Date: 30 April 2009 13:21:05
In fact, a productive several days now several pennies have dropped with resounding thuds, and I'm working with myself, not against.
So, I have negotiated a few things with myself! When I have work to do that involves serious thought, and I'm not home alone, I need to take myself out of the house and away somewhere else.
I need to cut back on one voluntary piece of work. One morning a week at it is as much as I can profitably manage!
I am going to take my energy levels as they happen, and work with them! Now is not the time for berating myself for being full of life and energy one day, and completely taken over be inertia the next. As long as I am at my work commitments, (when these fluctuating energy levels are not evident, or rarely so) and have done what is meant to be done, then what will be will be. Life is going to get chaotic enough in a few weeks, and I will need every ounce of energy I possess then.
Then, I've been pondering the symbolism of open/closed doors in my life. I only have my room door open when I'm comfortable in my living environment. At the moment, I live with my own room door shut at all times, unless I'm in the house on my own, then it's open. I only ever go into the sitting room if we have visitors, because it doesn't feel like somewhere I can be and relax. I'm realising how trapped, and hemmed in this has been making me feel for much of the time. Because, it's not how I naturally live when I'm comfortable in my living space. Doors are usually open, except when wanting some privacy, or to keep the heat in, or at night. (Definitely since I watched a film with Year Five about how fast fires can spread!)
Given I'm not going to be in this environment for much longer, I'm not going to change how I do things now, because it would all take far more energy than I currently have, even allowing for the fact it seems to be taking up a lot of energy to live in ways that don't work for me any more. But, I was aware when I was in retreat as well at the feeling of trappedness by closed doors. In fact, I ended up alleviating it by having the door to the en-suite bathroom open all the time, except when I'd just had a shower, out of consideration for my fellow retreatants, and not wishing to disturb their quiet by setting the fire alarm off - we had been warned this could easily happen.
But, there does seem to have been a recurring them of open/closed doors throughout my life, and always, it seems in the most difficult and trying situations I've lived in. Odd.