100 Days of Wonder – #96
It was time to go back to work today. I wasn’t hugely looking forward to it. I don’t like working with a slightly foggy depression brain. It makes me worry I’ll miss something. But I have had fun finalising some teaching materials and activities that I am looking forward to trying out with my students from the end of January. But of course it is hard to focus with the Disney trip looming. I have tried to keep reminding myself today that the attention to detail I love about Disney is the level I want to be working towards. If it is worth doing, then it is worth doing right. So just like when working on our LEGO, I have been trying to work through my to do list methodically and with purpose, mindful of each task and activity and giving it the attention it deserves. I am trying not to start the work year rushing from one thing to the next and juggling multiple tasks at the same time because that just sucks the joy out of it all. And remarkable I have got quite a lot done today but have felt relaxed and like I have been taking it pretty easy. It’s been a good workday. So here’s to doing things right and to celebrate that here’s a picture of me post Dopey Challenge 2016 finding joy and wonder outside the Disney Springs LEGO store.
100 Days of Wonder – #95
Hope. Disney gives me hope that a better world is possible. That might sound completely bonkers. And maybe it is. But Disney tells good stories – whether through its films, series or in the parks. Of course historically some of them have been hugely problematic and some continue to be a long way from perfect. But more recently Disney is trying to do better, tell better more inclusive stories. Doing better and trying harder is always cause for hope. And the more hopeful the stories the more inspiring and impactful. Maybe telling good stories helps us change the world for the better.
Disney understands suspending reality and the need for escapism and magic. And the more we can give ourselves over to that every now and again, the better. It helps us remember what hope feels like, what could be.
As I said yesterday, I am struggling a little with depression. It’s not really bad and it is easing. Today was better than yesterday. I am trying to look forward to time spent believing in the magic and maybe joining Peter Pan for a flight towards the “second star to the right, and straight on till morning.” And somehow that helps because depression tells one set of stories and Disney helps me tell a different set of stories that are at least as likely as the narrative that depression would have me believe. So Happy New Year. May 2025 be full of beautiful, brave, mundane, every day stories that help you believe in your own magic.
100 Days of Wonder – #94
Depression is a funny thing. I haven’t really felt it for a while. If anything I have struggled more with anxiety than with depression but I always know that it can come back. It barged in yesterday with its stories and exhaustion and it is lingering like an unwelcome house guest, giving no indication when it might leave. In some ways it’s ok. I know what this is. I am better at dealing with it than I used to be. It doesn’t mean I am unhappy. It means I have a brain full of stories about how I am not very good at anything, too fat to run, failing on all fronts and generally not worth bothering with. It also means I am a sort of tired that sits in your bones. I don’t want to do anything. I can’t actually rest either though because resting is just proof of my laziness. Why now? I don’t know. No obvious trigger and I am hoping that the black puppy won’t stay long. That it will come, tell its stories, realise I am not really listening and move on.
In the meantime I am slowly beginning to take down Christmas and make new memories ready for next year as I place things back in the Christmas box. I am also taking myself to places in my mind where the depression rarely follows: Disney World. Several times today I have imagined the walk from the Contemporary Resort to the Magic Kingdom. Every time the mix of memory and anticipation, because in a week’s time I will actually walk it, has brought me joy. The black puppy just sits waiting for an opportunity to remind me not to be in any photos because I’ll just look horrible and fat. It’s waiting to inform me that I won’t make it round the Dopey Challenge because I am useless and that I am probably best just staying in Florida because the work that awaits when I get back will be too hard anyway… So let’s just let it sit there, spinning it’s stories. We can tell a different one with every step we walk along this path:
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