Calm: What I’m Doing

So, I’m trying to stay calm in 2011. But more than that, I’m trying to let calm encompass my life.

But just how am I doing that?

• First, this is hanging above my head as a nice little reminder as I do most of my work:

It’s also one of the first things I see when I look up in the morning.

• I’ve taken to opening my blinds when I’m home in the middle of the day. I have this wonderful view overlooking the pool, with the mountains in the distance, and I never took advantage of that last quarter.  Doing this has also allowed me to spend some time doing one of my favorite things: watching the planes line up to land at the nearby airport.
• One of the biggest changes from last year to this year: I told people what I’m doing. People are holding me accountable. But more than that, they’re encouraging me.
• Something I really perfected the art of last year: Plenty of sleep. But more than that, plenty of rest. I only go to school 3 days a week. While I have an internship, the schedule is completely up to me. Which means I work around my rest (that’s working for now).
• Writing. Over the last two years, I stopped writing as much. I would say over and over again that I wanted to get back into it. I would buy moleskine after moleskine to start anew. But so far, I’ve actually been putting pen to paper. And it feels good.

Do you have one word for the year? How’s it going?

Calm? Not so much.

This week was not one of calm. Not in the least.

It all started on my way back to school after spending the weekend at home. My 4 month old iPod, Martin Jebediah, shut off. And, well, I should have known then, at 12:30 am, that the rest of my night was going to go sour.

I got back to my apartment and things were a little off. And that shouldn’t have been a big deal. But at 1:30 in the morning, when I was already a little irritated, changing anything from what I expect and my routine was too much for me to handle. (Okay, it’s always a little too much. But it throws off an entire week when it happens just.like.this.)

When I awoke, there was a slew of new issues in my financial situation since my debit card number was stolen almost 3 weeks ago. In fact, Barnes and Noble Customer Service almost got an ear-ful about their charge. But they kept me on hold for 10 minutes.

That 10 minutes allowed me to calm myself down. It allowed me to realize it wasn’t that person’s fault that anything that had happened in the previous 2 weeks, or the previous 12 hours. It wasn’t even her fault that her company was charging me, though it would have been easy to place that blame.

And so she got the polite me. Not the hysterical me.

But overall, I was still freaking out. Still frustrated and tired of it all.

By Wednesday night, I thought I was getting better. I thought I was calming down a bit. And then there were more problems. And I was sure I would leave my credit union this weekend, after holding my account there for all 22 years of my life. Even though my rational head said it was stupid.

So with my classes done for the week, I did what I always do when I’m really stressed and the opportunity presents itself: I slept. For a long time. And when I awoke, I still didn’t budge. I stayed there until food became more important.

And when I got to my computer, I managed to fix some issues. And some others fixed themselves. And, well, Barnes and Noble will have to wait until I have a new debit card (again)…or a new credit union.

Hopefully, I can (once again) finally get this whole mess cleaned up. Hopefully, I’ll be able to fully use my account after this week. And hopefully a good 3.5 days at home will help calm me down and get me ready for the stressful school weeks ahead.

Because I don’t know how much longer I can deal with both.

One Word 2011

 

Instead of traditional New Years resolutions, my friend Alece does this awesome thing where she picks one word to focus on throughout the year.  She then asks her friends to join in and do the same. I somewhat secretly participated last year.  That is, I’m pretty sure Alece is the only one who knew I was doing it at all.

But that’s how I needed it to be. I needed it to be a private battle. Because in 2010, my word was forgiveness. It started out as a way to get myself to forgive the beatings my heart took in 2009. But it turned into so much more than that (Isn’t that the way it always goes?). Focusing on forgiveness helped me to take a step back and look at things thrown my way from a different perspective. It helped me deal with some pretty big obstacles in a different way. And though I can’t say that I ended 2010 by forgiving all the hurts that I originally set out to, I’m a heck of a lot closer than I ever imagined I would be.

But along the way in 2010, a secondary word also developed.  As I struggled with my health, I found myself making some lifestyle changes.  The biggest one was rest.  While I’ve always been one to make time for sleep, I haven’t always made time for rest. Over the course of the year, I started to make time for both.  I started to become more aware of what my body was telling me, on both a physical and emotional level.

And so I’m going to continue with both of those words in 2011, this time with people knowing about it to hold me accountable.  But I’m also throwing in a new one: calm.

It took me awhile to settle on a word this year. And it had a lot to do with my last several months of 2010, which were utter chaos.  But in that chaos, I learned a lot about myself. And there’s a lot that I would like to work on. But all of the words that I came up with, frankly, sounded perfect for 2012. I’m just not there yet. I need a word to get me from here to there.

Finally, in the rush of getting back to school before the quarter started, it hit me. I need to find new ways to look for the calm in my life. To take some time to relax. Before I can start work on other aspects of myself, I need to first reduce my anxiety level. Because my stress level is ridiculous…just ask the facial twitch I developed towards the end of last year

In a year that I will graduate and search for job opportunities, along with who knows what else, it has become clear that calm is one thing that I’m lacking. And I don’t want to lack anymore.

Step 1: Clean my room.