Thursday 11 May 2017

Mindful Musings | Hibernation, Complacency & Laziness

Hello everyone, Stranger here!

This post is something of a confession, public self shaming and an apology too. For a fair few months  now I have been pretty darn useless, introverted and atrociously lazy.

As some of you know I'm currently working part time at Marks and Spencer in Leeds whilst saving to go back to Canada in September to work the winter season with my best friend, Sophie. For the past six months I've been working 4-5 days a week, typically nine hour shifts and almost always working till the store closes at 8pm. This has meant that I've been very tired on my feet everyday, a little under stimulated from working the quietest hours of the retail day, and sometimes unsociable because my shifts haven't afforded me much time on days that I have worked for anything other than food, sleep and Netflix.

Please don't misunderstand me, I love working at M&S; I adore the the people I work with, the work is comfortable and I appreciate every hour I am given as I need the money, even if I do grumble about my shifts every now and then. And this is what I wanted, something gentle where I don't have to carry my stress home while I'm impatiently waiting for September to come around when I leave for a country where the mountains astound me in their magnitude, and the extreme landscape and climate are respected and cherished.

I have loved these months I've had at home; enjoying seeing my parents everyday, watching time roll by week after week instead of counting down the days till my next deadline, having had time to get back into reading, exercise and cooking. After all the stress and excitement of last year, it's been soothing to take things slowly and hibernate a little. I do recognise however, that my hibernation period has allowed me to embrace my introverted side a little more than I should have, and therefore has lasted much longer than I should have let it.

In this "time-out" as I was nicknaming it, I had meant to set myself challenges or simply devote more time to the things I felt I hadn't fully committed to whilst in my final year of university; such as this blog, my reading list, my exercise regime and most importantly my friends and family. Whilst I have managed gradual progress in some of these areas, I'm conscious and ashamed to say that in others I have completely failed. My parents I have taken for granted and begun to sink into old, bad habits of contributing very little to the house, my friends I have not spent as much time caring for and making happy as my free time allows, I've hardly gotten any driving practise in, taken any photographs, and this blog I have completely neglected and at times forgotten about completely.

Instead, I've managed the gym roughly twice a week on my days off, learnt about four recipes by rote which I now repeat on rotation, read only four books since the start of the year, hardly done any planning for Canada, and neglected some of my best friends despite the fact I now live nearer to them than I have in three years. This I recognise is no where near good enough.

There it is, my confession and shame at being a pretty useless and lazy, 21 year old graduate. What have I done with all the things I achieved at university? Not a lot, to put it plainly. This desire that's building inside me to actually act like an adult even if I'm not confident I'll ever become one has come from a few, very slow, realisations: I'm 22 in two weeks and really can't consider myself anything but an adult anymore, it was around this time last year that I was finishing university and, much to my constant despair, that period of my life is very much over, in my voice and eye, which I was once incredibly proud of, I have lost both accuracy and vision, and recently I have done nothing to deserve the constant generosity of my parents and the unshakable strength of my closest friendships.

This is where the apology comes in, I'm sorry to my saintly Mum and Dad for doing next to nothing to help you around this house after you very kindly took me back post-graduation, my darling friends who I have not devoted the time and energy I should have done when you have for me, and to myself for becoming so complacent that I'm not the woman I wanted to be by now.

So where to from here? Well in the long run, Canada of course. In the meantime however, no more hibernating; I will push myself to fit more into the time I have taken for granted. Do more to help Mum and Dad, send a text every now and again to a friend I haven't spoken to in a month, fit extra bits of exercise into my day where ever I am nor no matter how tired I feel, force myself to read on my commute to and from work when really I could just fall asleep again, blog on my days off so that my vocabulary and comprehension doesn't dwindle away at the rapid pace I can currently feel it disintegrating at, and finally take more pictures, even if its just on my phone and the only editing I do is on Instagram. I feel like I've become a little boring recently, that's something I don't ever want to be.

I'm reading back through this post and finding that it sounds an awful lot like a series of lists; of failings, apologies and goals and I'm doing it even now in this sentence. Lists do generally help me declutter my mental carnage however, so if this helps than I really don't care, although I am sorry if it's a bit of a dull read. The purpose of this post was primarily a desperately needed kick up the arse for myself, from myself. If it's provided any entertainment for anyone else then that's wonderful, killed two birds with one hard stone.

Until next time,

Holly.

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