Category: enjoy

A Different Sense Of Time

diariolottatoreLeave a comment

Wow, already a month since my last post. I was on holiday in Oman, a beautiful place, full of different landscapes, and full of adventure, just like I love it.

In Oman I was happy, I did holidays the way I haven’t done in a long time. I went with a friend, so no emotional complications, good company, similar interests. We made a good choice to go there, just before the 5th (I think) Covid pandemic wave hit Europe and the rest of the world. We went without worrying too much about this and that. I did my PCR test on top of the vaccination, then a few papers and apps to fill, and off we go to Oman. 30 dry degrees in November was fantastic, and sunshine every day. Vitamin D a gogo.

Time passed in a different way there. I really enjoyed not having a schedule, not reading emails, not responding to SMS, just going with the flow. Wild camping is allowed everywhere in Oman: we drove on our 4×4 Toyota Land Cruiser, found a place to stop for the night, and pitched our tents. It could be the desert, the ocean beach the riverbed or the mountains, we did it all and nobody ever complained.

The day was rhythmed by the sunlight: 5h30am sunrise, 5h30pm sunset, darkness shortly before and after those times. During the 12 hours we had a our disposal we drove, we cooked, we ate, we swam, we hiked, we sightsaw, and we interacted with the local people. What struck me most was on Masirah Island, where our car got stuck in the deep sand, and local people started to help. They came and assisted, and when they realised that only another 4×4 would help us get out of the sand, they said we had to wait for the fishermen, who were all fishing until about 5pm. The fishermen are the people on the island who have 4 wheel drive vehicles. The great thing is, the locals who came to assist earlier that morning waited with us, for at least 2 hours. Time was not a matter for them: they didn’t have busy agendas with calls to make, they didn’t have traffic jam to drive through, their kids didn’t have hectic plannings.

They didn’t speak much English, so we used Google Translate to communicate. My friend had bought some data on a local simcard (Omantel). One of them, an older fellow, drove us to a neighboring parking area where some friends came to greet us and say hello. Nobody was angry, upset, or stressed; they all smiled. As to say “it is what it is”. How refreshing, how different from the hustle of the society I live in. Time had a different dimension there. And I enjoyed it fully.

Being away from my regular way of life has done good to me. I am happy I went, and my heart and soul feel lighter. I have charged my batteries and feel serene. Nothing compared to last year, when I went to Egypt, and I had to push myself to do whatsoever there; I was alone and I was depressed. This year I went for almost 2 weeks, with a friend, and we had good fun. I still feel the sunshine on my skin, the warm air caressing my hair, the smile of the villagers. Yesterday, first day since I am back, I did nothing all afternoon. I layed down and watched a lot of movies. From 12h30 until 22h30 I was on the couch. Feeling somehow guilty for not doing anything, as if wasting time, but then I decided to enjoy the nothingness. And I slept a lot.

Tomorrow I’ll work again.

Enjoy!

diariolottatore1 Comment

I hadn’t visited my psychologist in a while. I notice, after two years of this “psycho-routine”, that I go when I am down, and I don’t go when I am up. I mean, I don’t want to spend money or take extra time from my busy schedule when I am feeling good. But that is the point: unlike other organs in the body, I am learning that when the head aches inside, it is not such a matter of a day or a month to heal, and it won’t heal with tablets only, it will heal with work, loads of work that I must put into it. And I am learning that I need to be constant with the psychotherapy, and do it when I feel good and when I feel low.

It was actually good to see Dr. G. again. I don’t particularly like him, he is very Swiss in the “detached” kind of way. Plus he is a psychoanalist, and I don’t particularly fancy that practice, cause they often boil it down to the mom-related issues. There’s dads too. And loads of other elements that shape our identity. Plus, it is a loooooong therapy, it takes years, and looking at my budget, I feel I could use that money for more fun things, such as financing my podcast.

I realise though that this reasoning it to my own detriment. I am earning enough money to do both, and I live frugally anyway, so money should not be a problem. Away with this. So what’s the problem? Che ne so. Or, yes I know, I am learning to figure out, identify my problems. The source of them, how to catch myself getting into the wrong habit, and how to remedy that situation. It is such an invigorating process. I am doing it now that it is summer, the days are long and warm, sunshine has finally appeared at my doorstep, after many spring weeks of weird climate-change slash climate non change storm and snow in the month of May and June. Bring it on: Covid, weather unpredictability, solar eclipse, sunset sunshine, rainshowes and wind. I take it all, because I am happy at the moment, I am content, satisfied, proud of myself, on many fronts, and it’s all due to my own doing. I pet my own back and tell myself: brava L., you are achieving the potential in you, the famous or infamous potential everybody tells me about. Oh, you got so much potential, you are beautiful and smart, you can conquer the world… etc. Well, it gave me pure rage when I heard it during my low times, because I KNOW I am beautiful and smart, but somehow, this isn’t taking me anywhere… wasn’t. And I couldn’t see the path, I wanted everything and now, hic and nunc, and it doesn’t work that way. not for me. I have learnt that I need to be patient, and things will come in due time. I have to put effort on what I do, things don’t just fall from the sky, I make them fall in the right place, through my actions, my intelligent, my luck, my destiny, ma chaos, my fate, my doing, my education, my encounters, my new and old friends, my family, the good and the bad of everything.

We are yin and yang, I am coming to grips with my internal strength, I am learning to protect myself from others regards, I am learning, and it will probably take my whole life. But the beauty of life is the process, not the end.

Dr. G. was happy to hear my story, me learning, me doing exercise to not fall into traps, to learn to avoid OCDs, to go through them when I stumble into them, to prepare happiness when winter comes, when the days are shorter and gloomier, when I won’t feel like getting out of bed… I will be ready then. I will not allow myself to go lower than what I can handle. I will be ready. “Enjoy!” he said.

Enjoy this state of mind. Enjoy !