So I had put in for vacation days for the end of this past week because I have the house to myself. It just so happened that I got really sick on Wednesday and mostly ended up using Thursday and Friday as sick days. And it was the best thing that could have happened to me, I think.
I had grand plans to book a hotel somewhere near the ocean and meet up with some friends there this afternoon. (I even bought a bathing suit and an adorable swim skirt to wear over it. Me — who neither swims nor tans, nor wants to be harpooned, for that matter.)
I also had grand plans to accomplish 40 billion other things on this brief hiatus from reality. And I did some shopping, ruined a load of laundry with a brand-new item that bled all over everything, dragged a ton of crap to the curb that I have been sick of looking at, and basically got my groove back, so to speak.
I know all the kids are calling this a staycation. I just wish I could be on it longer than just an extended weekend.
My anxiety’s been really high lately. This is the third time I’ve battled with nerves — the first was working for Her Royal Pretentiousness, which bled into my move to D.C. in 2002; the second time was when I wasn’t working and it bled into my first few months at my new job, and again now. Having had the pleasure of spending way too much time with my mother, I see that it runs in the family. I also speculate that family is a cause of jacked-up nerves. 😉
But in these few days by myself, in my own little corner of my own little room, I’m fine. I’m gloriously fine. Other than drowning in snot, of course. 🙂
I was looking at dining room sets the other day. I have a pretty decent-sized dining room, with nothing in it but boxes. I hadn’t finished unpacking when Mom landed on my doorstep, so her boxes are all piled in front of mine, and I haven’t had it in me to go through my old stuff. Most of it is clothing and I plan to donate it to charity, and so that’s my weekend project. Operation: Empty the shit out of some of the storage tubs, plz kthxbai.
But see, this is the key to making my anxieties subside — I’ve been feeling like I simply can’t buy a dining room table — not because I can’t afford it, but because I have nowhere to put it. Read: Life is the same as it was a year ago, and it will be this way next year.
*kicks that defeating thought to the curb with the exercise bike-turned-clothes-drying-rack*
It’s weird how walking through Marlo and RoomStore helped me to execute a mental breakthrough. Because now I want to like where I am. I always figured it might as well be painful to look at because it feels painful sometimes to live in. But maybe, just maybe, if I make some progress, it might inspire more progress.
Now, if I could do something about the 6,000-pound boulder known as writer’s block, I’ll be golden. But again, I need a new computer and computer desk and even though they aren’t in the immediate cards, I can look forward to writing again on a computer that doesn’t implode every time I try to run Firefox, Word and Photoshop simultaneously.
I think I’m in the throes of an early midlife crisis, although considering that I was having a late quarter-life crisis just a few years ago, I guess I’m always a Red Cross disaster area. 😉
I’m just really feeling like I’m not doing what I was put on this earth to do. But I don’t know what that is.
At church last week, they were saying how Jesus said, “The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”
I don’t hate my life, but I don’t love it right this moment, either. Well, I DO love it right at this exact moment — I can’t remember the last time I was this relaxed and happy — but I know that’ll change soon enough. 😉
I am starting to see the bigger picture, though — that I can’t move forward from this spot till I help others to catch up to me. I did that before and got burned, though — some people will just always be a sandbag dragging you down and keeping you from going forward to where you’re supposed to be.
So I’ve learned to rebel against people who need help. I have no patience left for them, especially if they make it clear that they are not willing to make the effort.
But I wonder, if all the people who get a glimpse of defeat welcome it into their worlds, what would they do if they tasted some success? Would they embrace it equally or run in the opposite direction? Were there times that I myself was dragged along to success when I wasn’t strong enough to reach it — or even envision it — on my own?
I think all of this is pointing me toward a greater purpose. I wasn’t meant to be a cube monkey or sole proprietor of the litterbox. Not only do I have dreams that I seem to have forgotten, but I’m starting to feel the stirrings of visions I’ve not had the ability to see.
And they all hinge on one thing.
‘Scuse me — gotta go scrub my butt. Head cold be damned — there’s a world out there that needs a-changin’. And I’m the only one who can do my part of it. …