i let myself get that negativity out yesterday, but i can't leave it at the top of my blog. makes me feel like a little black cloud spreading my blah to everyone who may happen by. i know negativity happens, but it's not necessarily something i want printed on the tip of my nose.
so things are working out. no, they aren't worked out. i don't know that they EVER get completely worked out. but they are at least moving again...and i don't think i'm going to give myself a stress induced heart attack anymore. i am grateful for those who will listen to me in those moments of being lost. i am grateful for those who've shared with me in ways that still affect me when i am going through stress...little lights along the way that are these great surprises and lifelines.
and i am still working in my yard as a way of releasing some of this tension. i mean really, my yard is going to look awesome here... it's been neglected for awhile, and i've really only just begun...but i like the way this feels. now the inside of my house?...we're not gonna talk about that part today.
last week was a crazy week...lots of different things to work through, think about, let go of... this week has just been kind of stressful. i suppose last week may have left me a little raw...and i'm pretty sure there's some pms stuff going on, too...but my anger, frustration, stress....it has been off the charts this week. and i'm tired of it. i tried really hard last night to just be quiet...not shut my mouth...shut off my mind...just BE. it was alright. then i read some of wicked and went to bed. but it wasn't better today. matter of fact, my chest was killing me today. i was tight, tight, tight...all i'd have to do was think about what was pissing me off and i'd cry. so, i did what any sane person, or insane person looking for some sanity, can do...i went out and pruned the crap out of my bushes in the front yard. i mean, this was seriously needing to be done. they look a little shorn and god only knows if they'll look alright once spring gets her season going, but it needed to be done and that's that. then i got my garden ready. maybe i'll just plant it tomorrow, i don't know. i will say that i wish i could plant a money tree...because everyone seems to want their share. and it is so hard for me to say no. or even just to say, "uh, can we talk about this first...because that's a lot of money." i really need to go see the-rapist...but i really am getting to where i just can't afford it. blah.
can everyone just call and say those words to me? it's just been kind of a scattered day...
i didn't wake up with my alarm this morning. it's the kind of thing you know will probably happen one day, but not today, because we have shit to do today, right? well, today was the day. it was teen's ride to class knocking on the door that woke me up. actually, i think it was teen's ride's mother calling my cell phone to figure out where the hell we were that woke me up, but i was out of bed wondering what was going on when the ride knocked and i realized what, exactly, was going on here. ugh.
wake up teen...teen throws on clothes, brushes teeth, throw hair in ponytail...put three other sleeping kids in car...throw on slippers and brush my own teeth and we're all hauling ass down the highway in less than ten minutes. he was only five minutes late, but got there before his professor.
but that left three kids and i stuck an hour away for two more hours. so we walked through the grocery in our pajamas, got some breakfast, and sat in the car eating it, listening to harry potter on cd until teen came out. rough way to start the day...
now, i sit here realizing i still have to prepare my stuff for co-op classes tomorrow...and i need to bake for this week...and i think i have a few more pairs of clean underwear. so really, call me...but don't keep me on the phone because i've got shit to avoid doing, er, i mean do.
oh...one thing i did do today. friend of mine called last week. she'd had a bad week. a really, really, relapse for an alcoholic who'd been sober for seven years bad kind of week. so she checked herself in to the hospital for some help. i was stunned. i told her that was one of the sanest responses i'd heard to extreme stress in a long time (and yes, i'm including my own responses here, ok?). and i thought about that for the next day...and then i told my spouse i was doing something without him or the kids this weekend. for saturday. once he gets off work. so i called this friend. she lives two hours away. and we may meet in the middle (which happens to be austin, so rock on for that) and hang out saturday. now, this may not seem like a huge accomplishment...but for someone who can put things off for decades at a time, i feel pretty good about it.
Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace.
ok, now my note...
it has been a really long week...and a busy one, too. oldest started classes an hour away. oldest also started rock climbing practice with the team on thursday evenings. oldest and third born started piano on wednesdays. i still need to call to begin second born's flute lessons. co-op starts next week as well as rock climbing class for the three bigs. and i need to register third born for soccer. oh, and second born turned eleven yesterday, which was a very cool, very successful celebration with friends and family and i am very grateful for those who love us here... all of that proceeding after a competition weekend (complete with teenage tantrum last friday) and it was quite a ride.
