Archives for June 2016

Thursday Ten: A Third Down edition

  1. So, yeah, June is almost over. It feels like summer has barely started but it’s actually almost a third over and how is that even possible? (THE TIME IT FLIES)
  2. With a free download from the Starbucks app, I downloaded the 5 Minute Journal this week. Just a few days in and though it may well be shortlived, it’s good for me to work on practicing gratitude and looking for the moments that made me happy.
  3. I have watched an insane amount of Greys Anatomy on Netflix this week. I’m still pretty sure I could intubate y’all if you needed it.
  4. I was selected to be one of the “Awesome People” on the launch team of Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s Textbook, due out on August 9. I’m not paid to have opinions – just received a free copy of the book – which I devoured in the span of a few hours while sitting by the lake a few weeks ago. It’s classic AmyKR – whimsical, joyous and sweet. I’ll be posting more about it in the coming weeks, but y’all might consider pre-ordering it, especially if you need a feel-good book to read this summer.
  5. Finally, after over a year of the envelope sitting on my counter, I’ve finally booked an appointment to use the spa gift card that’s inside of it. Next week I have an appointment at a local spa, where it will cost an ungodly amount of (gift card) money to probably dye my hair the exact same color it is now.
  6. I’m working on so many big projects at work right now that I’m barely finding time to breathe, but still making sure that when I can, I get outside for some fresh air and exercise. I used to be a “work through lunch” kind of person but I’m glad to have ditched that habit for the most part.
  7. