It is over yet? Well, not quite, but in the meantime here’s a plan to build up sufficient stamina to see the year out on a defiantly resilient note.
By Tamsin Oxford
I’m at my desk. My to do list is impossible, everyone I know and work with is fratchety, and I’m about to tell someone to take a long walk off a short cliff. It’s end of yearitis and this year it’s particularly bad.
2020 has been the equivalent of running a marathon with both legs strapped to your head while fending off the multiple curses of a deranged witch.
It has asked me to change how I live and socialise. It’s told me how to breathe, dress and move. It’s reshaped human interaction and has left me struggling to find my shape in this gigantic, scary puzzle.
It’s a great big bundle of stress, so I decided to figure out how I could beat it. Enter, Stamina 2020: The Game Plan.
First, I asked some gurus that exuded calm and zen. They told me to follow a self-help checklist and use a specially designed notebook to tick off different tasks every day.
This would help me find calm and centre my spiralling mind. Also, I could get a sparkly pen to cross off Tuesday’s mandatory meditation.
No. The last thing I wanted was more stuff to do. Unless it’s burning the notebook and spending an hour turning the sparkly pen up and down to watch the shiny things move around. That’s relaxing.
But going through a list of daily tasks that ranged from set time to exercise, meditate, eat, breathe and stare at a flower felt like another thing I had to add to a To Do list that was already revolting.
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This is when the game plan ended up with carpet angels on the floor. This involved the extremely complicated task of lying down on the floor, sticking out my arms and legs, closing my eyes and pretending I couldn’t hear my husband asking me what the hell I’m doing.
It was also when I realised that Stamina 2020 wasn’t going to be about checklists, self-help gurus and searching for my inner kumquat.
It’s really about: Creating my own set of psychotic memes tailored to suit my pandemic mood swings; swimming endless lengths in the gym pool while listening to music (yes, you can do this and yes, it’s worth the price); turning left on an afternoon walk until I can’t turn left anymore or get too tired; finding a park in the middle of nowhere and reading my book; and accepting that some days I am just going to be crazy.
I have accepted my limitations. I’ve hurt my foot and my back. I’m tired. Stress is completely off the charts.
The person who strolled casually through November 2019 is not the one whose eye bags are dragging her towards the end of the year.
I’m not 2019 Tamsin. I’m 2020 Tamsin and that’s okay. I’m not interested in a daily task or chant. I’m not going to accept every social invitation or reply to every WhatsApp.
I’m going to try and eat healthily and have regular exercise. Everybody knows these two boxes give you energy and mental stamina, but I’m not going to lie on the floor sobbing when I fail, either. I’m also going to find a therapy Alpaca in Joburg – Cape Town can’t have everything, surely?
And I’m going to follow the advice of a woman who lived through the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Write two sentences a day about what happened. It may feel boring. It may feel like a mission. Just keep a record because otherwise the days feel exactly the same.
But they’re not.
- This article first appeared on the Change Exchange, an online platform by BrightRock, provider of the first-ever life insurance that changes as your life changes. The opinions expressed in this piece are the writer’s own and don’t necessarily reflect the views of BrightRock.
