picture by Jupiter
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The glorious vacation
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Now my week-long vacation is over and the longer two-week one coming up in just a few days and I have the opportunity to recap and make new plans. Since the recap would be very short (the words �I did nothing� come to mind) I was going to lengthen the entry by describing in detail why my vacation time was split in two parts. Fortunately for you, I got bored when writing it and therefore figured everyone else would be a hundred times more bored reading it, so, cutting it short, I couldn�t get the three-week vacation that I wanted because other people�s plans got in the way. I�m sure that�s more than enough information on that topic.
So, a recap of my first vacation week: by objectives: So I mostly slept, sometimes more than 12 hours a day. I can�t remember ever doing that. And I refuse to feel guilty about that since I obviously needed it and it�s not like there was something else to do. I�ve started to feel like a human for the first time in a long time. It�s actually strange how stress and sleeplessness can reduce optimism. I�ve always been an optimist, thinking that there is an escape route out of everything and that I�d be able to survive anything. But lately I�ve felt like I lost a big part of that belief and started to believe that bad things around me would never get better. And I�m not just talking about the current political situation, both here and abroad, I�m also talking about my financial situation and the emotional mess that sometimes seems to surround me. In short, everything seemed to be wrong. I didn�t even notice that I wasn�t coping as well as I had, it just felt like problems were piling up and I had to sort through them all. And I did my best coming up with solutions and distancing myself from situations that were beyond my control. It was Megan who pointed out, after I had detailed my escape plans in case a bad situation took a turn for worse, that I was too pessimistic and there were solutions that wouldn�t bring about a total ruin for me. My first reaction was to deny that these existed and I struggled to find fault with her proposed solutions. But I still started thinking about what she had said. I knew I shouldn�t be a negative person, I knew I was able to solve any situation with the best possible outcome for myself and those around me, why had I suddenly become so negative? The solution, of course, was obvious � the bankruptcy. That was the event that made the biggest difference in my life, it made everything go downhill since it made me feel like I couldn�t rely on my job anymore. And the income, which had seemed sufficient before, suddenly started diminishing, leaving me to struggle � and, ultimately, to fail. Ironically enough, I haven�t failed yet. I still have the Hellhole, I haven�t even been late on any loan payments, I have a plan to get the rest of the renovations done, I am out of the worst of debts. And yet, I lived in the fear of failure. That was what I wanted to defeat; and the only way of doing that turned out to be the vacation. I got to sleep, I got to think. And I finally got to the point where the fact that I didn�t have enough money for everything didn�t bother me anymore, because there were ways around that. The work situation didn�t seem as bad anymore when I got to spend a few days away from it; vice versa, it seemed to be improving now that I got a chance to look at it from a distance. The optimism has returned after only a week of sleeping � let me have two more weeks and I�m ready to look beyond my own problems and start solving the world�s. ***** When I set out to write this I didn�t see the introspective mood coming on. But I�m happy this happened. Sure it didn�t make a riveting read but it helped me to recap some stuff that has been floating around in my head. Who knew there was some actual benefit in writing this? So � my accomplishments: - sleeping I can�t wait for the next part of the vacation to begin!
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