How I'm Dealing

Most of my recent posts have been angry or anxious, and I'm still feeling that.  But it's the weekend, so that feeling isn't quite so fresh...though Monday's coming ;)

Because my arm's reach work fills me with anxiety, here's how I'm spending my precious free time to let all that go.

1. To-Do Lists - I've been really good at these since time immemorial.  I come up with things to do, many of which are recurring, and I do them.  Checking things off lists is extremely satisfying to me, and since I made the list, there aren't too many completely odious tasks on it. 

2. Baths - I decluttered the bathroom a few weeks ago.  Though it did make me anxious to pitch all the various expired creams and analgesics I found in my cupboard (not to mention my husband - he's still going on about how I tossed his 10-year-old polysporin), I also located a number of smelly bath soaks and salts.  I'm not good at just sitting, even though doing nothing is probably what I need right now, so I've been playing a 20-minute guided meditation while I'm in there.  It gives me something to focus on while I'm soaking up all the aromatherapy. 

3. Bike rides - or walks.  But mostly bike rides because I find it's easier to socially distance when I'm on the road with the cars instead of on the sidewalk with people who don't seem to understand what's happening in the world.  (Also, not getting myself needlessly worked up about those people because I can't control them...that's another way I'm trying to deal).  Last year I pledged to ride 100 km in one month, which I did fairly handily.  This year, I'm trying to double my previous month's mileage.  Last month, I rode about 88 km, so this month my goal is 177 km.  See?  Checking things off lists is extremely satisfying.  The weather lately has not been particularly cooperative about the bike rides lately (slash I'm a tiny baby who does not like to be wet or cold), so...

4. Yin yoga - I don't have a lot of space for an at-home workout and my house is a creaky 90-year-old factory bungalow.  Though I have access through my gym to all kinds of on-demand workouts, if I were to jump-squat in my front room, I'm fairly certain things would fall off the shelves in the furnace room at the back of the house.  I'm also finding that since I'm not weight training and roller skating regularly (I am mainly sitting in my office chair wondering if I've done enough to keep my clients alive this week), I'm experiencing a lot effed up muscle cramps/pain.  Enter yin yoga - gravity-aided stretching poses held for 3-5 minutes and nary a downward dog to be found.  It is full of meditative bullshit, but it helps me sleep, so whatever about that.

5. Newsletters - I had already subscribed to two newsletters before all of this started.  I read The Good Trade daily and Girls' Night In weekly.  I read a few more now.  Probably more than I can realistically consume in the time I have given, but there's always something inspiring or informative to read to reassure me (Girls' Night In), distract me (Big Spaceship Internet Brunch, Edith Zimmerman's Drawing Links), or let me know what's going on with the markets and politics south of the border/make me feel smug about being Canadian (Morning Brew). 

5. Musical challenges - I've been working my way through sight-reading Handel's Messiah.  I'm not good at it, but it's asking me to do things with my eyes and hands and brain that they haven't been asked to do in quite some time.  So that's good.  I'm also using an app to teach myself to play the guitar.  I can play a mean E minor.  And a fairly passable A major.  Moving back and forth between the two is still very difficult.  But focusing on challenging things that really don't matter very much since I'm not likely to be performing either Handel's Messiah or anything on the guitar for any sort of public anytime soon, it's good because the stakes are low.  Which is different from the real challenges I'm facing at work.

6. Cooking - This has become something of an adventure because I make the grocery list but I do not get the groceries.  I have a plan for weekend food, but sometimes what's available at the grocery store does not cooperate.  Sometimes, I suggest to my husband that a fresh coconut will be a fine alternative to shredded coconut so he doesn't have to go to another store to find it.  Sometimes, I find myself hammering open a coconut in my backyard at 9:30 a.m. on a Saturday, hoping I'm not bothering my neighbours.  I made an elderflower jelly mold yesterday.  And used a melon baller to scoop out a cooked beet.  Who am I?

Anyway - just in case you were thinking that I've been spending my isolation days curled up in the fetal position breathing into a paper bag.  I'm only doing that 5 days a week, and only metaphorically, anyway.  The rest of my life is filled with self-made challenges to keep my mind off the work day paper bag.  I hope you're dealing too, in whatever way you deal best.