Monday and I rise from my bed to a day of Christmas tasks and hopefully some work. As it turned out it was a bitty day full of odds and ends with the result that I get to the end of the day feeling under achieving and with a sense of dissatisfaction. Its the little things in life like changing the central pin of a sink plug that take the time. A creative solution that gave great satisfaction but ate away time. I have managed to arrange some work meetings but also spent a lot of time battling IT and trying to find a specific link to information I need this week but all to no avail. It is increasingly making me think it is time to stop working and to retire properly or at least to take up something that I feel more in control of.
By lunchtime the Christmas parcels were ready to go, so my partner and I walked over to the post office and sent our parcels on their way. So our annual anxiety of whether our parcel will reach Sri Lanka in time for Christmas starts now. I assume our other homeland packages will arrive in plenty of time unless the post office is suffering from lack of van drivers. A shared lunch and then its a wait for Tesco to deliver, which they do and the delivery guy chats to me about the wonders of alcohol free Guinness, apparently its very good. As soon as the goodies are packed away I head for the garden centre to stock up on peanuts, squirrel feed and bird seed so that the wild life in the garden can eat their way through the festive season. By the time I get home, stow the feed and fill the feeders its getting dark. I really dislike this time of year, its dark early, the garden is dormant and my energy levels are low. My motivation is not the best its been but I still manage to tie up a few loose ends on the work front.
I decide to write the blog early in the evening so that I can get an early night post shower so that I am fresh for my trip to the chiropodist in the morning. I so enjoyed the experience the last time that I booked my feet a Christmas treat tomorrow. So my day will start with pedal pleasure to be followed by a work session at lunch time.
I suspect that I am eager to get to Christmas, that period without work where effort can be directed to just being with the family. I have Friday bloods to do and then of course tomorrow week I have an oncology appointment. This perhaps is why I find myself “itchy in my skin” at the moment and difficult to get myself focussed and engaged. It is perhaps why I am contemplating stepping back from working and rethinking what I do with my time. It is a troubling time but one which more than ever requires me to be calm in myself and recognise that I have no, or little, control over some of the things that will determine my future. Like lots of organisms I go “quiet” when I am facing a threat, in order to focus and to make the best adaptions.
