A Slow, Jumbled Brain Kind of Day
Jumbled. Tired. Disjointed and disorganized. Not even exactly sure what day it is. But the sky is a beautiful shade of bright blue. It’s sunny and warm, without a trace of the heavy humidity of August, July, and even June. It feels like a good day to be moving slowly by choice.
Most of the laundry is done and folded, waiting for my running clothes to finish air drying. In a few hours, I’ll put all the newly washed clothes away. The dishes are clean and drying, and the grass is no longer too long as of lunchtime. Traces of a long, busy weekend away are fading with each small task and passing hour.
But it isn’t just the process of catching up. Today’s agenda is turning out to be not exactly the one I expected when I woke up. The agenda I had planned, the one written for a less jumbled brain, can keep waiting a little longer. That agenda requires focus and concentration that I just don’t have in me yet today. Maybe I will start on it a little later. But most likely, today’s agenda will keep waiting until the morning.
Instead, I’m two chapters further in the book I’ve been reading for at least a month, maybe two. And who knows. Maybe I’ll finish it this evening. The soaking hazelnuts in the fridge are almost ready to transform into homemade nut milk, then used in an afternoon smoothie. After that I’ll have fresh hazelnut milk for the morning’s cold brew. For tomorrow, or for whichever day I don’t feel like making coffee. Even the just scrubbed clean letter mat is drying and waiting for its fresh fall design.
My head feels almost like the first time Harry sees the pensieve in the Harry Potter books. Dumbledore tells him it is sometimes easier to remove some of the thoughts from your brain to make more space for the others. That when there is less floating around in your head, it’s easier to make some sense of it all.
When I woke up today, my head simply felt too full. It felt too full most of yesterday, and when I fell asleep last night. Slowly, I’ve been untangling and pulling thoughts out one by one as they become solid and float on the surface. So far it’s been mostly the things I’ve felt too busy to do lately. Things that I’ve wanted to get done, but haven’t. So I’m doing those things today and rolling with it.
The few times I tried to concentrate on my planned agenda, my head got messier. Blurrier. It felt like there were too many tasks speeding by in my brain that I couldn’t focus long enough to choose a place to start. Like the world was spinning one direction while you spin the other. I know myself well enough to know that it’s best to set whatever it is down and come back later when that happens. To do something else until things start shifting back into focus.
It doesn’t feel like I’m getting ahead today. But it also doesn’t feel like I’m falling further behind. Tomorrow morning when I open my computer to get back to work, I’ll still be disorganized and I’ll still have a lot to do. But my head feels like it will be ready to tackle that challenge. Because I decided to slow down for a while today and enjoy the fresh air. And the sunshine.
