I am still working to get my sea legs under me, trying to find my balance and move forward in this brave new world in which I find myself. A few weeks ago I had a revelation about time changes and time zones. We were preparing to “fall back,” that wonderful time of year when we turn our clocks back and hour and gain an extra hour of sleep and all the other things we look forward to during this annual fiddling with the clocks and time, etc. We look forward with equal dread and lament toward the inevitable “spring forward” in April of each year when we turn our clocks ahead one hour, thus losing the hour we gained in the fall. It always takes my body a few weeks to adjust to the new time and cope with the loss of that 60 minutes. I realized the other day as I was questioning why I was still so tired, dragging around, etc. that when I moved to Maryland from California (a little over one month ago), I essentially sprung forward by three hours. Perhaps it is purely my imagination, but it helps me make sense of why I am still struggling with sleep and energy issues.
Then there’s the adjusting to my work and commute schedule. After working part time for the past few years, I must say that it’s been quite an adjustment to now working greater than the standard eight-hour work day and then climb into my car for the 75, 90, 120 minute ride home. By the time I get home most evenings it is after 7 p.m. and by the time I’ve walked Honor (usually within the first five minutes I am home) and fed her, it’s 7:30. I fix and eat dinner, usually in front of the television watching some news show before retiring back to my room to do a few things, then write my blog and head off to bed. On nights like tonight I fall asleep with my laptop on my lap and wake up to discover a long row of kkkkkkkkkkkkks that I’ve inadvertently typed as I drifted off to sleep. In spite of this somewhat helter-skelter evening schedule, I find that I am grateful nonetheless for this crazy life that I’m living right now.
Life is challenging, quirky, hectic, confusing, beautiful, angst-filled, wonderful, exhausting, and so many other adjectives one might conjure up. I have often described my life at times like one long ride on a mechanical bull (which I’ve taken to calling Mephistopheles), whipping me this way and that, back and forth, up and down, side to side. My brother once suggested to me that he could reach in and yank all the wires out of Mephisto, effectively stilling him and allowing me to temporarily slide off his back and enjoy some stillness. My recent life has had its share of challenges, but I gratefully accept them as being a new and different kind of crazy. Good crazy. One writer says, “I’ve learned that in whatever condition I find myself, to be content in that. I’ve had highs and lows, I’ve been hungry and I’ve been full. I’ve lived poor and have lived in abundance.” That’s what I’d like to be true of how I live my life: no matter what’s going on, I have learn to be content. I am working on this, though I have not quite arrive there yet. It’s definitely worth striving toward.
It could be a while yet before I am finally acclimated to my new time zone, new weather, etc. and settle in to life. In the meantime, I will continue to express gratitude for the progress I have made toward this goal. Gratitude expressed every day, in some small way, is what keeps me going, keeps me navigating these sometimes choppy and uncertain seas. Thank you for coming along with me on the ride.
