Day 139

I am very late today. Technology has conspired against me.

Last night, I couldn’t sleep, so I stuck the past few days’ blogs into my journal. I went out into the garden in t-shirt and shorts and, remembering how there is a school of thought that says you’re more grounded if you stand on grass barefooted, I slipped off my shoes and stood on the dew-dampened lawn with my poor ill-treated feet exposed. It felt wonderful, and I had an urge to take off all my clothes and lie on the grass to ground my entire self, but I resisted that urge. I stood there, for a long while though, and watched the lightning start to drift up towards Norwich from the south. It never turned into thunder, which was a great disappointment.

The thoughts of groundedness probably also came from third session of therapy in this almost experimental third phase of therapy, therapy which started in 2018, I think, and the first course of which ran for over 40 weeks. I had started the conversation with my therapist yesterday saying that I thought perhaps I had been too hasty in approaching her again for further treatment, that I had externalised the possible mechanisms to addressing what I perceived as being a sliding into bad old habits, assumed that an external agency (her) would be more likely to be able to solve the issue whilst forgetting a) that there are no quick fixes, b) that mental health issues do not have simple solutions, and c) that perhaps all the answers this time round were (are) inside me already. We discussed this at length, and, although I feel in a much better place already than a month ago, decided that we’d have a few more sessions so that I might be able to explore in greater depth how to access these answers within myself, and to keep those pathways to my self open that allow me to reach those answers rather than forgetting them. What seems to elude me often, being so often impatient (and lazy) by nature, is that all things need practice – sport, mental health, writing, relationships. There is no such thing as a quick fix anywhere. Even reflex reaction such as catching the ball is honed by hours of practice.

So here I am, late afternoon, putting to one side everything that has gone before and reflecting on the day that’s been so far rather than entirely on the day before. This is in some ways a good thing. On the other hand, it leaves me chasing my tail insofar as I feel out of synch because the early morning day job hour first thing followed immediately by the writing is meant to kickstart not just my writing day but my day as a whole. And I haven’t been for my daily 2-miler yet either. Every day so far this week has seemed like a postponement.

AGGIE’S ART OF HAPPINESS – CHAPTER 95