Early Sunday Morning...

I spend a long time each morning taking care of my emails. It's a pleasant occupation and I never get bored with it. It's a good way to start the day and a good exercise for my brain. Some of them are facebook notifications and they are always fun, as they take me from one subject to another and I have to be on my toes and respond to all the different types of comments. The other emails are comments on my blog posts, or responses to my comments on the comments. I hope I still make sense. Either way, I have to switch from one subject to the next and I like to think that these mental acrobatics keep my mind lively and that I will stay alert better for a longer period of my life. Especially if I keep doing this as I grow older.

No doubt this thought is inspired by the fact that I'm turning 55 tomorrow and, although it doesn't seem to me like such a very old age, I am aware of the fact that I need to keep mentally active and always challenge myself. I've seen the slow decline of age in other people and it seemed to come with a certain amount of lack of mental challenges and an overall laziness of the mind, when they couldn't be bothered with how a computer worked or how a cash machine and blamed the machine for their frustrations. I don't want to fall into that kind of trap.

Well, you scratch the surface and what do you find? A woman who is worried about growing older and I didn't think I was, because whatever age I am, I always think it's still young enough. I just have a bad memory sometimes, but I've had that for a long time, so I should not worry about it.

Another thing, just when I was boasting yesterday about not taking naps during the day, I took one in the afternoon. It was very pleasant and really belonged to the tradition of weekend napping. I laid down on the sofa and pushed my face down into the pillow of the armrest and was asleep in no time, totally oblivious of everything around me. This didn't prevent me from sleeping very well last night and, although I read my book for a while, I was gone from this world in the shortest amount of time.

So, you can never say that you'll never do something again or that you always do something, because life is unpredictable and your body has a mind of its own. Well, it really and truly does, doesn't it?

I'm going to spend the day getting this apartment in order, because tomorrow my sister and my nephew and the Exfactor are coming over to help me celebrate my birthday. I must get this place cleaned up, although it isn't in that bad a shape. I do need to vacuum and dust and water the plants. I think I will make a list of chores to do and check them off as I do them. That way I will see the progress and it will be a more rewarding exercise.

I keep trying to see the positive sides of whatever sort of events take place in my life, no matter how insignificant and instead of only living in the moment, I'm trying to look ahead a little bit and project myself into the near future. This is not something I have been doing, as I've only lived from one day to the next and have hardly given tomorrow a thought, let alone the days after that. I'm starting to think about next week now and maybe even the week after that, although this is still very tenuous.

I feel that today is still within my control and maybe the day after that too, but when you get beyond that I don't know how much control I have over the events, although I could have more control if I planned things better. It all depends on how much I am willing to face up to what is coming up, instead of ignoring what may happen. In a way, I'm a procrastinator and hope for things to resolve themselves before we get to the point that I have to. Very often they do with a little help from me, I admit.

I thought I was like a Buddhist by living in the moment, but actually I was living in denial of all sorts of realities by pushing them away and sending them underground to my subconscious. I try not to do that anymore now and to stop and pay attention to what I feel and think about, especially when it regards my future.

I'm very much aware that I have to find my value as a human being in very small and not so very significant things, at least relatively insignificant things if you compare them to what is significant in this society, but I have a high enough opinion of myself that I will be able to do that. I don't have to have a successful career and make a lot of money to prove my worth. My aim is to be able to live with myself in the most comfortable way possible, without causing myself mental pain and agony and to find peace and serenity and a stable frame of mind. If I manage that I will have come very far in this life. How I go about achieving that will be a subject of discussion on the meeting with my therapists on the 21st of this month.

It's very funny how I always get bogged down in a serious subject, isn't it? It's second nature to me. I always have to air my ponderings and make them public to somehow give them more value and authority. I probably should have been a religious leader and I would have led my flock with a daily sermon. No, the power would have gone to my head and I would have made a shambles of it, as do so many of them. Who do they think they are anyway to preach their word at a group of followers who believe in them?

I hope you all have a nice Sunday. Honor the day and don't make too many efforts.

Ciao...