I’m waiting for the sun. Daylight will arrive, I’ll walk this local trail, then it’s job search activities, appointments, and errands. I’m grateful that planning and task management are among my skills; the fatigue of what I’m presently going through finally caught up with me yesterday. (I even snapped at my Traveling Partner in a misdirected moment of frustration and cognitive overload.)

There’s nothing noteworthy about a human primate feeling emotional or overwhelmed by stress, or distracted by competing priorities. Hell, there’s nothing noteworthy about having to manage stress, or needing to reinforce good self-care practices. It’s not even noteworthy that I finally reached the tipping point between purposeful action, and disabling fatigue. Just happens to be that I got there yesterday.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I needed the deeply restful sleep I got last night. Today feels a little less overwhelming. I sit waiting for the sun, drinking water, and thinking about a recent conversation with a friend (who is also a former colleague). I may not be out of work very long, which is reassuring. I’ve even gotten a couple of “lucky breaks” this week that serve to reduce my stress quite a lot. I’m more okay than not, just very human and enduring a stressful circumstance.

I watch the sky lighten to a dishwater gray. The hills to the west are hazy from smoke of distant wildfires. A walk will feel good. I remind myself again how critical good self-care is, especially right now. I’m fatigued from managing stress, and I’m in pain from my arthritis. The physical discomfort piles on with the background stress, and in spite of a good night’s sleep and good self-care, I feel rundown and quite exhausted. Hilarious that I see more physical work as something to re-energize me. It probably will, though, for some little while. Eventually there has to be a reckoning and I wonder what else I can do to help myself through this?

I can almost hear my Traveling Partner’s voice reminding me, “don’t forget to breathe”, and realize I was indeed holding my breathe. I exhale, and breathe deeply. The summer air is sweet and floral with the scents of summer flowers and mown grasses. It is a pretty morning, pleasantly cool, and very quiet.

Nice morning to walk with my thoughts.

I lace up my boots and grab my cane. The beautiful summer morning calls me to come walk and enjoy the moment. I’m grateful to be reminded that I don’t have to hustle frantically from task to task and moment to moment. Better to take things one by one, to be truly present, and really enjoy things as they are. This won’t last, and overloading myself with self-imposed stress and nonsensically strict obligations is just silly. Life is best lived, savored, and enjoyed!

I smile and sigh to myself, and stretch. I look down the trail and think about it as a metaphor for forward momentum and progress, and this journey that is life. It’s time to walk on. Time to begin. Again.