photo credit: videocrab

Do you ever feel the need to get “outside yourself”?  How do YOU do that?

An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs. You should never see an Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order sign, just Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience.

— Mitch Hedberg

In my last post I wrote: “I’m weary from all this introspection…” And, thinking back over the last several weeks’ posts, I realize that I’ve been busy:

• Mucking up and messing with my psyche
• Shaking up my world-vision and then letting it settle
• Clearing my mind
• Asking “wouldn’t-it be nice-if”
• Immersing myself in Judith Sills 3-step-process
• Dumping my excess baggage
• Tearing my eyes away from the rearview mirror
• Dancing my way into change
• Figuring out what motivates ME
• Living like I was dreaming
• Saying “Ah that’s interesting” instead of “Oops”
• Sha-booming, sha-booming forward

In my last post I decided to temporarily retreat to “my mental spa”.  Today I concluded that this retreat-thing is helping me “settle and clear” – so I took another mental health day – a day as free from introspection as I could make it!

Here’s Your Sign

Ellie Temporarily Extrospective, Sorry for the Inconvenience.

And to accompany the sign, my plan:

An Extrospective Day

I will turn my attention toward what’s happening outside me – I will focus on seeing, hearing and enjoying my world! I will have an extrospective day.

As a result of that decision, here’s how my day went:  Inspired by a quote from Grace Paley, I took a walk with an old friend.

For happiness she required women to walk with. To walk in the city arm in arm with a woman friend (as her mother had with aunts and cousins so many years ago) was just plain essential. Oh! Those long walks and intimate talks, better than standing alone on the most admirable mountain or in the handsomest forest or hay-blown field (all of which were certainly splendid occupations for the wind-starved soul). More important even (though maybe less sweet because of age) than the old walks with boys she’d walked with as a girl…

No, we didn’t walk arm in arm but we surely did indulge ourselves in reminiscing and commiserating and just plain catching up.  We had fun chatting as we always have done.  And once we got past the “how are you doing?” stage and into the friends-reunited stage, we lost track of time.

Which made me almost-late for a lunch get-together with more good buddies.  And, once the three of us got past the “how are you doing” stage, we had a rousing good time catching up on everybody’s latest exploits.

Add in a few chats with neighbors while I picked up the mail, a newsy (but late) holiday letter from family, a telephone call from PattiAnn, and what do you know, faster than lightning, my mental health day was all but done and I found myself lamenting (ala Dr. Seuss):

How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?

Even so, I think I’ll bundle up and go outside to enjoy the night-time sky: I’ll wish upon a star and ponder all of today’s loveliness.

Do you ever feel the need to get “outside yourself”?  How do YOU do that?