Timing Is Everything

Image found here. 

I've hesitated for a bit before writing this post because, well.........I'm worried that I'm going to jinx things. But I think I can say with a fair amount of certainty that I may have avoided a post hoo-rah crash. It's been a really busy month with two lengthy trips and one huge project. I did take two/three days after I finally returned home to sleep almost non-stop, and I purposefully squelched the impulse to hop into Goldie and just do a bunch of goofy but energy consuming errands. It felt like a self-imposed grounding, but then my alter ego IS a Bratty Inner Child Julia, after all. (BICJ doesn't like getting put into a time-out. I'm still waiting for her to hijack Goldie and run off to Krispy Kreme Donuts, but shhh. Don't wake her up. I think she's still sleeping off the effects of all those goodies that she snarfed down while on vacation).

So I'm taking an inventory of my energy/stupidness ratio after all my running around in October culminating with Halloween, and although I can't dismiss the residual stupidness that is chronically present, so far - so good. I'm feeling cautiously optimistic.

I wonder how I managed to not pull a spectacular crash and burn? As I have in other travel experiences? Who knows. I have yet to really figure out when a flare is likely to hit. Most sjoggies don't own that kind of crystal ball, myself included. But I think I may be able to make a couple of educated guesses as to why I'm still upright and semi-coherent this week:

• First, I did take specific planned rest periods both in Vermont and Philadelphia. This has always been difficult for me since I want to do and see and eat everything whenever I'm on vacation. I don't want to miss out on anything. Somehow I wrestled my impulsivity into submission for these trips, and I think it helped significantly.
• Secondly, before leaving on the trips, I did try to eat healthily. Going into a stressful situation - whether fun type stressful or angst type stressful - with good nutrition on board may have helped keep my energy levels up. 
• I planned my travel days relatively carefully in that I dedicated those days simply to travel. Period. We scheduled our flights so that we had plenty of time to catch connecting flights to avoid frantically rushing through airports. And when we reached our destination, I headed to bed for a full eight hours or more of sleep. 
• Taking a friend along who is fully aware of my body's reaction to potential crash-inducing situations was extremely helpful. Terese knows my limits and is quick to adapt our schedule and run interference for me when I need to excuse myself from events. 

So we'll see over the next week or two if I have been too confident here. Time will tell.