A Work in Progress

I just finished watching the series Private Practice. I remember thoroughly enjoying the writing, characters and story lines when the series aired on TV. I enjoyed it just as much the second time around. They wound up the series in a manner which makes me want to watch it all over again. 

There is a line in the final season that hit home with me:

"The book that is your life is a work in progress. So you, Violet Turner, you're unfinished." ~ Sam Bennett to Violet Turner

I have felt "finished" with life in ebbs and flows since Mom died. It comes, it goes. It mostly goes. But when I sit in the quiet of this life I have written, I think "I am out of story lines". 

When I think of a work in progress, I think of my home. I don't think of myself or my life. Perhaps I should ...

It is Almost Done

This is the tax season that just doesn't end. It felt like a long, hard process to wind up the year for a company, file all necessary returns and resign from that position. 

Of course, my resignation came with the caveat "If you need me to file your GST returns, I can be available for that", but other than that I highly recommended the new bookkeeper start from January 1st, to ensure consistency and a fresh start for 2025.

The new bookkeeper has been hired. All they needed was the back-up copy of the accounting program to get started. Easy peasy, I thought. I can just email it. 

No such luck. The file was too big for my email program to manage. I googled how to send a large file and was directed towards "clouds" and other such forums to send such a file. It would have been simplest, to put this file on a flash drive and hand deliver it. Unfortunately this would require both parties driving into the city, find a meeting spot and make the exchange.

If I had any other need to run into the city, this could have been a fun and easy little excursion. As it was, it would have taken three hours out of my day, at least $35.00 worth of gas, plus the cost of the flash drive. The expense of three hours was more than I wanted to bear but adding an additional $50.00 to the total? I hoped to find another way. And I did.

Thankfully, the file was sent electronically, received, opened AND the new bookkeeper was able to access everything she needed and was ready to go.

One crisis averted from the comfort of home.

One final, straggling tax return had yet to be filed. I had completed my work, one final check before it was ready to go, plus the presence of the tax payer. It was all checked, balanced, okayed and sent off. All from the comfort of home.

2024 has been wrapped up with a bow and sent where it needed to be sent. I have three sets of tax papers to return to their rightful owners and the piece of real estate that takes up in my upstairs closet will be free.

To-go pile ↑

The empty space it will create ↑

It is almost done. So long, 2024. 

Sludging Through

It is the weekend. A long weekend, at that. And I'm having a tough time tackling my one-thing, one-step at a time laundry list of to-do, should-do and must-do items on my eternal task list. 

Summer. Days are long, weather is warm and there is NO snow. You gotta love it. Right?

Well? I like it. I really do. But I find Summer to be demanding. Lawn to mow. Weeds to tend. Garbage bins of fallen pinecones. Windows. Car. Everything around here needs a good spring cleaning. Everything. The downside of it all is it never ends. Grass and weeds just keep growing. Pinecones keep on falling. Windows? I love them. I really do. They are just so needy.

Winter. Short days, cold weather and snow. Despite its drawbacks, it's more forgiving in some ways.

It may snow a lot for several days running. But there is always a break. Granted, that break may come with ice, wind, unseasonal melting creating more ice ... but there are reprieves. 

Snow is different than grass (yes, I am a rocket scientist, aren't I?). Snow comes in ebbs and flows. Grass just keeps growing until fall when it takes a bit of a break. Grass always needs something. Snow? Once it's shoveled, it's good (unless there is wind - that is another story).

Those short, dull winter days don't focus on your dirty windows and dusty house. Winter says, "Take a break. Relax. Save your energy for the next snowfall." Summer says, "Go while the going's good. Sun is shining! Take a good look at that dirt and DO something about it."

It is barely past the middle of May and I'm looking at this needy yard that surrounds my home. I like it. I really do. But really? I just washed windows. Now you want me to mow the grass and deal with the excessive pinecones too?

