Dreading the downtime

I'm not good with unlimited downtime. I either completely waste it or resent it and flicker about in nervous energy and just cram every single thing I have uncompleted into an impossible timeframe. What is wrong with me. I am a 46 year old woman that now has to contend with seemingly endless downtime. As someone who has felt the strain of single life, single parent life, and the constant pressure to provide and prove myself within the limits of my thinly stretched existence, I am not comfortable with day after day of downtime. It's not natural and certainly not useful to anyone. At least in the context of my earlier existence. Nowadays, there is little or no rime nor reason to me hectically ramping up adrenaline and resorting to building up constant internal pressure to "get it done". There is also no outlet for this pressure as I am out of work, and although still single and forever a mom, I am no longer a single mother and the unmanageable parts of my finances have no quick fixes. 

So I internalize, like most women do. The pressure builds, the nervous energy becomes anxiety and the adrenaline boost ultimately wears you down. Yeah, I'm a cliche. Not content with dealing with empty nest syndrome (which is actually not that bad) I now have to redefine the very essence of my life. There are questions, soooo many questions. What is my purpose? How do I enjoy life? Can I enjoy life? Where have my friends gone? Do I want any by this point? What's fun? Who's fun? How to have fun? Am I a fun person? Why not? How do I determine my value in society now that my primary functions are nullified.... (ok that one was maybe a bit R2D2)? Who the f#&%/@ am I and how do I get to be her, just her Not the mother, not the lover... although that one is kinda moot currently, not the employee or the supervisor, not the citizen and not the student. Just plain old moi. Whoever that is. 

I find it unsettling. This new life. But I also find it liberating. I am confronted with every single bad habit. The apathy of rigidness and resistance to change. The many, many, aches and ignored pains of my frail and, let's face it, older body. The futility of my daily patterns, and the fear of my complicated and nonlogical feelings that bubble up nonstop at the most inopportune times. So I go to work. Not with a set goal in mind, but slowly and surely I take one of the 2.647.892 items on my emotional todo list and work on it a little bit. That makes it easier to tackle the next one. It also comes with the realization that the list is, in fact, never-ending and perhaps expanding, but if there is one thing I'm good at, its prioritizing. So that's what I do. I take a teensy weensy scary feeling and translate it into the nonlogical pattern that is currently governing my day and pick at it, just a little, until I understand where it comes from and how it impacts me negatively. I can't really help the feeling. It's there, it will still be there, but the pattern can be changed until it no longer hurts me. And that my dear is progress. 

Dreaming and doing...

Some things need to creep up on you through necessity or involuntary repetition to become a permanent fixture in life.  Breathing, blinking, loving. Some things take an effort, like writing. You don't just wake up one day and write.  You learn a language, you read, you familiarize yourself with the grammar and write something less significant than you imagined would be your greatest work. An e-mail, a pithy twitter or a greeting card. Gradually you'll learn to love the possibilities of your preferred communication and you move on to love letters, diaries and other more personal but not less important staples.  Something that clears your head or gives you food for thought, something good for you. 

You do not however progress directly to the almighty and ever looming goal you have set for your self.  Why is that? Don't you trust your work-ethic or worse, your talent, or even worse, your imagination. I've been in love with this idea of man made things.  Where something useful or beautiful, or best of all both, springs from a single thought, and a single person, just the one person who has the courage to pursue this possibility of realizing this idea. I am also a coward.  My own ideas aren't good enough, I say to myself, they lack originality, they aren't personal enough, I don't know who I am and so on and so forth to perpetuate a cliche. 

It's all bullshit, there is no originality or personality, there is just what you can do and how you do it. Right now I am just exercising my writers muscle. Trying to build this habit of putting words to paper, or digits to disc. There is just what you can do in the time you have allotted to the task at hand. Nothing romantic and nothing magical. We all have a need pushing us towards something. Much of our energy and time is spent in suppressing this need for practical purposes. Those of us that live our lives in a succession of time sensitive tasks on the outside, push through because of our other life that rages on the inside, sometimes completely independent of what you experience and pursue in real life. 

