It Keeps Spinning

I would love to post all about J's new job, but right now there is nothing newsworthy to tell.  Officially he "starts" his new position/new title/new salary on Monday.  But for the time being, he's staying put at his current office.  Corporate doesn't want to yank the rug out from under his team- there is no net in place yet to catch them when they fall, and they will.  Yesterday he was given the all clear to tell the managers who work under him about his promotion, and one of the guys actually started to cry.  I know J probably has haters working there, but for the most part I'm proud to say he is well-loved and respected by his crew. His move to corporate is still somewhat confidential and no major announcements were made.  So as of Monday, J will go to work at his old office, but his "boss" won't be his boss anymore!  It will be weird for a few weeks I think, then the dam will burst and he will pack up the office paraphernalia he's accumulated over the years- framed photos, awards, motivational posters, toys- and bring it all home.  Then he will have to get acclimated to packing up a suitcase, and the lounges at the airports and desks in the hotel rooms will be his new office.

Things are going pretty damn nicely around here.  Not just because of J's job, but that has helped bring a somewhat happy and light air to our household.  We're still in that phase of holding our breath together and waiting for all the good stuff to happen, because we are confident it will!  The weather is still unbelievably delightful here- still cool, 40's at night, 70's during the day.  I have still been able to leave the windows open throughout the house, the birds are still showing off for spring with their cacophony of songs and calls, and finally we have a bounty of flowers blooming just outside our door.  And I am feeling great.  I don't know why, but I'm not going to question it, and I'm not going to take it for granted because I know that come tomorrow things could change.  You know, any day when I can walk by my open front window and feel a cool breeze and see roses and bluebirds and sunlight glistening on damp green grass, how can it be anything but amazing and wonderful??

I just know that when I am having a period of GOOD MOODS, I have got to retrain my brain to take advantage of it.  Right now with J revamped and excited about his new prospects, I've been trying to concentrate on my own.  During the down periods of the last few months, I've let my Etsy shop become empty and frankly, I wasn't working on anything at all.  Art- even if it's not selling- still makes me feel as though I add some value to the world.  The creative process alone keeps me going some days, but I've kept my muse tied up in a dark closet somewhere lately.  The last few days I've been working again, on making things and listing items in my shop.  I've got a big two-day festival coming up in the middle of May, and although I've been dragging my feet on that as well, I've got to get myself focused and pointed in the right direction.  And after that, I've got to start moving!  I appreciate the fact that I have the kind of enviable life where true quiet and the elusive concept of stillness are always available to me.  But as the old saying goes- sometimes too much of even a good thing, is bad.

I'm going to keep the post short today.  I just want to go outside, get some sun on my face, and be part of the world.

MISS GEE

Finding Purpose

Today is one of those days.  Last night I went to bed vowing to wake up today feeling better, having more energy, zipping off to my 10am yoga class which I haven't been to in over a month.  But I woke up with my typical headache and backache, shuffled around the kitchen making coffee and J's breakfast, and slumped down at the table to read all the horrible shit in the newspaper.  Including the article about the police officer and father of four, gunned down by a drunk psycho yesterday just blocks away from J's office.  The day before at the intersection J drives through twice every day, that last turn at the corner of the street to his parking lot, a young woman was killed when another person slammed into her car- that person was speeding away in a stolen vehicle.  This world of ours.

I had a nice respite yesterday and I ended my day in a better mood.  It was in the 70's, I was able to open the windows and get fresh air and hear the birds.  I went to town in the afternoon for quick errands- dropping off a few Etsy sales at the post office, putting money in the bank (always a good thing), and perusing the aisles at the thrift store after I donated a big bag of clothes and shoes.  Sunny.  Good music on the radio.  I even came home and had a very productive evening, putting together several dozen necklaces for my booth, which is still technically a dream at this point.

This morning it's still warm out but pouring rain, the gray heavy stuff that puddles on the sidewalk and creates small lakes in the yard.  The temp will drop to 40 by lunchtime, and will be in the 20's tonight. Did I want to go to yoga that badly?  Nah.  I talked myself out of it before I even finished my first cup of coffee. Like it was an outdoor class, instead of in a clean cozy studio with warm cork floors.  Then as the minutes ticked by, I got angry at myself for not going, because it's the one thing that helps with the miserable body aches.  So I still continue to feel like crap, physically, which always leads to the mental side of it.  Getting in my head.  My body aches, and it won't be long before my brain does too.

That's my M.O.  Say I'm going to do something, promise myself I will do it, talk myself out of it with a lame excuse, then get righteously pissed off at myself for not doing it.  Over and over, every day.

At breakfast I crumbled a bit.  I try my best to never start J's day off with my whining, so I usually keep my stuff to myself.  We read the paper, talk about local news, talk about what he has coming up at work that day, talk about what we want to do this weekend.  But this morning I just grabbed my head wildly.  I said to him, I just need to shake this off!  He said, the blues?  (That's our genteel code word for my depression.)  It wasn't that, and I couldn't put it into words for a moment.  Then I said, I just need to FOCUS.  On something, anything.  His first answer was, of course, focus on my health but that's always his go-to topic for me.  Eat better.  Take my vitamins.  Exercise.  All are things I have a tendency to forget to do, or make really awful excuses as to why I didn't "have time" to do them.  But then I realized he is right.  There really are days when I am so beleaguered with what's inside of me, I do forget the simple tasks of taking pills.

I have too many of those days where, at 8am I open the dishwasher to unload the clean dishes from overnight.  At 3pm I walk back through the kitchen and the door is still open but only half the dishes were put away.  Does everyone have days like this?  Or is this my own personal brand of foolishness?  Am I really that lazy, or does my mind just simply drift off in the middle of such an uncomplicated undertaking?  What can I do to change this behavior?  I have to know.  Maybe it's the same phenomenon that took me from being that efficient 5am 5-minute shower person, to a midday 40-minute hot bath soaker.

I've written about it before, but when I worked I could multitask and complete major projects like nobody else- I even had 5 statues sitting on my desk for all the awards I'd won for my diligent work ethic.  I was single-minded, unstoppable, reliable.  Now that I'm at home, that has fallen apart.  It's like that fierce, smart, motivated part of my brain got left behind at the office.  Even though I have clearly defined goals for myself, I'm not working towards any of them at any steady pace.  Time slips through my fingers so easily now, hour by hour, and that's part of why I feel so useless.  What did I accomplish today?  Did I do anything worth mentioning? Why do I think I have to complete something monumental every day?  I'm alone at home, what exactly is there here that is so earth-shattering?  Hell, I can't even get the cats to stop peeing in the corner of our bedroom.

It's not enough to keep the kitchen and bathrooms clean.  It's not enough to pack my husband's lunch every morning.  It's not enough to take the recycling on Mondays, put out the garbage on Thursdays, do the dry cleaning on Fridays. It's not enough to pick up and drop off and clip coupons.  It's not enough to be a housewife anymore.  It's enough for J, he is pleased with those domestic changes in me.  And I'm not saying I want to jump out there into the working world again. Why can't I run a business from here?  Why can't I start a project here- and finish it?  Why can't I be useful again?  Why can't I ever do more than just talk about it!  I just want to find "that woman" I used to be, and put her to good use keeping up my new life at home.  I try to remind myself that as far as J and I are concerned, I am "retired".  Why do I think I have to do anything!

I've given serious thought to hiring a life coach, but that seems so Hollyweird for a plain and simple stay-at-home-person going through normal midlife pangs.  I don't need to save the world.  Just myself.

MISS GEE