Now What?

I stumbled upon Brooke Shield's podcast "Now What?" a few days ago. Everything about it speaks to me. Starting with the title. "Now what?"

That is exactly where I am right now. Purgatory. One foot in two different worlds. Each foot feeling solidly placed but the space in between (where my head and thoughts reside) is feeling torn and angsty.

Thus, Brooke's podcast had me from the moment GO. All of her guests share a story of  "Now what?" moments. That spot where you must move on from where you are. A place when life forces your hand and you must move onward and out of an existing situation.

I have a good history of knowing what to do next when life forces my hand. It is entirely different when I'm the one who is navigating the course. Indecision, uncertainty and rerunning the same words and scenarios over and over in my head and conversations has become old. 

I'm tired of the loop I'm in. I cannot imagine those who are listening to my repetitive conversations. "Make a move. Make a change. Make a decision. And act accordingly, Girl!!"

The forward steps I have taken into my "Now what" decision feel right. I have a deep sense of feeling I'm headed in the right direction. Until I come back home. 

It is hard to move onto from someplace so comforting, familiar and full of good memories. It's hard to let go of something good and reach toward something new. Am I just running away from life-as-I-know it? Or walking towards a future I believe in? A little bit of both.

It is the running-away-from element that haunts me. I know I need to let go before I move on. Letting go is hard.

Now what?

A Fresh, New Day

I swear the phases of the moon have something to do with my coping abilities. Or maybe it is as simple as a few new worries added to my unresolved living-a-life issues.

I started yesterday morning by writing down a list of the thoughts that were dominating my thinking. Recognizing the fast majority were "chronic" (ongoing, with no defined resolution in sight) with no new concerns added was something worth noting. More importantly, it was the three new topics added to the mix that was tipping the scales.

I ticked off seven of the nine tasks on yesterday's list of tasks to tend, with a few extra sub-heading tasks within the tasks. Most importantly, it was managing my new worries that made the biggest impact.

I made a few outbound phone calls. I made a few decisions. I gathered some facts. I ran all my errands while I was already out of the house. 

I did what was within my control. It all boils down to the serenity prayer. 

"Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

Yesterday morning, I wrote in bold felt pen "No control" after the "what then?" questions within my list of overwhelming thoughts. In other areas, I wrote "Action plan" when there were steps I could take to manage a concern - no matter how big or small. 

There is something empowering about those words - "action plan". The action could be as simple as finding out more information. Gathering intel to utilize at a later date. 

It's a fresh, new day. A clean slate. 

And it is Friday!

I'm 63 years old and still living for the weekend.

I'm 63 years old and still living.

That is what is worth noting.

Spiralling

I'm in a thought spiral this morning, so I reverted to my old ways of managing the words spinning around in my head. I grabbed a pen and paper. 

Seeing the words on a piece of paper has a way of taming them. You can see you aren't thinking about a million different things - you are more likely to be thinking of a small number of things in a million different ways.

I started with the topic front and foremost in my mind, made bullet points about my thoughts, concerns, potential action plans and what was or wasn't within my control.

I came up with eight main focuses of concern. Five of these are ongoing. Three are new. Some are inter-connected (ie: our cat's chronic mucous-spewing sneezing is impacting my house-keeping abilities). Money is a common thread throughout most of my ongoing worries.

Note the white spots - I have discovered our cat's mucous bubbles up when sprayed with hydrogen peroxide. This is a section of the floor I washed up after supper last night. The knowledge that this is all over our floors, walls, doors and furniture is causing great angst. 

Work is taking up the number one spot of my anxieties, inter-connected with and followed closely by money. This is not a surprise. I have taken action and handed in my notice, which has compounded the troubles instead of lessening them.

I started a clean page titled "TODAY". I itemized that which must be done, will be done and can be done today. 

Breaking things down into manageable pieces. It is about all we can do. It is what we must do in order to take the next step forward.

I admit that "shower" is one of the items on today's to-do-list. These must-do items may be as small as that which, depending on the day, is a big thing. 

I endeavor to keep my regular list of must-do's pretty basic:

• Get out of bed
• Make the bed
• Wash my glasses
• Make my morning smoothie/coffee
• Wash my smoothie glass/coffee cup
• Clean cat litter/refresh cat water

That's it. I make it a rule to keep my bed made, the kitchen counter and sink empty and clean, tend to our cats and THEN do one hard thing at a time.

Work is hard. Extra-curricular housecleaning is hard. Running errands, leaving the house, going to appointments are all hard. Some phone calls are hard. 

Lately, when the going gets tough, the tough turns on Netflix. So you know what? I gave myself the gift of one more month of grocery delivery. For the small cost of $9.96 per month, I can let someone else shop, pack up and deliver my groceries for me. Winter has finally arrived and our temperatures have dipped to -28º this morning. I will forfeit something else in order to allow myself this indulgence.

