My dearest Soojangles,

Today is a day to check in with myself, methinks. And by check in, I mean do a thorough mental stability assessment because things are not happening right now. Which I guess is not a bad thing. Or is it?


Now... it's been four days since I started this post... and with many minor check-ins I think i'm feeling a little more balanced. One thing at a time. Oh SooJ why is it that periodically your resolve falls apart so excellently and there is that moment (or one month's worth of moments) of ZERO productivity?

Slow and steady wins the race.
Or so I'm told.
but that's not how i function. to look back at my own cycles of dramatic ideas and numb indifference it's clear to me, I'm very much the hare and not very good at being tortoise. Zoooooommmm! then Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.... then ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOM... then {snore}zzzzzzzzzz{snore}zzzz{drool}..

Lucky for me, Aesop was wrong about life. It's not a race so it makes no difference if you're hare or tortoise because at the end you're gonna finish whether you take the long way, wrong way, fun way, or whatever way. and that's not a bad thing....

In the beginnings of my musings that perhaps this down shift is not temporary or a natural dip that will right itself I happened to draw the hanged man from my cards. The idea of suspension, sacrifice, and limbo-ism seemed fitting and instead of feeling like "well DUH that's obvious" seeing the card and associating it with the low energy levels actually put me at ease. Because it's one thing to feel like I'm trapped in a down shift without knowing why or how to stop it, it's another to realize that it is merely a suspension and not a decline. And the contentedness of the hanged man representing the positive aspects of the pause helped me to look at my plight from a different perspective. If I need rest, then just rest. Look around in first gear. Don't stay in it too long, of course. It's not good to drive around in first for extended periods of time, but it's ok to cruise a bit before the rpms get high enough for a shift into second to become necessary. Look at the neighborhood, roll the windows down, put on some music...

That being said, I'm starting to hear the up and ups of the higher rpms. (i say 'hear' because my old rickety truck doesn't have a tachometer so i had to drive around with the window down for the first few weeks to learn when i need to shift up.... i know.. super ghetto)
With a needed 10 hour sleep day under my belt (THANK YOU SUNDAY~) and a little more inspiration in the kitchen, I think I'm ready to hit second gear. This time I'm going to approach this with the idea of mindfulness- those buddhists might be onto something. Over the next few weeks, the idea is to feel myself in second gear and where normally I'll be roaring in third once i've got my bearings, I'm going to mindfully stay in second and see if i can't get a little mileage out of my productive half of the cycle..

Can a hare turn herself into a tortoise? Ah but that is the question....