Finding healthy priorities

I've been pretty reclusive the past few months, so if you haven't seen much of me, it might come as a surprise that I've had a pretty unpleasant post-holiday period.

It won't take a lot of reflection and thought to come up with what was wrong. My work-life balance had gotten all out of whack, and it started draining on me, emotionally and physically. It's exhausting thinking about work all the time, and leading up to events I would find myself waking up for an hour at a time around 2 am worrying about some tiny detail.

Some of the stress was definitely caused by traffic nightmares. On a good day, my commute is a nice 45 minutes each direction, which is enough time to get some knitting in without getting cramps in my legs or a sore butt. However, a trend began this winter with our heavy rains: whenever it would rain, my commute would begin to lengthen horribly. One of the worst days was an 80-minute commute into work, followed by an 85-minute commute home. And, in case anyone was confused by the matter, having your commute compound in length whenever it rains is not something helpful when you live in and around Seattle. It has a tendency to rain often here in the winter.

I wish I could tell you all what the tipping point was. I remember there came a week where I hadn't knit at all because I was too stressed to even want to pull it out (which is odd, considering knitting is basically my yoga). I would spend my evenings tucked away back in my bedroom, away from everyone else in the apartment, likely with Kiva on my lap. I feel like the turning point may have been when I made the decision to pay to do a 10k in April (because why would I do a 5k first? That would be way too normal!), and therefore started running several times a week. It also may have been when the sun started actually being present when I would go out to catch the bus. (Yes, Mom, I have been using my sun lamp, but it's just no comparison to the real thing!)

The biggest shift has been a mental one. It's okay that my job is only part of my life 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. While some of my coworkers truly love living the job, it's healthier for me to focus on my hobbies and activities. It doesn't mean I don't like my job. On the contrary, I now like my job a lot better, because I'm not sitting at home focusing on the frustrating aspects.

I'm also back to knitting, and enjoying going for runs, and using the time to catch up with a couple long-distance friends too! It's easier getting my stuff done at work because I view it daily with fresh eyes, rather than having spent my free time worrying my way through every interaction and report.

I don't recommend living only for work. Somehow, it seemed like a much more bland and frankly, awful, experience than where I am now.