hibernating

Some of you will envy me for this post, because I have a luxury this month: time.

I was lucky getting stuck in vortex-land near family, so I didn’t lose money on hotels and cab fares waiting out the winter storm that stranded flights for almost a week.

Nor did I need to call a boss to tell them my return to work was iffy, losing salary and vacation time (although my inner boss felt like I had to get started on 2014 business-wise).

Instead we had extra family time which was lovely.

Then when I got home I was exhausted from the stress of not knowing when I would get home. So I literally hibernated.

This cold weather and the abundance of grey skies this year is throwing me for a loop. Chicago winters are quite sunny in spite of the cold, but the past few weeks the sun has seemed sparse to me.

When I have these kind of drudg-y days I go to my neighborhood cafe for a boost in caffeine and good cheer, but the thought of bundling up has kept me inside more so that kickstarter has been lacking the past 2 weeks as well.

It has been freeing to just listen to my body and pretend to be a bear while I can, but at the same time I feel that guilt of needing to be productive, shoulding all kinds of things, and wanting to push on.

The thing is, it is just me in this life and this business, and the holiday season with all its new-to-me experiences, the holiday rush in a rushed season to begin with, and all the unknowns I’ve been learning about pretty much burnt me out. When I am down, my whole business is down, from production to promotion to planning for what’s next. Calling in sick means hitting the pause button.

So I am trying hard to be gentle with myself. I set smaller goals for each day rather than trying to get to a big list that exhausts me just looking at it. Just because I can’t get 5 things done in a day doesn’t mean I am not living each moment purposefully.

I still feel present, even when I am resting. The downtime will fuel inspiration for the coming year. We don’t begrudge trees for not producing leaves when the world is frozen.

Our modern world is able to defy nature with electricity and snow removal, when maybe human beings should take a cue from nature too at times instead of seeing storms as a nuisance. Frozen fuel lines do tell us to stop in our tracks and stay indoors.

I am clearly meant to ease into the new year slowly rather than rush into it with energy blazing.

Hopefully by February I will have my equilibrium back, and the ideas I have for 2014 will be implemented one day at a time.