I'm still here
A rainbow after a hard rain in New Hampshire
Sorry! I promised an email at least every Monday but I’ve missed the last two. Why is that? I’ve allowed my morning and evening routines to be disrupted and run out of hours in the day, run out of days of the week.
I think the intense humidity of the last few weeks have made it difficult to get to sleep, so I’ve shifted my bedtime, against my intention, and shifted my wake time to make up for it so I can still get my 7 to 7.5 hours. It’s maddening, because I’m tired at the end of the day, which is good, but then I can’t fall asleep as quickly as I had been, which isn’t good.
Anyway, I’m working on it.
Adding to that, my workload is large, which is good, but my homeload is unusually large at the moment, too. I’m working on rebalancing it all, but it will take time.
Stoicism is part of the solution. I accept what’s not in my control, and I act on what is in my control.
This is important: I act on what is in my control. When difficulties arise, I meet them. It’s not always graceful or artful, but I meet them nonetheless. When I was drinking I wouldn’t do that. I would postpone dealing with difficulty or just push it off altogether. I would just drop it, creating a pile of crap that became so seemingly insurmountable that I felt like I was suffocating. I didn’t act. I slept in. I let things go.
This time I let the newsletter go for a couple of weeks, but I did it intentionally if not artfully (I didn’t let you know). It’s hard for me to know what my priorities should be in real-time. At this point it’s been a process of trial-and-error to realize a few things:
Practicing piano and having my lessons is important
Staying in touch with friends is important
Hanging out with my family is important
Writing and maintaining this newsletter is important
Being creative is important
Working for wages is important
These past few weeks I’ve been great about work and hanging out with my family. For a couple of weeks I’ve gotten back into scheduling time in the day to practice piano. Everything else I’m trying to figure out but I’m getting there.
True to my stoicism, I’m not beating myself up over any of this. I prioritize a full night’s sleep over everything else because I’m not healthy and useful without it. It’s the bedrock of my well being. I cannot control the disruptions to my home life so I accept them and meet them. I can control my workload at my job by asking better questions and delegating more intelligently. I cannot control the fact that my child is growing up but I can prioritize spending more time with my family and making the most of our time together.
Trying to achieve anything close to balance is messy, literally and figuratively. I’m not going to make everyone happy (gasp!) and that’s OK.
I’m making better use of my calendar to prioritize my time in a way that fulfills me, so hopefully this newsletter can get up off its knees and brush itself off.
Thanks for being here.
I love you,
David
