Whirlwind & Reset
Life has been a whirlwind lately, as it has been for me for the past 6 March/Aprils, as this is the busy time at my job with the opening of a new season and exhibition. Even with the best planning, there are always the last minute things to attend to, the deliveries that come in right under the wire, the media interviews for exhibit marketing, and general prep for the opening of the house for another tourist season. It gets a bit frantic at times, to say the least.
It’s the time of year when I make lists upon lists, write myself post-its to remember mundane things like stopping at the bank, and send texts and leave voicemails for myself so I have a record of something I can’t forget to do ( ps, I almost always forget to do it). This time of year usually has weekends packed with errand running, meal planning, and house cleaning because my work days are usually so jam-packed that when I get home from work, I can barely think straight and plop myself down in an exhausted mess on the couch in my pajamas at 530pm.
This year has- and has not to some extent- been different. It’s still frantic at work and there were more nights than not when nightly walks with Q or chats with my mother were more complaining about work than anything else. But it’s also been better this year because after all these years, I think I’ve finally learned how to manage the pace and stress, as well as come to expect it. The year I’m not stressed or worried about something exhibit related probably means it’s time to throw in the towel. I stress because I care deeply about my work, am passionate about what I do, and work hard to present something fun, interesting, entertaining, and educational to people. I also repeat to myself multiple times of day that it’s temporary ( seriously, my job has very few stressors the other 10 months out of the year, for that I am extremely grateful). And when all that doesn’t work, wine helps.
Ever since my Dad died, I’ve felt a bit like I can’t quite get a grasp on life, probably because the confetti of having life go totally crazy in a split second hasn’t quite settled yet. With the stress and pace of work life the past month or so, it seems to have reached a new level of confetti craziness- the other night I could barely sit still eating dinner — Q actually said: “You just can’t sit down can you?” ( this unfortunately, is something I inherited from my Dad). I’ll have ideas or thoughts on next steps in life or things to do, spend the time writing them down, but never make it around to doing them because I just feel harried.
Monday night I went to a new yoga class, my first “organized” formal class since college ( I’ve long practiced in my basement with a variety of DVDs). It was the actual best thing, in about a million ways. Time to be calm and rest with myself of course is awesome, but I left feeling ten types of amazing and my Tuesday at work was noticeably different ( and even today too!) It’s not lost on me that it seems like some cosmic/karmic gift to have the class start at the end of my frenzied time of year and at the beginning of my slow down time.
Maybe you all have been onto something with this meditative yoga stuff all these years.
Life By Kristen 