What gift to you give yourself when the going gets tough? We all need a little something to pick us up at times. Give yourself a break today. You deserve it.

Life is a Puzzle

I have no idea what I'm going to write. No theme, no outline, no photo to direct my thoughts into one cohesive post. But I'm going to write anyway. It's been a while since I let my fingers do the talking. Let's see what they have to say.

I feel like I'm in a freefall right now. Parachute is not yet engaged, I don't see the ground, I'm just falling.

I'm looking for safety nets but unsure what to ask of them. I need to know they are there but I don't want to use them.

I feel like I'm falling from another galaxy, destination earth, ETA is six months but I don't have a map. I don't know what country I'm going to land in. Will I sink or swim when I get there?

Is there such a thing as a plan? I stopped planning years ago when life started doling out surprise detours on a rather regular basis. I could hear the snide voice inside my head snicker, "So you think you can plan, huh? Heh, heh, heh!"

Life is a puzzle. It starts out with about 5,000,000,000,000,000,000 pieces (or more). One by one, little pieces fall together. 

As an infant, someone else is in control of finding all the edge pieces and creating some groundwork and boundaries. 

As a toddler, you find a few fun, challenging and interesting parts of the puzzle and start putting together the easy parts. 

Teen years? You start looking at other people's puzzles, try forcing your puzzle pieces to fit in. 

Adulthood arrives and you only see a pile of pieces, not yet sorted into manageable colors and themes. The puzzle is overwhelming, so many choices, too much/too little direction. You are an adult. You should be able to figure out this puzzle of life and it may feel like you aren't ready. Or you feel like you are ready and you start off with the pieces that didn't fit in with the whole picture yet. 

You start trying to fit yourself into someone else's puzzle. Find the connecting pieces. Find a way to fit in. You may abandon your own puzzle pieces altogether, as someone else's puzzle looks like a better fit. Mixing up multiple puzzles becomes an onerous task. It is only after multiple attempts, when you realize you have to work on your own puzzle, do the best with what you are given, accept and nurture what you have first, foremost and always.

Many a lifetimes are spent within our own lifetime, finding the right piece to make sense of the unfinished picture. We build up one part of our puzzle to discover there is so much more to decipher.

When we are fortunate, we find little bunches of "easy" pieces. The pictures our eyes pick out and focus on. Our passions. 

Family is trickier. They are mixed in with all the zillions of puzzle pieces. They are familiar but they morph and grow and evolve over time so it's a challenge to find how those pieces fit into the puzzle of life. 

Homes, jobs, teachers, bosses, bullies, caregivers, friends and all the supporting cast within your life. Some of those pieces are a one time event, others carry forward throughout your puzzle of life. A common thread, a theme, encouraging words, hurtful exchanges, tough learning experiences, heart ache and heart break. It's all there, mixed up in those trillions of pieces left to piece together. 

The sky, the trees, the water - always there. Tough to decipher pieces that appear to be identical until we look at them close up and figure out how they fit into the entirety of our picture. Faith, health, inner peace, the air we breath in and out every day. All around us, invisible to the eye. 

Each day, framed by the monotony of life - eating. sleeping, making the bed, cooking, working, caretaking, house and yard maintenance, paying the bills, cleaning the cat litter. The repetition, the necessity of the daily grind that is the structure and constant within the whole. 

We spend our lifetime working on our puzzle. In search of a missing piece. Trying to fit in. Finding a piece we aren't ready for yet but not wanting to abandon it. The discovery that the piece that doesn't fit is from someone else's puzzle. Separating your parents/siblings/partners/children/friends puzzle pieces from your own, while incorporating a portion of their pieces into your picture. Attempting to visualize the entire picture.

Then comes a time when your pieces are dwindling. You know you have a finite amount of time to piece it all together. How do you make some pieces (safety/security, home, health, money) last as long as it takes before your puzzle is complete, when you have no idea how many pieces are left?

Puzzling, isn't it?

A Little Moment of Awesome

I woke up before 4:30 this morning and stayed awake. These bonus hours are a gift to myself today.

It snowed yesterday. The first substantial snowfall of the year. And it was good.

I put in a solid day of bookkeeping work and though my brain was done thinking at the day's end, it was truly refreshing to go outside and shovel. It was the right amount of cold. Not too cold, not too warm ... it was the "Goldilocks Zone" of being just right.

Last year I didn't bother bringing out anything pertaining to Christmas. I wasn't all bah-humbug about it. I simply didn't see the point. No company was expected, nor did the idea of changing the scenery to reflect the season bring me joy. So I didn't decorate. The end.

This year, I invited friends over at a pre-seasonally-appropriate time. It wasn't too early to decorate and I had the incentive required for me to take on the task. 

I felt joyful and light as I brought out my box of memories. I was delighted while adorning my corner shelf with stories of Christmases past and pleased with the result.