I sludged through yesterday. Slowly (and I mean slowly) but surely, I (eventually) washed all the windows on the main floor. Inside AND out. What gratitude do I get? The sun pokes around a new corner of the earth and says, "You missed a spot!!"

Aaaack! Summer? You are so demanding. I'm still glad you are here.

Connecting the Dots

Time is an elusive thing. Slipping through our fingers like water, assuming we have a tomorrow ahead of us and the many hours we mark that don't make an impact in our bank of memories.

Thank goodness we do have dates of significance that mark our time in history. Births, deaths, anniversaries, special occasions and all the little things that make a solid mark in our history.

This morning's thoughts started out because I remember the date my cousin's daughter's birth. We lived in the same city, this was the first baby I knew in an up close and personal way and my sister's oldest son was born a few weeks later (I would have to double check the date).

Remembering this one date spurred the connecting tissue of part of my family's history. My sister had children every two years, except the one two-year-span which was filled by the birth of my oldest child. I remember the year of his birth, thus I can count backward and forward to fill in the blanks of my sister's family. I can fill in the years of my other sister's children using similar connections. 

The year 2005 was a year of significance within our family. Three major life and death events happened during this year. Remember the year and one can discern the months of each of these events.

The year 2012 was the beginning of a time of loss within Mom & Dad's families. Start at 2012 and the number patterns trigger the memories of other dates of significance.

Memories resurface by connecting the dots within one's life. One event can start a domino effect of one thing connecting to another. Oh-so-many conversations unfold as one topic triggers the next and the next and all those following. 

I spent several years in the company of a relative whose memories were diminishing. Long term memories were intact but the short term ones were losing ground. Writing notes, notes and more notes couldn't make a lasting impression. She asked questions. So many questions. 

The more time I spent with my aunt, the less I took the ability to remember for granted. The more questions she asked, the more I appreciated the need to connect the dots to trigger a memory.

This morning, I sat down and wrote three pages of dates, connections, extended connections, byproducts of one connection to another and had small family history recollection. Simply by connecting the dots.

In the Home Stretch

I have this whole tax-season-crisis almost in my rear view mirror. Almost. It feels wonderful!

My neck is noticing the difference. Sure, getting on top of the discomfort with the assistance of pain killers helped. But I have not taken any pain relief for well over a week. None. My neck feels so much better. The weight of the stress of bookkeeping and tax season made my head so heavy that my neck paid the price.

I feel so much lighter.

One would think I'd sleep like a baby, having completed so many of the hard things that have been keeping me up at night. Well? On one hand, one would be correct. Because a baby's sleep can be anything but a solid sleep-through-the-night scenario. 

I'm still ramped up on the adrenaline rush of accomplishing that which needed to be done. My head has been busy but my body has been parked in a kitchen chair, moving numbers around on a spreadsheet, tax forms and accounting programs. It's heavy work but not enough for the body to feel the exhaustion the head is experiencing.

It is time.

Time to tend to all I need to tend in the kitchen so my meal supplies are at-the-ready for the duration of the weekend and the week ahead. Then! Then I will head into the great wilderness of my own back yard.

It's the final count-down to the season they call "taxes". I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It is the sun!

Use Your Words

I just re-watched an episode of Oprah Winfrey and Arthur Brooks on YouTube - "Build the Life You Want". The phrase "Use your words" stirred something inside of me that has been asleep. 

Use your words. Write. Move the emotions to the pre-frontal cortex of my brain and examine what these feelings are trying to teach me.

I have become quiet. I am living the dream I set out for myself but I am not as satisfied as I was when I was dreaming the dream. 

I have taken my weekend oasis and turned into my life. My extraordinary weekends have become my ordinary day-to-day life. What could possibly be better than this?

I have been walking through the days in survival mode. I have worked from home or for people I know for the better part of 26 years. Leaving my home and interacting with the public in a new town and job has felt hard. I come home fully depleted but the wisest part of me that knows this is good.

