Happy New Year

May 2013 be a wonderfully surprising year.

Happiness through yoga?

I had tried yoga in my twenties and not felt like I was getting anything out of it. I rediscovered it this year and have begun using a yoga app on my computer quite regularly. Usually when I'm doing yoga I feel calmness rising, tension draining, muscles stretching, that sort of thing. Sometimes I don't really feel anything and just finish the routine because I don't like leaving things unfinished. Today, though, when I did yoga I began to smile part way through the routine. I felt myself settling into the poses. I even anticipated some of the moves before the little voice directed me where to move. It was forty-five minutes of a mostly quiet mind and moments of unexplained happiness.

Miracles of the Internet

Tonight I am feeling appreciative for the Internet. I'm often grateful for how it lets me stay in touch with family thousands of kilometres away (I had a long overdue Skype with my brother yesterday), but that doesn't really seem like anything new nowadays. What did surprise me this morning was how easy it was for me to find the names and contact information for my favourite authors' agents and publishers. I now have an even longer list of people to send the story I want to publish to thanks to someone's ingenious website, querytracker.com. I expected it to be much more difficult to track down specific authors' agents. Also, another fun use of the internet, although only new to us, is that tonight we watched a movie downloaded off iTunes onto our computer, then played on our TV.
On a side-note: I'm slowly becoming accustomed to the uncertainty that hangs over my relationship at the moment. I have made contingency plans for myself, which has helped settle my mind. Now I just need to figure how to get a decent night's sleep.

Signs

I'm glad I've grown up enough not to get taken in by superstitious signs. There was a time in my teens and twenties when I was, and the past few days would have been unbearable had I still been as illogical. Over the past few days I've been reading Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver, which involves the main character questioning her marriage. Also, we've watched Friends with Benefits (the other option for the night was Forgetting Sarah Marshall) and Mr and Mrs Smith, all of which have something to do with dysfunctional relationships, people re-evaluating their being together or breaking up. Also, we saw a couple of episodes of Big Bang Theory about Penny being replaced by Priya, a smarter, hotter girl for Leonard. Instead of reading into these as signs for the future of my husband and my relationship, I'm focussing on enjoying my time off and being honest about sharing my affection for him. Things are going well for now, I think. I will admit, though, that it does scare me that I might think it's going better than he does. With that out there now, it's time for bed.

Me too

I realised the other night that while living in the moment, enjoying my time with my husband and being myself is all well and good, I can’t just put my desires aside to wait for him to make up his mind. I need to remember to keep checking in with myself too about whether I’m still in love him and want to wait for him to sort out his issues. Today, I’m still in love with my husband and am willing to leave myself vulnerable to whatever happens. I know that if our relationship comes to an end I’ll be heartbroken, but will survive. That’s what he was talking about with inter-dependence the other day - knowing you are your own independent person, but willing to open yourself to sharing your life in a vulnerable way with another person. Now I guess I need to wait and see if my husband can come to this understanding too.

Significant Dinner

Tonight we had a significant dinner. My husband took me for sushi and told me about some serious thinking he’s been doing lately. He’s been thinking about us, his motives for being married to me and our future together. He talked about emotional co-dependence compared to healthy inter-dependence. I’d also noticed a lack of connection between us as well as his sense of relief and independence at being sent out-of-state to work these past few months. My first feeling was sadness and fear at what this would mean for us. My first thought was that self-reflection and examination of our relationship is a healthy thing. My second thought was that I have two weeks, while he’s home for the holidays, to make myself as desirable as possible. Luckily I dismissed that and we laughed about it later. What I have decided to do is to live in the moment with him and be as true to myself and my values as I can. If that’s not what he wants in the end, then that’s for him to decide. We have agreed that we both have work to do and that no decisions will be made over the next two weeks while he’s home or while he’s still working full-time interstate. This is just another way in which 2013 is going to bring changes to life as I know it.

Day 1 - rest

I am appreciative, tonight, of my first day of holidays and of my year "off". It's been a rest day, which I sorely needed to start to recover from a week (month, year?) of stress. I accomplished my only two objectives for this first day: quiet time at home with my husband and sending an email to family explaining the lateness of Christmas parcels. In addition I managed breakfast with friends (after my husband helped them move), a Skype call with my dad, an online chat with my brother, quite a nice risotto for dinner and a walk on the beach to cap it off. Now to sleep, good night.