This inner life will out though, and now its time to put real life skills to good use.  Build that habit, excel for yourself instead of in service, make the time to figure out if your self worth is tied to the paycheck or to the dividend of indulging in your need.  I think I am about to find out.... I hope. It gives me courage.

Back to life... back to reality...

A while ago my grandfather passed away. He was elderly and very fragile physically and it should not have come as a surprise to anyone that his life was drawing to an end.  However, for some reason, my whole world shifted in an instance. Not physically and nothing was different per say, but there is a giant gap where this man used to be.  

For me he was the essence of my life, always a cornerstone, non-intrusive, stable and constantly present even though I live in another country.  There was no other person alive I loved as long and unconditionally as my grandfather and no other person who loved me the same way.  It is a rare gift to grow up in this faint but ever-present glow of love and with a caring parental figure who`s kindness was evident from the first breath you ware able to suck down. 

My grandfather was someone who embodied perseverance, integrity, and humor as his core values. No doubt acquired through years of fuck-ups and comebacks we can only imagine as his generation was not prone to share, especially in tragedy and failures.  I always got the sense he made it through anything by his love for his family and I`m sure it was tough going at times in the 89 years he managed through wars, recessions, personal and professional ups and downs and other marvels designed to break any spirit. 

We didn't exactly make things easy for him either, but one thing was always clear, he loved us, all of us, even when our very existence seemed somewhat a waste of space in the big picture.  But he always had hope for us.  I'm not entirely sure whether any of us ever lived up to what we imagined he expected of us, but we still try, for him, for us, for our own kids, because it makes sense to us to be a better version of ourselves despite the shortcomings. We learned this from him. All of us. 

We may just have been filling in the blanks for these particular life lessons as we were growing up at his table, reading the morning papers, starting with the comics, and then the little words and then eventually the crossword, all of us gradually soaking up his presence and laughter and hanging on his every gesture.

I miss my grandfather, but I miss myself with my grandfather even more.  It's selfish maybe, but I haven't felt evened out ever since he died and most of what I do doesn't make sense to me anymore. I guess I'm still grieving, who knows. But perhaps I need to remember the simple little mantra from a man that always made sense. Take care of your health and heart and you will be happier than most.

So, on I go another day, stepping quietly, slowly but surely towards better health and a fuller heart.

Slipping and sliding...

Yeah, like all good intentions, they paved the way to hell, well my own personal hell, and pretty quickly actually... First things first. There seems to be an enormous amount of willpower required for the slightest little change at this stage in my life, really you have to become your own mother, well not my mother... me as my mother, with endless patience, constant reminders and countless tricks to spark and keep an interest in some far away final destination.... ok so not me as a mother either, just as bad... poor babies... Luckily my offspring have a mind of their own and, well, so have I and its a little dotty.  I swear and declare, bad habits will prevail if good women don't stand up to their blackened consciences, muddied by former expectations that their waistlines and slackened skins have long since failed to aspire to.

It's an age thing. Things change after forty, thats a fact, a medical fact even, but most of us feel it pretty acutely without the scientific references and those of us that managed to keep the flame of youthful tomfoolery alive up until now, wake up with a expiration date on a number of thing... babies, last chance ladies.... looks, whats with the sun damage, doesn't the universe know how much I spend on sp products... boyfriends, at this point they really should fall into the "partner" or "husband" category...which brings us to booty calls, who has the energy... education, really your going for your BA "now"? and so many more things. 

Ok, so I got a little sidetracked, thats the dotty forty something mind for you, might just be alzheimer light, or maybe all of us get alzheimer light round about now.  Ok, dont get me wrong, I never experienced the so called glory days the way other people do and cringe a little from the memory every time I think 5, 10, 15, 20 years back... Again don't get me wrong, I've loved going through some hefty stuff and really nice highs, but I'm tired.... my body is tired, my mind is flat, my heart is heavy and my soul is thinning into a collection of once was moments.  The future is, well now.  You have to adjust and that's no small feat, your mindset is just not ready for the second half of your life, and come to think of it, will it be just as fretful and exhausting as the first one?  And you know, what the hell, is there really no way to consistently go to sleep at a godly hour and have a nice walk in the morning.  I mean, just do it woman... or at least that is my sisters advice and I have to use every ounce of restraints not to flatten her, she's tiny, I could do it... but then again I would drop right off mommies favourites list.. hmmmm, theres a thought.

