Good evening, EX friends. Staying busy in central Virginia and made a round trip to northern VA today for a doctor's appointment. No bad weather, no traffic to speak of, no trouble finding gas (no price gouging where I got gas} and friendly people amused at how many cases of water we had in our carts. No real trouble making the 120 mile RVA to NOVA trip each way if you plan the timing right and have a good book on DVD in the disc player in my car. When I travel to see my sister I'll go a different way and will be able to miss going through DC to do it.
So here are a couple of thoughts I'm having that speak to not only me, but to those who are struggling with change of any kind, and certainly to quitting smoking. It isn't easy. If it was easy, then the first time you thought about quitting those cigarettes you'd throw them into the garbage (making sure it's the dirty, smelly garbage).
My change involves a number of areas: I'm recently retired, and while it's nice to have time to do whatever I want, it's a change. I've moved from Northern Virginia to Richmond. That's a change. I'm much more involved on a daily basis with my daughter and her family and their dogs. That's a change. And I've never been shy about sharing here that I suffer clinical depression, which doesn't help in the dealing with change department. My daughter and my granddaughter did a wonderful job of getting this place unpacked, and I've been going through the things that were put away, and I'm changing some things to be more functional for me. But I have had such difficulty motivating myself to do what I need to do. So I have been thinking about this today. I started coming out of my depression fatigue by saying "I have 24 hours in the day. I can do anything for one hour a day. The rest of the hours I can sleep, or read, or do more work beyond the hour, but I don't have to. I just need to work for one hour. Any more is gravy.
When I didn't look at the entire job in its entirety but instead planned by time, I was able to meet that very modest goal. I know it's the same thing with smoking. If we start out telling ourselves we can never smoke another cigarette, that's impossibly broad. But if we say I'm simply going to work on this for today -- just make it for the current "day at a time." The degree of "pain" we experience in connection with quitting smoking (which I did a little more than 2.5 years ago), is directly related to our way of thinking about what we're facing. Quitting smoking -- making a plan including facing it day by day. The changes I'm facing is really the same -- make a plan including facing it day by day. And maintaining a positive attitude is truly important.
I would write more, but I realized it almost 11 p.m. and not that I'm an old retired lady I try to go to bed about 11, and I must have established a new habit because here at 10:45 p.m.I can't keep my eyes open!!
Love to all. I'll write more soon.
