Productive pause

Crikey I’ve made it to 50 posts in a row. My Aries ascendant has gone to lie down in shock and Moon in Virgo is cheering at me actually achieving some semblance of discipline.

I may rest on my laurels for a moment or two mainly because I’m still rather weary from the social activity of the week and am preparing for the annual indulgence of chocolate and telly watching…

Today has not felt very productive on the face of it.  No, scratch that. Another element of conditioning that is incredibly strong, that need to feel or be productive and that productive be something like reading websites, tip-tapping on a keyboard or creating spreadsheets. But productivity can come in many forms and today it was spending time with a close friend who I do not get to see very often.  For us productive was sharing stories, listening to each other and offering each other advice and guidance.  What we call  a good old “girly chat”.

Our stories has some distinct similarities over the last few years. Both of us have a very vocal inner party girl that lost her party shoes due to a relapse of M.E, not at all co-incidentally around the same time.  Both of us have been financially independent, with moderately successful careers which suddenly came to a stop when the dis-ease hit.

I feel incredibly grateful that I was not alone in dealing with what felt like being knocked out of orbit.  And think we both did.  Especially having similar traits.  Having someone there who doesn’t judge when you overdo it out of sheer frustration or conversely cancel plans at the last minute due to an inability to drag your lump of a body out of bed has been essential to our recovery. We were able to give each other permission to heal in the way that felt right to us rather at the pace of someone else’s making.

Today we celebrated a year of relatively good health together.  And after a particular dark day this time last year where we could only meet by Skype this has a particular sweetness.  No bitter aftertaste.

So scratch reading and planning, sometimes productivity is taking time to celebrate.

And I think I’m ok with that.