On New Year’s Eve at the dawn of the last decade, I was fairly miserable. Not by the “foreign power laying siege to my homeland” standard, or the “bank repossessing my house on Christmas Eve” standard. The “finding out I have a catastrophic disease” standard also did not compare, because I know people who have heard that news and seen the effect it has had on their lives. I have to make the distinction because qualifying my unhappiness by comparing it to that of others is part of who I am. The guilt that surrounds whatever feelings of dissatisfaction I may have with certain life circumstances is palpable regardless of what those more knowledgeable of the human psyche have said. “There is no hierarchy of suffering,” states Dr. Edith Eva Eger, holocaust survivor and author of The Choice: Embrace the Possible. “There’s nothing that makes my pain worse or better than yours, no graph on which we can plot the relative importance of one sorrow versus another.” Still, I tend to measure, and that’s what I was doing ten years ago. Telling myself I had nothing to be unhappy about and everything to be grateful for.
(more…)Tag: life goes on
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The Last Summer Vacation
It seems no matter where I am on the web right now, someone somewhere is headed Back-to-School. Mothers are sad summer is over (or secretly not), healthy lunches are discussed (or those not so healthy tsk-tsked over), and teachers are settling in with yet another year’s classroom full of children. The smell of crayons and freshly sharpened pencils waft through the streets.
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Coherence?
I shouldn’t be writing now. I definitely shouldn’t be writing this right now. I’ve just put in a nice 12-hour day and if I want to sound coherent, then I should have some time to collect my thoughts. Unfortunately there are too many wanting to crowd the space on this page, urging me to put them down to relieve the over-crowded conditions in my brain.
Imagine: The “I wish I’d been more diligent about writing something of substance in the last two years” thoughts sitting alongside those having to do with, “Get to work at 6:15 today so I can make sure everyone has everything for the planned session today” robotic reminders. Or consider the awkwardness of the “Oh my $#&* goodness, she really needs to get a grip” thoughts and the “Goodness, I didn’t realize her husband’s boss’s wife served on that committee” thoughts being in close proximity. Shameful.
Like I said: coherent.
Last night I sat on the couch after I got home and begrudgingly embraced the old familiar YOU’VE JUST BEEN RUN OVER BY A TRUCK feeling I became accustomed to after 20 years of the opening of school. You plan for it, it happens, you’re exhausted. Period. You get to the point of being able to look past the tread marks that run up and down your body and learn to admire your new physique, tempted to ask others if you look good like this; more slender.
Remember the part about coherence?
In my flattened state, I sat on the couch in front of the television — something I never do before eight at night. With a glass of wine in hand, I flipped channels until I found a show that required no effort on my part to stare at other than tolerating the commercials. It was one of those shows where pack rats are reformed by cheerful home organization/decorator types, and thinking about it now makes complete sense: A mess is transformed into something blissfully organized; there’s a beginning, a middle, and an end; the sun comes up and everybody’s happy when it’s over.
Coherence?
If I wasn’t so flat, I’d apply to be a guinea pig on one of those shows because it seems like cheap therapy. But I could also build myself a nifty exercise program that would get all my endorphins coursing through my veins (arteries?) and then I’d be able to fit more into my day.
I’ll make a note of that.
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Resilience, buoyance…Right.
With every day that passes, I find myself adjusting to my new schedule. I haven’t quite gotten back into the habit of mentally planning what I’ll wear to work the next day (because let’s face it, priorities are priorities…) but it’s only a matter of time. Some mornings, I lag so badly after checking emails and messing around with a few other odds and ends on my Mac, I have to hurry to dress and slap on my make up in less than 20 minutes. Not bad.
I don’t mind the work, the setting is beautiful, and the people I work with are very pleasant, so the day passes quickly. It’s arriving home that requires more of an adjustment because whatever I haven’t taken care of is sitting and waiting when I arrive. Clearly I don’t have a fairy godmother. Sure the MoH helps out — he always has. It’s more an annoyance to have to be more organized again so that when I do want to enjoy my evening with the menfolk, I’m not having to stare at undone chores and tasks. Not exactly relaxing, but I suppose that’s what I get.
And then there’s the cooking.
