Busy Times

I am ill.

I’ve had most of the week off work, and have spent this entire weekend in bed. It’s a virus.

Usually when I’m ill, it’s psychosomatic. It’s my body saying, “you haven’t had a break in weeks; things have slowed down a bit, so now I’m going to make you ill so you rest”. And then I have a day or so off, and am back at it. Actually, I find the best way to get over it is to power through and clear up some of the things that have been stressing me out. Then I can destress and relax and get better.

This time doesn’t feel psychosomatic. However, in an attempt to destress so I can feel better, I’m updating my blog with the things I have been up to. This is killing two birds with one stone. I haven’t updated some people with what I’ve been up to, so now it’s public and out in the great ether.

I’ve been trying to grow as a person recently, and have realised that I have a bad habit. When things get too much and I have too much to handle, I shrink into my shell and disappear. And I won’t come out until I have finished whatever it was I needed to. Now, this means if you’re meant to be communicating with someone, and saying “I suck, I can’t finish this right now cause I have too much more”, you can avoid admitting that you suck and avoid the person/people hating you, and avoid admitting weakness. Until you finish the thing, and then can turn up with it and say “look! It’s done! I don’t suck! Sorry for not communicating, but look at the thing I finished! Please forgive me.”

I suck.

I’ve been massively busy at work for, oh, a year and a half. I had months of ‘too-busy-to-think’, especially whilst teaching. I picked up too many film projects and don’t want to come out of my shell and admit I suck until I’ve finished them.

Do any of you suffer from this affliction as well?

I also worked out that I suffer from another bad habit. I love starting projects! Love it! I’m like a magpie: seeing “ooh shiny!” and reaching forward, grasping, “gimme gimme!”.

Finishing projects is harder. Because if they’re not 100% gold-standard perfect, your name is on them, and having ‘not-awesome’ work out there is, well, not awesome. And sometimes you run out of energy and time and passion for a project. Films take a long time to finish (and sometimes they never are finished), so you need to be passionate and dedicated to the project until the end.

I’m learning to say ‘no’ and not ‘gimme gimme’ to the shiny new projects, until I finish my previous ones.

Right, there we go. Dirty laundry in the open. Growing as a a person. New blog posts on their way, with my updates. And hopefully being communicative and less stressed will help my body to kick this virus thing.

Best,
P