Balance

The autumn equinox has come and gone, and now we've entered the second (dark) half of the year. For about a week, the days and nights are roughly of equal length, and after that the year starts descending rapidly to its conclusion. It's bittersweet to me. I prefer the coming of spring and summer, but understand that we eventually have to pay for all those long, light summer days and short nights. The bill comes due in the fall. It's all about restoring balance to the year.

I've been regaining balance in my personal life, too. I realized yesterday that I've been feeling physically and emotionally better this past week than I have for a very long time.

I've been taking a very low maintenance dose of my antidepressant medication again. My dental drama that led to two root canals and $1000 in out of pocket costs this summer is finally over, dealt with, and paid for.  The cooler weather in September has meant more and longer walks (every day again!) for me and Gregg and the dogs.  I use a pedometer app on my phone to count my daily steps and aim to exceed 10,000 a day. More exercise makes me feel so good that I've found myself feeling motivated to eat better, too. I've been planning healthful meals, cooking more, and packing work lunches again. Every morning and night, I take vitamin D and fish oil tablets, and I'm drinking a lot more water. Taking better care of myself is something I've been neglecting for far too long. It's been kind of shocking how quickly just a little bit of effort makes me feel so much better.

Speaking of things that make my life better.....some of you who read here regularly may remember that I recently vowed to complain less about my job, and even occasional readers have probably at least figured out that I really don't like my job and have been looking for a new one. So I decided that I would try to not complain about it for a week (not even to myself). Well, a week turned into two weeks, and then continued on, and I'm finally learning to stop myself when I want to be pointlessly negative. I've starting trying to attract more positivity into my work life by being more positive whenever I can. For instance, I do meet lots of interesting people at my job, and I make enough money to live on, and my health benefits there are pretty good...there's plenty of nice things to say about it and I feel so much better when I focus on them rather than the dozens of things I hate about it. Complaining less and making the effort to be more positive has been like setting down a heavy load I didn't even know I'd been carrying. Now the search for a new job doesn't feel so urgent, and I've been focusing on finding something better rather than just something else. I'm still actively looking, but with a much lighter heart. Actually, I'm doing almost everything concerning work with a lighter heart these days.

Life seems to be regaining some balance for me this year as the autumn equinox rolls past. I hope that everyone reading is having an equally nice transition into fall.