Feeling Reflective

It is a "third cup of coffee" kind of day. I have frittered away my bonus morning hours reflecting and rereading my own words. It is no wonder we find such solace in relationships where we speak openly and honestly and are "real". I find comfort simply rereading my own words. 

I was reading between all the lines of what I wrote, recognizing the truths known only to me that are woven into the general stories I retell here. I am longing to physically remove myself from my reality and put some distance between real life and find a renewed perspective.

I miss my visits with Mom. During her final year, I made the five hour road trip regularly. Five hours to be still with my thoughts. Five hours to distance myself from my regularly scheduled life. Days with Mom where we visited for hours on end and Mom said all the motherly things my sister now says.

It is no wonder I find such solace in my little weekend oasis an hour out of the city. Not as much distance but gas prices have inflated to a point where one hour of driving is nearing the cost of my five hour drives six years ago.

A place to call home and share conversations where I hear Mom's voice echoed back and forth between my sister and me. Ahhh.

I'm planning to go "home" again soon. I have found a place to stay in Mom's old neighborhood. I have enough AirMiles accumulated to subsidize the gas prices. I have accumulated points on my credit card to cover a little frivolous spending and dining out. I am hoping for weather mild enough to wander the streets and back alleys where I grew up. I have family and friends to spend my time with and even the luxury of inviting them to my little home-away-from-home.

What used to be a regular old trip has become a vacation. I am longing for the sense of peace I get when surrounded by my past with a good dose of presence of people I feel so close and comfortable with.

Hanging on By a Thread

Life is fine. I'm doing okay. All is well enough within the confines of my small little world. But am I the only one who feels like I'm just hanging on and dangling by a thread until the next wave of the unknown hits?

Ever since the COVID pandemic stunned the planet with the ability to paralyze the world and leave no one untouched by the effects, I have a feeling I'm not alone with the unsteadiness of the ground beneath my feet.

On a personal level it is the unknowns that lie before me that have stopped me in my tracks. I'm regaining my footing but I'm ever wary of each forward step I take. It's like descending a staircase in the dark. Tentatively putting one foot out and feeling for the security of the next step while the other foot is on solid ground. All-the-while, holding onto the banister just in case the stairway gives out.

Work. Family. Health. Finances. Future. These are the things that will forever remain tentative and subject to change.

I marvel at my good fortune. All of the above is stable and I have faith all will work out in the end no matter how much I attempt to plan. 

I feel like I'm living in the state of "before". "Before COVID"; "Before" all the life changing situations which seemingly happened out of the blue but there is a distinct divide in the "before" and "after" timeline.

Hanging by a thread. More like a spider's web. Caught up in my thoughts more than anything at all. 

Everything is okay. I'm just wary of the ground I'm standing on. Feeling a little like I'm finding my way through a house of mirrors. The secret is to look at the ground. Keep grounded. 

I had no idea I was going to write this. Not sure where this came from. It all started with the feeling I was walking into the day hanging on by a thread ...

Time Warp

Time has a magical way of ticking away no matter if one is sleeping or awake.

I started waking up early enough to give myself two bonus morning hours. The first few days were magical. Every time I looked at the clock, I patted myself on the back. I would have still been sleeping at this time last week. Each extra morning minute was a blessing.

Then life happened.

I started "doing all the hard things" so when my work day began, I had no tasks, phone calls, follow-ups or chores left. I opened my office door and worked with little distraction. I got things accomplished, in and out of that little office.

Then technology failed me.

I have oh-so-many tales to tell. One issue resolved is filled up by the next which had been silently waiting in line. I ticked off the boxes, fixed all I could fix myself and called for help when necessary. What would have buried me back in my early days of "computering" was managed sufficiently. 

Then came the challenges I brought on myself. "Oh no! The dishwasher isn't working right!!" I had forgotten I had run a rinse cycle the last time I used it; changed the settings; fixed. "Oh no! The kettle isn't working either!!" I had forgot to turn it on. "Oh no!! The microwave won't work!!" That one required outside assistance in the form of a might handy son. "Oh no! I can't sign into [something I set up last week]" I was accessing the account from the wrong site. 

Sometimes? We create our own havoc.

Yesterday, all was going according to plan. Until it wasn't. A phone call that was supposed to be a cut and dried answer and fix to my dilemma took an hour before I had to abandon ship and tend to incoming work calls and text messages. 

