I woke up late today and decided to take it easy

Normally, I would get up and out of the bed by 10 am on a typical day.  This was not the case with today.  By the time I realized the sun was out, I was not in the mood to do much of anything but watch TV.

As I noted in yesterday's posting, GFJ didn't come down last night.  After I wrote the entry, we chatted, and she said she'd be going on her nearby hike, go out for dinner with the group, and finally come to my place.  I may have had the freedom to go out as Marian, but I didn't have the emotional energy to do so. There are things I need to take care of at the apartment before GFJ arrives, and I plan to take care of some of them.  Doing some laundry is a must, as well as straightening up the bedroom.  And this will not take up much energy - it will take up time.

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Watching TV shouldn't use any emotional energy.  But if one watches the news, it's hard not to spend any energy if one is concerned about national affairs.  We live in stressful times. Our nation is polarized.  One faction is concerned about law and order, and the other is concerned about the feeling of law and order.  These are two different things, easy to see when watching news coverage on the networks.

I don't want to make this a political posting, so I won't go into the differences between the networks and how they use their "dog whistles" to manipulate their viewers.  But I feel sad that we don't agree on any objective criteria that can be used to have honest discussions.  So a simple discussion of politics becomes unnecessarily charged and will often become an energy suck.  No wonder why many people (including my former cruise partner) simply tune out.  They have only so much emotional energy to use in a day, and they don't want to waste that energy on things over which they have no control or influence.

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It is very important to save one's energy for the people and things we care about most. I figure that it is important for me to have some energy left when GFJ comes over tonight. This relationship is important to me, and I want her to always feel glad to see me when she comes to visit.