I wrote this partial post nearly four years ago in the midst of trying to figure out what to do with my life in the wake of my hospitalizations. Reading it over, I’m pleased to see that I’ve utilized the list I wrote: I now do much of what I wrote down and my life is much fuller than it was. Since the writing of this post, I have read a number of books, including completing most of the ones I mention, which I’m very proud of. While it has taken some time, I no longer have the Audioslave song “Show Me How to Live” playing in my head on a constant basis in a kind of internal audio scream of despair.

I need to make a list of all the ways I used to spend my free time before kids and mental illness.  I know I wasn’t just twiddling my thumbs, I was doing things: I just don’t really remember what.  How did I used to live?  Not necessarily better, I’m thinking.

For one, I slept very poorly, just as I have my entire life until I started taking CBD.  My insomnia drove me to tears some nights.  Most of the time I was up until at least 2-4 am and didn’t get up until Noon.  I’d get up and make coffee and turn on the tv to watch the weather, then get high and have a cigarette.  After that, I just went about my day, but I don’t have a clear memory of how “my day” went.  My husband was always at work, so I just did my own thing, which I suppose entailed watching tv, reading, or working on my mehndi stuff.  That period of my life went from around 1997 to 2002.  I was relatively happy, but I know I also had some really weird neuroses and would sometimes behave oddly, especially in the morning before I loaded my brain up with my preferred chemicals.

Well, since I don’t seem to be able to remember what I used to do, and I know “there’s no going back”, I should decide how I’d like to spend my time now, as well as in the future: the Holistic Psychologist calls it “future journaling”.

Things I could do with my free time that are good for me?

*going to parks, museums, and cemeteries (I love cemeteries)
*writing of all kinds, not just personal journaling
*doing art, even when I don’t feel like it or have anything in mind: I can copy easy works of other artists
*going for walks
*engaging in limited social media targeted to my particular interests (mental health, astrology, psychology, etc.)
*read, read, read: read ALL the books!
*working on my journey book
*fleshing out my spiritual practice and Book of Shadows
*meditating, though I need to cultivate a new way to practice that doesn’t involve sitting in silence because I have mild tinnitus
*spending time with my husband
*spending time with the kids
*making bodycare recipes
*cooking new recipes
*writing cards and letters to friends
*future journaling a la The Holistic Psychologist
*day trips to cheap interesting places
*redo “Spiritual Nomad”

I’ve been trying to follow Stephen King’s sage advice to read and write every day. Writing is easier: it comes naturally. Reading has been harder to get into for some reason. I love reading, but what I read has been reduced to short articles over the last 16 years as that’s all I really had time for. There’s no time to sit down and enjoy a long book in modern family life, sadly, not unless you have a nanny. But reading I am, again! I have SK’s “The Eyes of the Dragon” started, and I’m also reading Carl Jung’s “Memories Dreams Reflections” as well as The Upanishads, which I’ve never read and am loving. I have some other books I’d like to read as well, particularly the ones about c-PTSD I just bought, though I have to take that stuff in small chunks. Then there’s “The Hero With a Thousand Faces” and “The Spiritual Gift of Madness”, both of which I picked up at Half Price last year. I think part of the reason I don’t read is because I think it will take too long to read the book, but clearly that fearful part of my brain has forgotten how quickly I can read. I can suck down a 500 page book in a day if I have the time.