When the going gets tough, the tough get going. So I left.Two prior unsuccessful attempts to make bank deposits for my employer resulted in my decision to make this deposit close to home at (what I thought would be) a time when the bank wasn't busy. A chivalrous young person opened the door for me to enter and I repaid the favor by ensuring they got their place in front of me in the non-existent line. Their turn arrived swiftly. Mine didn't. Ten minutes in line. Five minutes with a new teller learning the ropes. Tick. Tick. Tick.

I had barely left home when the "check engine light" came on. Today? Really? Why do things feel like they compound on an already challenging day?

Another busy day at the office resulted in my mind pinging from one task to the next, fielding tasks which used to fall outside my realm of duty. Talking on the land line, when my cell phone rings is becoming part of my new reality. It happened again. And again. 

Finally, finally, finally!! The end of my day was nearing when I received an important call back in regards to my second job at the EXACT moment my son walked in the back door. I had to abandon (what I assumed would be) a brief face-to-face encounter with family, for the sake of duty.

Sigh.

I toyed with the idea of stopping at the store and picking up some chips at the end of my very long day (made even longer by getting up two hours early!), but talked myself out of it. I just wanted to go home.

How would the day have unfolded if I hadn't gotten up early? How did those hours vanish into thin air? Would I have maintained my sense of peace without those bonus morning hours? Perhaps not.

Even when one grants themselves a little extra time it often gets lost as the day progresses. If something you do brings a sense of calm into what may or may not become a hectic day, do it anyway. You deserve it.

Footprints in the Snow

I am feeling oddly giddy about the season we are in at the moment. Darkness lingers longer in the morning allowing me to pad about our dimly lit house with a sense of peace. Night arrives sooner which coincides nicely with my personal preference to power down early. And our first dusting of snow has reminded me of what I love about the upcoming weather ahead. Footprints in the snow.

I have stopped window-gazing lately so I haven't been spotting our neighborhood rabbits as regularly as I did once upon a time. But I have seen the odd one so I know they are there. There is simply no evidence of their presence.

Last night, my daughter arrived home after dark and told me to check out the oddly suspicious "rocks" in the neighbor's yard. Rocks? I was not in the rabbit mindset so it took a minute to clue into the fact there were rabbits next door. One big one and a small one.

What a happy moment it was as I gazed at what I am almost certain was a mom/baby combo. The baby was facing Mom, ever watchful of her movements. Baby tried to be still like Mom but its youthful exuberance trumped the "rock" pose and baby ran a small loop around Mom and eventually landed back in the same rabbit print in the snow. This happened twice before Mom decided it was time to move on. Baby leapt at the opportunity and raced across the street. Mom was in hot pursuit and they were checking out yards out of my view when I lost sight of them.

Ahhh! It is the season when even if I don't actually spot the rabbits, they leave evidence of their presence. Even when we have faith in what we cannot see, it lightens the spirit just a little more to see proof that what we believe to be true is fact.

Math Nerd

 It is a very good feeling to wake up early on a Saturday morning. What is most surprising to me is that I would actually opt to continue working today if I didn't have other plans. 

My work week ended on a good note (two uninterrupted work days resulted in two days tending math puzzles and spreadsheets which are my idea of fun). I actually have the desire to open my office door and carry on with my little math projects this morning (how does one define "nerd"?).

I tackled hard things within my home office setting this week and tamed the demons I knew were waiting for me bright and early Monday morning. There is nothing like slaying dragons to boost your adrenaline and enhance one's confidence level.

Oh, how those untamed dragons can deplete us. To run and hide from them takes an onerous amount of energy. To armor up, plan one's defense and take forward action? Exhilarating!

Numbers and me go back to my humble beginnings. I can picture Dad sitting at the kitchen table 'figgering' on paper and with his trusty little Arithma calculator ...

What I wouldn't give, to sit across that very kitchen table and talk with Dad again. "Whatcha figgerin', Dad?"

I feel a little less nerdy and a little more connected to myself and my genealogy when I remember Dad and his business sense. When I went through Mom's papers after she died, I found oh-so-many of Dad's calculations. His writing. His numbers. His thoroughness (I have the ledgers where he accounted for every penny spent, down to the cost of screws, for his farming deductions). I couldn't keep everything but I kept some.

I liked math in school. It made sense. Once you knew the basics and added layers of information onto that, it was relatively simple stuff. Black and white. Balance to zero. Checks and balances. Something I am always looking for within this little life of mine when I feel like I am on shaky ground.

