Some of the days do have that sense about them and at times it definitely feels like they're merging into an amorphous blob of stuff. Some days fly by and then others seem to draw themselves out forever. A three-day weekend definitely helped me reset to a large degree but there's something about this situation that's exhausting. A couple of days with no alarm and no real need to do very much or even get beyond the garden feel like they've wiped me out. I'm fairly sure it's down to the mental effort we're expending trying to keep on an even keel.
Most of this last week's diabetes problems have been about keeping out of the red and in the black which I will admit has felt a little relentless at times. After some extensive research over the last few days, I think I'm close to publishing a paper confirming that bourbon biscuits have little to no effect on blood sugar whatsoever. I am also implying that they therefore have no calories either... It'll pass as it always does, but feeling like you're constantly scouring the kitchen cupboards for something to eat can be another layer on top of everything else you're trying to think about.
A couple of things sprang to mind this week. Firstly that it's felt harder at times to maintain that 'deep breath, think before you speak' approach to communicating, whether that's at home or at work. I think the current climate (sick of writing that) and how far we are into this way of living gets to us all at some point, and it's almost inevitable that some part of us will snap, however briefly. It's also easy to have our head down thinking about our own situation, when the reality of it is that everyone has their own version of that too. I'd like to think I've been generally conscious of that - what feels like 40 hours of video calls a week means you can't help but understand people's circumstances, but it's no bad thing to be more explicit about it in my thinking.
The other thing is really to think of One Nice Thing about the day and try and hold on to it. After StressControl I tried to write three positive things down from each day before I went to bed as a reminder that the stress and anxiety was always balanced out by other things. I've lowered the bar a fair bit for the time being, but hoping it continues to make some small difference.
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| After a couple of glorious days, the weather turned yesterday so we had some ultimate comfort food in meat and potato pie |
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| This was the sunset on Thursday after my dad got taken to hospital (and thankfully discharged with antibiotics about 8 hours later) |
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| Managed to order some Lego that's usually only available from one shop at Legoland in Denmark - they've made it available online due to COVID |
It's still a massive set of ups and downs and it's the same for everyone I talk to as well. In some sense, it's hard to take comfort from the fact that everyone is on this relentless roller coaster, but at the same time it's kinda reassuring that everyone can almost certainly relate to how you're feeling at any given moment, even if it remains largely unsaid.
Safe safe alert safe x
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