Once I knew my time at Puppet was winding down I took stock and decided to take a break. I gave myself November and December to rest. I didn’t think a lot about what it would mean to rest, I just knew I was going to do it. I’ll probably write more about it, because I might have something useful to say to people who are in a position to rest but don’t know how.
If I am to summarize things in a few words:
I feel pretty good. Rested. It took me time to figure out how to stop a few runaway mental and emotional processes, and once I did things improved a lot, including my sleep and sense of optimism.
I have never felt more like I do now than when I wrote this:
“So there’s this moment where you’re just hovering, unmoored, between a state of going up or going down. Just there. You came from the ground, you’re going back to the ground. For that moment, though, maybe it seems like you could be going nowhere; or perhaps you’re in danger of going practically anywhere.”
… yet I have never felt more at ease with it.
The bad news: You’re falling through the air with no parachute. The good news: There’s no ground. — Chögyam Trungpa
The other part of the decision was that I was going to “step it up a little” come January. I have a better formed idea of what “stepping it up” might mean than I did “rest.”
So, yesterday marked the end of “Phase 0” of post-Puppet life, and today marks day one of “Phase 1,” which is meant to be about applying myself to finding a job while being as kind to myself about the whole thing as I can manage.
It’ll mean a little more structure in each day. Some of that is meant to gently bend my routine back into something that will be able to fit in with more external demands on my time, and some of it is just to keep me on track and readily accountable to myself. But I also mean to continue to use the time I’m being given and can take to do things that are restful and good for me.
That’s all for now.