I look at the life I am building here and the deepest part of me knows I am exactly where I am meant to me. But I feel empty and a little bit lost. I am not okay. I am fine. But I'm not the person I know I can be.

I have some work to do. Literally, figuratively and in more ways than I can verbalize.

I've come a long way. But I have a long way to go ...

I went for a pre-dawn walk after I wrote this, determined to make a mental note and photograph the sunrise. The sky lightened but there was no euphoric rising-of-the-sun moment. 

A metaphor for life some days. The sun always rises. A new day dawns. It isn't always specatular but it happens anyway. 

The overcast day was a very good day regardless. Because there was a small shift in my perspective.

Tomorrow is a new day.

A New Day Dawning

"You are exactly where you need to be" 

Wise words that are not my own, but words I fall back on often.

I have been listening to a lot of podcasts lately. My podcast feed is fed by my interests and most of what I hear feels like it was meant just for me on a given day. What surprises me, is when I end up listening to something I've already heard and I hear a brand new message the second time around.

"Laziness does not exist" 

Devon Price says on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast.

Interesting. When your body shuts down and you cannot do more than sit on the couch and watch TV, that is okay. Hmmm? 

I have had numerous people within my enabling circle of family and friends tell me this. I tend not to believe them because they really have no idea just how LITTLE I do when I say I have literally done nothing for the entirety of a weekend. But wait just a second. When I do nothing, I am still. I am listening. I am absorbing little nuggets of information I may or may not remember. I may spend an afternoon playing Freecell on the computer. But I am listening to podcasts the entirety of that time.

In the time I feel as if I am sleepwalking through the hours, the neurons in my brain are firing. I could be more productive. I will be more productive. I am thinking. I am learning. I am expanding my ideas. I am listening to other points of view. 

The myriad of podcasts I've listened to have motivated me to reserve and borrow books from the library written by those interviewed. I am reading again!

My interests are expanding outside of my own small little vantage point within the universe. I hear nuggets of information I have heard replayed in the world outside my head. I am literate in life beyond my own.

I will be attending an event where I will be among people I saw four and a half years ago. I was running on a tank so empty that when politely asked what I was going on in my life, I honestly answered, "Nothing". Period. End of story. A kind soul listening in answered for me and within that response, was what I used to do. I didn't do that anymore. 

I felt defeated. Small. I wanted to fade into the scenery. Who was I when all I could be defined by was a version of who I used to be?

I will see these people again. The conversation will be completely different. We will be at a memorial honoring two people within that small grouping who are no longer here. The focus will be outward but I feel more grounded. I am becoming more of the person I used to be, with a dash of growth and perspective added.

"Listen to dread. It is such an important direction. There is something not right about the situation."

I had been waking up physically, emotionally and spiritually filled with dread for quite some time four and a half years ago. I cried on my way to work. I could feel it in my heart, my soul and my bones. 

The sensation was mixed with grief at first. I had been feeling this way before Mom died. Running out to see her was running away from the angst I felt at my job. Mom listened while I talked. What I remember most about our last mother-daughter-life-as-we-remembered-it supper together was her asking me "What is your ten year plan? You do know your "bread and butter" [income sources] are both over the age of 80, don't you?"

I didn't make ten years. Mom knew my answer before she died. I pushed through six years before I gave a year's notice to leave the work that was killing me softly. I woke up dreading the day. I didn't act upon it. I can still feel the way I felt driving to work those days.

How old do you feel?

A question Julia Louis-Dreyfus asks every guest on her "Wiser Than Me" podcast.

My answer never changes when I hear her question. I feel the age of whoever is in my presence.

I have started two new jobs recently. I may be the oldest in the office but I am surrounded by people younger than me. I envelope whatever age they may be and feel at home in their company. I remember feeling the same way when I ran my daycare. I was of a grand-mothering age and could have easily been most of my parents' mothers. We had young children in common and I felt like a fellow-warrior in this parenting role. Then I started working with those who were over the age of eighty.

