Wanting, needing, doing and getting

The crazy part of this post is that I came up with the title in July to cover how I felt stuck and how I felt overwhelmed with all of the things that were expected of me that I 1, didn't think I could accomplish and 2, didn't want turfed upon me.

How much things change and how much they ironically remain the same.

I'm writing this nugget from Barnes and Noble this rainy evening. Prepared to spend now until close or hunger force me out making edits and watching incredibly awkward people make incredibly small talk.

I submitted my "preliminary" draft. It was in my advisors' hands for a couple of weeks. A couple of long and torturous weeks when the demons of self-doubt reigned in my head. I knew that I'd have to do edits and I'd have things to reconsider. What I never realized was that they would come completely in line with everything else that was going wrong or right in my life. I don't seem sure of what I want to do- I plucked that directly out of one of my advisors' emails. I haven't found my argument yet- that was what the other one said.  So, so, so, so true and so mind boggling. I've spent so much of my life feathering my safety net. I've spent it running to the least evil or doing what I thought I should. What do I want to do? What is my argument?

Humor is about pleasure. Sometimes it's inappropriate. Sometimes it pushes and pulls at things in us that we would rather keep guarded... sometimes it makes us look at the world a little cockeyed or upside down. But what it does is transformative through its intrinsic nature. It's entailed upon a delicious sensation... and no wonder I've been stuck: I've been so focused on not being able to get through the process and making plan b's that I haven't sought out and tasted the good stuff. So, here in this bookstore- with this awkward conversation and asthmatic indie music and horrible lighting. The good stuff is on the shelves and sliding from my brain through my fingertips and into this 2nd proposal draft.

Waiting is the hardest part

On Monday I handed in a preliminary draft. It's going to need a lot... My advisors let me know that it'd be a couple of weeks until they got back to me.

I dealt with the anxiety of having it in their laps ok for the first two days, but I've been a wreck since Wednesday, not knowing what to do with myself to get away from this feeling of sheer terror that within the next two weeks I will be in receipt of emails containing things I don't want to hear and the panic of "what if" I can't do what they ask of me. Trying to figure out a good way to calm down.

Because

I abhor ellipses. Finish your thought. The end. Hedging is becoming exhausting. My patience is thread bare. I want reasons out of people. I want the whys and I want resolution. I want out of this nebulous ellipsis of an existence and into something with teeth, backbone, common sense and yes, compassion. I'm always surprised at people who don't tell the truth out of fear of being hurtful. The truth comes out irregardless. It's the band aid vs water torture. Let it be over and let's move on.

Meltdown

Letting go of things out of my control... Such as other people's thoughts and behaviors is my big goal right now. This morning however was a rough one. Today was earmarked for grad work after a week of leaving school between 9 and 10 pm every night and hostessing a family party last night.
The meltdown came from trying to open a door and realizing that a storm window was stuck when someone was told not to touch it. I've never been able to open this window myself. This was why company was told not to touch it and after two bloody thumbs and fifteen minutes of what could only be called a grandmal tantrum complete with phone calls to the one person who knows how to fix it and the one who screwed it up, I feel both ridiculous and helpless. My day feels shot because I wonder how on earth I can finish the PhD if I can't even open an effing window. I have to remember, it's like peanut butter and tuna fish or apples and oranges if you lack imagination. I can't do anything about the window. I said my peace- someone will be over to fix it this afternoon and if I decide to still be pissed, I'll say it again. I can make headway on the grad work and that's what I need to focus on now- perhaps through a walk since that storm window isn't letting any air in :p

I just want my bed

I couldn't do anything right today... Well that's a lie. I had a productive meeting this morning and I made someone laugh and I spent the evening celebrating the health of a friend... But I really couldn't catch a break today. I fastened my hospital gown incorrectly, but had a helpful, motherly x-ray tech fix it. I got chewed out by someone who still felt badly over something I didn't say and I still can't figure out why I want something that's so counterintuitive. Why do I care so much about something that has passed? Something that I need to let go... I want to be angry or mutually smitten, but an equal amount wants to move on...How do I not stew or pine or gripe? I need my bed.

