Why Rush It?

Let me preface this post by letting you know that I am in a dark place today, a black mood so to speak,  so those of you looking for an uplifting, life affirming read, please check back later as this one will not satisfy you in the least. Right now, I seem to be grappling with the speed with which our lives are flying by, and yet, how we are steadfastly mired in one place while others seem to be moving forward, growing and changing, all the while making plans and actually seeing them to fruition.  It is a marvel to us that we seem to be trying all different options and yet nothing seems to be working.  Maintaining our optimism is really an option that has worn out its welcome and despite my efforts to 'stay positive' for the children, I am feeling pretty battle weary.  I have been dreading the holidays since we started school knowing that they would be speeding our way now and we would be hit full-on while we are still financially unstable.  Which leads directly to my gripe of the day...while it is bad enough that I need to face the fact that the holidays are coming, I ask you, must they all come at once?

I was shopping yesterday and I entered a store which had Halloween displayed out in front, Thanksgiving/harvest right behind that and the entire other side of the store was Christmas-themed.  Holy heck!  It was my worst nightmare come to life.  Had this retailer somehow entered my thoughts and decided to hand me my own personal horror story in a one-stop shopping environment?  My fear...no money, lots of holidays to manage...bulked out in my honor. I simply do not understand the rush to get through all the holidays we are supposed to enjoy.  Retailers did not do this back when I was a child and yet we managed to get through each one with decorations and gifts as applicable.  How did we manage to do that with so little prep time?  A wonder, no?

Unfortunately, in our rush-rush society, this seems to be our new normal for the holiday season. So, with that in mind, I am heading to Target and since I find them to always be head of the game, I will be sure to pick up some Valentine cards along with my groceries.

Knowing Headaches

This has been an odd weekend for me.  The days have crawled by for no apparent reason and their length is so obvious, even my husband commented that these two days seem much longer than most.  Try as I might, I cannot put a finger on why they seem unbearably long as the weekend has been pretty good.  The weather has been gorgeous and we have spent a lot of time outside playing plus, despite our usual weekend homework wars, there were no big battles to be fought.  As a matter of fact, I started the weekend off in a particularly good mood as my best friend had brain surgery on Thursday morning and had already texted me (yes, I blown away, too) by Friday morning.  By Friday afternoon, she had already called me and she was happily ensconced at home by 1pm EST on Saturday.  The weeks leading up to the surgery were filled with dread and fear of the unknown and yet, after 4.5 hours of surgery, she was able to text and talk to me the very next day.  We are all amazed and very, very grateful.

Of course, being prone to migraines myself, I could not have survived the weekend without a monster 'post-traumatic stress' whopper of a headache hitting me at 3am this morning.  Nothing starts the morning off right better than being startled awake by searing pain such that I thought my brain was exploding within the confines of my skull.  Being no stranger to these headaches and knowing their aftermath intimately, I braced for a long day and was met with one.  When I told my friend about my migraine (interestingly she has not suffered even a mild headache since her operation), she suggested I try a craniotomy (ever the jokester), too.  So, in honor of her suggestion, and because I am such a control freak, I am looking up instructions for a 'do it yourself' version on the web.  She got quite a chuckle out of my suggestion and told me that she would not have expected me to go about it any other way.  This from the same woman who told me that whenever she is feeling down, she thinks about my life and then she feels blessed.  Gotta love her!

Inertia

I spend a lot of time really listening to people and what they have to say.  I have a tendency to take it all in, the big picture, not merely their words but the implications that tend to travel along with them.  Because I was born with the ability (curse) to never take anything lightly, I then ruminate about those words and the people who said them, constantly comparing myself to them, for better or worse.  Speaking to me should come with a disclaimer stating that nothing said to me in passing is ever just that, a mere passing comment.  Nothing is situational for me, but all is fodder for my constant mental rehashing.  Where am I going with this?  Well, after too much Facebook and chats with neighbors of late, I have decided that I am a slug.  It seems that I am suffering from a form of mental paralysis that is keeping me from actually living a life instead of merely existing in one.

