It was interesting watching what happened to myself the last couple of weeks when all of a sudden life shot into high gear and I simply had no time to even to think about whatever I chose. Instead, when I had time to think (like when I was washing up the dishes), I had to think about what needed doing as soon as I was done with the dishes. It was crazy! Things were like that for at least a solid week . . . and then my six-year-old daughter got her first ear infection, and now I've got her cold and am seriously hoping that having it now means I will be all better for Christmas Eve & Day (am cooking for 11 adults and 5 kids--should be fun). If only my ears and throat just weren't so damn itchy!
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A wine charm--part of a set I made earlier this year--
done on 1" square Stampbord pieces--I'm including
this because it's something I did this year, which ended up
being the subject today, and I don't like to post
without having an image! |
One thing that has gradually been making itself clear to me over this last year is that I have to--and I can--let go and trust that I am doing what needs doing in the moment, and that I shouldn't force myself into doing things I'm not ready for--and that applies to things as mundane as going through the pile of papers that need filing and are shoved in 3 different drawers in a dresser in our closet. Eventually, I am learning, the time will come around when I will be moved to sort through them, and then it will take only a couple of hours, whereas if I'd forced myself to do it when I wasn't in the mood, it would take me days and I'd be highly irritated with everyone while in the process. This doesn't work for those things that simply can't wait (like researching schools for my eleven-year-old son, which also consumed a great deal of time doing the work, composing e-mails to his current school, setting up appointments with new schools, gathering necessary papers for the visits . . . you can see why I fell off the face of the blogging world for a little while), but most things truly are not in that category.
This has been a difficult process for me, and one that still presents challenges (part of me wants to berate myself for not doing the reverb10 prompts every day in spite of everything else that cropped up), but I have gotten much better. I was the kind of kid who made a schedule for the time after school up to bedtime, and I hated it when my homework took less time than I'd allowed & messed up my schedule. After graduating from UT-Austin, I was first a relational database developer and then a project manager at Dell--I was great at making schedules, following plans, making lists, and generally getting stuff done. Once children came along, my world was definitely not the same! I learned not to make lists anymore because it was too depressing and demoralizing to cross only one thing off after a weekend when I used to cross six or seven things off in a day, but I never really came to terms with how my approach to life had changed until quite recently. I felt it was something done to me rather than a choice I'd made, and thus it wasn't something I embraced or accepted.
Reading so many different blogs and learning how all of you approach things, describe your outlook, and see the gentleness with which you treat yourselves has been humbling and amazingly powerful for me. I am probably the most emotionally aware than I've been in years and years, and I certainly have the best self-image I've ever had, and it's wonderful to say that.
Right, I've nattered on a great deal now and not addressed any of the prompts. I shall do that another time!