You do understand that a dent has been put in that as well, right? We don’t do take-out very often, so as much as some may seize the opportunity to fall into that routine after returning to a full-time job, we don’t. In fact, I starve most of the day and then come home wanting to eat the broad side of a barn. Unfortunately, that leads to an immediate lack of interest in dinner. Whatever attempt I make in the feeding the family department is usually decent, but I see it as a string of dominoes. If I cook, then I have to clean up. If I cook and it’s tasty, then I have to take photos. If I take photos, then there’s an outside chance I’ll need to blog about it.
You caught the “need,” right? Need to blog about it.
There used to be a want, but let’s face it — I treated blogging like a job — a job I wanted. At least I used to. Sure it’s a job that pays crap for the amount of time and effort that goes into it, but it felt like a job nonetheless. So “need” isn’t quite cutting it any longer.
I’m not sure where I was going with this other than to put down how my thinking is changing as I adjust, and how quickly old routines fall back into place. At the same time, it shows how quickly new interests fall to the wayside if we don’t continue to nurture them. It’s forcing me to think about the work to live vs. live to work dilemma. I’ve decided to take one week day off while it’s slow during the summer and that’s probably helping me put things in perspective. It’s fascinating that on that day off, I can push even the smallest thought of work completely out of my mind — almost as if it didn’t exist. On the weekend, it’s even better. And I guess that’s all great, except I miss my quiet time.
Somehow, I have to find that again — even if it means hiding in my closet once in a while.
In the dark.
I could call it meditation.
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Finding time to relax again
Busy season is finally over yet another year. There have been so many I’ve lost count. It means the MoH is home before dark, and that it’s time for me to have an idea or two to plant in his mind before he heads for work in the morning about what we might do in the evening. It’s so he can begin to feel like there’s actually a day — or at least part of one — to be enjoyed even though it’s not quite the weekend.
Or maybe it was that we were celebrating the beginning of the weekend — the first of many to come before the next string of late nights and work-filled weekends.
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Thinking with asterisks
William Zinsser says, “To write well about your life you only have to be true to yourself.”
I knew that. It doesn’t make it easier to choose to delve into something I don’t feel like delving into, however, and I recognize all the signs of avoidance — like grabbing my broom to rid the stairs of the dust bunnies that have taken up residence since we got rid of the carpet.
They’re huge, shadowy puffs that seemingly morph from one corner to another, gathering cat hair and our life’s dentritus with each pair of passing feet.
I see them as I trudge up and down to refill my coffee cup or half-heartedly perform some chore and marvel that they appear so quickly. They’re fascinating until they become a larger mass, swept to the bottom of the stairs waiting to be scooped into a dust pan and into the trash along with my determination.
* * *
I’m tired of thinking about food, about writing about food. Tired of organizing my life around the planning and shopping, organizing and preparing of food. If I needed just one scapegoat for my lack of productivity, it would be that, and yet the amount of time it takes contradicts any lack of productivity.
I’m tired of thinking about food. Tired. But that will most likely change at lunchtime.
* * *
I’ve been trying to decide whether it’s better to classify myself as a procrastinator, or dreamer. Drifty is more like it. Drifting like those dust bunnies from one point to another with little or no substance or anchor. Well, not quite that dramatic, but puffing along from one whim to the next and incapable of moving of its own volition. Lacking initiative.
Meh.
* * *
It was foggy outside this morning when I woke up and the residual dampness has given the air a smell that comes only when raindrops first hit the asphalt. I stand on the patio in the slight chill, my not so willing to be outside this early in the morning toes curling against the flagstones, and I breathe deeply. The trees rustle with the slight breeze and I’m surprised to hear a bird’s call I don’t recognize, wondering where it’s coming from and why I haven’t noticed it before. Happy thing.
* * *
I just finished Blessings by Anna Quindlan. It’s about identity and the effect family can have on it — or not. It’s about quite a bit more than that, but when I talk about a book I’ve read I somehow find myself feeling like I’m completing a book report and have to supress the urge to run screaming from the room. I’ll find myself later picking this one up to read parts of again because Quindlan’s writing has that effect on me, most likely because I can wallow in long passages of description and deep delving into a character’s thoughts to a level not unlike that of my dust ball analysis. Unfortunately, I read just before I go to sleep each night and not many pages at that these days. Any influence her words have on me is lost in the jumble that has been my dreams recently, and since I still can’t quite give myself permission to read during the day, my thinking is lost and with it any inspiration to write.
