I'm really starting to understand the concept of sabbaticals.
Just taking four months off from work (the longest vacation I've had since before I stopped being a student), it's been really interesting to go back to work and see how different it feels now that I'm no longer used to it. I don't think I can blame the baby -- Yes, my entire framework for dealing with myself and my body has changed, but it's more about having finally had time to settle into myself, and put away some things that had been dogging me for a long time.
A lot of odd little awarenesses, creeping in around the edges of my activity. How much I hate sitting in a chair all day, or how hard it is to go back to superfocusing for long periods of time. The way my relationship with food has become a lot freer and more unstructured (more on that another time; I have opinions!), and how much better and more capable I feel when I'm not trying to lose weight at all costs. How much less willing I am to cram myself into uncomfortable clothes. How much more self-confident I am about myself and my work (not all of it is about not working for the Boss of Doom any longer, though that obviously helps). And at the same time, how difficult it is to get back into my old work habits and pace, and how quickly I start to think about going back to my old, bad caffeine habits -- a thing I am resisting, because I've also noticed how well-rested and aware I feel. I feel like I've gained inches, and my joints are far less painful than they were. I'm looking for flats to wear to work, though, because I can feel the difference when I wear heels now, even low ones, and I don't like the tension it puts on my posture. And my posture is better! I can feel how much more physically confident and free I am, after spending four months doing all sorts of different activities all day long, and I can feel how much I'm losing by just a couple weeks of returning to sitting all the time. How much more confident I am, wearing clothes that I would have been hesitant to wear only a few short months ago. How much more adult I feel (okay, that one is the baby, but it pisses me off that this should be so, because I feel like if I'd somehow known earlier that that was holding me back, I would have hied myself to a shrink long ago to get it fixed).
And of course, it's nice to have caught up on a lot of the project-work I'd been promising myself I would do. For four months, I was busy all day long doing things, and it was really nice. Not something I could do for much longer than that, without adding in some sort of formal outside-the-house activity, but for the short term, it was really nice. And I feel like I'm catching up on a lot of things, and that's hopeful -- it's not a constant slog, where I'm desperately trying to just minimize the rate of decay. And that feeds into my competency, which feeds into me feeling good about things.
And then, at the end of the day, I have Rock!Star!Baby!, who is beyond supercute.
This is a very positive space I am in right now.
A lot of odd little awarenesses, creeping in around the edges of my activity. How much I hate sitting in a chair all day, or how hard it is to go back to superfocusing for long periods of time. The way my relationship with food has become a lot freer and more unstructured (more on that another time; I have opinions!), and how much better and more capable I feel when I'm not trying to lose weight at all costs. How much less willing I am to cram myself into uncomfortable clothes. How much more self-confident I am about myself and my work (not all of it is about not working for the Boss of Doom any longer, though that obviously helps). And at the same time, how difficult it is to get back into my old work habits and pace, and how quickly I start to think about going back to my old, bad caffeine habits -- a thing I am resisting, because I've also noticed how well-rested and aware I feel. I feel like I've gained inches, and my joints are far less painful than they were. I'm looking for flats to wear to work, though, because I can feel the difference when I wear heels now, even low ones, and I don't like the tension it puts on my posture. And my posture is better! I can feel how much more physically confident and free I am, after spending four months doing all sorts of different activities all day long, and I can feel how much I'm losing by just a couple weeks of returning to sitting all the time. How much more confident I am, wearing clothes that I would have been hesitant to wear only a few short months ago. How much more adult I feel (okay, that one is the baby, but it pisses me off that this should be so, because I feel like if I'd somehow known earlier that that was holding me back, I would have hied myself to a shrink long ago to get it fixed).
And of course, it's nice to have caught up on a lot of the project-work I'd been promising myself I would do. For four months, I was busy all day long doing things, and it was really nice. Not something I could do for much longer than that, without adding in some sort of formal outside-the-house activity, but for the short term, it was really nice. And I feel like I'm catching up on a lot of things, and that's hopeful -- it's not a constant slog, where I'm desperately trying to just minimize the rate of decay. And that feeds into my competency, which feeds into me feeling good about things.
And then, at the end of the day, I have Rock!Star!Baby!, who is beyond supercute.
This is a very positive space I am in right now.