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.