So, I just did it, slipped into high gear and slid right into exhaustion... and probably bankruptcy, live and learn.  Now I just have to figure out a way to pick myself up, dust myself off and try, try again.... again.

Pushing on and pulling your weight...

Right, so it's been a few weeks and well, a little worse for wear, but getting closer and closer to a better person... maybe. It's hard work, working hard. Anywhoo, the trick to actually accomplishing anything out of your normal routine is, well give up.... at least give up whatever has occupied your time so far.  Aaaaand that's actually a little bit of a problem... I like my downtime and when you have to trick your self into working on downtime you need to be a little sneaky. 

For instance, the eight-plus hour work day is a little draining, especially if you are then going on to more work, different work, but more none the less.  So what to do... in the old days, you would hang about the tv or computer and watch some insipid program  with one eye, and with the other tentatively browse whatever project your working on at the moment, pick at it and the pudding you bought on the way home.. slowly pushing on with the work and steadily collecting bellyfat.. you know the deadly kind.  The result is, to say the least, not very impressive.  You've actually done a little more than nothing at all and the quality is not very commendable, plus it takes forever and the emotional load of a bad conscious when not delivering on time or for sub-quality work is rather heavy, which in turn leads to an overwhelming need for more pudding.... it's so damn good and guilt is just such a bad taste, impossible to brush out before sleeping... if you sleep at all that is. 

Ok, so since my extracurricular workload can be performed wherever there is an internet connection and relatively quiet, but not too much... I do have kids and it takes a lifetime to get out of the ambient bustle habit...I thought I'd try going to a cafe.  Most of them have internet access and some of them are reasonably priced.. but here is the clincher, you need one that's both reasonably priced and has internet access and of course is big enough for you to practically disappear from the staff with your one cup of tea or bottle of beer which should sustain you for at least an hour of productive work without prompting more purchases, cause lets face it, no one with my bad habits is flush with anything, except maybe a generous waistline. 

So that's the solution, for now, and guess what, it's working...so far.  I am getting a lot done and on time, which is good, I'm a little tired though, which is bad, but have kept up the stretch 2 to 3 times a week regime and the swim or walk 2 to 3 a week activity, which is again very good... but I'm in such bad shape and I guess oh so tired.  Well, It's time to suck it up, until at least I have a little more stamina and get paid.... then BIGGER trousers!!!

Getting on with it..

Now, when you've complained about, whined about and finally published your lesser qualities, there is absolutely time to manage them... So, I took a look at my online whining and lo and behold the procrastination problem kept rearing its ugly head. I've heard somewhere that if you keep doing the same thing over and over again with the same results but expecting a different outcome, that's the definition of insanity... or something to that effect.  Appropriate though, and it made me take a little look see at my own bad habits.  Such as starting blogs without actually following through, watching television "because I deserve a break" (although no one deserves todays programs), working to keep from thinking, occupying time to keep from deciding and procrastinating to keep from committing.... Huh, not a bad list of bad habits.

Ok, what to do now... ahm, I probably need a palate cleanser for the project I'm currently working on so, I should listen "watch" something that gets me in the mood... Or I could pick a problem to work on, but that would actually call for a practical solution.... who has time for that, maybe I should look at the adverse effects of these little quirks, and you now, it's actually not that bad, I've learned to live with it so far so why not just figure out how to manage instead of change, that's really the practical solution... Or maybe I should stop procrastinating by setting attainable goals that also take into account my time and health, which means devoting time to managing my schedule and lessening non-yelding activities for long term gratification goals, such as loosing a few pounds.  Hello! I just made a decision, worked at quantifying the problem and suggested a manageable solution, and well, finished the project, on the bus... on my way to my real work...... now If I just walk home, I've ticked two boxes out of infinitive...but you know, it's a start.....

One little step (page,cake) at a time...

Well, looks like the mornings take has been presentable, to say the least.  Effectively slayed the procrative dragon and got through a sizable portion of todays agenda.. and now some baking....Technically that would fall under "a break".