Stormy waters

Recently has been a rough time. Work has been manic and my standard response to tasks being sent my way of "Sure, I'll get that done" have led me to places I don't want to revisit.

A set of circumstance so elaborate that you couldn't make it up have meant that I had 3x as much work to do, even before 2 of our 5-woman strong team buckled with various ailments and 2 rock-solid volunteers got jobs and hence disappeared as support. I knew it was going to be a hardcore period before all this took place but my work load weighed deeper with each person dropping.

I've felt a strain, a tightening in my heart, my stomach clenched, shoulders tense. I've been lonely in nondescript hotel rooms, missed my friends and family, not had the energy or time to put in my training runs, felt tired and stressed. I've had enough of this. Saturday marked 9 workshop delivery days in March, and I have a further 3 to go before I'm released into the calmer waters that is April.

Day off tomorrow. Gorgeous. I reckon I'll sleep in, go for a run, bake something and go do my yoga. 

Reflections in a friend

I wonder, sometimes, whether the people I know are people I have got to know because of this, or that.

Because of coincidence or one of us daring to smile to a stranger or because of good chemistry? Because of joint interests or similar ways of thinking? Or because of a desire to understand ourselves and how we sit in the world? Whether I like them because they are reflected, or they me for the same reason, I wonder whether they reflect more because I share my reflections or because together we reflect? Whether the way I think and talk affects the way they think and talk?

What's apparent is that all the people I call 'friend' think long and hard about their life. And I can tell that through years of thinking, and in some cases acting on learning from their thinking, they are moving slowly towards an understanding of what eluded them before. I am proud of them. I am proud of the progress they make, and of the progress I make and of the progress together we make. 

A path less trodden

That moment
When a busy mind quietens

A silent moment dives into the void
Of gnarly feelings like roots from a plant
Growing in a too-tight space
Restricting their light into glaring spikes
Instead of a solid glow

Red bricks and wooden flooring
Warm candles and home made bread
A steady moment with my one-time twin
Then she says:
You are treading a path less trodden

And tightness lessens and spikes soften
Departure is imminent