Halting the descent

One thing I've learned a lot about in the past couple of years is how to manage my anxiety - or at least that I need to do something when I start getting ultra wound up rather than let it take over my mood completely for a long time. I guess, typical crab that I am, when I feel bombarded I retreat inside my shell for some decompression time, but I usually this in a half-assed, feeling guilty for being anti-social or whatever, kind of way. The good news of last week has had a bit of time to reveal its implications and I think that perhaps a large part of my freaking out has to do with trying to process what this committment means to me (me who has not lived anywhere for very long in the past ten years). I really want to stay in the intellectual groove I was getting into at the end of my time at school last year too, and I need to figure out what kind of lifestyle I'm going to have when I get back from my trip home in April. Then I will, hopefully, have a student visa which will entitle me to work on campus and I noticed online that there is a new women's centre opening up there too so perhaps I can get some volunteer work aswell. What is very very clear to me at this point is that I need to do something that is outside of this house - another six months of life as it is now is just not going to cut it. So, I'm going to take the end of this week and the weekend to do some thinking, reorganising, and to get some quiet time. I absolutely wish I had some kind of pod thing I could crawl away into in order to do this but I'll have to settle for long walks in sub-zero temps. and perhaps a couple of solo cinema visits in order to replenish my chi. I'm enforcing a no blogging rule until next Monday, and especially a no-feeling-guilty-for-not-blogging rule.
Time for some changes. This is a whole new chapter and I need to get comfortable with it.