Taking care of myself

In five days, I will be starting my studies at Hackbright Academy. I am excited and stressed worried and confident. As ever, I am a mass of contradictions.

I'm confident that I will understand whatever code that they spread out before me. I am worried that I am still very weak in writing actual code. I am confident that I will learn this writing of code fairly well, but I am worried that I will be behind everyone else.

So, if I am worried and stressed about all this, why did I not study at all today? Why did I spend the time reading a book instead of poring over more Python?

The last two weeks haven't been exactly restful as I had hoped. Nor have they been as productive as I had hoped. And with both, I have been feeling extremely guilty. Which then leads towards stress and depression. Not the horrible, needs medication depression, but the type that requires a lot more sleep. Naps... naps are great. But, I've been taking more of them than usual.

Back to the book. In the past two weeks, I've been re-reading some of the Dune novels by Frank Herbert. Part of it is because I'm creating a piece of clay art based on the books for a show in December (have to be done by November!). The other part is that I've really missed reading. In re-reading both Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse Dune, I have realized that there was a lot I missed when I first read both books. It's refreshing to get new details in a familiar story. I also feel like I've been recharging myself, revisiting old pleasures.

And I think that is why I allowed myself to be distracted into reading a book all day today. I don't think I realized how much my previous job had drained me mentally, emotionally and physically. I spent so much time distracting myself from the stress of that job with other work, that I never really just sat and enjoyed some time to do what I wanted to do. I always had this project to complete or that piece of art to finish.  This past week, I was rearranging my place, getting ready for a sale, selling at a sale and then trying to recover from a full weekend on my feet for very little profit. I tried to spend Monday and Tuesday in some semblance of work/study but didn't do so well at that. Today, I got up and got ready to do some studying, but managed to play some games, read my book and realize at noon or so that I was really exhausted and needed more sleep.

Post-nap, I decided to read, to clean my sink and then make some dinner. Somewhere in there, I gave myself permission to just read the book. To relax.

I think I forget to take care of myself like this.

Tomorrow, I will study my butt off.