I started writing a column for our local paper and I thought you might enjoy what I have been up to since August. 🙂 these next posts are what were published.
8/12/2021: I was so excited to see rain last weekend! I have been fighting off some illness for the last month so I haven’t been my usual self and I could not keep up with the gardens. I watered as best I could, but that just meant the weeds were out of control. Whatever it is I acquired has settled in my ears, leaving me dizzy, off-balance, and exhausted. With the hope of rain, some friends came over and helped get the weeds under control. And, as is the never-ending cycle of gardening, some of the plants weren’t happy being disturbed and curled their leaves up at me. I watered – they were still mad. When the first drops started falling I cheered a little out loud. And, since I like to share my misadventures with you all as well, I have pumpkins in August. Maybe next year I will plant on a schedule and not play roulette with the garden by actually labeling things. But I probably won’t because that would be the sensible thing to do.
And the earth unleashed the full weight of her emotions. And the embryonic plants, covered by her warm embrace, were convinced to raise their sleepy heads upward, upward, toward the light.
The translation: It’s pouring rain and the seeds better like it.
I am not entirely sure where to start so I will just begin…
Lately my life feels like a tidal wave, I can see it coming but I can’t get away. There is no high ground to climb for safety. All I can try and do is hold on and wait for the water to roll out again. I am sure many of you feel the same way right now…
Click the image for a link to tidal wave dreams.
So much has happened since the pandemic hit. I had a job, then got sent home for a month, which wasn’t a break because I was homeschooling three kids and doing a terrible job at it, although they did all pass, so hand clap to me? Then I went back to work, but it was too hard to maintain with the kids and their needs (after such a huge change to their lives – from being able to socialize to staying at home) so now I am just working the store – hoping I can find a remote job since no one still knows what is going on with schools this fall and if I would able to even commit to time in an office.
And all the while I feel the weight of the water above me, trying to hold on to anything, any lifeline to keep me afloat, as I slowly feel like I am drowning.
I have been so down lately, which isn’t like me at all. Normally I am the biggest optimist, but the emotions are flooding me, constantly washing over and through me, threatening me.
There are truths and stories bursting out of me but I can’t seem to find the words. I have time but I can’t focus on writing. Instead I sit and pick my nails, wondering what’s next.
I put myself on antidepressants to try and get through it all. (ain’t no shame in the mental health game) That barely helps. And the wave keeps coming.
I think the fear of the unknown is stunting my personal growth. I feel like I can almost grab on to something, anything, to pull me out of this but I don’t have the strength to hold on. People will say we should have accomplished something during the quarantine, but to those of us who aren’t it feels especially daunting to even continue trying.
I read this quote:
Why is it torture? Why can’t I take advantage of this time I have been given?
I see the value in the quote, but it hurts. It hurts that I feel like I am wasting this time and opportunity to reset. And maybe I am resetting and shifting and growing, but I still question it, and it’s painful.
After years of therapy the main thing I got out of it was that “I am good enough”. Maybe I don’t have to change the world, be brilliant, be perfect, be whatever someone else wants me to be. Maybe I need to quiet the voice inside that is guilting me to be who everyone else wants me to be and just be ok being myself.
Maybe if I let go of the expectations the water will recede and I will be able to breathe again.
I am now almost two months out from graduating college after 20 years of trying to attain this goal. And while it feels good to finally accomplish that, I am left wondering ‘now what?’. I realize that I live pretty much in the middle of nowhere but there are jobs within a 30-minute radius of me and many of them are pretty good jobs. I have interviewed for a few but I am never the chosen one.
I keep telling myself that it obviously wasn’t the right one and something will come along, but it stings a little bit. Perhaps I shouldn’t have chosen such a lofty mid-life crisis. Hah!
I busted my brain trying to finish as quickly as I could – often maxing out credits and attending two schools just to get through it. I took my family on this crazy ride and they supported and helped me – even to their own detriment sometimes. They believed in me and I wish I could believe in myself like that.
The struggle is real, tho. It is very hard to find a job. Maybe I should have stayed where I was, content to be looked-over when it came to promotions and raises, but I believed there was more to my life than that. Maybe that’s the fallacy of being told you can be whatever you want to be. Maybe there is an expiration date on dreaming. Who knows.
I guess in the long run it will be worth it, but right now I am wondering if it was the right choice. I feel like a failure. This experiment didn’t turn out as I had hoped.
Yes, I still believe in following your dreams. I will still teach my kids to believe in themselves. A big problem I tend to have is leaping before I look. I just go for it, unaware of what pitfalls may become me. I took the road less traveled – left security behind – because I believed there was more for me in this life. Maybe there is. Maybe the job I thought I had will call me back, but it’s been over a week since I took all the tests and I haven’t heard back on a start date. Maybe they will call tomorrow. Who’s to say.
I will keep on keepin’ on because it’s what I do best, but the seams are starting to unravel. All the stars are so far away!! I wanted a degree so I would be passed over because of my merit and it wouldn’t be a degree standing in my way. Now I wonder if I had any merit in the first place, and maybe I was just lucky to have a job at all…
Anywho, enough. Pull up my pants and keep trying! I am not looking for sympathy or having a pity party. I just needed to get that off my chest and be real for a minute.
I truly believe the feat I accomplished was worth it, and I learned more in the last year and a half than I have in a very long time, I guess I just expected more immediate results. 😉
lobotomyplease 