The Best Laid Plans... And All That
Plans are good. Plans are often essential to getting things done but plans in themselves are not capable of doing anything. You must have the will to put plans into action for them to work, no matter how great they might sound on paper. It's worth nothing if it does not get translated into something actionable. The road to hell is paved with good intentions after all. And these first three weeks of January consisted mostly of plans not being acted upon or simply going awry.
It was not the picture perfect start that I secretly longed for, even as I chose my words carefully and tried not to put too big expectations to entering a new year and adapting good healthy habits. I knew it was more likely than not that it would be a struggle and the stumbles might leave me sprawled across the floor for longer time than envisioned. That's the thing about visions. They're an attempt at a prediction but you never really know if your plans are going to pan out that way. You can work towards it but you can never be sure.
I've been a home hermit for three weeks, essentially. I have only gone to my receptionist job one afternoon a week and my horse a couple of times a week. I've hardly worked on anything while I've been in the family house, other than the odd spot of writing and pouring efforts into being a dogsitter. I've torn through several TV shows just to throw myself wholeheartedly into something that was much easier to think about than finishing the last exam or starting the thesis. It's been both a daydream and a nightmare. Don't get me wrong, it's been lovely to spend so much time in my pyjamas and hanging out with my family but it also "keeps" me from being productive.
I'm not unable to be productive at home but I've just very weak filled. I would rather do stupid shit that won't benefit me in the long run but instead gives me instant-gratification. Even the writing urge started to seep away again and that's never a good sign. I always feel a quiet sense of dread when that happens because I think deep down no writer will ever be able to escape the worry that their words aren't good enough or their ideas will stop coming back. But then I did write a whole 6,000 words in an afternoon which was posted and highly praised by the people who read it. It felt good to finally bang out that bonus chapter to an old story that I had planned to do for months but never gotten around to.
The last semester of university terrifies me and maybe that's why I'm indirectly pretending I don't have shit to do. I have so much shit to do but it's a whole mountain of work in front of me. Books and papers hazardously thrown together and if I start tugging on something, I know it'll come tumbling down on top of me. At least that is how it feels whenever I think about starting on that left-over exam. It's the wrong attitude and I know that but unfortunately that doesn't help me one bit. I cannot trick myself despite the awareness.
I got my results back for the three exams I did finish in the beginning of December. 7 across the board. It stung more than I thought it would, despite unspoken promise to myself that it was a good mark and it would be okay if that was what I got this semester. It's easier to deal with a hypothetical than the reality. I thought I did some good work with some of those exams. A C is for the "good" presentation, again I know that, but I just expected more regardless. I have one shot at raising the average of that semester and I'm still afraid to start.
But I'm starting to take healthy steps now and getting around to getting some of the shit done that is weighing me down mentally because it has been filed away under the vert stressful tab You need act on this as soon as possible which always make me procrastinate out of fear. It includes responding to an email from my other work about my absence (which I did), calling a psychologist (I've sorted through a list and made reminders with phone numbers), baking cookies again because baking makes me happy (I'm munching on a homemade cookie as I write this), add the bonus chapter to that chaptered story (written last Thursday and posted the following day), remember to take my iron pills every night (accomplished for a handfuls of days but fallen off the last two days) and finally starting on the last autumn semester exam (not quite begun yet but I have an idea and I am getting an old exam to understand the format better).
I'm a sucker for a metaphor, whether that be a visual or a literary one, so allow me to use two images taken of the same bit of bush in the garden, three days apart. I've felt like stuff (snow) has just been piling on and on and it's been weighting me down and making every thing bleak. But now that I've shaken a bit of that stuff on the To Do List off of me, I feel brighter and better. It's still freezing out and the snow isn't quite gone but I will be able to get it all off eventually.
The images are actually a little bit of a lie, because I took the top one today while the bottom one is from Friday but what the heck? It served my point better like this, so I went with it. Frankly scaling the stairs while they're icy and with an increasingly heavy puppy in my arms has not been easy. It really didn't help that I had a crash with my scooter Bastian last Monday when he skidded out from under me. I went to work despite the injury but it was more bad than I originally thought. I had a shallow gash across my thigh and a whole lot of bruising on my leg as well as a sore elbow and hip and a pounding headache. I'm feeling better now though that a week has passed and maybe I've used the physical pain to excuse my laziness a bit. My left knee is still a little wobbly and I'm not that good on my feet, so it was a bad fall but I am healing well.
I'm not going to end this post on promises and inspiring words like I did with the first post of the year, despite still trying to live up to having the courage to exist. It would feel fake now that I've been rolling around on the floor for so long without getting up immediately like I had planned. The floor can be nice and comforting - it has always been like that for me, which might be why I always brace myself on the floor whenever anxiety takes my breath hostage. But sitting on the floor constantly isn't healthy, so I need to get off my bum now. I can sit on the floor again later, after I've run around and done some shit. The floor isn't going anywhere unlike everything else.
