It’s the end of finals week, which I tend to take as sort of a vacation week most years. There’s grading to be done, but it’s not due ’til next week, and by the end of the semester, I’m so exhausted from the sprint, I mostly just collapse for at least a few days.
This week, collapsing has taken the form of lots of Polytopia, continuing to work through my third re-watch of Voyager (on season 6 now), and bingeing Jeffe Kennedy‘s Twelve Kingdoms romantic fantasy trilogy (starting with The Mark of the Tala, delightful fun).
When I’ve had energy, I’ve really had a hard time making myself do anything computer-related — it’s become enough of an aversion that Kev and I have tentative plans to just sit down for a few hours this afternoon and deal with e-mail together, in the hopes that body-doubling will help. Sometimes it does.
But on the plus side, I’ve started up exercise again (two sessions of lifting with trainer Liz (locals, I love her, if you need a rec, happy to put you in touch), one bout of swimming, and tons of gardening), and my body feels better (sore, but better). Possibly the biggest benefit is that on the days I do serious exercise, I sleep better. (Yesterday I took it easier, with just some light gardening, and as a result, only slept two 3-hr stints last night, sigh. Should’ve gone to the pool and done some laps.)
The main accomplishment this week, though, is the back garden, which has been a neglected disaster since, oh, 2020. Did I mention I got really depressed with the pandemic, didn’t really realize I was, and the house and garden completely fell apart? I mean, it was bad, people. The house got pretty disgusting, to the point where I really didn’t feel like I could invite friends over, which is v. bad for my general happiness.
And the back garden turned into a chaotic wilderness. I’ve been slowly recovering it, but it’s a long road — when you neglect a perennial garden for three years, you suddenly have a lot of weed trees to dig out or hack back, and just a lot of maintenance that wasn’t done.
But it’s pleasing, seeing the garden get into better shape again. The specific tasks aren’t as fun as planting flowers (lots of digging, raking, lopping, etc.), but the overall result is very satisfying. Another week or so of work should get it to a place where I’m happy to have people see it, which is good, because I’m hosting the OPALGA+ potluck on Friday, and if the weather cooperates, I’m hoping people can spill out into the garden. And then relatives coming into town the week after for Kavi’s party…
Yesterday, Kevin took our new cordless lopper and spent a solid hour going through all the fallen tree branches we’d stacked up, cutting them down to firewood size. And he and Anand pulled the outdoor cushions out of the garage and set them up, so I could build a fire (I love building fires) and make s’mores and read Jeffe’s book with a glass of wine by the fire in the evening. It was really nice.
I’m trying to be more relaxed this summer — probably my biggest personal issue at the moment is that I get too stressed with too many things on my plate, and then I’m not happy and I also don’t feel like I have time to talk with friends, family, etc, and then I get lonely, and it’s all a bad cycle.
I’ve been working hard on changing that (I had Amanda and Carollina and Roshani over for brunch yesterday, and I managed a good 90 minutes of just hanging out and socializing with them before my restless must-get-stuff-done back of brain took over and I ended up getting up and changing burnt out porch lights and planting hanging baskets while listening to them talk.
Relaxing is particularly hard when I have this computer work hanging over me, some of which is time-sensitive, and is stressing me out. If I can just make myself do it for oh, 4-5 hrs / day, for the rest of the summer, I should be able to clear the backlog before fall semester, which would be SO AMAZING.
I’m nowhere close to that daily goal yet, which is disheartening. I’m trying not to beat myself up about that — my therapist is pretty firm that just saying I “should” do something and then feeling miserable when I don’t is not productive or good for my mental health. Hoping to set up better habits / systems instead. We’ll see how it goes.
But look — fire. Fire good. Trying to be happy with little bits of progress.
