Happy 2012!I know I’m about nine days late wishing you a happy new year, but here I am!
The Christmas holidays kind of flew by as a blur of baking cookies and sick children, and once we survived those, I found myself on a 35-hour nightmare plane ride that never seemed to end.
Though truth be told, I really only flew from Alaska to Phoenix, Phoenix to El Paso. In El Paso, I had a great couple hours with my parents, picked up my son, took a shower, took a 45 minute nap, and returned to the airport. From there, we waited on an hour delay before the plane that was originally supposed to take us to L.A. rerouted us to Ontario, CA because of fog. Once in sardine-smelling Ontario, we boarded touring buses like a band of refugees and drove to LAX. Our connection to Seattle had been delayed, thankfully, so after a nasty Burger King burger, we flew to the Emerald City. Our flight home started off great until 27 minutes into the flight, the pilot turned us around because both de-icers had broken. AUGH!
I’ve never been the biggest fan of flying and for some reason, I though the “cheap” flight would be fine. Never again. I’ll save my pennies for next summer’s retrieval mission and if I have any say in it, the boy and I will be in first class, baby!
So there’s where we are. Its 2012, the kids are now 8, nearly 3, and a little past 6 months. P is getting ready for the toughest semester in school yet, and I’m still trying to find a moment of time to decide who I want to be this year.
Things are bananas. Add to that some real heartbreak in our life when it comes to a very important institution my husband and I have been a part of for a very long time, and maybe you can tell that my heart just isn’t where it’s supposed to be right now. I feel like the sands beneath us are constantly shifting with the weight of broken heaters, broken friendships, raggedy gossips, giving up what you’ve fought so hard to build, and the day-to-day trials of trying to make even the most perfect of circumstances work (and we all know they’re never perfect, anyway), and I’m just worn out.
It's a mild depression. It's a sense of not going anywhere, despite spinning your wheels as fast as you can. It's that point where the things you used to enjoy (facebook, email, etc) became a source of stress and drama...and really, who needs fake drama when there's so much REAL drama to create in the world?? I'm kidding. Sort of.
It’s only the ninth day of the new year and I woke up with a heavy heart, some extra pounds weighing me down, and not a lot of steam to push me forward. I think it’s a damn shame, to be honest, and it was about noon time at my desk today when the most glorious peak of sunshine finally made its way through the trees and buildings of our city to blind me in the eye and make me take a second to recover. (Both metaphorically and literally--I really did sting my eye staring straight at that gorgeous sun out of disbelief that it had finally arrived.)
The past weeks have given me a lot of time to think about all the things I try to pack my plate full of, and how often I ignore my mama when she tells me I’m doing too much. Too much worrying about people who don’t matter. Too much planning and hoping for things without thinking them through and deciding what’s a real priority and what’s not.
And it’s true. If there was a gold medal for consistently rushing from good idea to hastily implmented process, I'd be an Olympian. I'd be the Michael Phelps of rushing headlong into things.
I thought long and hard about what to do with the blogs I’d created in the past couple of years. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I thought it would be wise to separate out my interests. I had a book come out in 2011 and thought I needed a separate venue to promote it—mostly because I didn’t feel like explaining to certain groups of acquaintances that I wrote that sort of stuff—but partly because it was a new, shiny website. Then there is the Hungry Little Blackbird, an effort that I absolutely love, but inevitably end up neglecting for a few months a year while I finish a book or bringing forth a baby. (Yes, it’s been one of those years.)
I also teach. Did you know that? Well, I do. I teach writing workshops online and in-person and this year’s going to a wild ride for me as I move away from teaching adults and get into teaching kids. I’m thrilled about it, and last year I thought it was be wise to have a blog about that, too. A blog I never got to update.
Do you see a pattern yet? I seemed to have about a million irons in the fire and with all the change and flux we’re working through right now, there’s just not enough me to make it all work.
So what now?
Well, who knows? But my first step is to take the first half of 2012, at least, and operate off of one blog. One platform. Jam all of my hobbies and dreams and pursuits into one place. I always thought the key to finding your niche online was to make your content as specific as possible, but I’m finding that’s not always the case. Sometimes it just drives you crazy, as it is currently doing to me.
So I’m putting all the other pursuits like HLB, my author site, my teaching site, and whatever else is out there on hold. And putting it all here. Cutting myself some slack and giving myself ONE place to dump all my energy into.
Don’t get me wrong…this new year is a tad bumpy on the takeoff to be sure, but if you know anything about me, you know I don’t sit around and play the victim too long. Sure, I love the wallowing in the Ben & Jerry’s for a week or two, but eventually I get bored with myself and paddle my way out of the %$^% creek.
So maybe this is just me collecting my canoe, my life vest, my oars, and my picnic basket. Turns out it’s kinda nice having everything in one place.
Happy 2012 and here’s to a year of making things happen.
Oh, and P.S.: I need to plug in my Happy light. I know, I know. Vitamin D deficiency isn't really helping much. Noted.
No comments:
Post a Comment