powerless

We had some pretty  nasty storms blow thru here last Thursday.  The power (and water) went out and wasn't restored until late Saturday.  Then a second storm blew thru Sunday night around 10 pm and we lost power again.  Scary is the sound the wind makes as its blowing onto the house.  Terrifying is the sound of trees (not branches....TREES) snapping apart like matchsticks.  Add total darkness to that and you've got the recipe for a full blown panic attack.  Another five minutes and I was headed for the secret stash of wonder drugs that I've got squirreled away (expiration dates be damned).

And yet, in the midst of all this, I kept thinking, "I'm alive.  This may suck and scare the shit out of me, but I'm alive.  And Pete is dead.  He will never feel another thing ever again." 

All weekend, no matter what I was doing, that was the reel that kept replaying.  And I was powerless to stop it.

PJK

A friend and former co-worker took his own life over the weekend. 

I am sad that he thought that, whatever the problem was, it could not be resolved by any other means. 

I am angry at his selfishness and his decision to leave his young wife a widow and his young children fatherless.  He will never see them grow up, or get married, or lead a life all on their own.

The life path of so many people has been irrevocably altered because of one action by one person.

Pete - I hope you found the peace you were looking for.

thinking postitive

Make a list of successes.
List five things you’re doing now that you weren’t doing a month ago. 

1. working on unpacking boxes
2. entering what I eat into my tracker
3. drinking more water
4. walking every day
5. eating more fruits & veggies

circle game

I've been here before.  And I'll be here again.  Round and round I go.

What is it in my DNA that makes me feel 110%-fullspeedahead-COMMITTED to something.

And then.....not so much.

We've been in the house a year.  And I'm still not "living" there.  I've got a basement and a garage FULL of boxes...the "office" looks like an episode of Hoarders...and I still haven't found a ton of stuff.  Well - I know where the stuff is.  It's in the boxes, of course.

My professional life is in limbo - which is why I'm surprised that I, the consummate control freak, have left my personal to-do list in a state of perpetual disarray.  I have control over my personal life - I just have not done anything about it.

And I do know why.  I'm angry.  Angry in a selfish, stupid, childish, arrogant, and greedy way.  Angry at the world, and angry at myself.  But I'm still angry.  And the anger has manifested itself into every nook and cranny of my being.  I'm trying to let go of it.  Really.  But I just can't seem to shake it.

So, once again, I find myself trying to hit the reset button.

Have I mentioned that I've been here before?

My rational mind knows that the best way to eat the elephant is to take one bite at a time.  But when my emotional mind looks at the mountain of goals that I've irrationally set in front of me, I figure, it's all or nothing.  Succeed at all or fail.  I can't seem to find that area in the middle, where two steps ahead and one step back is not considered a failure.

I need to get my head right with this.  I need to let go of the anger, the sadness.  But how do you unwire and rewire your DNA?  I've got almost 40 years of living this way.  I know I must have been a happy kid.  A better person.  A different person.  Where did that seismic shift happen?  When?  Should I make a new set of goals and try to learn a new set of expectations?  If I put my mental "to do list" in writing, then it's concrete and can't be ignored, right?  Will that work??  WILL IT????

reunion

As part of my ongoing (yet slowly executing) plan to better myself, I made a conscious decision to be a part of my high school's 20th reunion planning committee.

This might not be a drastic decision for most people.  I am not most people.  I did not like high school...or rather, I didn't like kind of people who went there.  (I never disliked anyone....I just never felt like I was liked.)  I felt like I didn't fit in.  I moved into the area in March of 6th grade....most of my classmates had been together for 6 years already.....and that feeling of belonging never materialized for me.

My high school was a public school that behaved private.  Rich kids getting BMWs for their 16th birthday.  Cliques more rigid than the caste system in India.  When I graduated, I ran out the door vowing never to come back.  Ha - that big chomping noise you are hearing is life coming back to bite me in the ass again.

When we moved back to the Philly area, it was very surreal, and I kept thinking I would run into people from high school at every turn.  It didn't quite turn out that way...but when I found out that my high school reunion committee was meeting at a hotel bar LITERALLY 200 yards from my office building, I felt I needed to put on my big-girl pants and reconcile my past head on.

It has been the slow re-entry back to the past and trying to make peace with my teenage years.  The more meetings we had, the more enthused I felt about the reunion event.  I've been pretty nervous about the whole thing - like I desperately want the cool kids to like me....or better....to be ONE OF THEM.

Our event was Saturday night.  I presented well...though I (subconsiously??) did not find myself in front of a photographer the whole night.  The few pics that were taken of me I was not happy with.  I still felt like I crashed the cool kid party while the parents were out of town....but at least I made the effort. 

Baby steps.....

The next step...

Angst alone is embarrassing and hard to deal with.

Angst in a blog is worse. It's trifling. Trivializing. Makes the author seem insecure and pathetic.

So why put this in writing? Memorialized for the ages?

Beats the hell out me.

People blog for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes, I feel like a struggling writer who has a novel inside her that will someday emerge.... Other times, I feel like I've got these witty bon mots that must be shared. Though - with my sense of humor - there are few who "get" me. I don't blog faithfully, and I don't tell anyone that I'm doing it anyway. I'm doing it for me, to put some moments in my life out there to oxidize and rust into my brain.

When I started this blog - I was at a crossroads. I had all sorts of shit going on that was waaaay out of my control. And I am a classic control freak. So I thought, I'll start this blog and talk about all this crap that I can't control. And the superstitious side of my brain staged an internal coup and declared, "POST THIS AND NOTHING GOOD WILL EVER COME OF YOUR LIFE."

So, I would drive and blog in my head.

I think I've tempted the Fates long enough.

We have moved into our new home, and begun the next chapter. I've hit the giant "reset" button and we are starting our lives over.

And here, it shall begin for me as well.

why do paths cross?

I had a random event happen on Friday night.

Mom is out of town - so I used her ballet ticket. I met my aunt downtown for dinner and walked to a restaurant that she picked earlier in the week. We debated - sit inside or out? She wanted outside - I thought inside - but decided out would be fine since we could then invite my uncle to meet us (he was unshowered and a bit stinky from a hard day at work).

So - circumstances decided without my choosing:

• mom went out of town
• aunt picked restaurant
• aunt decided to sit outside on the sidewalk

Now - sitting down and drinking a glass a wine, and goddamn if walking right across the street from me was my ex from college who I have not seen in 12 years.

Holy f**k.

There is a great scene in the movie Music and Lyrics where Drew Barrymore's character has a terrible breakup, and has a pre-rehearsed soliloquy to present to her ex whenever she finally confronts him.

I wish I had that.

I ended up grabbing my brass balls and walking across the street. Stumbled thru a few awkward sentences, and then realized that I was speaking to someone who appeared to NOT want to talk to me. I made a graceful exit and walked back to dinner.

Here's what I learned. He looked the same, albeit with less hair. He was smoking (!) which was odd - because if I remember college correctly, I think I was the one who got him smoking in the first place. And he looked awkward.

Well, I did bum-rush him on the Streets of Philadelphia.

Later that night, I told my husband that I saw him and he asked me how I felt. I couldn't verbalize it then, but three days later I can. I felt surprised - sad - and then somewhat nostalgic for college. And then, like gas, the feeling passed.

So - I will thank the Universe for lining up Circumstances, and letting me know that....paths cross to remind you of the past, to make you content of the present and excited for the future.