One night recently I was sitting watching my second episode of the Big Bang Theory after dinner, silently ignoring a little niggle inside that was saying “This isn’t really hitting the spot. It’s not really what I need.”
Fast forward two weeks and I’m sitting on the couch at home wondering about putting on a movie after a delicious dinner of Asian soup and garlic toast. I get the niggle again.
This time I pause. I consider the fact that the niggle is not new, it’s been niggling away periodically for some months now. I keep ignoring it mostly because I’m tired, or tired of thinking any more that day, I just want to chill out and laze around.
I stay paused, and I check – So what do I really need right now? What do I feel like?
As I sit quietly for a moment, curious to see what it is, I remember the photo boxes upstairs that I’ve been meaning to look at for months – photos I haven’t seen for over ten years.
I spend the following hour and a half absorbed in one of the boxes, which is full of pictures from 14 years ago; holidays I took in Spain and Italy, my apartment in Bratislava, friends, an old boyfriend, beautiful architecture, mesmerising Italian sunsets, and a vibrant, globetrotting younger me.
I photograph a few old pics of friends and email them off, enjoying sharing the memories.
Fun.
That hour and a half was fantastic; nourishing, funny, inspiring, enriching. I felt filled up – in a way no episode on the telly was going to do for me.
Delicious.
And I’m looking forward to looking through the next box; when the spirit moves me and I have a lovely quiet evening to enjoy it.
Now, being a single girl at the mo, sometimes a good movie is my company for the evening. Other times I feel like making the most of solitude and enjoy an extended meditation, journaling, a long bath or getting lost in a book – this week I’m reading Jane Eyre and for me it’s better than TV that’s for sure. And of course, even if I was shacked up with someone, either of those activities might suit me or us on a given evening.
We might just want to unwind, chill out, switch off … and it turns out there are lots of cool ways to do that.
What do you really feel like? What do you really need?
A friend of mine and her boyfriend have been having all sorts of fun with this question – they’ve played board-games recently, baked a cake together (to hilarious effect) and danced – ballroom, no less. Now, dancing around your living room may sound as random as an episode of Lost, but it may just tickle your fancy one evening, who knows. The point is, it doesn’t matter what it is, but that you’ve taken that P A U S E to check out what’s really resonant for you right now, what you really need.
And you can’t plan these things out, it’s an in-the-moment check in and discovery to see what fits you in that moment, on that evening, in that particular mood or frame of mind.
So, to the telly – should you wish – and to the wisest YOU who knows what you really need.
Karen x
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