Why a person needs to give herself permission to read during the day is fairly stupid.
* * *
You’re wondering about the silly asterisks right? Me, too. But it’s the only way that I could actually sit down and write something today. Anything.
And so I did. I’d call that being true to myself.
Or avoiding being true to myself, which is probably more the case.
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And so I begin again.
In the last many days, I’ve had time to think about this space in my life and its accumulation of nearly two years of what passes for me these days — me in writing, that is. Whenever I run through the archives and skim the content, so many thoughts come to mind about when the piece was written — the season, the weather on a given day, what I was preoccupied with or annoyed about. It’s been more and more difficult to write here and so the frequency has decreased and I’ve found myself adjusting to that, but not particularly enjoying it. I’ve taken the time on my occasional walks to make mental plans where I’d whip myself into writerly shape working on one project at this point in the day and another later on, somehow fitting it all in.The implementation lasted one day.
One.
I’d decided to do some admin work related to my sites and busied myself in all that it entails, which is a lot when one might consider that I currently qualify for the old dog aspect of the whole can’t teach new tricks classification. Bound and determined to prove it wrong, I spent ridiculous amounts of time reading codex and phoning and thinking and whining to get everything moved and it just never worked.
With every piece I had nearly worked out, another arose and on a computer screen it looks like two window open with several tabs to access in each one. My head spun with angst over root directories and files, php and FTPs, domains and DNS. Having much experience in the area of reading research, I can tell you that when content is dense, even proficient readers default to subvocalizing in order to digest and comprehend new information. It helps — but only if one is also willing to repeat the process over and over with little or no distraction.
Ahem.
I Twittered much. I wallowed in Bubble Bazinganess. I bonded with Facebook finally, and satisfied my creative spirit cooking, shooting photos of what I’d cooked, editing those photos, and then finally writing about what I’d cooked. *insert note regarding food obsession here* It only fills the hours, but it never quite fills the spot that this space fills and the longer it was unavailable to me, the more I realized that although I could live without it, I just didn’t want to.
I thought about people who have lost posessions in a fire, or who have had property vandalized. I morbidly recalled my trauma induced by the loss of my hard drive on my beloved MacBook and all the glorious photos of our trip to the UK and several years of my son’s boyhood. I conjured up all the images of loss I could to add to my incessant mulling over of not having this space because I may have been careless. And if I had, nothing could be done other than start again, because that’s what I do. I’m good at it.
So that’s what I was ready to do this morning when I sat down. Start again.
And metaphorically, that’s what I’ve decided to say I’ve done, because clearly my archives are in order and everything is up and running. But I have perspective I didn’t have a week or so ago and need to put it to good use.
It seemed appropriate to make a few visual changes to celebrate moving on with new purpose.
Ahhh……
If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.
Be satisfied with what you have.
Every cloud has a silver lining.
Dude, make it a double. That was a close call.
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Walk, write. Just get off your ass.
I should go outside today and walk.
The cold isn’t quite as bracing as it’s been the last week or so for my west coast bones, and I’m tempted to stretch them in the warm, bright sunlight somewhat like a fat, old lazy cat.
Tempted would be the key word there.
But if I ventured out to traipse back and forth through my old walking course in the neighborhood across the street, what would I think about? The thought is almost as scary as being stuck on an airplane without a book — nothing to occupy my busy brain. Nothing to worry about or to plan for, to gossip with a friend over. Just quiet. Well, and the occasional home owner who seems surprised to see a human walking down his street after his garage door opens just enough to allow him a line of vision. Interloper that I’d be, my presence would put him in the awkward position of making eye contact and possibly uttering a greeting, or more commonly, have to avert his gaze so as not to invite one.
I could use the time to prod myself over writing if I went for a walk. Or organize my plan of attack on the area of our house that is supposed to be a garage and is more like a junkyard right now. Or make some kind of a schedule for something. Anything. You know, so I can have one.