Don't fall

Graceful people don't choke because they take small bites.
Graceful people don't trip because they're here right now, not simply in transit
Graceful people don't slouch because they know that down isn't out
Graceful people don't swear because they know it's all a gift
Graceful people don't worry because they know that there is opportunity in challenge and have faith in themselves
Graceful people don't yell because they know that most people will want to hear what they have to say
Graceful people don't sweat because they walk a step at a time instead of sprinting constantly
Graceful people don't get fat because they know when they are satisfied
Graceful people are never alone because they carry the strength of those who love them with them where ever they go

Space

I keep hearing the phrase, Life's about what you give, not what you give.
I'm trying to simplify right now. To get rid of the distractions that never should've made the to do list or cluttered the shelves of my life (or office, if we're being literal).
I like cleaning out, leaning things up. Rearranging and cutting ties. I've always been afraid that a sparse life would be devoid of pleasure... But I'm seeing that a simple life has so much more room for the pleasures that I really want.

Insomniac

There was this glib full of themselves mens acapella group in college that sang this ridiculous song called insomniac. I remember that sometimes and the gorgeous narcissistic bass who sang lead on it. Thinking of him leads to thoughts of a trip to PR and a less than acceptable second tenor blowing my crush wide opened.

The fact of the matter is that I've always had an infatuation with dark and difficult things, with things that resonated.

I'm figuring out what I want right now and how that all works with me and it's so new and so uncomfortable. People making suggestions along the way have no idea as to who I am and I'm trying to be polite as I disregard their messages as I seek and explore. Its all so strange and uncomfortable...

Wide awake

It's still almost 80 degrees out here. I fell asleep early tonight only to wake at midnight. I've given up on trying to fall asleep upstairs and came down to my comfy couch to see if sleep is in the cards tonight.

Things aren't good, but they're moving. I'm not finding balance yet, but I'm moving towards it. Anything that I can pick off of the prioritized list right now feels like a win.

These things I know

The only way out is through.
I can only drown if I stop swimming.
Nothing is worse than the feeling of regret.

Four days

It seems like a lifetime...insert another time passes soooo slowly cliche here- maybe like molasses in January...like sloths in heat?

So much has happened, but I'm still in a holding pattern. A family member just received a huge promotion and is moving closer to home. I received a pretty important work related award. I had a new project forced upon me at work and a new series of concerns to try and get the district to see my way on. I found out two people I thought were interesting aren't interested. I spoke with a third who I'm unsure of and then there's the reason for the post.

I'm a person who believes in signs. Stars need to align, providential kind of things allow me to believe in my path...it's that feeling or maybe more. I have that about somebody right now. I know that we could have a great time together, but I haven't heard from him in four days.
I'm trying to bury myself in outstanding work... I'll let you know how that works.

Leaning in

I'm exhausted of playing defense. Defending myself, my wants, my priorities to everyone including myself is no longer on the to do list. People aren't always going to understand me, people aren't usually going to put my needs first and some people don't want what's best for me so they're going to say snarky things and try to cut me down. It's my job to push and nurture my own agenda. I'm not going to apologize for that term. I'm not going to defend what I think is important. People who want an exchange of ideas can listen and expect the same from me and if they aren't sold they can go off on their merry way as I do the same. The puppet masters haven't been minding the strings well and I feel like I'm choking right now.

The middle pt. 2

There's something to be said about sitting with pain and standing in the fire. We can't run. The only way out is through. I believe in all of that. Our discomfort and our problems are our teachers.

My issue is with "sitting" with discomfort. When does the time come to process it all? To figure it all out? I think most of us have to run with our discomfort. Have to tuck it up under our arms or give it a piggy back and charge off into our next meeting... How do we be in the middle and be everything else we are?

Blinking

I'm so upset.
I had a wonderful night filled with compliments and laughs. And then I have someone who treats me like I don't matter... It's like nothing wasn't the bottom of the food chain- there was a less than nothing and that's where he'd regard me if he were thinking of me enough to place me at all.
It's exhausting, this feeling and it doesn't just come from him either. There are so many people in my life right now who just drain and drain and take and take and I really can't deal with them anymore.
One of my beautiful Spaniards noted of me that I seemed very closed off... Is it any wonder? When this is how I feel when I open myself up. It hurts. And it's a continual hurt and dejection that I don't have the grace to forebear silently and I don't have the blinking capacity to hold back the tears.

I'm tired of coming in last. I'm tired of being the after thought or the consolation prize. I'm so sick of being the supporting cast in my own life.

I don't know what it is that I send out or how it is that I act... but it ends now. If someone can't treat me well, then I'm not bothering with them at all. Chide me for looking for greener pastures, but I'm not settling. I'd rather be lonely than feel like this.

choking

I bit off far, far, far too much to chew again.
People are expecting things from me that I'm too exhausted to supply and I'm expecting things out of me that I'm getting pissed about... I can't articulate it well, but you know how you feel all used up when you're constantly running ragged for other things and you can't seem to make heads or tails of anything and everything that you wanted for yourself is falling by the wayside? In Spanish they use the term agotada... it's like dried up. Literally dripped out or used up. That's how I feel right now.
I feel like I'm letting everyone down including myself.

