It feels like spring today.
The sun is soft and the fresh air renews our energies and our hopes. The past is past, but the future is before us.
Peace.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Friday, April 6, 2012
Lunch - good or bad?
I had lunch with a friend today, and now I'm oddly depressed. I'm having trouble figuring out why.
Part of it is that I think I'm just exhausted; it's been a long and tiring week, and I feel like everything continually gets dumped on my lap to figure out. Bills, taxes, housecleaning, cooking, laundry, marketing, and supervising the girls all fall on me. Sometimes I just want a week or so off. Even a few days of a break. That's a full time load of work right there. Then I've got the four jobs, all jangling round in my mind.
So sometimes there's not that much room left in there for my friends' issues.
My friend is actually really happy. The boyfriend who was being lukewarm broke up with her a few months ago. She was heartbroken, but within weeks she met her current boyfriend. And he seems really, really awesome. She says he might be the one she's been waiting for.
He's super athletic, so they're working out together all the time. She's tall and has always looked great, but now she says she's down to a size six. I know I should be happy for her. But I just felt a bit worried, like maybe she was taking her weight too low to please him. She looks good a bit heavier. I kept asking myself if I was being jealous and insecure because I'm not at all happy with my own weight and fitness right now. But I don't think so. I think I actually don't think this looks healthy for her.
It was wonderful to hear how happy she is, especially after so, so many struggles with love. I guess I'm just worried that I've heard these good starts before. I don't want to watch the problems crop up. I don't want to see her get hurt one more time.
So, hopefully, her happiness and contentment is secure, and this guy can really be the one that works out for her. I hope so. I hope she gets whatever can make her feel good. I just wish I wasn't feeling so cynical about it.
Part of it is that I think I'm just exhausted; it's been a long and tiring week, and I feel like everything continually gets dumped on my lap to figure out. Bills, taxes, housecleaning, cooking, laundry, marketing, and supervising the girls all fall on me. Sometimes I just want a week or so off. Even a few days of a break. That's a full time load of work right there. Then I've got the four jobs, all jangling round in my mind.
So sometimes there's not that much room left in there for my friends' issues.
My friend is actually really happy. The boyfriend who was being lukewarm broke up with her a few months ago. She was heartbroken, but within weeks she met her current boyfriend. And he seems really, really awesome. She says he might be the one she's been waiting for.
He's super athletic, so they're working out together all the time. She's tall and has always looked great, but now she says she's down to a size six. I know I should be happy for her. But I just felt a bit worried, like maybe she was taking her weight too low to please him. She looks good a bit heavier. I kept asking myself if I was being jealous and insecure because I'm not at all happy with my own weight and fitness right now. But I don't think so. I think I actually don't think this looks healthy for her.
It was wonderful to hear how happy she is, especially after so, so many struggles with love. I guess I'm just worried that I've heard these good starts before. I don't want to watch the problems crop up. I don't want to see her get hurt one more time.
So, hopefully, her happiness and contentment is secure, and this guy can really be the one that works out for her. I hope so. I hope she gets whatever can make her feel good. I just wish I wasn't feeling so cynical about it.
Another Comment
Before I left CBTL, I bought one of their new Wild Cherry Tea Lattes. It sounds better than it is. I think I prefer it as just the plain hot tea. This one has a lingering flavor disturbingly reminiscent of cough syrup.
Comment
For all my fretting, I really do love my job. It stuns me still that I get to sit around (or stand around) in various places, moving information from one form to another and get handsomely paid. Yes, I do get stressed. Yes, I do procrastinate when I'm stressed. But any job involves work - that's just the nature of working.
One thing I'm noticing right now. Character counts are tricky to me. I have a pretty good intuitive sense of word counts - I know how much text 100 words is or 200 words or 500 words. But when the application limits characters, I'm lost. I have no working idea of how much writing equals 2000 characters. Then I have to think about if I want to use big words or littler ones, and even where I want to put or omit spaces.
Tricky, huh?
One thing I'm noticing right now. Character counts are tricky to me. I have a pretty good intuitive sense of word counts - I know how much text 100 words is or 200 words or 500 words. But when the application limits characters, I'm lost. I have no working idea of how much writing equals 2000 characters. Then I have to think about if I want to use big words or littler ones, and even where I want to put or omit spaces.
Tricky, huh?
The First Week of April
This week has been an uphill slog. Actually, even an uphill slog sounds a bit appealing. At least it would be physical exertion, something I am sorely lacking of late. If I don't get my schedule together and get regular yoga back into my life, I'm going to fade away.
With everybody back at school, I have spent every day this week working from the time I wake up until the time I go to bed. If I'm not cooking then I'm picking someone up or dropping them off. If I'm not busy with errands, then I'm enjoying "quiet time" sitting at my computer and working. And I've had to squeeze in all the extra work of preparing for Easter too, making each day this week a mix of shopping and school and work.
I had a big meeting yesterday that took almost six hours of the day, and then came home to where I had left dinner cooking and had pre-boiled the eggs to squeeze in a family dinner and eggdyeing with my parents. Fell into bed with three proposals unwritten.
Feeling the buildup of work that I want to finish but can't quite get to really gets to me. A-ha, you say. So why aren't you working now? Well, in a way, I am. I'm switching gears to quiet, thinking workmode. I made a list this morning and it's not as bad as I feared. Yes, I do have eight proposals to complete. But only three of them were due last week, so I'll get those done tonight. The rest were due today, but I'm sure by Monday will be fine.
So if I can relax... and just let it flow... I'll catch up and start next week fresh.
I really do feel run down. I injured my back again this week, but couldn't really slow down for the pain, so just pushed through it. Yesterday and today, the anxiety is making my stomach hurt. This is how out of sorts I feel: I was out working at CBTL and I wanted to come home instead. It was too loud and hectic; all the people nearby me were projecting anxious, hyper-work energy. I actually craved silence and being alone.