I'll leave that thought alone.

There are many who are older than those I worked with and they are life affirming and young in spirit. But those I was keeping company with were in a state of decline. It took all I had and perhaps a little bit more.

Mom's words of wisdom were "You need to be around youth". She clarified she was not talking of my daycare crowd. The full time responsibility of fifty hours a week tending pre-schoolers was a little too excessive. At least for me.

I abandoned my daycare career at Mom's urging and can now thoroughly enjoy those exuberant, youthful little people. There is little that brings more joy than listening to contended children at play. I can even appreciate a crying child who is not dependent upon me. 

Everything in moderation. 

I feel a sense of balance being restored within myself and the life I am living. Life is bubbling up inside of me once again. I am feeling the energy of surrounding myself with the energy of those who are regenerating little pieces of myself that were lost to me for a while.

It is a brand new day. How we spend it is entirely up to us. No guilt. No expectations. Just do what you are capable of doing. 

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?

Week Days = Weak Days

My life depletes me.

I feel the constant pull, tug and drag of to-do's; should-do's; must-do's; and want-to-do's at every turn.

I was catapulted into the week at hand with (what felt like) a hundred things pulling and tugging at me the moment I returned from my weekend oasis.

Cats. Cat hair. Cat litter. Cat sneaked under my covers. Again. 

Work. Phone. Work. Email. Work. Texts.

Yard.

I left my weekend oasis fully charged and ready for the week.

Monday depleted me. Tuesday took what was left over.

One deadline will be met today. Six more are looming.

Wednesday used to feel like my "power day". I was back in the swing of things and running on all cylinders. Lately, I feel as if I'm running on all cylinders all the time.

My week days make me weak in the knees.

I'm ready for a holiday.

Know Thy Enemy

One day to go and April will be behind us. I am unimpressed with the way I count down the days I have at my disposal as "days to be endured". 

I would like to point my finger at Revenue Canada and be angry with them for all the deadlines they impose on me, but I know the due dates a year in advance so my self imposed procrastination is all on me. I now have a full year to work on managing myself in a manner where I will be prepared and deal with the deadlines more effectively. 

Procrastination is my enemy. "Know thy enemy", it has been said. Okay. Enemy is identified. I truly believe I am my own worst enemy. I get in the way of myself nearly 100% of the time.

After spending a good part of the morning rereading some of my writing from seven years ago, it is the same story. Over and over and over ("over" times seven, to be exact) again.

I fall into the same pattern year after year, time after time. I recognized my mind numbing activities seven years ago. 

I am almost certain the sit-in-front-of-the-TV-and-numb habit began the fall of 2011. A fatal combination of events - it was my oldest son's cast off TV ending up in our living room and a new job I had started outside our home that was my undoing. I have vivid memories of parking myself on the couch and not moving for the majority of my off-work hours.

Prior to that, I recognize the cycle of "low grade depression" at the end of winter many years prior. How did I deal with these thoughts before I started numbing them? Writing, cleaning, culling and doing something physical were some of my coping habits. Before the Internet moved into my little weekend oasis, I reverted back to my old ways. "Doing" instead of "numbing" was balm for my soul.

Perhaps my biggest enemy is the Internet and the constant connectivity to the world. Always checking, forever jumping to my phone when I hear an incoming text, the ability to stream movies, TV and almost anything you want to watch online. My psychological connection of TV to mindless eating, compounded by my inability to stay awake unless I'm eating has snowballed to where I am today (with a pair of jeans one MORE size bigger sitting in my Amazon cart).

Before I hit the "Proceed to Checkout" button, maybe I should try a few of my old tactics to see if I can get a few more years out of the size I'm presently wearing. Changing my clothing size is less about vanity and more about finding my inner contentment (again). 