I've allowed deadlines to fly by me.
I can't seem to articulate how I really feel or what I really want to anyone.
It's like the worst sort of trapped... when your mind won't stop running and it's editorializing on your whole day, judging without any sort of insight.
I feel dejected and I just want a few days where I don't have to answer to anyone or feel anything.

In the garden

It's after nine here and I'm sitting comfortably in my back yard in a long sleeved shirt and my fave shorts... Loving the fact they require a belt now, but I digress.

I'm happy right now. Not an anxious, bubbly happy, not an adrenal pumping if he doesn't kiss me I'll die happy, but a "well done" sort of happy.

I feel as though I did everything I needed to this weekend and I did it right. I reclaimed some things that needed attention (the shed, the weeding, the floors and some car work) and relinquished some of the things that I gracefully needed to let go of. I did it quietly without raising an eyebrow and I'm realizing two things: the most poignantly perfect things in life whisper and people have one decision they should make every morning. The brilliant decision is, am I going to happen to life or am I going to let it happen to me. The quote isn't mine, but I think this is the basis of what any life coach or motivational speaker would tell anyone struggling,

This is pertinent to everything in my life right now, but resonates best in a couple of important things. 1, one of my coworkers was diagnosed with ALS in October. Those of you who know anything about ALS know that it's a death sentence. Instead of wallowing, his friends, family and colleagues rallied around him... And raised over 21000 that will remain locally. Over 400 of us showed up at the ALS walk yesterday for him. It was stunning... That's what community is and I'm proud to be a part of it. It's ironic how all of these years I've been scrambling to get out of this town, thinking this was all beneath me, and feeding the story of how I'm here because of my own screw ups. I'm so grateful that I'm here. I'm grateful for every person I've met on this less than perfect road and every gift that the obstacles in my life have proven to be.

2, much less earth shaking, but so important for my life: I get overwhelmed and I solved something difficult today. When I see a mess, I think "how the hell did this happen," "why bother, it's just going to get wrecked again" or "how am I ever going to do this by myself." Sometimes I reach out- it's a 50/50 shot over whether or not it helps. Sometimes I procrastinate- normally not wasting time on the internet, but we all have our foibles. Today, I just decided I was going to do something. I didn't look for clues, I just jumped in and they popped out at me. I resolved something that's been eluding me for three years in a matter of thirty minutes. I think the two biggest issues were that it wasn't technically my mess to begin with and that I have this nasty habit of waiting for the stars to guide me when there's a perfectly good flashlight beside me. It isn't completely done, but it's finally serving its proper purpose and I'm proud of myself. It isn't a matter of celestial importance... it's just something that makes my home My home.

Call it not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Call it selfish and silly of me to spend a perfectly good blog on it and chide yourself for wasting time reading this. Or do something that's important to you or something simple that would make your life better and then, pull a chair into the back yard with a cup of tea and enjoy the weather, starless or not.

It's peaceful, it's now and that's all that matters.

In the middle

Yesterday morning's awful news was followed by more. My other favorite pregnant woman had to have an emergency c-section and lost one of her twin babies. Thank God the little girl is healthy. We just don't know what to do for her and her husband. We're praying and planning on having meals delivered... but how do you take away someone's suffering? How do you make a loss easier to get through... How can we light the tunnel?

Pause

My life has been upside down the past few weeks. Travel, meetings and new irritations and obligations at work have left me feeling less like a human being and more like a number. It's been far too easy to curl up on the couch or dive into junk food lamenting "why me?"

A moment of pause occurred this morning- one of my favorite mothers to be lost her cousin and best friend. He was our age, had a baby boy and just lost his third battle with leukemia.
My heart goes out to her family.

Be grateful for the struggle... because you don't know when or how it's going to end. The fight will define you, so fight passionately and gracefully.

so confused

I'm grateful for the connections forged.
I'm grateful for the laughs.
I'm grateful for people with faith in me.

I just feel frustrated that chapter 3 isn't coming together "on it's own". The semester is basically over- I need to send this out and it's incomplete.
I also feel disappointed- people who I love want to see me finish this. They think I'm wasting my time in my current job and that I need to finish and find something new. I haven't seen what that "new" is and I think that with everything changing in education, it would be naive of me not to think that it's all going to affect my future career should it be in education.
Should it not be in education, I'm trying to convince myself that no degree is a waste of time or $... what you learn is yours. That piece of paper... that's power.

