I am sitting at my desk with Phantogram blasting into my ears. Email after email spills in and I accept them like the soft runoff of a waterfall. Sometimes I even get mad about things inside the emails. It’s such a sweet and sacred emotion.
Because it keeps my mind off the fact that I am (somewhat) slowly dying. And anything that takes my mind off that is pure gold.
I look at my calendar, full of dates and deadlines that will most likely happen on time. I am assured of this fact because I have a great team that doesn’t miss deadlines. I also hate the word deadline for reasons that are quite obvious.
When I keep my mind on my work, I can get wrapped into life like a little blanket with the same safety and assuredness as sleep. So I do it as much as I can, and balance that with the life and the family and the breathe in-breathe-out-don’t-panic that also envelopes me like a straightjacket at times.
Work serves as staying in the present moment, work means paying attention to things other than myself and my disease. Work serves as the reminder to take the supplements, eat the orange, don’t drink too much coffee or you’ll shake. Work serves to break things down into smaller bites, which is what you need when you have kind of a shitty plate. This brings me wellness. It bleeds into my life.
Days I don’t have work, I try to have plans like the music or the friends or (the real) sleep. Because, left vacant, I cry. I catastrophize. My mind does not treat me well when it’s left idle and I’ve learned that nurturing my mind helps keep it well. And a solid mind is what I need. And work fits right into that picture.
So when blahblahblah asks for the same thing a third time, my first flash is anger. Then happiness that I got angry because it means I’m staying in the present. Then onto the next thing because work is like a waterfall and I love me that runoff.