Recent struggles

Thoughts and Reflections on Being a Couch Potato – and a follow up.

January 25 2006:

Became hermitty/pajama person the last few days and feeling, "what the hell?"

Saturday went to the green living show and lunch with a friend. R called about to do something difficult and wondered if I would be around for support, so comforted her when she came by. Then neighbor/classmate P wanted to get out of the house so the 3 of us went out to eat. So it leaves me wondering how I can go from that to Sunday, Monday & Tuesday holed up in my house reading 1,522 pages of Harry Potter, to the exclusion of just about everything else. So it leave me with the feeling of, "what the hell?"

Sunday, Missed Church... wasn't feeling well... but same things didn't stop me Saturday. So felt guilty about missing Church, Annual Meeting and service with some area churches. Haven't contacted M+ because I felt bad and didn't know what to say. We meet with him today. I feel like skipping and hiding because of Sunday and because I also haven't visited the shut-in I was supposed to and haven't worked on my Adult Ed class (beyond some resources I found several weeks ago).

I realized the end of the week I had 2 weeks left until the semester starts. I remember feeling anxious like that wasn't enough time, I hadn't done all the things I wanted/needed to do, how would I get them all done? I think I was overwhelmed by lack of time, and felt guilty about undone/skipped stuff, so escaped by reading.

Often when I read I get so engaged by a story I want to finish it (obsessive? ADD hyperfocus?), so I will spend free time and stay up late trying to finish a book. I'd re-read book 4 the last week planning to see the movie and had books 5 and 6 on hand, which are long. Since there's no book 7 yet and I've had my fill of fun reading, I think I'm free of the reading pit for now, don't know about avoiding via TV or internet.

I think I'm feeling more motivated and less sluggish/couch potato-ey today, although nothing has come of that yet except trying to call my shut-in. I was also thinking of different things to say in my Ember Day Letter, but haven't written anything.

Kind of needed to vent.


January 26, 2005 – Follow up to Vent - Progress?

Maybe should have waited to vent, rest of day yesterday went okay. But maybe it helped me get it out and let go?

Meeting with M+ went fine (I went, didn't hide!). I'd arranged to visit S (a shut-in) after the mtg, and could say how she sounded. Per usual we had good discussion in our mtg. He also asked about the Adult Ed class. I told him my thoughts and had a couple questions so he had some ideas. I realized I'm teaching in a week, so I'd better figure out what I'm planning to do with the folks.

Had a good visit with S, she struggles with depression and her mood tends to shift a lot. Had burgers and fries for dinner with neighbor/friend and chatted with another student I ran into when I took out the trash & litterbox ( housework! ). Up late, cause I took my med late yesterday? Slept in today. So far did some work on the Adult Ed class (found where Lord’s Prayer falls in Gospels & Greek translation, marked some resources with stickies, reviewed some ideas/notes), and sent field ed.-related emails.

Haven't worked on the letter yet, but I'm planning to. Besides letter and Adult Ed class, other big things on to do list: housework, a couple papers for incompletes, still would like to rewrite 2 GOEs, get the CPE thing settled, start working on Senior Sermon that is in about a month.