Back to it

Back to the sobering reality of every-day life: everyone is dressed in practical black, ready for business.  I've been feeling like I had too many days off, just feel like I won't remember how to come back; doesn't really make sense, but how I've been feeling.  I don't tend to feel this way after vacations, I think not having a schedule of any kind threw me off.  Guess I like a little bit of structure in my life.

In five days, the view to the sky has opened up more, like returning to some place I haven't quite been before, having to become reacquainted.

Earlier, I got a bit of a sucker punch.  I later realized in might have in part been my own fault: my stress levels have been high, have been inundated with emails, and might not have responded the most important time, after responding to a request five or six times (over multiple sources of input) over the past few months...I lacked the attention span to read to the bottom of a longish email.  Been happening a lot.  I might have missed out regardless, but my lack of response didn't help.  Sigh.  (I can't keep track anymore, four months was a long time to follow a spec over multiple threads on multiple media.  It was regarding a job lead.)

Feeling unsettled, in general.  Not sure what it is I could do to change that.  And I don't know where I want to be.  I need to focus on something, but I feel like I'm being batted at from all sides, and maybe that's a distraction so that I don't end up doing anything at all, trying to get a clear view to see what's what.  What to trust.  Who to trust.  Wanting to believe words, but not seeing clearly what lies behind them.  And I'm all in for altruism, but it has been at the expense of helping everyone else move forward without my moving forward, and I think I need to find a better balance.

And then the moments of serenity and unexpected connection, for which I'm grateful for before sliding back into chaos.

A friend of mine passed along a book on the Spanish Civil War to me, because of Catalonia; he'd just read it for a book group.  And I'm also reading two books about trees ("The Songs of Trees," by David George Haskell, and "The Hidden Life of TREES," by Peter Wohlleben), a book about animals also by Wohlleben, and a Co-Dependency book.  The long-form writing actually helps with my attention span, so I get some break from my high-keyed state.

I should just get through every thing I possibly can do, probably cut back on the caffeine.  (And take a another media fast:  Humanity, you're leaving me heartbroken.)