I woke up this morning, heart pounding after dreaming that I had dropped an airpod between some stairs, and when I peered underneath them, a mass of spiders engulfed the dusty undercarriage of the old wooden steps. I kept trying to shoo the spiders away, and they continued to return, me convincing myself my interventions would offer me just the right moment to grab the errant headphone. Them, returning as often and as regular as the swing of a slow metronome. We played this game until my mind realized it was futile, and that’s what woke me up.
I will wake up by nightmare or alarm. To wake up naturally, I need good sleep and a gentle alarm that will buzz me somewhere between around 5:30 a.m. To wake up by nightmare, I need only go to bed late and have a lot on my mind. It doesn’t matter what alarm I have going. I’ll sleep through the alarm I set for 4 a.m. and be sure to have some horrific nightmare.
As I lay there, I realized that I’m not going to make up the two hours of writing I missed last week, the first interruption in 27 or 28 planned days. I have a pile of work for my job that I need to think through, so there is a huge pressure to sit here while my family gets ready for the day to just work and work and work and work.
Even though I lay there with a feeling of dread and that all my plans were crashing down at once, I realized that I was in a familiar place with a very familiar feeling. And somehow, after a reasonable moment had passed, I slowed my breathing and began to slow down my perseverating. “What options do I have?” I thought. “Are things really as horrible as they seem?”
To feel better, I could get on the elliptical machine. I could get on the treadmill. I could go for a walk. 15 minutes would be better than nothing, and I could slow walk myself into life. I did end up getting on the treadmill and walking while working.
What I’m realizing:
I realized I could have, during those two days I missed, written for 15 minutes, just like my mini-workout plan and still have not lost as much as I did by skipping my writing altogether.
When things get complicated, progress doesn’t necessarily feel optimal.
When I am planning on traveling, I need a better plan.
I need exercise accountability people in my life. Now.
What’s working:
Even though I set an unreastic wakeup time, I did go to bed instead of trying to pull an all-nighter to “catch up.” Good job, Nanosh.
At 5 p.m., I’ll text my adviser. In the before times, it might have taken about six weeks for me to reply to a check-in email, and perhaps another two or three before I got started writing again. I am looking at a turnaround time from this lapse of four days, and I’m coming back on my own.
What I’m trying:
Being where I am. It’s not working all that well, but I saw a video somewhere, and a person said something like, “I am where my feet are.” Essentially, he meant wherever we are, we should be present and focus, not trying to be somewhere else. I am doing a horrible job at this, but I’m recognizing that if I’m not present, it means I’ve got too much on my plate.