pronoia

In Other News

Friends are still working through their crises, and we're still helping them. In the meantime, some tidbits about more positive things in our lives.

• We leave for the beach in two days. I can't WAIT! Of course, there's a lot that has to happen between now and then, but in two and a half days, I get a real vacation.
• Freelancing is advancing apace. I'm talking to our friends about property management, I'm doing novel editing and photo scanning, and I'm working up to applying for some freelance copyediting jobs. Now if only I could squeeze out some time for writing.
• I've been positively longing for spiritual activity. Meditation, reading, writing, yoga, you name it, I've been craving it. Last night we finally just went into the ritual room, messy though it is, lit some candles, and had twenty or thirty minutes of meditation. It was awesome. I'm definitely taking my yoga mat and a candle or two to the beach.
• We're in the process of hiring our last team-member at work. Soon we'll be at full strength and I can turn my attention to training.
• A newly-promoted colleague is having all of the managers at work read FISH!, a work-development book/philosophy based on the principles that make the Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle such a lovely place to work: the idea that everyone can choose their attitude; play; be present; make someone's day. It's all things I believe in (although the writing is beyond horrible), but I'll be interested to see how the conversation progresses from here.
• Our CSA started yesterday, and it's awesome! Oranges, grapes, kale, spinach, chard, lettuce, and biodynamic sourdough bread. Best of all, the pickup site is five minutes from work on my way to pick up Ms. P.

So things are not awful over here, just run down and stretched a little thin. But a week at the beach will go a long way to renewing my energy and helping me be better about prioritizing.

Baptism

K better be welcomed to all the faith communities he's gonna be welcomed into at this point, because, I tell you, I am done.

This morning was his baptism. The mass, I kid you not, was two hours long. Two hours. Two hours of theology we can't get behind, non-inclusive language, original sin, and hell and damnation. It was exhausting. The party afterward was fun, but overall, we're just drained.

I haven't been back to mass since Ms. P stopped thinking she was Catholic post-convent. For a long time I was able to be at mass because I could slip into the habits of my childhood--the standing in unison, the words that would slip out like lullabyes. But in the last few years those habits have been replaced by new ones--habits of speech and thought and posture that don't believe in sin, that don't believe our job is to be sheep, that don't believe one way is the only way, that don't think we belong on our knees unless we are being overcome with ecstatic emotion.

Sometimes it's true that you can never go home again, so it's a good thing I've got no attachment to the home of my childhood.

Damn, Gina

I've been holding off on posting because I didn't want to be whiny, but at this rate that will never happen.

It's been a bad week.

A friend of ours has fallen out of recovery. He appears to be back on the wagon, but there were no obvious signs that he was falling off of it, so that's not necessarily terribly encouraging. We're one step removed from all of it, but we're doing a lot of emotional support for his SO.

Another friend, with whom we've been spending a lot of time, lost her grandmother this week. Said friend has issues with family anyway, and this hasn't helped.

We're hammering out the budget at work, and it's pretty ugly. I was asked to raise my fundraising target significantly, and while I didn't raise it the amount asked, it's still going to be a stretch.

On top of that, I'm having a devil of a time getting motivated, at work or at home.

Oh, and the upstairs bathtub is completely plugged up because my thyroid meds are causing what the brochure calls "mild hair loss." Fun.

Little of this (save the friend in recovery) is dire, but it's meant that all week we've been running from one emotional hotspot to another and friends, I'm tired. I need a hot bath and a stupid book and some time to just clean my house and play with pastels and maybe do that yoga I keep promising myself.

And dammit, it's time to insist.

It's probably a good thing I have therapy tonight.

I Will Sing You a Song No One Sang To Me

My friends are awesome. Since Sunday's baby blessing, I've gotten no fewer than three different invitations to pour my heart out about it. The BFF checked in both before and after, L called to invite me to dinner to vent, and R called to see how I was faring.

I mean, if there's anything that's going to set a girl off, it's priestessing a baby blessing on Mother's Day for dear friends when the child who was supposed to companion this one hasn't shown up.

