I may have mentioned in an earlier post something that one of my wise friends told me about how I can organize my life. When I told her that I wanted a schedule she laughed at me and said that I couldn't have a schedule. It would not work for me. Guaranteed. She could have a schedule, which hardly seemed fair. What I needed, she insisted, was a rhythm. Okay. I could see her point. Rigid routines don't work well for me because I overdo them and then get tired of them and stop entirely. Which kind of defeats the whole purpose. But a rhythm makes sense. Something more flexible. More intuitive. More me. Mind you I didn't really get much of a rhythm going after this epiphany before I descended into deeper Depression. And I didn't realize that I was completely out of rhythm until I started to fall in to one again. Almost by chance. In some reverse version of "you don't know what you've got till it's gone" I find myself not realizing what was gone until I got it. (I am fairly certain that the paragraph I am finishing up here is completely unintelligible, but I am going to pardon it and just continue.) Here are the basic things that I am happy to have already put in regular rotation:
Things I am hoping to bring back or work on next:
I cannot tell you how hard my family laughed when they heard that I was going to teach organizational skills and good study habits to undergrads. But I was pretty good at knowing what I needed to do and turning things in on time even if I did keep a Socratic calendar (Socrates believed that writing things down was bad; that it would make people stupid. He may have something. How many phone numbers do you know off the top of your head?) Although I did once accidentally miss all of my finals one year because I didn't know what day it was. Neither did my housemate. We were closeted away studying like maniacs for the tests that we were pretty sure would happen the following day. Oops. We were forgiven and allowed to take our exams firstly because our excuse was so preposterous that it must be true. Also, we were fifth year double-degree students in our final semester. Only first years or fifth years could be pardoned for such a bone headed lapse in noting the passage of time. Grateful crap: I am not trying to fix everything at once. It is much less stressful. Daily convexions: took meds in morning (150mg sertraline, 450mg bupropion) did 2 miles on elliptical trainer (but my pedometer registered this as .2 miles! All told I did 3 miles today) engaged in enthusiastic brainstorming with a colleague (woot! brain gymnastics!) I did not spend any time outside today. I debated about going for a walk outside this morning instead of going to the Y, but I decided that my routine is important for me to keep right now. I don't want to find excuses not to go in. And twice a week is certainly reasonable. Comments are closed.
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K. BuchananQuaker, teacher, parent, |