One of the big reasons for coming to Cefalú two months is to experiment with a reset of how I live.
During the period, we now label as 'the semi-retired years', I had succeeded in tamping down my Type A personality behavior...or at least redirecting it from work to travel (I don't think anyone who observed Wife and I traveling would ever use the word 'relaxing' as a descriptor of us traveling). I was still working but I wasn't that intense about it. Intensity was saved for planning and implementing travel.
All that changed in 2019 and 2020 with the advent of Theodora and the pandemic. The amount of energy that was required to realize Theodora from an idea to a reality was enormous as was the sheer amount of time. The pandemic took all the old travel behavior pattern and threw it out the window. As I went into 2021, things opened up but I had retrained myself back into the Type A work mode again. It was exacerbated by the time difference between Ghana and New Mexico. Suddenly I was working even longer hours because I had people I was working with in both areas.
As I moved into 2022, many signs showed that this pattern needed to stop. I was not burnt out. I was getting a lot of joy from how I was doing things. But other joys were being ignored and at my age time is running out to do them. Then there is the need to diminish my role in Theodora so it has the ability to go on without me.
In coming here, I have put in place a number of things that are going to mandate change. For one, the time difference. I am now ahead of both Ghana and the US so the only time to talk is the afternoon and evening. I, in fact, set a limit of 6 hours a day for meeting times in the late afternoon and early evening. This is leaving a big slice of time in the day to do something else (we will get to that in another post).
Another, is not having a vehicle. We specifically chose where we are staying because of the availability of just about everything we need in walking distance. We had talked about renting a car for some day trips but the prices I've seen for those so far have been crazy. So none of those planned so far. For the first time in my adult life, I will be living for more than a week or two in a place without an automobile at hand.
The combination of the two above is leading to changes in sleeping patterns and eating patterns.
It is way too early to jump to conclusions. But so far, the change has been dramatic.
2 comments:
Someday I will say for the first time in my adult life I have a car to hand for more than two weeks, lol
I love the idea of trying all these changes on a trial basis. I'm about to make some big changes, but even there, I comfort myself thatI can undo them and try something else if need be.
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