The Whole Wide World

When I set out to create this blog, I thought I’d string together one-hundred posts, make them relevant to each other from one day to the next and by the end of the one-hundred days, I would have a book. That is proving to not be the case. I started to realize early on what a time commitment this is. Not whining, but I am tired by the end of the day and sometimes the last thing I want to do is write. So when I do write I typically end up typing just enough to make an acceptable size for a post, and then leave it at that.

Sometimes, there is more I would like to say, to expand on, but I just don’t have the energy or the time. I think that this is the evolution of me realizing that writing a book is a full time job. I can’t see having a full time job and writing a book at the same time, but I am sure there are people who do. Maybe it’s the Antarctic environment that prevents me, or maybe I am just making excuses, who knows. One day. One day…

For some time now, I have had this vision of sitting on a little farm, sipping coffee in a boho-vibed cottage writing and looking out the window at sheep. I think that image is heavily influenced by my friend, Professor Plum, who I met on my Appalachian Trail thru-hike. He was a part of my tramily on and off through the journey. A lawyer from New York, whose wife is an artist, they have a second home, a cottage in Ireland, and he mentioned I could stay in it at some point if I found myself in Ireland, even if they weren’t on that side of the pond at the time. I vividly remember the vision of me writing a book starting at the same time, Sitting in their cottage, looking past the computer and out a window that overlooks fields of sheep. Grey and drizzly out so there is no excuse to not be inside, writing. Funny how things like that stick in the brain.

I do know that when I feel inspired to write, not to just churn a blog post out, but to sit down and write freely without it feeling like work, well, lately that feeling has come at stupid o’clock in the morning when I should be sleeping. Like right now, it’s 12:30AM and I should be going to sleep. I didn’t move at all today and I’ve vowed to move in the morning before work and again in the afternoon. No excuses. Maybe that’s what is happening though, I am making an excuse right now by typing away rather than closing the computer and snoozing. The thing is, if I tried to sleep right now, all the thoughts would be swimming around in my head and I’d never fall asleep anyways.

They say that a symptom of T3 (a winter-over hyperactive thyroid thing) is insomnia and I am starting to wonder if perhaps I have a touch of it. It’s so hard to know what is what down here. I know the lack of sunlight has to be messing with my circadian rhythm and yesterday I learned that T3 is also responsible for mood swings, which I can’t deny having. I will have a few awesome days, and then WHAM, I don’t fit in, I don’t like anyone, I don’t want to see anyone…which I also recently read that T3 causes social withdrawal, so it all adds up. For the record, overall I am doing just dandy.

This is all a large part of why I wanted to winter. Isn’t that effed up? Lol. I wanted a test. I knew it wouldn’t be a breeze and I wanted that. I seek growth opportunities and this seemed like a sizable one. The thing is I also seek instant gratification and growth doesn’t happen like that. It’s a hindsight kind of beast. At least I have something to look forward to? There were other factors that influenced my decision to winter as well, but I’ll save those for down the road.