True to my disassociating heart, I did an amazing job of pulling it off, if I do say so myself. We ran song rehearsal, we ran the ritual run-through, we organized hordes of people, we ran a kick-ass ritual, we channelled the Divine, we hit all the notes of the song, and we celebrated with J&N&K. During all of those things I was full of the nerves that accompany me anytime I priestess a ceremony and, worse, sing in a virtual spotlight in public, but I didn't really feel the pain of it.

It was only later, when the exhaustion set in, that I could feel the weight of sorrow that went with it.

I'm so happy for them, and I'm glad to be part of this amazing transformation in their lives, even as part of me wants to curl around my hurt, to hide and not to spend any time with them. I know that, too, is a valid choice. It's one many people in my position have made and continue to make and hey, I'm all for people taking care of themselves. But whenever I consider doing the same, it feels very isolated. Very alone. Avoiding my friends and the ache that accompanies spending time with them right now would be cutting myself off from the very thing I want--the vibrant community and family that we're all building one slow relationship at a time.

This community isn't something I've had before, and it isn't something I grew up with. I think my parents had it somewhat when they were younger, because I remember parties and friends and things when I was but a wee tot, but I think the effort of recreating that every time they--or their friends--moved just proved too exhausting. I've had close friends and lasting friends but never this constellation of support, this web of people who know one another but may or may not have their own relationships with one another, who bring their own webs to the table. I feel held here in a way I never have before, even when I'm grumpy, even when I'm annoyed.

So I'm going to go out to dinner tonight with Ms. P and with L&S, and I'll tell them all about the experience of stepping outside myself and what it felt like to have to come home to this self that is awfully sad that I don't have a child yet, and I will listen when they tell their stories of the same thing, and we will laugh and swear and give the finger to imaginary interlocutors and hoot about the stupid, stupid things people say to us and we will lean back into this web that can hold us and all of our feelings about all of these things, and it will be good.

Blah

I'm trying very hard not to give in to despair today.

It's not that there's anything much different than yesterday, and yesterday wasn't much different than the day before, but the day before yesterday was awesome. The day before yesterday I was excited about editing a friend's novel and having made some concrete strides toward this whole freelancing life. I had energy and momentum and focus.

Today, not so much. Today I'm feeling lackluster and exhausted and just grey, grey, grey. I've been forcing myself to do some actual work, even though I would really rather do anything but. It's overcast and likely to rain. Our SIL is going to give birth any second now. Our friend V, who is wonderful but intensely difficult for me, is coming to visit for several days. This weekend is the baby blessing and I have to keep my shit together for two whole days despite the fact that I'm feeling very teary about the baby plan. Ms. P hasn't been so regular on her meds, and we've been negotiating the next phase of the anti-suicide pact. We haven't really spent any time at home this week. I'm feeling sick in the eating-too-much-dairy and eating-too-much-sugar way, but we're not cooking at home much, and that makes it doubly hard to not eat like complete crap. Grace is really anxious for reasons we can't quite pinpoint, especially since Ms. P was home all day yesterday, and Phoebe has hurt her other back leg and is quite the Lady Limpsalot.

What I'd like to do today is take myself home, put on my comfy clothes, cook up some chicken and maybe some asparagus or some spinach, make a big salad, make some sweet tea, and take my friend's novel onto the back patio to read and comment on. I want to be outside in the variable sun; I want to feel the breeze on my skin, I want to be comfortable and quiet and focused and happy, dammit.

I know the freelancing plan is within the realm of the possible. It's just not possible right this second. That's okay, really, but when I'm tired and worn out and not forseeing much time to really relax or recuperate, it can feel very, very far away.

Momentum

I haven't gotten very far on this whole figure-out-how-to-work-from-home plan, but I've taken some small baby steps, and that's making everything else feel more productive. On Thursday and again on Saturday, Ms. P and I started working through some of the exercises in the North Star book, which so far have only confirmed that I would really like a job that lets me help people figure out what to do with their lives. I spent Saturday working at a friend's store, and I'm going to forward them my availability so I can work there more often and make some extra money to pay off bills and start saving some transition money. I've been typing my Chicago Manual of Style notes into Word so I can refresh my memory and create a good cheat-sheet for myself before I start looking for some freelancing work. And I'm reminding myself that I don't have to do this job forever--I just have to get some things in place, and that's doable. So I've gotten some momentum around the whole thing instead of paralysis, and that's always helpful.

