Today has been quiet.
Erin and I stayed up very late after an evening of a lot of drinking and awesome company. We celebrated one coworker's 25th bday and another's 28th; I drank odd themed martinis and Erin searched for suitable beer. When we came home, I (again) got lost in some MoO2 while she cracked up at Trailer Park boys outtakes. For the first time maybe ever, I began feeling like it was okay to lose my mind in a game for a while. I've always had a lot of guilt associated with that sort of thing.
This morning was the second morning in a row when I woke up and my first three tasks were walk Wrigley, meditate, write morning pages. Both times, I could have gotten up simply to walk Wrigs and then go back to bed; both times I consciously went for the meditation/writing route. I'm so glad I did; it felt right.
The last few weeks have been challenging at work, but I met a pretty large personal goal on Friday and I feel like everything felt lighter as a result. It bled into the weekend, and the way that this weekend feels so long, so full of life and love and friends really seems to have happened as a result.
For a long time, I stopped thinking of myself as "stressed." Perhaps overbusy, overworked, juggling, but not stressed. I picture the molting of a shell after Friday, though, and consider how much stress I had been feeling. As I grow older I realize I have a very weird mix of perfectionism with a belief in wanting to be allowed to change things at a moments notice. I can identify expectations that are too high but somehow try to build a win/lose situation out of most things--and most things are not that black and white.
So today has been quiet. I learned as a child how to be awake but very, very quiet, and Erin's late sleep today meant that I wasn't about to empty the dishwasher, start some laundry, rush in and out of the house and make Wrigs noisy, or anything else. I spent a lot of time in worthless internet trolling and finishing up last night's Moo2 game, and I upgraded to the Safari 4 beta while also downloading Chromium (seriously, I have a huge crush on Chrome and can't wait for real the Mac port). I finally realized I was gettign srtuck simply to kep quiet, and that seemed dumb (Erin woke up long enough to say that I could break my silence, but whatever). So I walked to the coffee shop, netbook and library books snug in my messenger bag.
I read some of th Oregonian (especially about a group that works with troubled youth to help them write and produce plays) and checked out a flyer about Performance Works NW and felt myself remembering that I want myu profession to be about helping people, that perhaps the arts need a higher place in my life and actions. I started reading my book about Insight Dialogue, and began to remember when my Zen practice was informing my coaching practice and how good and right and not-stressed that felt.
Today has been filled with the Mirah andThermals albums I grabbed on emusic, and full of thoughts and dreams and writing and websurfing and americano drinking
But most importantly, today has been quiet, and I'm so glad this was so.
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Postscript: I think somehow this project figures in to the above realizations.