That said, I do have an extenuating circumstance in that with no income, we are in kind of a bind when it comes to 'living the good life.'  However, I am so in awe of people who make a plan or set a goal and then go after it with reckless abandon (no, never been reckless in my life, but I can dream, can't I?).  I watch Househunters International on HGTV and I am completely amazed at people who have given up good jobs and beautiful homes all for a dream, or at least a chance at it, in some obscure European village or third world country with a gorgeous beach. How I wish self-confidence was a saleable commodity.  I swear I would be the first in line with my credit card at the ready.

I was brought up to think first, fully understand all possible ramifications of my actions and then, if I was certain I could do something well and appropriately, I could act on it. A direct result of all this 'analysis before action' apparently led to my son telling me that I am too much of a 'goody two shoes' to have ever done anything wrong.  He is not completely right as I did attempt to have fun during my college years, however, I certainly have had my feet cemented in the straight and narrow ever since.

So, on this Monday morning when I am feeling wholly disenchanted and bored with where/who I am in my life right now, I am looking to converse with only those who who are equally dismayed or more cranky (as if that really is possible) about their lives for self-preservation sake.  The rest of you happy campers, talk amongst yourselves and  keep your distance until further notice!

Change

Sometimes I think change is over-rated.  Oh sure, I embrace change more easily than most and given our life status right now, I had better be able to adapt or life could get really messy.  I need to embrace the fact that change is good, it shakes up the mind oftentimes brings clarity once I get over the shock.  Our life is filled with more questions than answers, more tumult than stability. I hate to admit it but it is filled with more fear and sadness than it should be especially with young children.  The most import point I try to drive home to them is that change, though sometimes unwanted, is character building.  It requires a lot of inner strength to not become mired in the 'if onlys,' but to focus on making the new alternative a positive and happy experience.

That said, sometimes change just stinks as evidenced by the upgrade on my search engine (I bet you thought I would be taking this blog in a different direction, eh?).  Why, oh, why would this company remove my most favorite element, the ability to email a page merely by pressing the button?  How the heck is this an upgrade?  I now have to copy and paste when I can, but most of the time that is impossible with numerous pages to email, so I just skip it.  Bummer.  I would love to have been sitting in on the meeting of the minds who decided to kill my button in an effort to 'upgrade' their engine.  I would have loved to give them a piece of my mind but there is so little left these days, I cannot afford to give any away so easily.

I did say change was character building, right?  Don't tell my children, but sometimes I don't believe all the things that actually come out of my mouth either.

Antsy

I am just so restless today thatI am annoying myself.  Furthermore, I seem to have the attention span of a gnat which has resulted in more projects started yet remaining incomplete than I would like to admit.  Perhaps it is a combination of the 'back to school blues' (mine, not my children's) and this never-ending unemployment that is causing all my discomfort today.  I swear, I was in my car this morning and I just wanted to keep driving...fight or flight must have kicked in and, after having fought for so long, flight was looking pretty good. I just wanted to walk along the beach and pick up some shells with the ocean lapping at my toes,  trying to hold onto a little more summer, but I figured a two day drive for the coast was out of the question, so I went home instead.

The same questions keep swirling around in my head--I have tried telling myself to shut up but, apparently, my brain must still be a teenager and it is ignoring me--and all possible solutions simply lead to more unanswerable questions. Believe me, the best way to paralyze a control freak is to remove all aspects of control from her life such as where she might have to live, where her children will go to school, how the heck the bills will get paid.  The inside of my head must look like a tornado just hit it with all these worries and issues swirling around and around.

I often tell my husband that I long to someday be able to remove my brain, wash it in a nice sudsy tub filled with warm water, rinse it well, blow it dry and then tuck it in a little bed, nestled deep in a fluffy comforter and soft pillows. My poor brain so needs a nice long rest and that would be sheer bliss.