Have discovered most difficult part of writing a blog: remembering to actually write the blog.
You would think that in four months of unemployment, I would have time to write additional blog posts, and you would be absolutely correct. However! I have not managed to remember to actually update this poor neglected blog. Sorry, blog.
In my last post, back in January, I mentioned that I had applied for the dream job. Have since applied for the dream job twice more and finally landed it! Hurrah! Now I just have to wait for the paperwork to get filed, the drug test to be scheduled, and all of the other hoops I need to leap through in order to actually go to work. Annoying? Mildly. Worth it? Absolutely. Further proof that my mother was, in fact, correct when she constantly harangued us with the whole "Patience is a virtue" shtick. Point one for mom.
In my free time, I have continued to take the Creative Writing class, which I wanted to do during my time as a hold in the Army. As I mentioned last post, the only class I needed to earn my AA was Creative Writing. Nothing like a sign from the heavens to make you a little happier about taking a class. (If you have never taken a Creative Writing class, I highly suggest it. It has made me a better writer, a better story teller, and taught me how to get those creative juices flowing.)
Speaking of creative juices, once those juices start flowing, it isn't restricted just to writing. Next thing I know, I'm gardening, I'm making sure my peas are climbing their trellis correctly, I'm starting a gardening Instagram account, I working on my photography skills, I'm looking around the island for things to get involved in... Creative juices are fuel for the body. This extra pep in my step helped me out drastically.
Getting out of the Army was difficult. At times, it was flat out painful. You think you have the next three years planned out, you're going to be moving to the coast, you're never going to have to live with the parental units ever again and BAM! Suddenly you've got the knees of a forty-year-old, you're back home in the smallest town in the world, you're unemployed, and have no idea what to do. It's disheartening. It's miserable. To be honest, for awhile I was pretty darn content to wallow in my misery and glare at anyone who tried to cheer me up. I knew that the best way to combat that was to get on a normal sleep schedule and have something to look forward to that would get me out of bed in the morning.
One Saturday morning, I managed to wake up around eight. Compared to my usual noon-ish wake ups, this was practically a dawn rising for me. I sat up, looked at the yoga mat in the corner of my room that I had impulse-bought on Amazon a few weeks prior, and decided to actually go to yoga.
Shakti Yoga Studio in Key West is on one of the busier streets, has no parking lot (but plenty of street parking nearby), and doesn't look like much from the outside. Walk inside, and you're in a little Indian-inspired oasis. I walked through the doors and felt my stress go down. I did one class (my second yoga class ever) and promptly purchased a month of unlimited classes. I was at Shakti three or four times a week, I was sleeping better, and I wasn't wallowed in misery. I wasn't wallowed in anything. Finally, after two months of growling at the world, my mind was blissfully calm.
Has yoga been a magic cure? No. I still have bad days. Heck, I have bad weeks. But I finally know how to combat it.
All of us deal with stress at some point or another. All of us handle it differently: some work out, some require meds, some just wallow until it lessens. I can't tell anyone how to handle their stress or how to combat anxiety or depression, but I can say that nothing lasts forever and eventually it will improve. Maybe not today, maybe not next week or next month, but someday it will get better. The only thing constant about life is change. Keep that little hope alive, and you'll make it through.
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
-Emily Dickinson
Until I write again,
Sam
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