Protect Those Balls

Being a grown-up is tough. I don’t like it, I don’t want it, I didn’t ask to be born. Throw in a shitty mental health and it becomes survival of the fittest, every single day. With me always knowing, I am not the fittest and a fly will probably beat me to claim the crown. Well, I had a good run.

I know I don’t have children, but life is still tough without those sticky, little germ ridden shitbags. Don’t come at me. I can still be tired and childless thank you and goodnight.

Everyday tasks are fucking hard, and lifting my head off my pillow is the first hurdle I am met with each day. We know I all love to sleep and being in bed is my favourite hobby (get your minds out of the gutter), but since struggling with my mental health and all my other stupid illnesses, it is like running a marathon.

Some days I physically cannot lift my head up for a while after my brain has woken. Hell, sometimes I can’t even open my eyes as I just don’t have the energy. I just lie there like a possum, faking death, hoping someone will come and scoop me up and throw me in the bin. A girl can dream eh.

Carrying out a conversation or even just making a drink for myself is a battle. I love going to therapy, but talking pretty much constantly for over an hour is so draining. I feel like I am crawling back to my car after each session like a half dead bee trying to make it back to its hive. Where’s my spoon with sugar on to pep me up people?

Everything I do takes away a lot of energy and I have to choose wisely what I want to use it on, (and no it’s not because I am chunky but funky thank you.)

At one therapy session, my therapist bestie (love you babes), mentioned a great way of how to manage your energy. It is actually similar to the battery analogy I mentioned in my very first post, but I like this better. Damn her!

She said that imagine you have literally balls of energy in your hands. Some days we may have ten, some five or six. Some days you may have just one or even none at all. Then think about tasks you have to complete throughout the day, and not just boring tasks, doing fun things takes up energy too.

I’m going to give you four balls for this scenario. So, doing the school run for all you mamas out there would take one ball (probably all four on some days but we will just say one for the purposes of this post). Or your day starts with an early morning meeting. That is one gone straight away. Your day goes pretty smoothly from there. You have to make lunch so that uses another ball. You are meeting a friend after work for a drink so you want to save one for then.

So, now we only have one ball left which we might need this afternoon. Then, the group chat goes off, or your partner messages you about some bollocks, or your sibling is wondering what to get you mum for her birthday. You only have that one reserve ball left. Are we going to use that today when it is all we have left, or will we ignore the group chat etc and keep the reserve ball in case Betty from accounts decides to unexpectedly video call you again with some drama. If Betty doesn’t steal our final ball then maybe later, we can message the group chat or whatever it is back. But, until then let’s protect this last ball of energy.

I am a visual person so I loved this idea and will be banging on about it for the foreseeable.

Did I go on a bit of a tangent just then? Oh absolutely, you know me. But, I hope it made sense and you protect those balls my loves. For instance writing this took an energy ball, which is why some days I don’t write at all. I have to save my balls for things that I have to do, like a hospital appointment, or checking my online banking app to see how much money I don’t have left.

Moral of the story is, it takes different amounts of energy to do everything, it’s up to us on how we use that energy.

‘Sorry, boss I am only down to one ball. I simply cannot come into work today.’

Let me know if this post helped at all because now I’m like what the hell you on about Nik, hun.

K, love you bye.

xx