More Withdrawal Observations

End of day eight. I'm still uncomfortable with this new life (though I wasn't much more comfortable with the old one), but I already know I don't want to go back. I feel more clean, more serene. Many fewer "voices in my head." ~grin~ I feel more alive, that I'm actually participating in life instead of weaving through it in a semi-trance.

I'm still astonished that I can be productive nearly all day long. (This is especially astonishing if you know -- which you didn't before, because I haven't written about it yet -- that I've had chronic depression most of my life, and chronic fatigue syndrome since my early twenties, and I haven't been able to work much in the past 11 years. The combination of the two has diminished my physical energy and my ability to think and concentrate, and dulled my emotions.) I knew, or at least some part of me knew, that all the TV watching was taking something out of me. But I had no idea it was this much.

I'm listening to music again ... I had pretty much stopped for a long time, because TV filled all the available aural space. How could I have done that? I love music so much ... how could I have gone so long without it? I'm listening to audio books. I'm listening to public radio; we've got a killer station here, with excellent news and music programming.

I'm going to bed earlier and sleeping longer. My energy during the day is more reliable, and I'm not sleeping mid-day as much as I'm used to.

I'm not paying careful attention to this, but I'm pretty sure I'm eating less. Noshing just seems to go along with TV, so now that I'm not watching ... I'm not munching nearly as much. Damn good thing, too, 'cause I need to lose 70-90 pounds. (It was a bad shock when I recently discovered that I'm one notch below the "morbidly obese" category.)

The days still feel uncomfortably long, now that they're not time-collapsed by the TV trance and broken up by the TV schedule. On the plus side that's great, because I'm able to devote solid chunks of time to things I want to do. But on the downside, waking up in the morning and knowing I have another long, solid day ahead of me feels exhausting. I miss having breaks in my day. I don't have the rhythms of TV anymore, and since I work at home, I don't have the rhythms of going to work, breaking for lunch, and coming home. And I live alone, so I don't even have the reference points of another person's comings and goings. I guess I need to start creating my own breaks, my own rhythms of the day.

And this one's done. Off to bed, and much earlier than I'm used to. :o)