I am making forward progress. Lots of it, if I take a moment to reflect and be completely honest about it. As I am puttering around the house, doing my chores and taking care of life, I feel an odd sense of accomplishment when I think back just a few weeks. And then I think further back and realize that I am completely moving in slow motion.
I have been up for almost six hours, in a normal time I would have completed what's taken me six hours to accomplish in about two. It feels frustrating and wonderful. Such conflicting emotions. Because the truth is just a single month ago, I would not have accomplished this much in a week. Two months ago, I wouldn't have accomplished anything.
Life is so much about perception. Mercury is still moving forward, although to the naked eye, it doesn't appear to be. It appears to have stopped and started going backwards. It isn't. It's just that everything else is moving forward so much faster.
That is me. I'm still moving. I am just doing it a lot slower and with far greater intention than in the past. I am also having to learn to slow my thoughts, plans and life to match the pace that this healing process is setting for me.
For example, last week I set myself up for disappointment. I started to say failure, but it wasn't failure. I filled my "to do" list, my intentions with great plans, huge accomplishments that would have seemed minor just a few short months ago. I was excited to see all of it written out in such a way, where I could purposefully line through each accomplishment daily. See my progress in living color.
By Friday, as we got ready to head out for a weekend escape, I was exhausted in a way I could barely fathom. Frankly, I barely had energy to make the bed in the camper to put my extremely weary body and mind down. I was disappointed.
We found a delightful little place to camp, close to where I wanted to go the next day. In fact planning for this healing process is what led us to camp this weekend. I was concerned that driving for two hours, walking for an hour or so and then driving back would simply be more than I physically could take. Besides, camping is therapeutic and we both needed the therapy.
I always have a travel project ready, something I can take with me. And this time as I carefully knit the beautiful scarf that I am working on, my mind really focused on my feelings of disappointment. I had carefully planned all the things I wanted to accomplish. And I was feeling like I had done nothing, none of the big things were lined through. There didn't appear to be any forward motion.
Each stitch gave me time to process, to think. Had I failed? Or had I just fallen into that trap of setting my sites on the "whole elephant", knowing full well that you can only eat an elephant one bite at a time. So to speak.
I gave myself permission this weekend to stop thinking about it, to stop stressing and to simply go with it. Instead of fretting, I lost myself in the weekend and focused on what was really important. Quality time with Hubs. Walking (so slowly) to the little lake with Hubs, renewing my fishing skills with Hubs (I can still cast like crazy - and he is right casting is my favorite part). Sitting by campfires and staring up at the star filled sky so far from the lights of the city (it was like looking at a paint splattered blanket of deep velvet - so many stars), while drinking our Jack & Coke from our coffee cups. Playing hours worth of Rummy, both of us having the joy of claiming victory a time or two. Nourishing our bodies with the food that had been made at home, savoring the flavors of warm soup on a cool fall evening. Exploring the beautiful Log Cabin Village and all of the craft booths full of talented people and their wares. Photographing sunrises and sunsets on their beautiful lake. In between I worked on my knitting project, slept, rested and did it all over again.
We simply stopped.
There wasn't a to do list. There was nothing much to accomplish, the entire goal of the weekend was to accomplish nothing. I would say that we succeeded.
So the question that I've had to ask myself is do we intentionally sabotage ourselves? Are we conditioned to move rapidly and accomplish super human things? Are we genetically engineered to be that way?
By removing a to do list, what I found was we accomplished so much more than we thought we would. It wasn't accomplished in the traditional sense, it was in the intangible things. You can't measure most of them. Yet they are priceless just the same. We all need to hit that reset button periodically.
This morning while heating my leg I worked on this weeks to do list. I modified it. I need the sense of normality it brings to me. But more than anything I needed it to reflect goals that I could accomplish. It needed to be completely realistic and specific.
I am trying to learn that the healing me needs more time to accomplish tasks and that making a list of everything that has been waiting for me to be healed and thinking it will get accomplished is an exercise in futility. So I have re-evaluated my expectations. I will still accomplish all of it, but at the slower pace that is my new normal (for the moment). I am framing things differently.
These are lessons I started learning earlier this year. Ironically, I have been told I would keep being slowed down more until I learned these lessons. I finally feel like they have started to penetrate my thick skull.
Now I am wondering if more of us need to slow down, if the whole point of everything we are going through on this planet in this time, isn't meant to slow us down.
I just got an email from one of our local groceries, stating that they would be shutting down earlier in the evening each day, additionally that instead of forcing people to be away from their families around the holidays they are actually extending the amount of time that they are closing to allow their employees to spend time with their families. Some of the changes will make it inconvenient to shop them, as some of the services that I use will not be available during the hours that I go. I understand their reasoning. I actually celebrate it. More places should follow suit, we as humans will adjust.
As the sign a friend gave me long ago says "we are human beings, not human doings". Maybe it's time we all started to remember that.
Realistic.
Push the pause button.
Good one, very good one! 381+
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