It is January 6th and I am still enjoying the white light, memories and peaceful easy feeling my little Christmas corner brings to me. The decorations consist mainly of angels, snowmen, pine accents, sleighs and pinecones. I am now officially dubbing it my "Winter Wonderland" corner.

I feel serenity within me this morning. I'm just going to coast a little while on this feeling. 

Life is fleeting. 

Please savor those little moments when you find them.

P.S. There were rabbit tracks in the snow. Oh, how I have missed my rabbit friends. They can come out of hiding now, as their winter white coats will finally blend into the scenery so they can hide in plain sight again.

Little things...

2024 Price Check

I don't know which obsession is taking up the most space in my brain - new calendars for the year 2024, or the ability to check prices over the course of the past few years.

My calendar needs are pretty basic. One wall calendar for personal use; one desk calendar for business use; one daytimer for business use. Amen. End of story. End of my needs.

I have received a wall calendar annually thanks to being on a high school reunion mailing list. It is the perfect size; the boxes allow enough room to make notations; and it is FREE. It wins first prize for all my needs. The only pitfall is it didn't arrive until the last week of December, so I panicked and picked up a calendar for $1.25 at the dollar store. It was much bigger than needed, took up too much space on the wall and (worst of all!), I spent $15.54 on unnecessary chocolates and treats when I bought my cheap calendar. I wasted time and money on an unnecessary purchase. 

Calendars to the left - total cost $7.75 + taxes + $95 (!!) extracurricular spending while in the dollar store in search of a bargain priced calendar.

Calendars to the right - FREE!! delivered to me in the mail, with no added costs.

Meanwhile, my obsession with the higher costs of living these days had me comparing prices between calendars purchased over the years.

2023/2024 - $1.50 NO increase

2022/2023/2024 - $3.50 NO increase

The moral of the story seems to be:

 "Keep some prices the same to lure customers into the store and spend their money on impulse buys".

They got me hook, line and sinker. Fool me once - shame on them. Fool me twice (or three times, as I am almost certain I didn't buy the 2022/2023 calendars without overspending) shame on me.

I know better. In 2024, I will try harder.

The only consolation I have, is the number of times I talked myself out of take-out, which most likely countered the impulse purchases (aka: cookies, chocolate & chips - the 3 deadly C's). 

My average monthly take-out spending has decreased by $100 monthly since COVID (yes, I keep track of these things), 

so all things considered my obsession with calendars over the years probably balances out in the end.

Just my meandering thoughts this morning. 

Carry on!

Six Months

Back to work. Back to my previously scheduled life. Back to the same old, same old.

As much as I love routine, the comfort of knowing my job well and all the benefits of working from home ... this part of my life is winding to a close. Six months. I gave notice last year. I now have six months to wind things up and pass the torch.

This knowledge should have me kicked into high gear right about now but I'm feeling overwhelmed. I am missing my teacher/my boss/my colleague/my support/my guiding light. 

If she was sitting in the office beside me, she would have a to-do-list written up and a timeline and outline of what must be done. I can do that. I am capable and her words still guide me.

My work situation prior to COVID was becoming unmanageable. Working from home bought three more years of employment than I would not have been capable of, if nothing had changed. 

I am grateful for that time, the experience I gained, the financial security of a regular pay cheque and the comfort of staying with a job I know well.

Now that there is an end in sight, I ponder the wisdom of waiting so long. There is no going back. Forward is the only option. Forward is good. Forward is a tad frightening.

Six months from now, the goal is to be living in my little oasis home away from home. The intention has been set. The path has been cleared. I have found employment in my new-to-me town. It is as simple as packing up my home and office, then passing my responsibilities over to the next generation.

July 1, 2024 ... oh, how I wonder how my life will look in six short months...

An empty calendar page at the moment.

It holds the potential for oh, so many things.

Happier

I stumbled upon Oprah and Arthur Brooks book "Build the Life You Want" yesterday and immersed myself in the three part YouTube discussion between Oprah and Arthur on their book. 

I rarely buy a book these days, much preferring to borrow from our local library. But this was an exception. I have a feeling this could be one of those books I want to share with the world around me. It feels as though it could be a reference guide to "happierness" - a word Oprah coined and Arthur concurred it described the concept best.

The quest for happiness is elusive and one never attains the goal and keeps it. Life ebbs and flows. We can't be happy all of the time but we can hope to feel happier. 

It is a book about the art and science of getting happier. Arthur is a professor who teaches a class on the subject. He speaks in a language I feel my most discerning child would hear. 

The conversation spoke to everything I am feeling and living these days. I have already suggested watching it together with my daughter, as it seems like this could be a good reference for her. And she did not shoot down the idea. 

I have hope. Renewed hope that the science of becoming happier may be the fork in the road most needed right now. 

Wishing and hoping for a hopeful, happier New Year to all! 

Our world could use a dose of  happierness...