Things open up a bit

[darkemeralds]

Here are some of the unexpected and strangely immediate effects of Not Having To Go To Work On Monday.

• I sat and watched a whole movie--an obscure, tiny, foreign film--yesterday without the slightest sense of distraction or boredom. Mind you, it was a very good movie, but in recent years my attention span has been so fragmented that only the most pitch-perfectly fannish thing, preferably no more than 42 minutes long, has been able to keep me from clicking away.


• I keep looking for reasons to take short bike rides and walks. To my surprise and relief, my desire to leave the house at least a couple of times a day is significantly greater than it was when my only destination was work or unavoidable errands.


• I eagerly signed up for a moderated discussion about Justice Sonia Sotomayor's autobiography. It's the sort of thing that I would have been vaguely interested in before, but which would never have risen to the "actual doing" threshold because it would never be more important to me than private, personal, quiet time.


• I have signed up for a French conversation meetup. This one I don't know if I'll actually go to, since it requires a degree of extraversion that I can't usually muster, but I didn't instantly rule it out. That's the amazing thing.


• I've re-edited a swath of Restraint, and there's progress on other swaths. It doesn't seem impossible. I think I can get it into agent-query-ready condition in the next couple of months.

It feels a bit like, I don't know, being able to leaf through a whole book whose pages were formerly clipped together. I knew all those things were there--the interests that didn't quite rise to the level of passions, the curiosity, the desire to learn something new--but I just couldn't unclip them. It was too disappointing, the feeling of being an unmotivated loser because I couldn't find the time and energy to pursue any of them.

Now I'm turning over the pages (at a leisurely, luxurious pace) and it's like my brain is coming back online. I can go and discuss gender and justice in Sotomayor's story. I want to find out what happens to Pim in North Sea Texas--and discuss it and think about it. There's room in my brain to brush up on my very-rusty French. I really do have time to write.



I don't have to limit myself anymore to just the top priorities: work, food, transportation, sleep, and a thin sliver of stress-relief in the form of easy hobbies. It's like suddenly being wealthy after many years of just-above-subsistence. Or like moving into a house after living for years in a place not quite big enough to stand up straight in. Or changing into clothes that aren't too tight.

Things are opening up in such unexpected ways, and it's wonderful.

Comments

[ranunculus]

Wow - that's great!! It is not only great that your horizons have expanded, but also that you have the energy to establish new routines and habits. Win, win, win!

[darkemeralds]

Right? It's very unexpected--I really had no idea. Today, because it was sunny and I was in the mood and I didn't have to get my grocery shopping or laundry out of the way before returning to work on Monday, I got on my bike and rode ten miles to the outlying fabric store, then (of course) ten miles back--with new curtain fabric strapped to my rear rack. I didn't know if I could make it, but I did, and it was fun. I've been biking for 4-1/2 years now, and that particular destination, though of interest to me, has seemed a little out of range. Today I figured out that time, and not energy, has been the commodity in short supply.

[lycomingst]

Way to go!

[darkemeralds]

Thank you!

[toft]

This is delightful to read!

[darkemeralds]

Thank you for saying so. I'm so glad you like it.