Feeling exhausted

I promise this will be the last post about my move, because I feel sure everyone is sick to death of hearing about it.

I have been exhausted, on a very deep level.

I came to the conclusion, a few days ago, that once the moving process ended and I was sleeping in a regular bed, in a real house... I pretty much died. A move like the one I just completed is a bit like running a marathon.

Running a marathon takes an extraordinary amount of training and preparation, ahead of time. In a sense, this is very similar to a major life-changing move. Then there is the race, itself. It's both tiring, and exciting, at the same time. At the end, you feel exhausted, but for a while you continue running on "residual adrenaline." Many marathon runners will rest for a few days after a race, and then "pretty much feel OK." So it was with me, once all the stuff had been unpacked, and I got settled in.

But there's a reason why marathn runners only run a few races a year. After a few days, a sort of "deep exhaustion" sets in... a long-term lethargy, as the body works to recover from a period of extreme effort and stress.

All told, I probably spent two years packing, reducing, downsizing, renovating the house, selling the house and a variety of other tasks before actually physically moving. All these things, while also going through the "normal" parts of life, like working to fund all the associated expenses. Then followed six weeks of frantic activity. Sure, it felt good to get settled in... but I found myself being happy, but completely lacking motivation. I basically found that I just wanted to sit and relax. A "busy day" was going to the grocery and walking on the beach.

As I write these words, I am slowly coming to life again. I have been "gone" for about three months... in a sense, that's how much the move "took out of me." Fortunately for me, I have been able to afford myself the relative luxury of being able to take the time to recover. I realize that not everyone can do such a thing.

Elaine Aron, in The Highly Sensitive Person, writes about how HSPs tend to have "in" periods and "out" periods. I realize now that I had been "out" non-stop for almost 24 months, so the three month "in" period was long overdue.

Happy New Year!

For lack of greater creativity, I'd like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy New Year!

I often think about the turning of the year, in the context of where the mere marking of a date on the calendar gives way to something tangibly "new."

We often use the new year as a reason to "get started" on something, and to make resolutions of things we intend to accomplish in the coming year. In a sense, we try to "create newness" out of something that basically is-- if you think about it-- no more than "just another day."

I sense that my New Year actually has real elements of "newness" to it. After all, I am starting over, in a new location I have longed to be part of, for many years. I have actually created a new reality, which is a bit like a blank canvas I now get to start adding color to.

What do you have on the agenda for your new year, if anything?