Pondering Perpetual Motion

A colleague sent me this video link recently. She related it to the kids we work with, and the idea that when they're out of class and walking the halls, they're regulating their triggered brains.. something I agree with. The video was interesting.

I think what resonated the most for me was the idea of the healing powers of forward motion. And I would say that moving forward can be both literal and figurative.

This whole process of change for me this year feels like a marathon, and I'm not a marathon runner. I'm not even a marathon walker.  But I can take steps forward. And change like this happens in steps.

I took a step.  I started to look into getting my LCSW in NC. I emailed to find out who I send forms to and where to get test scores sent.  It gave things a sense of "real" in a different way. Once you take that step, well....

I'm not sure what all the steps will be yet, but I do know this: getting where I want to be is going to require that I keep taking them. Hence the theme of this post: Just Keep Swimming.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

Sunday is the one day of the week I typically don't have to set an alarm.  It doesn't mean I sleep in; usually I still wake up around the same time as weekdays.  Sometimes I can drift back to sleep for a bit. But most of the time, we don't get up until we absolutely can't stay in bed any longer- usually because we're starving.  So from the time I wake up until the time I get up, which could be anywhere from 10:30-12:30 depending on how hungry I get, we have Sunday, Sunday, Sunday time.

No, not quite like that.

It's a time when I may do something productive on the laptop, but usually not. Usually, we just lounge. The TV may or may not be on (depends on when Chris wakes up). The dog snuggles in close. I grab my tablet to read or my phone to scroll Facebook or play a game. If Chris is so moved, he gets us coffee. Or, not. That's the point of Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. There is no plan- at least not until we get up.

If I'm lucky, after we get up I don't have anything too terribly pressing to do (the dust bunnies would agree they're not too pressing) so I do something I want to do. I read, I sew, I call a friend.  Sometimes the guilt of being lazy (and all those aforementioned dust bunnies) nags at me and I do some housework.  But the beauty of Sunday, Sunday, Sunday is that I'm the only one who dictates how I spend it. (Unless we're out of clean clothes. Sometimes the hamper dictates.)

I appreciate that Tucker is on board with the lounging plan.  In fact, I think he likes it even more than we do sometimes. 

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh

I think we all need to have this time in our weeks- this time with no expectations, with flexibility, with choices. Used to be, if I wasn't doing something "productive", I worried there was something I was supposed to be doing that I forgot. Looking at it now, I believe there was something I forgot- to be a human being instead of just a human doing.

In art, I value the act of creating as much- if not more than- the thing that is created. I think that perspective is starting to inform my views of creating a life, too.  So that would be the theme of my Sunday, Sunday, Sunday post: Process Over Product.

How Did We Get Here? Part Two

Someone I love, lost someone she loved.

It was sudden; it was shocking. It was a tragic loss of someone much too young.  And it was a stunning reminder that life is, indeed, short, and that you only get one.

This was a world-rocking event.

So here we were.  There was this pandemic, and it was crushing.  There was this horrible reminder that you're not promised tomorrow. So I did something that's not very characteristic for me- I was spontaneous.

People who know me, know that I'm a bit of a planner.  Taking a last minute trip out of state isn't something most of my people would expect me to do.

And yet, one early spring morning I found myself enjoying a Sunday, Sunday, Sunday (it's a thing, I'll explain sometime) with the laptop, Zillow dreaming. I kept seeing these condos on the ocean in North Carolina that seemed crazy-cheap (relatively speaking), but it was clear that the prices were on the rise. We had a little financial flexibility, thanks to all the building we spent the last few decades doing. So when one of those condos showed up again, I did a crazy thing: I clicked the "Contact Agent" button. The phone rang a few minutes later... and that started the whirlwind.

We booked a hotel, boarded the dog, and spent my April break in sunny NC.  We ended the week dropping off a money order for a deposit on one of those blue condos at our real estate agent's office on our way back to NY.

What just happened? Did we just buy a condo?

Yes, yes we did. We bought a condo at Topsail Reef.

The view that sealed the deal.

Since then, we've been there at least once a month- school breaks, holidays, long weekends. When we're there, we're happy. Even Tucker is happy (we call him Reef Doggy).  We walk more. We talk more. We relax more. We work sometimes. We watch dolphins outside the door. We collect shells. We watch sunrises and sunsets.  We eat ice cream and drink margaritas (not at the same time). We take naps. 

The plan was to stay in NY a couple of more years. Work, visit the condo whenever we could. But the more time we spend there, the more I have to ask myself, "Why wait?"

Telling my people at work.... oh, that was hard. It's not like they didn't already know. I mean... it wasn't a surprise that once the ball got rolling it would pick up speed. That's just physics, right? (I think it is, anyway. Physics class was a long time ago.)  But still... 

So here we are. Moving toward the next 3 decades. Building in time. Time to relax. Time to see the kids. Time to engage in other things that bring us joy (like actually using that longarm machine I finally got after years of dreaming).Time to be more active.

And that's how we got here. 

Reef Doggy at Christmas