Under pressure

Sometimes you just want your own bed.
I always craved adventure and a life that everyone else thought of as exciting. And while my life is full...and full of a lot of things that keep me constantly busy, I'm realizing that the more I travel, the more I really like my own home.
I had to wait thirty extra minutes for dinner last night and wound up eating alone because there was a show about to begin. I waited 35 minutes for a bus and another 15 for the same bus in the evening... I take for granted that in my own house and in my own kitchen I get to eat and do as I please. My car is right there-no lines, no waiting and no paying for parking. Little things. I know these are little things that are givens or on autopilot at home.
While I am grateful to be in a beautiful hotel room, learning a ton and having my voice heard, I miss my bed and my blender.

Grace

Figuring out how to do this on my phone has been a little tricky, so this may be followed by the post it references from last year. I cut and paste the following from a post entitled graceful:

"Grace is agility, finesse, courtesy, decency, goodwill, blessing and benediction. The verb has to do with honoring, dignifying, embellishing and beautifying.

I need to be flexible.

I need to be kind.

I need to be thankful.

I need to add good stuff into this world."

I amend that last statement: I need to acknowledge the good stuff in this world and rather than trying to forge this unique, unfounded and unrelated path, I need to collaborate with and build upon and again, to acknowledge the wonderful that exists.

I am fortunate enough that I was able to spend last week in Spain. In Barcelona, I had men flocking to me in a way that had never happened before. There were two reasons that the friends who I spoke with told me that this happened: 1, I was open to receiving happiness- I was ready to be taken out, lavished with compliments and enjoy my company. 2, I had nothing to prove. I was comfortable with myself and just grateful for what was going on right then. It was spectacular.

I just got off of the phone this evening with someone who I think I like and who, miracle of miracles seems to actually like me too. We were talking about what I do and like to do and I made a self deprecating comment about how I was excited about picking up sticks in the yard. He said something cute back to let me know that he didn't think it was as lame as I was presenting it and then I realized that half of the things that I'd presented to him I'd done the same thing with: my schedule, what I think is a lack of interests, my eating habits, even the sparse details of my trip I gave him. It isn't just him I do it with. I feel like I spend my whole life apologizing or justifying who I am and why I follow my own whims and ambitions rather than someone else's and cutting myself down for not truly being this amazing, charismatic woman who I have set up in my minds eye. She's someone who really isn't me and who I fear I'll never measure up to. An example of this: I have a job opportunity out of state that most people would jump at, but I don't want to pursue it and I feel like I have to defend myself, not only to others, but to myself.

I need to be grateful and gracious with myself...the me who is right here, right now. The me who talks too much when she's nervous and blushes when hot spanish men lay it on thickly. The me who still isn't sure how to figure out her proposal or how to reach her students somedays or why she's banging her head against the wall wanting someone who doesn't want her back. I know that that was focusing on the negatives and I feel like I spend 80 percent of my alone time castigating myself for being this person rather than having the decency and courtesy to welcome her in for a cup of tea, thank her for caring so much, validating her and moving on. I'm getting so worn out from beating myself up over what I want and what I love... And feeling as though I have to be anything different... I think that a lot of the change that I'm going through in my life right now isn't to make me a "different and better" person... I'm not sloughing off the pounds and learning new ways to nourish my body and mind to become someone I don't recognize- I'm doing this all to simplify. I've been holding up the welcome banners like guests at a surprise party who haven't realized the guest of honor is already in their midst.

What I realize now is that I'm cutting back the layers, sloughing off the skins and examining each one to find out why I needed it and thank it for what it served.

What I should uncover is an essential me. A me who is caring and compassionate and graceful. A me who is confident and comfortable in her relationships and knows the why and how to deal with the sticky- and finds something to be grateful for even in the challenge. A me not completely unlike that minds eye me, except for this me is blessed by the wisdom that this sometimes broken, but always beautiful path has imparted and she doesn't begrudge me for taking the scenic route.

I need to stop expecting this miracle stranger and start welcoming each incarnation of me back as I take this journey both towards an external goal and to who I really am at the core. I need to appreciate the messiness of it all and allow myself to find grace and be gracious to myself even when the road gets muddy.

insatiable

Do you ever have a time when you don't feel full... when you think there's a void?
You don't feel like you can focus...
Restless... crawling out of your skin... feeling sooo consumptive?
I can't find the pulse of it tonight, the source...
Grrr... I need to sleep and figure this all out.

Compromise

I understand growth requires change. I'm the poster child for it right now- changing my lifestyle (eating, exercise, free time escapades, etc), changing careers soon and hopefully changing prefixes by next May.