i think we are going to be able to do this schedule...i do. i don't think i'm kidding myself too much in thinking that. but i have to say that i am not sure where my treadmill time fits into this new schedule. and tonight, as i feel myself sort of vibrating with tension and maybe a tiny bit of anxiety, i realize that treadmill time is important and must be a priority to some degree. let me say this again (for myself) TREADMILL TIME IS IMPORTANT... otherwise i will be grouchy, tense, negative, unhappy, and probably not fit into the jeans i have. i will probably eat a bunch of crap to compensate, thus making me feel worse. i will want interaction but not have the patience for it. i will feel antsy and hungry for something, but not able to find what i want, thereby consuming many things...junk food, relationships, hours at the computer doing nothing, whatever gets in my path. i don't think i'm being overly pessimistic, and i realize that all of this will not happen at once. thank god it hasn't yet, anyway. but these are the things i think may be related to leading a quick paced life, trying to meet lots of people's needs, and having lots of thoughts about all of it, but when i only worry in my mind about things i cannot control, and do not give my body a physical outlet for some of that energy/worry, my body starts to come up with some crazy ideas about how to work it out... i think my eczema will flare, too. and considering i've only begun to settle the last flare up, it will not be pretty. trying to accomplish all i've listed while scratching my skin off in "unladylike" places would just be too much, i think... so, once again, TREADMILL TIME IS IMPORTANT.
ok, on a side note...a friend of mine from CAMP called me today to play this song we used to sing, "rainbow made of children" for me. it was funny, because the words were different and it was sung by a band...very different from the only way i'd ever heard it, which was with counselors and campers singing at flagpole...and i've heard it hundreds of times like that. turns out she'd bought the soundtrack to the billy jack movies and this song was on there. someone had changed the words a little and made it a CAMP song...which i found hilarious. so did she. this is probably one of the reasons we're friends... anyway, you tube didn't have the rainbow song on it, but they did have another song she played me called "one tin soldier". i used to sing this at the lutheran church camp i'd attend in the summers. it was really cool to hear it again and it cracked me up that it was on the billy jack soundtrack. sure enough, you tube came through...
i've been thinking a lot lately. actually, it would probably be more blog-worthy if i was able to stop thinking for awhile. and i have been playing around with that a little...but it's not what i'm writing about today.
i will say that i have been really, really stressed out lately. and i feel it. i feel the physical results of that stress. but i feel them for what they are--the result of being stressed out. i know i'm not handling my stress well, although i think it's a step in the right direction to at least see a little bit of a separation between whatever thoughts are running through my head, the stress, and my ability to handle this all differently, even if i'm not. although i am handling it differently because i am not wildly looking for things to blame this on. i am also rather suddenly able to let those that are close to me know when they're pissing me off...in a fairly direct and somewhat polite-ish way. and i think that's progress too. but i am not just working myself up in my head, looking for what is stressing me out. i'm at least able to know i'm stressed and try to figure out how best to handle the stress as well as what might be causing it. which may not sound distinguishable or even remarkable, but as a process, it feels like progress...like a step in the right direction...maybe i still have a long journey ahead, but it does feel like i'm at least on the right track, which i'll get back to in a minute.
but i want to say it is not like i've got this shit figured out, because i haven't. i know that i will not figure it out tomorrow either...or probably even the next day. it may take a lifetime. which means i need patience. which exasperates me a bit, i'll be honest. but i can exasperatedly accept that patience is what i need, where i need to be resting, turning to, growing myself. and once i reached that place, this song started playing in my head....
(can you believe this was guns n roses singing at the grammies almost twenty years ago? wow... i dressed up as axel rose one year for halloween...)
anyway...that was last night that the patience song started playing in my head. then i spoke to my friend jeanni this morning. let me tell you...sometimes i talk to that woman and it is like a cool, clear glass of water after hiking for hours. like you didn't even know you were thirsty but it still quenches you somewhere so deep down, you can't stop drinking. and she shared this quote with me about roller coasters. i was telling her about how sometimes we set things in motion in life...things that can take years to see them play out, if we ever truly see how they play out. and i can understand appreciating and living in the moment. but sometimes, i was telling jeanni, i'd like a little smile from the universe that it's at least going okay...a little nod that things are headed in the right direction...wherever that is. so she shared this quote i'll have to paraphrase because i can't find it online...
it was talking about how life is a roller coaster. how there is thrill, and color, and excitement. how we are drawn into it...maybe we like it, maybe we don't. how we start to live on the roller coaster, forgetting that, ultimately, it's a ride. it ended by saying that when people come along to remind us it's only a ride, we kill them.
which about slayed me. (we are jesus-y girls, jeanni and i, so that's who we were thinking of primarily, although we both mentioned that he wasn't the only one to ever try to remind us it's just a ride.)
i also talked to my friend who makes music. she texted me on my phone yesterday to wish me a happy thanksgiving and tell me she was thankful for me. imagine that...someone as beautiful and wise and amazingly talented as her being thankful for crazy, needy, off key me. it was definitely a high point. so i talked to her today, too.
i can be patient...i can. it is difficult, but i can be. and it strikes me that when i decide to surrender and not just talk about being patient, but truly try to be patient, i have these moments of contact with these incredible people who really end up encouraging me on that leg of the journey, even though they didn't know i was traveling that direction. it is one of the most beautiful and delightful parts of this amazing journey. peace
