place.

I’ve decided to do half of my weekend chores on Saturdays instead of being lazy all day and saving it all for Sunday and by the time the walk was done and all the cleaning too, I was too tired to do any real writing. I did manage to finally finish reading Borne by Jeff VanderMeer after nearly a month of struggling. I’m happy it’s done. I loved the message, but I struggled to suspend belief and fully immerse myself in the world VanderMeer had created.

I’m going to quickly finish a Penguin Little Black Classic or two to catch up to where I should be by now and then start a stint of women writers only for a while.

I thought Friday nights were getting depressing, but Saturday nights are even worse. I’m bored out of my mind and so is my wife. I long to go out somewhere and be among people so badly. Not being able to work is one thing. It’s a bummer, but it was still work so I’m not too eager to go back, but restaurants? Movie theaters? Bars? These I miss to my core.

It helps to change the scenery, position and perspective. So, we’re back in the bedroom watching TV and listening to a faint thunderstorm roll in and out around us. It’s soothing enough to allow me to forget.

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Today is a productive one, but not at all in the way I thought it would be. I went to bed meaning to wake up early to write, but when I got out of bed, the last thing I wanted was to be trapped behind that desk. I spent the morning doing some cleaning and taking care of my pets and plants. It’s more fulfilling sometimes to see the fruits of your labor, to look around and see that you have changed something.

My knee is feeling much better, but I can tell already I’m overdoing it. I do this every time. As soon as I feel even a tiny bit better, I go and set back all my healing by pretending it never happened. I never have the patience my body needs and it never has the strength I wish it did. Obviously we working against each other.

Friday nights are quickly becoming the most depressing time of the week. The weather is so warm and all I want to do is have a few drinks with a few good friends on the patio of a packed bar downtown and instead I’m stuck inside binge-watching old episodes of Six Feet Under because there’s nothing else on.

It’s not all bad though, now. My wife and I had the brilliant idea to move the “creativity room” TV into the bedroom where it’s cooler and to pour a couple glasses of amaretto. My knee is propped up on an ice pack but not so much because it’s hurt but as a preventative. I’d really like to go for a nice long walk tomorrow.

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The weather is really starting to warm up now. Just a few weeks ago it was snowing and now I have to keep all the windows open or the house is unbearable by the time the sun makes its way to the west windows.

I had hoped to walk again this morning but my knee is stiff and hurting again so I spent much of the day laid up on the couch instead. I’d hoped to get outside again or to do a workout at home, but an afternoon nap snuck up on me and I lost too much time. I’d hoped to end the month on a more enthusiastic note. I hoped to write something good today and to finish reading the book I’ve been struggling to get through, but I watched mindless TV and did some virtual window shopping instead.

But tomorrow is a new day, and new month, and after I am done here, I’m going to write out exactly what kind of day I’d like it to be. A new month is nothing but another fresh start, the same as a new year, or season, or hour of every single day. So, no guilt and no regrets, only resolution and resolve. Begin again, begin again, again, again, again…

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I’m really scatter brained today. I have energy and motivation but my mind won’t settle anywhere and I can’t think of what I am meant to do. My to-do list is no help since I forgot to update it and now I have forgotten what I have forgotten. Oh well, a day to wander aimlessly though my thoughts sounds nice too.

My wife has been working more lately and if it weren’t for the fact that I just got a raise and I’m getting paid to stay home, my guilt over doing nothing would consume me. I’m jealous that she at least has some purpose and people who count on her. She has meetings, tasks, a schedule. She has some certainty. I feel lost. The freedom is overwhelming and in that freedom every minute becomes a failure of one kind or another.

I wonder sometimes, if two people live together long enough, if they start to become like one person, thinking each other’s thoughts and feeling each other’s emotions. My wife went for a late walk today, she rarely goes in the afternoon, and she invited me along, another rarity, and it was just what I needed.

The walk wasn’t a hard one, but it’s been a while since I’ve moved so much. My body is growing weak and soft in this new sedentary lifestyle I’ve cultivated and after just 20 minutes around the neighborhood I’m painfully aware that a change needs to be made. These walks have to become a daily routine. I did a few arm and ab things too. There is so much to tone and maybe, if I can get consistent, the weights can help burn off these quarantine pounds I’ve gained.