There is a new month on the horizon and I'm eager to step into a fresh new calendar page without a zillion (okay, only a hundred) deadlines biting at my ankles. Maybe I can divert this energy into something better.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” ~ Sun Tzu, The Art of War

100%

My slow charging phone is recharged to 100% ...

... my own personal trickle charger is lagging but a few salads have been made ...

... and hopefully this helps maintain my charge once I step into Monday.

I hope your Sunday is everything you need it to be.

Study on Aging

I have been involved with an aging study for a very long time. I know I was young and naïve during my first interview because I remember one (slightly paraphrased) question: "Do you have people in your life who would be available, if needed, who would live with you/live with them if the need arose?"  Life was simple in those days. I thought about the question and without serious thought of what the implications to that question meant, I replied "yes". 

[Insert head slap here]

Dad lived in a long term care home the last years of his life so I did know what worst case scenarios could arise. I had little understanding of the varying degrees of dependence between Dad's need for full time care and Mom's fiercely independent life. When answering that question, I hope I added a good dose of Mom's independent nature added that I would not put someone in that position. Perhaps I did, because as soon as I typed those words, I tend to think there was a follow-up to my answer which asked if I would have the means to pay for any support I may need. I would love to read a transcript of that first interview and see how starry eyed I was in my younger years.

As I tiptoe into this age and stage of life, the learning curve of aging and its affects on our population is gaining momentum. Every story is shaded with different hues of circumstances that no one expected, wanted or were fully prepared for all implications that evolve from a serious health issue. 

My interview with this aging study was a few days ago. My inability to remember many of the long list of words they dictate was minimal, which declined to "three" after the interview progressed. Losing my thoughts on the daily, like that elusive wafting cat hair continues to be a concern. Inserting the wrong words into a conversation. Am I literally losing my mind?

Serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; wisdom to know the difference. Let us add "resilience" to that ... the ability to do what is within our own power. I can exercise this brain, take it for walks, stimulate it by doing more than I have been doing. 

Just what I need. Another goal ... 

Down Another Rabbit Hole

I sat down to write yesterday but fell down a rabbit hole when I couldn't remember a small detail. I fell down a parallel rabbit hole last week. 

I'm writing about things I've written about before so I use the search bar at the top of my blog and start reading what I've written previously. I like what I find and start comparing my current self to my prior self and I'm coming up short. 

Where did all the words go? Why do I not have original thoughts any more? When did I stop finding little morsels of the day to write about? Who am I when I don't write? What am I going to do about this?

When you live a life on the rinse and repeat cycle over and over, without living a life outside the place you call home, the world becomes very small.

When you stop inviting people into your life and find solace in isolation instead of socialization, that small world becomes smaller.

When you tamp down your thoughts with Netflix marathons and potato chips, you start to disappear.

I have become smaller than I can remember being for a very long time. 

Step one was to restart the daily writing habit. This is so much harder than I thought it would be. Step two must take me one step outside the rinse and repeat cycle I'm living so I start noticing the world outside my head and think some new thoughts. 

Focus. One word at a time. One day at a time. One forward step at a time ...

Rabbit holes in the snow - even the rabbits are going no where ...

but that is the intent.

They are burrowing in the snow to find shelter from the weather ...

maybe I'm just burrowing too.

Remember - you are exactly where you are meant to be...

the discomfort is there for a reason.

Be uncomfortable.

Sit in this.

The fork in the road is near.

Good Morning! How are you??

I cannot seem to commit to daily writing these days. I'm not certain why. Not an overload of words lately. That is all.

And how are YOU?

How are you managing life-as-you-know-it these days? Days leading up into the season of festivities. Days where no matter what is going on in the world around us, we are still walking through our day to day lives making daily decisions as necessitated. Working. Living. Cleaning. Relating. Managing. 

I only peek at the news lately. The big news is too much to take in. All it does is provide me one more excuse to put off for another day, what I should have done a few years ago.

Does it really matter in the whole scheme of things?

