Point of Jess

Sometimes we find ourselves stuck with too much time and absolutely nothing to do. Growing up, people stuck in this doldrum would explain that they were ‘navel gazing.’ I’ll admit that for me at least, this happenstance doesn’t occur often. My experience from the moment I left high school, is that there is no time. Even when on holiday, I would cram everything in to every little moment. It was like I was afraid of having nothing to do.

Then comes those enforced breaks. Those ones where you don’t have a choice. The times where you are stuck where you are, disabled from doing much of anything because you have been struck down, paralysed by something outside of your control. Contracting COVID-19 did this to a lot of people around the world during and after the year 2020. A heavy bout of influenza, a case of chicken pox, a bad occurrence of diarrhoea and vomiting. These breaks, in most situations last less than a few weeks. The longer periods of enforcement, where you are stuck doing not much of anything – those are the ones that are more likely to force you to do something outside of your comfort zone. A badly fractured leg for a professional footballer could mean a couple months until they are on the field doing the work that brings in the bread. A popped lung for a vocational deep sea diver could mean months of time off work, while they rehabilitate back to their pre-injury condition – or at least to a condition that can withstand the pressures and the bariatric chamber involved with their job.

For me, the precipice that has pushed me to start this blog was resigning from my place of work and then finding out in my final week that I needed to have major surgery followed by an enforced minimum 6-weeks off my usual type of work.

My main surprise post-op is how quickly I grow tired after being around a group of people. I went out for 3-hours one day last week and for the next two days, behaved like a toddler who hasn’t had their afternoon nap.

In response, I have decided to focus on rehabilitating my brain before I focus on my body. Part of that process is spending time journalling, by way of this blog. Another part of my rehabilitation involves learning something new that could be meaningful to my life – rather than watching constant reels of videos on Social Media. Those ‘something news’ may very well spill over in to my blog posts.

Time is a crazy thing. It goes by fast when you aren’t paying attention. It goes by slow when you are. I often hear (and have said myself) that time passes quicker the older I become. My intent from here is to be present to time in all its speeds – and to document some of my musings as they occur. I don’t promise to stop watching social media feeds. I am not a saint and I certainly have my vices – that is one of them. What I will do however is focus on being present and increasing the quality of what I am doing, while I am doing it.