Saturday, August 31, 2019

Nothing and the Long Weekend

Before the Fourth of July, my manager insisted I go out of town for the weekend. (This weekend, he did not. Which is fine. It is not his job to manage my social life, but that is not the point here.) This weekend, I have a few formal plans, but otherwise I have nothing to do. I have an empty weekend ahead of me.

Sort of.

But before I get into to that, some background.

Thursday at work about a half hour before lunch, I started to feel frantic. When the Boy was in Wilderness, I was taught how to do the Four Feelings Check: how are you feeling in your heart, mind, body and spirit. I was able to tune into this sense of panic right away. It was kind of weird that I was immediately able to tune into the idea that I was racing. But why was I racing? I was at work and work was moving along fine, but I felt like I had just drank fourteen cups of coffee, which for me is like taking a line of coke (which I have never done, but I can imagine.)

I realized I was panicking because I was behind in my personal life.

List of Shit I am Behind on:

  • Renew overdue library books (done)
  • Call the bank about the interest they charged when I mistakenly made a cash advance from my credit card instead of transferring money from my savings account because I fat fingered the banking app on my phone. (ugh)
  • My homework for the Boy's boarding school (filling out surveys, reading all of the emails)
  • Finish my writing assignment for my writing group, which I love, which means I have to decide what happens next to my main character, Betty. What problems will arise and how will she continue to ruin her life? (done, but continuing saga)
  • Read the chapters from the other people in my writing group where I am in a long-term relationship with all of their characters.
  • Pay the bills, figure out money
  • Paint the bathrooms in the condo
In the empty space of my weekend, I am going to try to get some of this stuff done, along with a few social events.

Thursday night, I didn't sleep well at all. I was up from 3 until 4:30, and then up at seven. Friday was a slog. Midday, I wanted to take a nap. I watched the clock crawl to five, and then I wanted to go home and go to bed.

At Wednesday's lunch discussion, my manager assumed I went to Pike Place Market twice a day. I don't, but the assumption made me think "Why not?" I should go to the Market as often as I can  to get food for dinner. Instead of going home and going to bed, I went to a seafood place and got scallops. I went to the vegetable place and got English peas and arugula. I went to the creamery and got cream (because cream.) I then wandered into a used bookstore, Lamplight Books* (because books) and poked around for twenty minutes. 


I went home, turned on the end of the movie I had started on Netflix a few weeks ago and cooked. The scallops were delicious, which was surprising since I am not that great of a cook. Jack did most of the fancy cooking while I made pasta with tomato sauce a lot. After dinner, I worked on my jigsaw puzzle, watched Season 3 of "The Good Place" on Netflix, deleted 82,000 "promotional emails" from my gmail account and walked Fox.

In short, I did nothing. I sat around and relaxed by myself. I can't remember the last time I did nothing and was okay with it. I believe in being intentional with my days and time, but sometimes that means doing too much, or never getting a break. Sometimes I spend time with friends which is restorative and relaxing, but that is doing something.

Friday night was my day of rest.


*  I just googled "used books Pike Market" and I found there are five bookstores in the market. Five! No wonder I love living here! I was looking for a Jon Krakauer book yesterday and there it is in one of the pictures on this blog post! He is a Seattle writer, so local bookshops should carry his stuff.


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