If I hadn't gotten married and had a child as soon as I left home, I most likely would have chosen to pursue an education in accounting. What happened instead, is I became a bank teller and my career fell into my lap in the way it was intended.

Accounting and accountants without the personal touch of customer contact, face-to-face encounters and getting to know the story behind the numbers is not me. I didn't know this when I was 18 years old and entering the world of banking. I was shy and awkward. Customer contact was a skill I had to learn along the way.

My Grade Two teacher's comment in our school year book said simply, "Shy, except when she reads." Who knew this would translate into "Socially awkward, except when she works with numbers.", in my adulthood?

In my unwritten book "Defending My Life", I will defend my career path as the perfect fit for me. A mix of numbers and face-to-face interaction with customers taught me everything I needed to know. It was the foundation on which the rest of my working life was built.

A life of numbers without the personal touch isn't for me. Yes, you could lock me in a room with an Excel spreadsheet program and math puzzles to solve and I would be happy. But at the end of the day, I need my people.

No regrets. 

When you look back on your life, can you find the basis on which you built your "today"? Can you find solace in the choices made, which brought you to where you are? 

Even when the road is uncertain and one hits a few dead ends along the way, every detour has brought us to where we are right now. May you find comfort in knowing you are exactly where you are meant to be. Even when where you are isn't where you want to stay.

Cheating Myself

I love mornings. The time of day before the rest of the world wakes up. Everything I do is by choice because nothing is expected of me in those pre-workday hours. I revel in the quiet. That space is near and dear to me. Yet when I started slipping down the slippery slope of woe-is-me-ness lately, I see now, the first thing I abandoned was my precious morning time.

I turned on the repetitive loop of my Netflix favorites which lulled me back to sleep. Over and over again, until I could sleep no more. When I finally got out of bed, I felt the weight of the day on my shoulders which made it oh-so-hard to move. So I would turn on the computer or TV or any form of electronic diversion so I didn't have to think my thoughts. Doing the "hard things" that constitute my morning felt so very hard.

It isn't rocket science, but I finally figured out this small piece of the puzzle may be a good place to begin. Again.

I started getting out of bed by 5:00 a.m. or shortly thereafter. I would not allow myself to turn on my Netflix sleeping pill if the show would end after 5:00 a.m. If I woke up before that time, too bad, so sad. I would have to either fall back to sleep (if I was tired), lay there thinking my thoughts (if I didn't feel like getting out of bed) or simply get up. This was easier to accomplish than I imagined it would be.

The gains are so very well worth the loss of those two morning hours that I can never get back.

I expect little to nothing of myself in those bonus hours. By taking the burden of expectation off my shoulders I find myself puttering away at those little "hard things", to get them done and over with before the day expects something of me. Every little thing I cross off my small to-do-list makes every step forward easier.

I have not yet started writing to purge my thoughts before I start censoring myself, as Julia Cameron suggests in The Artist's Way (three handwritten pages as soon upon waking as one can manage). I don't enjoy listening to my uncensored self. I tend to be whiny, self absorbed, nit-picky, repetitive and weigh myself down with should-do's-that-rarely-get-done. Those morning pages may be cathartic but they haven't worked their magic with me. Yet.

Instead, I like to insert a little outside input (blogs &/or podcasts) into my thoughts and let that brew. I like to do a few mind exercises (word and number puzzles) and see if there are any morsels of insight that may trickle out my fingertips here. It's my personal formula, subject to change but it seems to be working. At least for now.

I love finding a podcast that speaks directly to me. More often than not, Glennon Doyle's "We Can Do Hard Things" podcast is a positive interaction (among Glennon, her sister Amanda and wife Abby) that fits the bill. The topics are thought provoking, their interaction is light and humorous and (very often) hits close to home.

I have so many Glennonisms that are my go-to-quotes and stories when I'm trying to find my way. When I speak, I often preface my sentence with "As Glennon says ...". In fact when my daughter was quoting one of my often repeated mantras to someone, she later asked "Was it Glennon or you who came up with that?"

The lower I feel, the less I can absorb. It is akin to too much rain falling on dry land. Nothing is absorbed. I'm flooded with that which should nourish my soul but nothing is seeping through the cracks. 

When I start my day early, there is enough of the dew from overnight to soften the soil which leaves a little more room to absorb the nourishment that comes from a morning shower of positive input.

When you know what works for YOU, do not deny yourself. Take back a little of what you know works, sit back and see if you can feel a difference. 

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.