It was not the picture perfect start that I secretly longed for, even as I chose my words carefully and tried not to put too big expectations to entering a new year and adapting good healthy habits. I knew it was more likely than not that it would be a struggle and the stumbles might leave me sprawled across the floor for longer time than envisioned. That's the thing about visions. They're an attempt at a prediction but you never really know if your plans are going to pan out that way. You can work towards it but you can never be sure.
I've been a home hermit for three weeks, essentially. I have only gone to my receptionist job one afternoon a week and my horse a couple of times a week. I've hardly worked on anything while I've been in the family house, other than the odd spot of writing and pouring efforts into being a dogsitter. I've torn through several TV shows just to throw myself wholeheartedly into something that was much easier to think about than finishing the last exam or starting the thesis. It's been both a daydream and a nightmare. Don't get me wrong, it's been lovely to spend so much time in my pyjamas and hanging out with my family but it also "keeps" me from being productive.
I'm not unable to be productive at home but I've just very weak filled. I would rather do stupid shit that won't benefit me in the long run but instead gives me instant-gratification. Even the writing urge started to seep away again and that's never a good sign. I always feel a quiet sense of dread when that happens because I think deep down no writer will ever be able to escape the worry that their words aren't good enough or their ideas will stop coming back. But then I did write a whole 6,000 words in an afternoon which was posted and highly praised by the people who read it. It felt good to finally bang out that bonus chapter to an old story that I had planned to do for months but never gotten around to.
The last semester of university terrifies me and maybe that's why I'm indirectly pretending I don't have shit to do. I have so much shit to do but it's a whole mountain of work in front of me. Books and papers hazardously thrown together and if I start tugging on something, I know it'll come tumbling down on top of me. At least that is how it feels whenever I think about starting on that left-over exam. It's the wrong attitude and I know that but unfortunately that doesn't help me one bit. I cannot trick myself despite the awareness.
I got my results back for the three exams I did finish in the beginning of December. 7 across the board. It stung more than I thought it would, despite unspoken promise to myself that it was a good mark and it would be okay if that was what I got this semester. It's easier to deal with a hypothetical than the reality. I thought I did some good work with some of those exams. A C is for the "good" presentation, again I know that, but I just expected more regardless. I have one shot at raising the average of that semester and I'm still afraid to start.
But I'm starting to take healthy steps now and getting around to getting some of the shit done that is weighing me down mentally because it has been filed away under the vert stressful tab You need act on this as soon as possible which always make me procrastinate out of fear. It includes responding to an email from my other work about my absence (which I did), calling a psychologist (I've sorted through a list and made reminders with phone numbers), baking cookies again because baking makes me happy (I'm munching on a homemade cookie as I write this), add the bonus chapter to that chaptered story (written last Thursday and posted the following day), remember to take my iron pills every night (accomplished for a handfuls of days but fallen off the last two days) and finally starting on the last autumn semester exam (not quite begun yet but I have an idea and I am getting an old exam to understand the format better).
I'm a sucker for a metaphor, whether that be a visual or a literary one, so allow me to use two images taken of the same bit of bush in the garden, three days apart. I've felt like stuff (snow) has just been piling on and on and it's been weighting me down and making every thing bleak. But now that I've shaken a bit of that stuff on the To Do List off of me, I feel brighter and better. It's still freezing out and the snow isn't quite gone but I will be able to get it all off eventually.
The images are actually a little bit of a lie, because I took the top one today while the bottom one is from Friday but what the heck? It served my point better like this, so I went with it. Frankly scaling the stairs while they're icy and with an increasingly heavy puppy in my arms has not been easy. It really didn't help that I had a crash with my scooter Bastian last Monday when he skidded out from under me. I went to work despite the injury but it was more bad than I originally thought. I had a shallow gash across my thigh and a whole lot of bruising on my leg as well as a sore elbow and hip and a pounding headache. I'm feeling better now though that a week has passed and maybe I've used the physical pain to excuse my laziness a bit. My left knee is still a little wobbly and I'm not that good on my feet, so it was a bad fall but I am healing well.
I'm not going to end this post on promises and inspiring words like I did with the first post of the year, despite still trying to live up to having the courage to exist. It would feel fake now that I've been rolling around on the floor for so long without getting up immediately like I had planned. The floor can be nice and comforting - it has always been like that for me, which might be why I always brace myself on the floor whenever anxiety takes my breath hostage. But sitting on the floor constantly isn't healthy, so I need to get off my bum now. I can sit on the floor again later, after I've run around and done some shit. The floor isn't going anywhere unlike everything else.
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