Time

I'm doing my update a little early this weekend (Friday night, Halloween, hehe). I got off work early so I have a little time. And instead of talking about work details or even wellness coaching details, I just have some general thoughts. Mainly about the difficulty of my routine. I'd been mentioning feeling lucky that I'd managed well up to this point, but I finally broke my pattern this week. Not intentionally, of course. Nature always decides to mess with you even when you try to maintain things. But is it a bad thing? I think it relates back to control issues. And the gray area that surrounds where to draw the line between mindfulness and neurosis. Because being healthy means being mindful of how much you sleep, eat, and move around (physical activity). But how mindful is too mindful? That's the eternal question. What I realized this week is maybe it's okay to not have one specific pattern dictate everyday life. A work schedule is usually specific, but that doesn't mean your daily habits have to be. Maybe it's okay for me to have one day where I eat less and move around more and another where I eat more and don't move around as much. Things will eventually balance out. And sometimes your body will tell you when you need to adjust things. (Instead of you telling your body what it needs).

I do want to mention how different things are when I get to leave work early versus when I have to stay the whole eight hours. It's not that I mind the work itself, it's the issue of time (not having enough of it). Working the whole time means driving at rush hour, which means it takes twice as long to commute as it does when driving at any other time of day. It means getting home later and basically eating dinner, checking email and facebook, talking to my boyfriend on the phone, and going to bed. There's very little turn-around time between getting home and having to go back again. I hate that so, so much. That's why when I get to leave early, it offers the chance of maybe getting home slightly before dinnertime where I can check email beforehand and have a little time to myself after dinner before getting on the phone. That's so much better. I feel like I can breathe. And stretch and do better by my body. (Because as much as I'm trying to not overly control my body, you have to admit it's easier when you aren't bound to the sedentary job for extended hours. I think that's an indisputable fact). So I kinda go through a lot of days wondering if I'll get lucky with the schedule. But I hate to rely on luck because it almost makes you live in fear, you know? And that's no fun. But at least I won't be at this job forever.

So tomorrow I'm off work again (I've only had to work one Sat. so far but there will be more later, they say). This is the week where I didn't have any lesson preparation materials for the coaching class again so maybe I'll jump ahead to next week's lesson. Otherwise I guess I'll just read and do my other normal things. (Things I don't usually write about but which are usually on a to-do list anyway. Like websites to check, things to clean, people to call, shows to watch, magazines to read...things I don't allow time for during the week because there are days when I don't have time, as I was mentioning). (Except the shows if they're on when I'm talking to boyfriend). So yeah, it does sound like a lot now, hehe. (Oh, and writing blog posts like this...also on the to-do list). Did I mention how much I value time?