Aren’t people supposed to have schedules?
I think people have schedules to have them — not because they’re necessary. It takes time to plan them, and keep them, and check things off as you complete them. It fills the time in a day so that when your head hits the pillow at night, you can feel like you’ve been a good productive human instead of a lazy ass.
If I had a schedule, I would be well into it today, have my grocery list made, probably already have purchased and put away those groceries, and be up to my very sore elbows in some new recipe. (Minestrone sounds heavenly right now in case you’re wondering, but I’m struggling to decide whether that lentil recipe with orzo would be better….)
But I’m here instead, thinking about next week, yet another new year, and the overwhelming possibilities that come with that inevitable flip of a single calendar page.
All I have to do is reach out and choose.
It’s amazing, isn’t it?
For instance, I could write a book. I keep threatening to, but know that I’ll get around to it some day — after I have a schedule. The world needs another book about yet another human who overcomes challenge and adversity and still has a positive outlook on life, right? I’d definitely need a schedule to complete this daunting task, and would absolutely need to walk every single morning to get it done. I know this. Walking helps me sort out the tiny details as much as it also helps me unravel huge structural knots.
I could finally upgrade this site to 2.7 because I should have a long time ago. But where would the spammers get to park their disgusting crap?
I could flip the switch on my food blog since it’s been ready and waiting for the domain I’m paying for and haven’t used so far, needing a week to work out all the kinks I never quite understand. Actually, I will be doing that next week. Yikes!
I could make a list of resolutions to consider, but I’m never very good at that, so wouldn’t take it very seriously and would struggle not to put something on it like, “I will make sure I change out of my pajamas every day all year before 2PM.” What’s the point of taking off flannel bottoms if all I’m going to put on is yoga pants?
I could get a job, but then I’d have to have a schedule, right? And clothes, and, and, and…I’m still removing suit coats and trousers I no longer wear. Why would I want to start that all over again. God forbid having to worry about whether my sweater is five years old, or my shoes are not quite fashionable.
I could go on a health-nut get-into-shape change-my-life type permanent binge, but then what would I do with a new body? Write a new blog so I could tell others how they, too, can have killer abs? I know mine are under my middle age spread somewhere.
I’d rather say, “Let’s not and say we did” to it all right now.
But that walk is sounding kind of nice about now.
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Construction and Ugly Cookies
I’m exhausted, and I’m always surprised when I realize it. Like someone who doesn’t spend 12 hours a day at the office shouldn’t be tired — ever. So not only am I exhausted, I’m annoyed that I’m exhausted.
It’s pretty pathetic. No, I’m pathetic.
To give myself half a break today, I’m looking at the disaster area that used to be my house, realizing that my black mood is most likely the result of construction that isn’t due to conclude for another two weeks — well, and deciding to engage in nearly two weeks of baking and writing about cookies. What in hell was I thinking?
It’s always exciting when construction begins, but I’ve been through it twice before, so know that it gets stressful. I should know better, but the last two times, I was out of the house all day and didn’t have to watch and worry. As nice as it is to be able to see all the changes happening each day, it’s not pleasant to see all the kinks in the plans, as well. Add this additional cost to that additional cost, and the persistent drone from the talking heads on the television about the nation’s economic woes only makes it worse. This morning I wanted to pull the covers over my head, wish the crew could let themselves in, and let them work as if I didn’t exist — which would be a bit strange considering the lump I’d make on the bed sitting in the middle of an empty room.
Our room is the only one in the house that’s nearly empty. The others have all had our possessions shoved into them and smaller items perched on top, stacked in ways I’d never have attempted in any other situation. We’ve been lucky that only one thing has been broken, and it wasn’t valuable from a monetary sense, but did have some pleasant memories attached to it.
There’s dust everywhere. Even though plastic sheets are draped from time to time, it seems not to matter because the garage door is open, and the constant breeze through the house just distributes the particles everywhere. In the beginning, I tried to vacuum at the end of each day in the small area where we can actually move around, but have given that up since I’ve run out of space to set things that weren’t packed. I have dishes that have survived more than 100 years sitting in the middle of my family room. As I stare at them, I wonder what I’m going to do with them. Even if I purchased more boxes, there’s no more room in the garage to put anything. And next week, the painters come.