I default to attempting to forecast my financial future and wonder about the stability of my income. It is all so very uncertain and daunting when I look beyond where I am at and look ahead too far. As much as I plan, life unfolds in its own way and in its own time. 

"Trust the pause" is my personal motto. When where I am isn't where I hope to be forever, I become impatient. The pause is there for a purpose. Use it.

I have retreated from life. COVID was my excuse and continues to be my best alibi for living small. My daughter has COVID, so I have happily accepted all the consequences that have come from that. When I know I will be in contact with people, I take another test (still coming up negative), I wear a mask and keep as wide a distance from myself and others as possible. 

Recently, I was walking through the grocery store - masked and distanced. I didn't make eye contact with people. I felt (and wanted to be) invisible. Until I met a person in the aisle and each of us kept moving out of the other's way and continued to be in each other's way for about four side steps. I finally said, "I'll just stay still so you can get around me". It was only in the aftermath of the encounter that I wondered if it was my cousin's voice that I heard as I kept my eyes averted and pretended to be invisible.

I have become so small, I feel like a speck within this universe. In reality, we are just specks in the whole scheme of things. In my most content years, I felt vital and alive within the little circle of friends and family who were my universe. Feeling like a speck is a symptom I have retreated too far within myself.

It is all within my power.

To work like my job has no end. To live healthfully as if I'm going to live to 100. To clean as if company may drop by unexpectedly. To reach out to people to refresh connections that matter so much. To structure my days in a matter where I am not simply managing ... but actually living my life.

I listened to Jane Fonda speak recently. At age 85, she is living a purposeful life and aspires to do everything within her power to leave this world in a better place than it's headed for her grandchildren. She spoke of doing a life review around the age of sixty and rebuilt her life-after-marriage at age 62. My age.

We are nearing the third year anniversary of a global pandemic which shut down and isolated the world. Three years. And I've never craved solitude more than I do right now. 

Curious and curiouser. Perhaps it is time to do a life review. Come out the other side of that and rebuild. Again. Maybe that is what "this" is all about.

And how about you? How are you managing these days? How are you feeling? Are you still dreaming of a future you are anticipating? Are you okay?

The more quiet I get, the more I wonder about others. Please take care out there. Reach out when you can. Let's rebuild our worlds. Again.

Habits

It is so easy to fall back into old habits. Some habits are worth falling back into. Others? Sometimes it would be nice to replace a habit that is no longer serving you best with something better.

I thought getting up earlier was my answer. It was. For the first week. Then I became accustomed to those bonus hours and filled them up with things that felt like work. My bonus time became my new norm and I utilized those early morning hours well enough. But not in the manner I originally intended. 

Then I slipped into another time zone for a few days and all hope was lost. I started sleeping in. Again. 

I didn't want to step into the day. I was tired. I was cranky. I didn't like the forecast of the day's responsibilities. I slipped back into my old ways.

This morning my eyes popped open at 5 a.m. Bonanza!! I had laundry I wanted to get done; a house that needs vacuuming; followed by a shower and Boom! I would be ready for the day. It is almost 8 a.m. - three hours have passed in the blink of an eye and I still haven't taken the time to be still with my thoughts and write.

I seem to be filling myself up with "words" during my quiet time lately. My five hour drive for my mini holiday was spent listening to Remembrance Day programming one way and the narration of Alex Trebek's book on my way home. My quick trips to my little oasis away from home are about one "We Can Do Hard Things" podcast long. This (in my opinion) is quality programming. But I'm absorbing other people's words and continue to avoid thinking my own thoughts.

I keep falling back into wondering "who am I?" when I don't write, don't sing and dance to my favorite songs on the radio and when I turn off the buzz of all the outside connections that interrupt the natural flow of an old fashioned day. A day when the landline was the only way someone could call. A letter in the mail was the norm for keeping in touch with friends and family who live far away. Inviting friends and family to join me in some manner which would result in a face-to-face visit.

