Overcoming Inertia

A body in motion tends to stay in motion;

a body at rest tends to stay at rest.

-- Newton's First Law of Motion

Yep, been there, done that! In fact my life in "semi-retirement" has been a cycle that illustrates this. Take this year.

January through March was our annual trip to the Gulf coast. While there I do a great deal of, well, resting. I don't want to call it "nothing." I practice my trumpet, go to band rehearsal, take sunset (and other) pictures, edit many pictures, and read. That isn't nothing, but it's at an easy pace, relaxed, healing, renewing.

In April I came home and got into the motion routine. More band rehearsals, no longer doing the picture editing but moving around to different events. And back to work, full-time! Get up at 6:30, go to work, come home around 5:00. Trips to music camps and a great festival in North Carolina. My daughter got married. It was not the easy, relaxed, renewing pace of the first three months.

In both those parts of the cycle I was minimally focused on some things I had wanted to be doing. After going back to work, it was even more difficult. Several significant projects were placed way on the back burner.

At the end of August the full-time work came to a halt, though I am still working part-time.  In the midst of that came several unexpected concerns that distracted my attention and added tension to the situation. Now all I seem to want to do is stay at rest. Everything seems to take an extra effort. Facebook nerding became a default. But the nightly reading was the great pull of the past few weeks. (That had kept up during the full-time cycle. I am not sure I would have made it if it hadn't.)

There is a clause missing in what I put at the top of the page. The motion or rest will continue:

unless an outside force acts on it,

So here I sit at my "office/coffee shop" trying to get moving.I can't seem to find that outside force to move me. So I start writing with no goal in mind other than to write about what is in front of me. As I write I let the words flow and the fingers to respond. As I do so there is a bit of free-flow of ideas that goes on under the surface.

For some reason I feel more tired than usual. Yes, that does happen from time to time. This one, though seems a little more difficult. I have a hunch that there are a couple different factors that keep the outside force from acting.

I just passed by 70th birthday. Yes, that is one of those significant decades. There have also been a couple of times when what I call "mortality" issues have cropped up in myself and other family members. I am also coming up on the 30th anniversary of my sobriety- an almost unbelievable number.

As a result I have become more aware of the issue of aging. Which leads to the obvious question:

What now?

Well, one of the answers to that is to come back to writing. So far that has taken more energy than I expected, but at least I am doing some of it.

Another is to go with the flow. My wife and I are going to be doing a number of fun things over the next month- concerts and plays. We are taking the time to continue to enjoy each other's presence. That is precious and essential.

Maybe it is also time to slow down more and smell more roses.

Over the years, I realize, I have faced this a number of different times. Which is part of life. Which is why I am writing this. To remind myself and do it publicly to make it more difficult to ignore.

So after these words and a half hour of writing I am at least for the moment off square one. It is always about taking the first step to get away from where you are to where you can be.