Pregnant hugs

I'm not a very touchy person and it takes my a while before I'm comfortable hugging new friends. I have a very definite personal space zone. At this time of year, and especially this year because I (along with several colleagues) am leaving the school, there tends to be more hugging than I'm comfortable with. When it happens, I don't want to be rude, generally I do like the people I'm hugging and I will miss them, so I go along with it. However, today I found a friend I would happily cling to for ages. She's not my closest work friend, but we have worked together in the same team for several years. We were in the gym store room and began talking about last night's Year 6 graduation ceremony, then we both start tearing up. We went in for a hug and it was so comfortable and comforting. I put it down to her being pregnant and us both needing it. Two boys walked in, shook their heads and left again to keep stacking chairs; we kept on hugging.

Planning without planning

I have found myself, once again, worrying about things I probably don't need to worry about. I am excited, relieved, eager, curious... and worried about my year (sort of) off in 2013. In the past when I've had time off, without paid work, I've fallen into depression so I know this is a tendency of mine. I'm hoping that since this is a voluntary work break and I am aware of this potential, it will not happen; however, I cannot sleep well at night on hope alone. So I am trying to plan without really planning. I want to have some ideas, pursuits that align with my values and goals, listed, ready for those times when my brain starts thinking 'I'm bored...', 'I haven't accomplished anything today...', 'What am I contributing to the household? I should earn more money, then I wouldn't feel this way.' I want to try to do this planning without over-planning, though, because part of the reason for taking leave is to experience a less structured daily life that's made up of more variety than teaching does. I want to have time, as well as the presence of mind, to do yoga or go for a hike or mop the floor instead of whinging to myself about what my husband might be thinking (but probably isn't) about my year off.
On another, slightly related, note: last night I had 'mop the floor' on my to do list and thought to myself after dinner, 'I could mop the floor'. (I might have been reminding myself all day about the 'could not should' thing, particularly in the context of that chore.) Well, I then noticed that the couch could do with a clean so I went to find the leather cleaner, but was unsuccessful (and was almost knocked over by a box falling on my head in the process). I took the hint and mopped the floor. I didn't feel as resentful mopping it knowing that it was a choice, rather than something I was making myself do. It's all a little silly, I know, these mind games I play with myself.

'Could' not 'should'

I got some advice today that will hopefully turn out to be quite helpful. It was suggested that instead of using the word 'should', I use the word 'could'.  I think it might prove harder than it seems, especially since in the last sentence I almost used the banned word. As another example, I was thinking about what I would do when I got home and I was thinking I should vacuum the cat fur off the floor. Then I rephrased it (as I should) to: I could vacuum the floor. This also made me realise that 'shouldness' is a state of mind that goes with perfectionism, which I have in spades. I put expectations on myself, often unnecessary, then I beat myself up emotionally for not meeting them or putting off plans. Hopefully avoiding should might help this self-pressure.

Cold cure

There's nothing like some hot, sunny weather to cure a spring cold. I've been sniffly and had a sore throat for about a week, and this weekend I've come north to see my husband and relax. I was worried I would be as rundown, exhausted and congested as I've been all week, but I'm feeling surprisingly good. So, for future reference: take a brief sun-break to cure the common cold.

Commiserations

I had another shitty day at work the other day (and again today) and when I got home, friends and I got into a chat about bad bosses we'd had. For a while it was good to laugh and commiserate, then we watched Horrible Bosses. That helped to put things into perspective and lightened my frustration. But I find myself wondering how much sharing of woes is good. When does it become futile or whinging?

Thunder and Lightening

The other night I was lying in bed not sleeping. It was very frustrating. I was lying there having half-dozy dreams about some of my students and what they might become when they were older. I think it was because we had been working on their speeches for graduation at the end of the day and then I had watched 'Megamind' before bed. Just as my frustration level had got to a point where I was about ready to start throwing my pillow or something, a thunder storm started. My restless mind changed from ridiculous, delirious thoughts to listening to the storm; and I calmed down. Unfortunately I can't call in a thunder storm at will, but I have discovered it can be a good tool to calm a restless night's sleep and help practice mindfulness.