Being the foodie I am, you’d think that sitting in front of my Mac tending to my food blog and cooking to my heart’s content would keep me happily occupied, wouldn’t you? And it should, but at this point, I’m tired of that, too. In fact, I’m so tired of it, I’m questioning why I’m doing it — and not just the cookie making. Somewhere along the line, it has consumed my entire life and I make time for little else. Like I said — pathetic.
All I want to do is clean my house. I want to organize the piles and go through boxes and stacks. I’m supposed to be choosing hardware for the doors and stair rails, but I’m not. I should be tossing things we don’t need, and organizing yet another donation of items we no longer use, but can’t. There’s no space to do it in.
Taking a shower is a pain, and putting on makeup or doing anything with my hair involves squeezing into a little space in front of my mirror in between the cat food tray and litter box, so I don’t. But when I have to, there are usually strange men walking back and forth and it’s not that comfortable acting like I don’t care if they can see me putting on my eyebrows or peering at the wrinkles under my eyes in my magnifying mirror. But who cares, right?
And the scariest part of all of this — Christmas is how many days away? I can’t even imagine how I’m going to pull that off. But I’ll try, and it will be great *whips superficial happy face from back pocket.* If one or two — okay, so maybe three bad days in the course of this is all I’ll have, then I guess that’s not too horrible.
I just wish the intensity wouldn’t build up in me like it does, surprising me when I should come to expect it.
And when it finally wraps its ugly coils around my throat, I don’t want to have to squelch my anger, or feel guilty over it and have to go into my “count my blessings” mode. I don’t want to have a little heart to heart with myself about how nice it’s going to be when it’s all finished, or be thankful for what we have because we’re so fortunate, because I’ve already done that. I do that every single day. Relentlessly. It doesn’t erase the upwelling of ugliness that permeates every pore in my skin, and so I give in to it.
What I do want is to take a hot bath. I want bubbles, and candles, and wine with that bath, please, and a book that almost reads itself. Just one bath. That’s all.
Maybe then, my mood could possibly improve to grey with chances of silver linings.
But writing it here helps, and eating five or six of the ugliest cookies I’ve ever seen.
Okay, so, maybe only sort of ugly.
But ugly.
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It’s Dark at 3am.
Sometimes at night I wake and am not exactly sure how long I’ve been so, my eyes open and staring at patterns the too bright light across the street makes on our bedroom ceiling. It’s so quiet, even with the windows still open to let the cool Fall night air in. Everything is still.
I have no reason to be awake at this hour. No worries, no dreams to think about. And assuming I’ve had enough sleep for the night, I feel my way into the closet for my slippers and a sweatshirt and head downstairs, my dog following me as she always does. The stairs aren’t easy for her anymore.
The early morning sky is still dark, and I stand just outside the patio door while the dog takes care of her business, not quite wanting to venture too far away from me. She worries that I’ll leave her out there alone, and I know that if I could see her eyes, they’d register that concern. The stars are bright and I can see the Big Dipper hanging heavily, nearly touching the shadowy horizon in the East, each star twinkling weakly. I take my usual count and notice the Small Dipper as well, more brightly than I have in some time. And there’s the star that’s red and most likely long dead now, its light still traveling to us from so far away.
The dog and I quietly go back inside, she wagging her tail for the expected Milkbone she’s gotten since she was a puppy for not peeing in the house, and I to risk the beeps of the microwave to heat up a cup of stale coffee.
It’s Monday, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter so much anymore, but this Monday the RTR begins his week off school for the holiday, and we take on our third week of construction. Maybe that’s why I’m sitting here instead of falling back to sleep. It’s quiet, and I can sit in the glow of my screen and not see the shambles my house is in. There are no hammers or saws, nor questions to answer about decisions that will cost more money.
So here I sit. Thinking about nothing in particular and waiting for the sounds of the day to begin so I can make a real pot of coffee without waking the others up.
In the meantime, I’ll listen to the hissing of the refrigerator, and the snorts my cat is making, chewing on her fleas.
