Dear Diary It’s Been A Month

Dear Diary, it’s been a month now since I’ve left my factory job. It’s time to check in and see how my life has changed since I made that huge decision.

I have a regular sleep pattern now. Instead of catnapping all the time I am sleeping almost seven hours straight every night. Sometimes I can even sleep straight through the night without having to go to the bathroom. Dan has been turning the television off for me which has made for a more restful sleep as well. I wake up ready to start the day.

I am more aware of the pain restrictions on my body. I’m not pushing through the rough patches anymore for the sake of someone else’s schedule. If I’m in pain I respect my body enough to let it rest through the pain attack, knowing I will be able to rise again. I learned I can’t remain sitting too long either because it causes too much stiffness and it becomes hard to flex the joints.

Dear Diary, I’m learning how to stop and smell the roses. All my life I’ve been in a hurry for someone else. I’ve had to rush to do things or race to be somewhere. Now I take things in stride and allow life to happen around me and observe. I can take my time watering the roses in the front yard. I can talk to them during the sunshine and encourage them to bloom and grow.

In a month I have learned that my treadmill time for exercise is more beneficial if I keep at it slowly but steadily. Trying to speed things up causes more pain and less time for exercise. But keeping it slow and steady allows me to add minutes to my exercise time. Perhaps it is a slow lesson in patience.

I am missing the social interaction I had at work. There are people there I think of often and wonder how they are doing. I don’t interact with as many people now that I don’t have to leave the house. In fact, I am finding I am enjoying the peace and quiet of staying home much more than I did before.

I miss the craziness and the mental challenges that my job brought to my life. There was a certain satisfaction after we survived some of the split second decisions we had to make to keep things going. Instead of those challenges, I am now faced with blog posts deadlines and personal assignments I give to myself.

Dear Diary, it’s been a month since I left my job. My life is not stress free, but there is definitely a lot less stress. The speed at which life goes by is a whole lot slower. I have the time now to pay attention to life around me instead of watching it spin by me. If I had stayed there I wouldn’t have lived another 2 years. I would have died of a heart attack.

Somehow I don’t think I would have left on my own if I hadn’t been prodded by people around me. I’ve never considered myself a quitter and this felt like being a quitter. But the guilt is slowly leaving me, I’m learning how to love and respect myself, and I realize that instead of being a quitter, I just saved my own life.

Dear Diary, life is getting better.