The Matrix

Today is a reboot day after a few days off due to hubby's hernia repair surgery. I had big ideas about keeping up with my scheduled workouts, but when your spouse is prohibited from lifting anything heavier than 5lbs (our small cat is 9lbs) and can't bend over to tie his own shoes, it's kind of hard to leave him home alone for an extended period of time.

While I was off, I took some much needed time to read, and rehash some of my priorities. Life, or at least my life, has a way of pulling you in all sorts of directions you don't want to go in. Too often we, OK I, find ourselves running around putting out fires, or pressured into fulfilling everyone else's wants and needs before our own. The result is we end up feeling frustrated, put upon, exhausted, and resentful of the people closest to us:  you know, the people for whom we want to be our best selves. I feel this way far too often, and I'm learning that the only way to avoid it, is to get very clear and deliberate with my intentions. If I'm going to live the way I want to live, making deliberate choices, acting with purpose, and setting boundaries, is the only way I'm going to have the energy, love, and compassion to share with the ones I love.

For simplicity sake, I've decided to organize my priorities by a set of interconnected matrices. For now those fall mainly under the headings: self-care, family-care, cultivating relationships, and using my talents to generate revenue. Under Self-care and overlapping with family-care are things like sleep, mindful meditation, exercise, and great tasting nutritious food. When I write family-care, I specifically mean helping my husband regain his health after his hernia surgery, and making sure my in-laws are in good shape to be as independent as possible during the next phase of their lives.

I am not good at cultivating relationships. I tend let other things get in the way, and it's a source of deep shame for me. But I also think this is common for adults, we get wrapped up in our own work and families and neglect our friendships. I am now making it a priority to put in the effort to connect or reconnect with people who are both important to me, and have earned the right to be a part of my life. The last category is mostly centered around getting our soap, balm, and lotion business off the ground: basically getting things made and making them available for people to buy.

I would also like to use my talents do pursue a few projects that won't directly generate revenue, but will be beneficial in executing the other parts of the matrix: daily writing, being one of them.