Things sure don't always go as planned, do they?
I made it to bed by 10:30 p.m. last evening, for my younger brother was to remain with his girlfriend Bev and stayed overnight at her home.
The plan for me was to get away early this morning for a lengthy walk.
Alas, I slept in most fractured and unsatisfying fashion. And I truly do believe that the fault lay with the fact that I felt exceptionally well-slept all yesterday afternoon and evening ─ a rare state for me.
Thus, upon retiring last evening, my old frame ─ i.e., me ─ felt no need yet for slumber at that point. Perhaps I should have had a can of beer that evening.
Whatever the case, before 1:30 a.m. I was so very awake that I was considering rising to put some work into the post that I am very slowly developing at one of my six hosted websites. However, I had concern that it was too early ─ by dawn, I would probably be too sleepy to feel like heading off on any long walk.
So I sought to fall into one further block of sleep.
Before it was quite 2 a.m., I realized that any block of sleep was a long, long ways off. I was just wasting time laying there in bed.
So I did rise.
I always have a set minimum quantity of content that I require of myself for any one day when it comes to working on one of my website posts, so I had that target before me. Unfortunately for me, I am vulnerable to distractions that set me off researching something unrelated to the post; or else I will happen upon an article that I cannot resist reading.
Both of those distractions were in play this early a.m.
The consequence was that by the time I had finished my work on the post and gotten myself dressed for the hike, it was 5:50 a.m. when I actually set off.
I only walked the distance of maybe three homes ─ the houses on this street are almost immediate to each other, so it was not far at all. All resolve for the walk had by then fled from me.
Already the day was bright and the sky clearly blue. I knew that other people would be out wandering around, and it was only going to become worse. I was feeling quite sleepy, and I realized that I lacked the inner reserves to cope with the stress that would accumulate of encountering other people and, of course, the street traffic. The round trip I had in mind would probably be at least 6.75 miles.
My confidence collapsed ─ I didn't have it in me ─ I couldn't do it.
I am by nature quite reclusive. As a teen and young man, I was socially withdrawn and lacking all confidence in such interactions. All of my adult life, I have craved an environment of solitude and peace where I could freely roam without having to have that serenity of spirit and mind intruded upon by the unwanted advent of anyone else.
But I have nothing like that. All I have are seemingly limitless miles of City of Surrey streets, buildings and homes, and people everywhere.
I do not drive. I can only walk. And when I open my home's front door, I am immediately visible from the windows of no less than six other homes ─ should anyone be looking out any of those windows.
I might even venture to say that for every step of my intended walk, I would never have been out of the potential sight of someone somewhere.
What reflective calm is possible for someone of my lifelong troubled temperament?
None is possible ─ not really.
So yes, I became suddenly disheartened at the prospect of what was ahead, and I surrendered in defeat.
I needed to have left before the arrival of dawn. If I had been deep into my walk when day broke, then I could have managed and coped. But I could not do it with the inadequate sleep that I had accumulated ─ I could not throw myself into the broad public day that was out there without the fortification of a bracing night's sleep.
Even then, it would not have been an attractive prospect.
So I have lost the weekend. I have walked nowhere at all.
And I am unlikely to do any walking during the week because of my sense of obligation to my brother. On weekdays, at 10 a.m. I operate our Android TV Box to locate episodes of some of the T.V. series we follow, for he has no facility with the device.
We tend to watch T.V. until around 1 p.m.
I would be in a fell state if I had gone on some dreadfully early hike and then come home with no hope of a good nap until the early afternoon.
So I more or less sacrifice the weekdays, but I reserve the weekends for just myself.
I failed myself on this one, nevertheless ─ I achieved nothing by way of any wholesome walking.
Yet despite being quite sleepy, I never made a return to bed until something like 8:30 a.m. And as is usual with these naps, I probably was not in bed for a full 1½ hours.
My brother was home and shut up in his own bedroom when I emerged from mine. He usually sleeps poorly when he stays with his girlfriend due to the poor thing's smoker's cough; and he likely drank more than he would usually have done had he just come home from the bar or pub after he had gotten her home.
At this moment it is 12:36 p.m., so I am going to take a break to continue with my day ─ I have some backyard sunning in immediate store.
oooooooooooooo
It is now nearly 6:30 p.m., and I wish to phone Sandra, a longstanding lady friend of a very old friend of mine who has been in a Vancouver Island full-time care facility for a few years ─ mostly bedridden.
She had texted me late this morning about someone's passing ─ a possible relative of my friend Bill's.
Since Sandy is my only means of learning about matters relating to Bill, I try to occasionally keep in touch with her.
Anyway, I did get in my sunning. First ─ beginning late in the noon hour ─ I put in just over 40 minutes stretched out prone on a pad on the backyard sundeck while I was attired in just a pair of gym-style shorts.
And then I came into the house to have my day's first small meal, discovering that my younger brother had already left for the afternoon.
My next session of sunning commenced just prior to mid-afternoon. Seated low in a deck- or lawn-chair, and with my bared feet on the ground, I faced directly into the Sun for just over yet another 40 minutes.
When that was over with, I had to come into the house and succumb to a needed nap, putting in something over an hour in bed yet again. However, the nap was deep.
Yesterday my wife posted some photos to her Facebook account ─ photos that I downloaded and then enlarged to three times their size using the free service Online-Convert.com.
As yet I do not know if the photos were taken that day, or if they were perhaps taken within the past week or two. However, they all feature her with her eldest son, who is 25 years old, and something of a 'gym rat'.
Obviously someone else took the photos ─ maybe her youngest son?
My wife can be quite the clown where her boys are concerned, and has no shame whatsoever trying to present her own thin arms as if they were any kind of match for her brawny older boy's!
That reminds me that I still have a little exercising of my own to do before making that call to Sandy, so I had best get the activity out of the way now.
No comments:
Post a Comment