Now I'm at my peaceful ocean of a desk, floating in its sea-green space. A breeze is moving the tree outside my window and the chimes are twisting in the currents. It is much more peaceful.
With everybody back at school, I have spent every day this week working from the time I wake up until the time I go to bed. If I'm not cooking then I'm picking someone up or dropping them off. If I'm not busy with errands, then I'm enjoying "quiet time" sitting at my computer and working. And I've had to squeeze in all the extra work of preparing for Easter too, making each day this week a mix of shopping and school and work.
I had a big meeting yesterday that took almost six hours of the day, and then came home to where I had left dinner cooking and had pre-boiled the eggs to squeeze in a family dinner and eggdyeing with my parents. Fell into bed with three proposals unwritten.
Feeling the buildup of work that I want to finish but can't quite get to really gets to me. A-ha, you say. So why aren't you working now? Well, in a way, I am. I'm switching gears to quiet, thinking workmode. I made a list this morning and it's not as bad as I feared. Yes, I do have eight proposals to complete. But only three of them were due last week, so I'll get those done tonight. The rest were due today, but I'm sure by Monday will be fine.
So if I can relax... and just let it flow... I'll catch up and start next week fresh.
I really do feel run down. I injured my back again this week, but couldn't really slow down for the pain, so just pushed through it. Yesterday and today, the anxiety is making my stomach hurt. This is how out of sorts I feel: I was out working at CBTL and I wanted to come home instead. It was too loud and hectic; all the people nearby me were projecting anxious, hyper-work energy. I actually craved silence and being alone.
Now I'm at my peaceful ocean of a desk, floating in its sea-green space. A breeze is moving the tree outside my window and the chimes are twisting in the currents. It is much more peaceful.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
The older I get, the more I think I don't understand life at all.
When I was younger, I was too busy living to think too much about meaning. I knew I had to work hard and succeed. I knew I should care about and help others. But I didn't get LIFE. You know? I was just too young and inexperienced.
Often I still feel frightfully young and uncertain of things, like there is so much more out there to experience and consider. And really, I feel like it is all in here, and not "out there" at all. That the in-hereness of LIFE is one of its secrets that you start to figure out when you slow down and be.
I spend a lot of my time in the outer world. Doing things, achieving, accomplishing, striving, surviving. Generally, I like it there. I enjoy the busyness and the socialness and the continuity of my life. BUT I also like the sense I carry within me, a quiet, still, heavy, calm, soothing awareness that real life is inside and that all the rest of it is just illusion and trappings. It's why I can be happy even when I'm sad, and calm even when I'm agitated. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's okay too. It's what I feel.
Paradoxically, I've been feeling quite middle-aged of late. That's unusual for me. I convinced myself long ago that I was going to live well into my 90s, so I usually tend to think of my 40s as being a time of youth and vibrancy, not even halfway along my path this time through. But lately I'm driving in the car, or shopping, or writing, and I see myself as others most. A 43 year old woman, overweight, tired, frazzled hair and aging skin. You can't hide the reality of all of that behind an energetic smile. And it's okay. It's okay to me to be what I am. I'm not frightened of it or resisting it. Most of me actually embraces it. I worked hard to get to this day, this moment, and I have earned all of my past. It just seems sort of ... weird, I guess.
But happy. Mostly happy.
When I was younger, I was too busy living to think too much about meaning. I knew I had to work hard and succeed. I knew I should care about and help others. But I didn't get LIFE. You know? I was just too young and inexperienced.
Often I still feel frightfully young and uncertain of things, like there is so much more out there to experience and consider. And really, I feel like it is all in here, and not "out there" at all. That the in-hereness of LIFE is one of its secrets that you start to figure out when you slow down and be.
I spend a lot of my time in the outer world. Doing things, achieving, accomplishing, striving, surviving. Generally, I like it there. I enjoy the busyness and the socialness and the continuity of my life. BUT I also like the sense I carry within me, a quiet, still, heavy, calm, soothing awareness that real life is inside and that all the rest of it is just illusion and trappings. It's why I can be happy even when I'm sad, and calm even when I'm agitated. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's okay too. It's what I feel.
Paradoxically, I've been feeling quite middle-aged of late. That's unusual for me. I convinced myself long ago that I was going to live well into my 90s, so I usually tend to think of my 40s as being a time of youth and vibrancy, not even halfway along my path this time through. But lately I'm driving in the car, or shopping, or writing, and I see myself as others most. A 43 year old woman, overweight, tired, frazzled hair and aging skin. You can't hide the reality of all of that behind an energetic smile. And it's okay. It's okay to me to be what I am. I'm not frightened of it or resisting it. Most of me actually embraces it. I worked hard to get to this day, this moment, and I have earned all of my past. It just seems sort of ... weird, I guess.
But happy. Mostly happy.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
In a Rush
Wow. Time just keeps slipping by! I'm working four part-time jobs plus taking a writing class so I really am busy all the time now. I spent five hours today JUST sending EMAILS as part of pulling together a fundraiser. And it's not taking place until June.
Emails are writing in quick little five minute bursts! I've written dozens of them today.
Ha Ha though - Just got the latest comments from yesterday's assignment and AGAIN, I just love them!
"But otherwise, I have nothing else to suggest. This is great work, with very good dialogue and a good introduction to K. Nice work, Marie."
Emails are writing in quick little five minute bursts! I've written dozens of them today.
Ha Ha though - Just got the latest comments from yesterday's assignment and AGAIN, I just love them!
"But otherwise, I have nothing else to suggest. This is great work, with very good dialogue and a good introduction to K. Nice work, Marie."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)