This Time, I Will Breathe

It’s that time again, friends – the time when I come back from vacation vowing that Now Things Will Be Different.

This time, in my day-to-day life I will get outside more and move my body more (like I did during vacation…we walked 8 km / 5 miles upriver one day, and went kayaking downriver the next day!) and get on top of all those niggling appointments that need to be made (the kicker is when you get them made and then they spawn MORE appointments).

This time, I will make my house feel more like the hotel I just came back from – calming, nicely decorated and nicely lit, not stuffed with random crap – and take care of all (or at least some) of the little things that have been bugging me.

Oh, and this time, I will make sure to relax more.

Right. You can see the problem.

The goal, of course, is to stop feeling like vacation is a precious breath of air before I go under again. I’m not drowning, exactly, but I am swimming very hard.

My day job is the lake I’m trying to cross, with a shoreline that seems very far away and is always moving. The pandemic is a constant undertow that makes everything ten times harder (mentally/emotionally, that is; I’m lucky that my work isn’t directly affected, except for having gone virtual). Bad news (pandemic-related or otherwise) is the slap of a wave in the face. Weekends are when I stop and tread water for a moment. And winter is coming.

And writing stories? Well…playing in the water requires spare energy. Once in a while I can float and splash and catch my breath for a moment, but it never lasts very long. I miss turning somersaults and swimming underwater, pretending to be a mermaid. I just don’t know how to find that part of me again.

But I’m tired of waiting for the pandemic to end or work to settle down. I need to stop waiting and figure out how to start making things better now.

What I need is a tail. And gills. And an underwater kingdom with…where was I?

Oh yes. Onward.

The first goal is to walk more, in nature. I’m lucky enough to have a beautiful cemetery to walk in, full of old trees. We had a hot, damp summer, so my regular walking habit fell to 20 minutes a day, maybe every other day. But I really do feel better after a 30-minute walk, and the weather is perfect for it right now, cooler but not cold, the trees just starting to turn. Fall is my favourite season for walking – time to take advantage while it lasts. I’m on day 7 of walking daily (day 2 back at work). And counting.

One breath at a time.