After a week of work I can conclusively determine that rest is an under-rated luxury. I don't know how people with very physical jobs manage to return to work; I have a largely cerebral job that involves mainly sitting in a comfy chair and trying to maintain a compassionate interest in the lives of others. By Thursday I was too tired to think of going to bed.
I am proud of myself for getting through it, however, even if that meant a few days of mental countdowns to the weekend when I could get some rest. I still didn't get as much rest as I ought to have had, but still much more than I got during the week. I continue to try to find a way of changing my schedule to allow for more rest, but just as I remind my clients, a life has to have a balance of work, exercise, rest and recreation. My challenge is that as my time for rest increases, it impacts on the time allotted to the other activities. It becomes a challenge to figure out what part of the pie can be decreased without decreasing the overall balance.
I need to have my quilting in the mix, for example. Some kind of emotional creative expression is critical in my overall sense of balance, even more important now that I have returned to work. It's not that I have to quilt for 3 hours a night, but I get next to nothing done in an hour or less (I'm just not a quick quilter). So I suppose trying to cap it at 2 hours might be helpful. Wednesday nights are church, and I think I might as well go to bed and read after that class, because by the time I get home its either stay up too late or don't get started. My goal has been 20 minutes of exercise, but that hasn't happened yet. I find it ironic that I need 20 minutes of exercise to increase my stamina, but don't yet have the stamina to do it.
