The Experiment: Day 277 ~ Quiet Night…

It has all caught up with me. Too much going out. Good things but after going out Sunday afternoon to the Stitch and Bitch meeting, yesterday to the library, and today to therapy and a host of errands afterward tonight something in me has switched off. I am so quiet I can barely speak out loud. I am remembering why I don’t go out more often than I do. All of the things that I had done or had to do were good things, important things, and now it is enough. I took time to do a couple of extra things while I was out so I don’t have to leave the house again for several days. I need to recover myself. I feel like hiding.

When I got home late this afternoon I got the dogs out, got them a treat and changed clothes and curled up with them in our big recliner. I couldn’t even read. I checked a few things on my phone, turned it off, turned out the light and put the black silk sleep mask on I have begun to wear. (It helps a lot, it was recommended to me to help with sleep at night because even the light from a digital clock can be disruptive to sleep. I love the one I got. It is a natural silk, lightweight, with an adjustable strap, it was only $10 and has more than 9500 positive reviews on amazon! Helps at night and is wonderful for napping during the day.) I am finding that as in most things I am super-sensitive to any light, and during the day, like today, when the world caught up with me, I needed a place of sensory deprivation, quiet, dark, time to escape from the world and come back to myself.

I got up slowly. My sweet pugs were snuggled into me sound asleep. I had to gently wake them up to take them out and get them their dinner. I had things I needed to do this evening but I have begun a process of elimination. What can I not do? I started checking things off the list and ended up with doing this blog post, riding my bike, and taking a shower. After my shower I may watch a documentary on Netflix that I’ve been hearing rave reviews about and when I watched a clip from it I was so touched I knew I would want to watch it soon. It is Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette. Then I will read until bedtime. I started my new mystery last night and I loved having a book to read at bedtime.

And a little update, something I have found interesting. Since I stopped watching the news at night I am sleeping much better. I go to sleep easier and I sleep better and longer. It was nice to listen to my audiobook at bedtime instead when I didn’t have a regular book to read but it is even better to have a real book. I read for over an hour last night before turning out the light and went to sleep with the characters from my Seaside Knitter’s mystery in my head instead of the horrors of the news. I’m definitely on to something here.

Tomorrow I will have a peaceful day here at home and then an evening I am really looking forward to because my darling daughter Rachel is coming over. I will make us dinner, she is bringing wine, and we are watching a movie we both love and haven’t seen in some time, Chocolat with Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche. It is one of my favorite movies ever and I have watched it many times but not for quite awhile. Rachel and I both agreed it was just the kind of evening we both need.

I hope you are having a peaceful evening. I hope that if the world is too much with you you are finding ways to disconnect and find a way to come back to yourself. This new thing of trying to go out into the world a little more is something that requires a kind of balance I haven’t found yet. It will take time. I am done for awhile.

The Experiment ~A 365 Day Search For Truth, Beauty &
Happiness: Day 1 ~ Introduction To The Project
“Do or do not. There is no try.”
Yoda