It's making Monday morning much more bearable.

See What Happens If I Get Off My Ass And Write To You All?

Last week I had this fantasy that after four glorious unstructured days, I would return to work with a spring in my step and energized for all the work I left on my desk. The brainfog I was experiencing was entirely a result of the exhaustion caused by trying to run the event and still do everything else I had on my plate. I just needed some sleep and some time in my house and to get my life in order, and everything would fall into place.

Indeed, I had four glorious unstructured days. I took myself to the coffee shop. I had dinner with friends. I cleaned the house and worked on the lawn. (Edging! Why did no one ever tell me that edging makes everything look better even when the center of the lawn is two feet tall and hiding my dog?) I set up Quicken and had minor panic attacks about money. I took the lethargic, sick cat to the vet only to spend $360 to find out all her tests came back normal and now she's acting just fine, thank you very much. I copied all of the music from the laptop to the now-functioning desktop. I opened all the windows and wiped pollen off the kitchen faucet and cleaned out the stinky refrigerator and got that weird stain out of the carpet and washed the dog blanket. And you know what? I was happy.

There were many things I did not do. I didn't finish the lawn, because my back couldn't take doing it all at once. I didn't start typing out my copyediting notes so I could try, again, to bring copyediting back into my life. I didn't finish the baby blessing for J&N&K. I didn't do all the laundry or cook things to tide us over through the week. I didn't read or watch Buffy or hang out in front of movies. I didn't scrub the kitchen floor. And with the exception of the copyediting notes, I was fine with all of that. The copyediting notes, they are significant.

By last night I was seriously into a case of Sunday Evening. You know what I mean--that very specific kind of blues you get when Sunday evening rolls around and you have to face the fact that your lovely open weekend is over, and it's five whole days before you get another one and it's just too sad to contemplate. This morning when I got up the prospect of going to work made me want to cry, made me want to curl up on the floor and just start sobbing.

The other night L asked a few of us to hang out with her and help her decide between two graduate programs, one here in the city and one overseas. In the course of the discussion we reflected back to her that, based on her body language, she didn't really want to do either of them. We asked her, again and again, what makes her happy. She didn't come up with a firm answer, but she came up with some plausible directions, and she's turned down both programs.

I started telling this story because it reflects the place I'm in right now: a dogged and yet joyful focus on happiness as a guiding star, a belief that we can have lives that are, at their base, happy.* But as I'm writing this I'm noticing that the discussion with L made me really happy--asking the questions and helping her ferret out the answers. I was energized and excited and vehement and gesticulating. I liked the process of figuring out what the next right question was, listening to her answers and reflecting information back to her and figuring out the next right question. It was a particular kind of problem-solving combined with people-figuring-out that I thrive on.

When I last talked about job stuff with my therapist, I talked a lot about spiritual direction, but I'm wondering now if I need to also be investigating life coaching as a possible career trajectory for me. Both of them combine the one-on-one work I love with the things I find most fascinating: the inner workings of people's hearts and spirits. I see some homework in my future.

I was supposed to go out with my colleagues tonight to thank the volunteers who helped us with the event. Given that the only people who are coming are the people we all hang out with anyway, I may plead the very real headache I have and head home with my honey to think about this some more.

*L's husband S and I had a funny exchange about this. When I first expressed it over malaysian food, he disagreed and started talking about how life is suffering, at its base. I disagreed in turn. "Damn Buddhists," I muttered. "Damn Pagans," says he. I don't think the basic philosophies are divergent; Buddhism (as I understand it--Dale, feel free to correct me!--says suffering arises because of a false belief in permanence, and Wicca is all about riding changing cycles. The technologies they present to deal with those changing cycles are different, of course.