Resolve

Things I have done in the last month, in line with my NYR to push myself a little more:

• Met up with an old friend I hadn't seen in more than a decade.
  
• Exercised all of twice. Um. But hey, that's twice more than I do most months...
  
• Tried seven new recipes (bok choy with cashews, pasta with chard ribs in cream sauce, collard greens/beet greens with bacon and apple cider vinegar, tomato vodka sauce, sauteed chard, kale with smoked paprika).
  
• Learned to love four new food items I had never really liked before (chard, beet greens, bok choy, kale.)
  
• Taken public transportation to work (for a meeting in SF - there's no public transport to my regular office).
  
• Flown to Los Angeles instead of driving, and took the bus to the airport.
  
• Gone to a protest in the city with the Squid (against Israel's actions in Gaza).
  
• Put down the genre fiction and picked up the Joyce again.

Put all together, not so bad for a start. I've been chiding myself for not doing enough and thinking about how I wrote so much more in 2007 than 2008, and thinking I was making poor use of my time. But then I realized that I started my medication in late 2007. Which means that 2008 was a much better year - I cried less, was more stable, was a better mom, enjoyed my work more - but also means that I now need 9-10 hours of sleep a night.

Oh, everyone says to me, how delightful to get so much sleep! That must be so nice! Er, no. That's how much sleep I need, now. So, for example, if I get a solid 8 hours (more than plenty for most people) - I'm tired like I'm running on a 1.5 hour sleep deficit. If I get 9 I'm fairly functional. If I get 10 I'm really functional. Basically, when I started these meds, I lost 1-2 hours of my day. That's ten and a half waking hours a week - two-thirds of a day. 45 waking hours a month - three full days. 547 waking hours a year - more than a full month of time lost. It's worth it, on balance, but adding it up makes me realize what a loss it truly has been. I'm going to need to forgive myself for not doing everything.

So, I'm not giving up my resolve to push. But I'm realizing that pushing is probably not going to involve taking night classes (I can't stay awake past 9:30!) or doing a lot of time-intensive volunteering, or writing a novel. I don't know when I'll be able to do those things, if ever. I'll have to push in more quotidian ways, and I look forward to discovering them. The line between healthy pushing to expand boundaries and a healthy understanding of personal limitations is one that still confuses me, and I do a lot of thinking about it. I hope you don't mind the updates; they'll help me remember what I've done and think about what I might do in the future, and I'm going to try to remember to do them.