I want to turn back the hands in time to 2008. It was a time when I pealed back the layers of life that wasn't working for me and unearthed a life I was excited to live. It was a time when I immersed myself in family, family memories, family gatherings, invited people into my home or to go on an "adventure". It was a time I felt words oozing out my fingertips and I started writing here. It was time of beginning again. Beginning again was a result of an unexpected end to the life I was expecting. Beginning again was hard. But necessary. And so many good things came from shedding old expectations, examining the life I had and realizing I already had everything I could want.  

I believe a "radio silent" weekend is in order. Turn off my cell phone. Sign out of the Internet. A weekend to read, write and putter would be time well spent. I want to spend a weekend like it is 2008 again and unearth some good old habits.

Defending My Life

The book within me that keeps writing itself is named "Defending My Life".

The theme of defending my thoughts, decisions, way of life and basically my entire essence has been the gift of daily, repetitive conversations with a person with a failing memory.

I can edit my answers on a daily basis. And I do. It started as a way of entertaining myself. To repeat the same answer on repeat is energy draining. So I started thinking deeper, looking further and wondering if what I always thought held true. 

It amazes me how the brain functions. Though no two situations are alike, what I realized about the person I do know is though the actual memories fade fast, the emotion tied to the lost memory lingers. 

I can almost be certain that when today's conversation rolls around to "What are you going to do when you leave? Who will you see? What will you do?" and my usual answers are "Nothing, no one, not a thing", what will remain from yesterday's conversation is "Why don't you like talking to people?". 

My 85 year old companion has a more active social life than I do. Activities in the condo she lives in begin at 7:00. In my world, 7:00 equals the end of my work day and all I want to do is go home, crawl into my pajamas and turn off the world. 

The feeling I have at the end of my day takes me back to my daycaring days. When the last child went home, I ceremoniously locked the door, closed the blinds and sighed a huge sigh of relief. I was done. I was depleted. I had nothing left. I was "closed for business".

My close of business has been extended from 5:30 p.m. (in my daycaring days) to 7:00 p.m. (in my current role). Physically, I do less than I have ever done. Mentally? I am spent.

I am "on" from the moment I open my office door. My bookkeeping duties vary by the day but that can change on a dime. One phone call, one email, one piece of mail can (and does) change the trajectory of my day. 

Best laid plans have been thrown out the window so many times that I have stopped planning. This is not a good thing. Angst is the word that describes the way I walk into far too many days. 

I close everything down at 3:30 to spend the supper hours with my senior friend. After being "on" all day, I am more than ready to turn myself off.

That is my defense. In reality, I think my priorities are skewed. I remember how energized I used to feel when ballroom dancing was my passion. I was transformed the moment I walked into the dance studio. I was so busy learning the intricacies of dance steps and technique there wasn't room for any other thought to enter.  I felt complete fascination and enjoyment in the moment I was in.

Passion. Laughter. Music. Movement. Physical contact. Challenge. Community. These are important elements for living a good life.

Ten years from now, will I have the ability to defend this portion of my life? Right before Mom died, she asked me about my ten year plan. She saw the writing on my wall. She foresaw this moment. I'm five years ahead of schedule. I should have aimed for a five year plan.

Life is full of ebbs and flows. I'm ebbing right now. This is not the end of my story. I'm back in the messy middle. Again.

I didn't think I would have to keep reinventing myself until the end of my days. I thought there would be a time of coasting. Perhaps that is exactly right. I have coasted for quite some time now. I'm sitting on a precipice and wondering which way to forge onward. There is no clear path. Only bush. 

Sitting on the edge of a choice is one of the most uncomfortable places for me. Especially when there is no defined choice. There is no decision that needs to be made. Keep coasting? Or seek the path hidden behind the bushes.

When I look back on this moment in time, I don't want to find a seed of regret that was planted because I was too scared to move.