The house fills up. The TV goes on. Chatter (some nice, some not-so-nice) ensues. The energy changes, shifts, thickens.
My quiet, peaceful, post-work afternoon ends, and I begin to feel the anxiety, the not having my writing done yet, the approaching evening (which triggers looking ahead to going to work again in the morning), the chaos in my heart.
But, no -- I may live at home with my parents and family (I touched on this in yesterday's post), but that doesn't mean I'm subject to their surroundings. I've spent the last three years (since I moved home after college) creating a bedroom haven for myself, and it has a door -- which I close often.
And so I make a decision, a decision to change my surroundings and create the space I want and need. I make a mug of tea, a loose blend I first discovered at an Ayurvedic spa on my birthday two years ago. I close the door. I embrace the dark, gray, rainy day and light two candles. I put on warm sweat pants and a thermal shirt, underneath a cozy knit sweater I found at a vintage shop. I turn on my Himalayan salt rock lamp, reveling in its soft orange glow. I turn on the white fairy lights I still have strung up around the ceiling, left up since Christmas (they'll always be a permanent fixture, now). I sip a glass of water, feeling less hydrated than normal, and remember to swallow my multivitamin. I take the above picture. I plug in my laptop, listen to cars driving through the wet pavement on the road outside, and determine to get my writing done quickly. And I breathe.
It doesn't take very much at all. This took me about five minutes, and yet it changed the rest of my day. I wish to remember this more often, to feel my own power about how I spend my time and exist in this home.
Breathe.
(Also, just minutes later, an Enya song came on my Pandora relaxation station, and the lyrics struck me: Who can say where the road goes, where the day flows, only time. Love.)
only time is my favorite enya song
ReplyDeleteYES. I have a new appreciation for it, now xx
DeleteAnd I breathe..... that's what I'm trying to do.
ReplyDeleteSounds lovely, yes :)
Delete<3 - Ruth, i so needed to read this today.
ReplyDeletei live on my own and i often forget that i GET to chose how i want the energy around me to feel.
so much anxiety- but i've put on krishna das and the tea is brewing :)
it's all ok.
Yes! It was such a revelation for me. Putting on soothing music and sitting with some tea sounds like a lovely way to create space :)
DeleteSuch a good reminder. I work abroad for most of the year, so when I come home to visit, home base is my parents' house as well. Which is the best of times and the worst of times. I've had to remind myself of your lesson several times in my two weeks here, that sometimes I just need to close the door and create my own environment. Lovely!
ReplyDeleteYes, that's exactly it, isn't it? Once we remember, the whole game changes. So glad you could glean some wisdom, here :) Take care xx
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