Last weekend my partner and I went to take a look at a couple of apartments. Theoretically this was just to take a look at what kind of stuff was available, but we found something we really liked and pulled the trigger a whole month earlier than planned.
As a result, I'm in shambles. I'm the kind of person who tends to fret about details when stuff gets time-sensitive, so organizing a move and all of the timeboxed to-dos like purchasing cheques (10 day delivery time, really?), prepping deposits, hooking up utilities and planning a move are all things that aren't difficult but their time sensitivity turns me into a fidgety mess. The only thing that hits me worse is airports.
Of course, this fretting translates into reduced functionality at work, which pushes my deadlines and, in turn, increases anxiety. The vicious anxious cycle
These things have translated into falling off what was starting to be a successful diet (stress eating) and budding workout habit (replaced with pacing, which is at least still moving). I've also essentially abandoned my side projects for the time being as I need to spend the creative focus I still have on keeping pace with work stuff.
And so, I think, it is time to step back and take a breath. Write a little blog post to help me orient myself and align my expectations with the coming changes to lifestyle. Talk myself out of the panic, if you will.
With the move I will transition once again to a vagabond lifestyle, existing half of the time with my partner in our new apartment, and half the time with my family in my quiet-town home close to my work. This will translate to more time in transit, which is an excellent time to focus on more audiobooks. In the past this travel time (when not jammed with traffic) was some of my favorite alone time to really dig in to good books, so I'll be getting that back.
Our increased rent and more expensive city lifestyle is going to translate into less money for my more costly hobbies. Video game collecting, trading card games, and purchasing obscenely expensive pens and inks are probably all out for the forseeable future. However, in the last few years I've established a very large backlog of both retro and modern games, and a very robust collection of fancy pens, papers, and inks. Now I've got more incentive to play all the games I've already got and spend more time writing with the pens and inks I love so much.
The stress I'm currently going through is preventing me from focusing on my game-making hobby and I'm not finding joy in it currently. I just end up pacing and playing games and ripping through time on youtube and social media sites. This, however, is a temporary state, and I will eventually settle and once again crave the satisfaction of making things. I should use this as an opportunity to get through more of my backlog. Read more books and play more games on my must-play list. Use this as an excuse to break out my retro handhelds and get to games I may never have made time for.
As for the diet? Fuck it I'll have time for that later. If I spend the next 3 weeks undoing the good I did in the last 3 so be it. The success I had was the proof I needed that I've "still got it" and can seriously and consistently cut back on the food and move more. I can pick up those pieces once I've re-established a comfortable rhythm.
And work I need to stress about less. Nothing is broken and I work in the public sector. My deadlines are to meet expectations, not profit margins, and the occasional lull in productivity can be forgiven by talking honestly with stakeholders.
So things aren't so bad. Life isn't over with this move, it's just changing. Just because I like the way things are now doesn't mean they won't be better after the change -- after all, where I am now is the result of just such a change in the past which I'm sure I was loathe to make at the time.