I have been enjoying an unscheduled day off today. I did work a little this morning. I was in phone contact with a client who wanted to cancel. I documented this for my supervisor then worked on some stats for my supervisor in another site, which I emailed him. I found myself free for the rest of the day. And it was nine am.
I greeted this free day not as a boon, at first, but a burden. When I am scheduled to work I like to work. I enjoy the contact with my clients and coworkers and I also enjoy the challenges around organizing and structuring my work day which can be often very diverse, covering sometimes a very wide swathe of the city. It is like brain exercise and I thrive on the stimulation.
One thing was certain. I was going to be outside by nine thirty. I walked towards Stanley Park with a plan in mind: a hike in the forest up to the Lake Trail and back. Not counting a couple of brief bench rests the entire hike, from my downtown apartment to Stanley Park and back again took just over two hours. I returned home at noon, had lunch. I went out again at 1:10 and spent almost two hours in a café nearby where I worked on a drawing. At three I took the bus to Broadway where I bought art materials at Staples (coloured pens), stopped in Chapters Books where I looked at a couple of books I might buy soon, then walked to the No Frills supermarket on Fourth Ave where I picked up a number of things I would have bought in a day or two (be prepared). Then I bussed home where I made a treat: decaf Vietnamese coffee which I am enjoying over ice.
It is just past five, now. I will soon be making dinner then thinking of what to do for the evening: likely work on a painting and the current drawing while listening to radio news and current affairs programs and fitting in an evening walk. I will also be watching part of a movie in Spanish, and reading of course.
Besides this I will be emailing a couple of friends.
The whole point of this day has been to serve as a kind of practice run for what I'm going to do when I'm retired, given that my health and energy hold out okay for a few years. This is also giving me some ideas of how to talk to some of my mental health clients about structuring their days.
I hope to continue working part time, perhaps two or three days a week. Or to do volunteer work, or both. But there will also be free days that I will still want to use well, even if for just leisure and rest. I know that many of our clients where I work are resistant to structure, having been used to having everything done for them. They have lost the drive to function independently and it is often a leviathan-size challenge to get some of them to budge forward even a millimetre. There are of course the complications of symptoms of illness and side effects from medications.
Encouraging them, clients and seniors, to get an early start on the day is crucial but often the hardest task to accomplish, and to spend the morning being active, especially during the summer when the afternoons can get hot. Also maintaining a consistent routine of healthy well-balanced meals. Following lunch time should be spent in volunteer, vocational or creative activities, balanced with getting errands such as shopping or appointments taken care of.
There is no such thing as not having anything to do. Life is full of opportunities of meaningful and quotidian activity. The huge challenge can be in developing the motivation and self-discipline but in the long term it is more than worth it.
No comments:
Post a Comment