I get that to be successful we have to please someone else in some capacity, but I resent that lately making others happy is diminishing me. If I'm clear on my wants and intentions, why are people wasting my time?

Methodology

ELL or L2L?
How many comics?
How many commercials?
What if they don't understand the questions?
What if my data is garbage?

Finishing up the methodology and tweaking the theoretical framework and handing it over for commentary.

Listening to WISH interview with Mel Robbins and while I find her a little brusque and hard on the ears she's incredible.

Her ideas that I love: fine=mediocrity which is like a C in life. It's unacceptable.

"there is no right time there is only right now"- we'll never want to do the things we really need to do to change, we'll never feel like it, so we just need to do it. We need to be clear about what we want. We need goals as a barometer for what is important and what is not. To be interesting we need to be interested. It's not based on how we feel, it's based on what we want and how we know we can get there.

The Mean Reds

I think that Audrey Hepburn films have so much to teach us about ourselves... Breakfast at Tiffany's contains some of my favorite quotes and ideas in the world:

1. Moon River. One of the most amazing songs ever, both despite and because of it's limited tonalities/ range.

2. The cat named Cat. Holly and Cat don't belong to each other. She figures one day when she finds where she belongs she'll buy some furniture and name the cat.

3. The mean reds. It's when you're afraid, but you can't pick out exactly what you're afraid of.

I've got a bad case of the mean reds right now... but I think I know what I'm afraid of and it just feels so irrational. I'm afraid that my best won't be good enough, so I don't want to even try. I'm afraid that someone might reject me, so I'm giving them other reasons so that I have excuses and I can fault them or something superficial about myself. It's easier to think that someone is shallow or an ass than that you simply aren't right for each other. It's easier to hold people at arm's length with the excuse that I have work to finish or that this is my temporary home--I have a doctorate, some novels and a couple of other countries to call my own before I expire. I'm afraid of what I'll want when I have everything that I want. I'm afraid that I will regret the things I passed up here. I'm afraid of what I'll have to give up and what I'll have to gain on the path. Inertia doesn't suit me. I feel this awful vacancy... this reaching urgency in the pit of my gut and I need something so desperately to fill it. I need to get over this hump and move on with my life.

Come on chapter 3.

the shape of things

I haven't posted in months... stuck isn't really a fun place to be and it's an even worse place to share.  I've spent four months stuck on this proposal. Four months. I've had a lot on my plate and a lot of road blocks. I took on extra projects at work and found out that I didn't get into a conference I'd both really wanted to present at and was very scared of getting into and traveling to. On a good note, I've also made some headway with cycling and I'm finally able to attempt to run again.

The stuck changed this week. I was confronted by something that worried the crap out of me. I had the potential to make an ass out of myself in a very public forum on multiple occasions. I was having a huge panic attack about it, when someone brought up the very valid point of "so what?"He didn't really put that nicely and at first I was angry and argued about how stupid I'd look if x, y or z happened. "IF" seems like an innocuous little word- it's not. We build up these horrendous situations, probable or not that paralyze us. We stop moving and stop doing the work that we either need or want to do and we wind up letting fear work us over... when we finally snap out of it, months have passed and life has gone on... it will do that, whether or not we're participating in it.

He had a lovely response to my pretend situations- that I knew my $h#t and I'd be fine. He was right, but the kicker still was that "so what?"At first I thought that he was being demeaning. This was important, and not just to me, but then I shifted how I perceived his message: I would do it either way and worrying wouldn't make it any better... the only thing it was accomplishing was making me miserable.

We put things, activities, priorities on pedestals. We make them so important that their shapes waver from something logical, tangible and desirable to something completely unobtainable and insurmountable. We want to be perfect at them and when we can't we beat ourselves up or just don't bother and so that pedestal rises- it goes from step stool to Everest. We panic. It's tiring. This whole cycle of panicking, wanting perfect, not being able to deliver and then feeling bitter.

Instead of focusing on what I can't do and how bad things could go, I've decided to focus on how good can I make it. The fact is we can fail at anything... but we can also be amazing at anything.
We can be so successful, but we can really only have our cake and eat it too if we're present while we're doing it- that means smelling the flowers instead of rushing past to the next appointment. There will always be another project and if we're confident that we can finish it and do a great job, we should be able to enjoy the right now without panicking about how we're going to ever get from point a to c, or worse yet, how we're not going to get there.

So, on the happy note, I just have a few changes to make to my chapter's one and two and some work to do on chapter three and I'll be ready to submit my first draft- woo!