The nights are cooling down. The tourists are ebbing. People talk of "back to school." (I kind of want to go school-supply shopping, even though I'm not going back to school. I just love - the aisles, the paper, the pens, the possibilities.)
I'm ready for this season more - it feels like - than ever before in my life. I feel like I'm flinging myself into it like you run into the water after lying on the beach and getting all hot. I'm ready for a quieting. Or maybe not a quieting but a CHANGING. Yes, that's it. Less hot + sticky chaos, more ordered, cooled-down chaos.
Less theoretically, more practically, this is what I've been doing in the spirit of Fall + time to myself + less chaos:
- I've resigned from one of my two jobs. The library one, which was only a handful of hours per week. Yes, I loved working in a library. Yes, it felt like a dream come true. What was not a dream come true was feeling like I was working my butt off, my focus was split between two jobs, AND I wasn't even doing the job there as well as I wanted to be. They need someone who can make it their focus. (I'm not totally gone from the library yet - I'm staying on while they find my replacement. So, in another month or two I'll actually be done.)
- I'm planning a trip. A road trip to Newfoundland, where I've had two great road trips already in my life. This time I'm going to St John's, where a dear friend lives. I haven't seen her in far too long. I've never been to that city. My car needs an inaugural road trip that's actually off Cape Breton. It seems like a no-brainer.
- Admitting my limits and scheduling shorter work days. (Meaning, normal-person, eight or nine hour work days.) For a little while there I thought I was Superwoman, and I had all kinds of 12-hour days on my schedule. I thought, "Heck yeah, look how tough I am, I can take it." Then I started feeling angry all the time. And that made me realize how tired I was. It was hard to say NO to myself, because I'm the one who makes up the schedule at the marina, and to admit it to my superiors. Of course, they said, "OF COURSE you can't do all those twelve-hour days, no-one can! Of course it's going to drive you nutty!"
- I cleaned my room and made space for my art supplies. So now if I want to get something for making art, it's easily at hand, instead of having to dig through a crammed cardboard box that was all dusty. THIS FEELS REALLY GOOD. The day I finally could stay home and play my music and move my bedroom around in a way that made sense, that day was damn sweet.
It seems - it's about putting your time and energy where your mouth is. And it's about - going through the cycles. It's necessary to come to a burn-out space, so you can learn from it and make your way back from it.
Things aren't perfect, by any means - there are still many things I feel all frustrated and crammed up about, because I don't have the time or the money or both. Like gardening my butt off, like I would like to. Preserving foods for the Fall. Travelling ALL the trips I want to take and going to see ALL the long-lost far-flung people I'd like to see. (Grandmaman and Grandpapa and Grandpa, I'm thinking about you. Maile, you too. Ginger and Billy. My Halifax girls. The folks on the West Coast.)
And I still feel somewhat brain-dead and burnt out from the summer. Like a stunned bunny. Tired and forgetful and needing to be easy on myself.
BUT: Change it up. The seasons are doing it, why not you?
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