It felt really good to move. Perhaps when the mind won’t cooperate, it is trying to tell you to change your focus from what is mental to what is physical and give the brain a break, or give it something real to feel, to latch onto, to turn over. We can’t live in the imagination all the time. Something has to come from what is real, what is physical, what the senses can see, smell, hear, taste and touch.

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Today was a good day, like, a really good day! The HR department is back in the office at work and my promotion has finally been made official! In addition, it’s very possible that the raise I will be offered will be much, much more than I had expected. I am ecstatic! I am elated! I am so happy and optimistic for the future and all the things I’m going to be able to do now I feel I’m about to explode! This is what I’ve been waiting for. This is what I’ve been working for and it’s finally happened.

I only wish I could go out and celebrate. This news calls for a couple dozen oysters, a bottle of wine, and a rich dessert. Instead, I’m stuck at home settling for whatever liquor we have in the cabinet and a bland dinner I planned a week ago. I know this lockdown is the best thing, the right thing, but damn is it a bummer.

Still, this is amazing news. I feel suddenly more valid and worthy than I did just this morning when I woke up. I’ve known for weeks I got the position, yes, but to have it become real made me feel more real. I shouldn’t wrap so much of my worth up in my work, but I have been feeling so useless and so unseen these past weeks. I needed this and right or wrong it feels good and that’s all that matters.

Interestingly, as I was celebrating this momentous win and thinking about all the ways my quality of life was going to improve, I was also listening to Laurie Santos’s lectures in The Science of Well-Being and realized that the happiness I feel right now is temporary. Chances are, in a year or two, this won’t be enough. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not—it’s certainly a very human thing—but, if I could, I’d for it to be enough, or at least be exciting for a good while longer than that.

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Something is changed today. I feel like I am starting a real week. I feel on top of my tasks and excited about the coming days. It’s probably just my body adjusting to the cold-brew coffee. Caffeine does as much for the emotions as it does for the body.

I spent the morning working on the most mundane task: choosing between this years employer based health insurance options. At least the offerings are much cheaper than any years past and I will see a significant saving over the next 12 months. Adulting can be exciting.

After so much fun I really needed to get out of the house so I accompanied my wife to her workplace to pick up a desk printer. She needs it for work, but I hope to use it to fill out the handouts for The Science of Well-Being course I’m taking. After that it was curbside pickup from Chipotle and a trip to my mom’s to drop off needles and thread for her to make some masks. I didn’t go in her house, but it sure felt good to see her and my little sister.

When we got home, I felt renewed and decided to take some time to work on cleaning my side of the “creativity room”. The mess is more than I could get through in a day, but a little work every day could do the trick. I’m thinking again about what else a little work a day could get me.

A long time ago I had a goal of writing an essay a week, 52 essays for the year. It’s easier than trying to get from the start to the finish of a piece in a day, but it still requires a daily practice. Maybe…maybe…

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It’s my first Sunday without writing my coffee share posts and I have to say, it feels really nice. I miss the chatty nature of the posts and the change to purge my mind of the week behind me but the extra time I have now to relax, to brainstorm, to get a head start on my goals, it feels good. It feels more right.

I realized this morning that I hadn’t watched the news on TV in over a week—I’ve been catching up over social media (from trusted sources) and through podcasts—and thought I should turn it on to see what I have been missing. Within five minutes I understood why I have been avoiding it. Between the sensationalizing and speculating of the news and the advertisements trying to pull the heartstrings and capitalize on the pandemic, I could not maintain an optimistic or motivated mood.

Even after the world restarts and we find a new normal to live with, I won’t go back to letting the news play in the background all day anymore. There are ways to stay informed that don’t play with my emotions so much.

I got my goals for the week all spelled out and this time I am adding them to a little sticky note to keep on my laptop so I don’t forget. These past few weeks I’ve been thinking them up and thinking them through, writing them out and then promptly forgetting about them for the next six or seven days. That’s why I have been failing so miserably. I have zero focus and no way to bring myself back to the path.

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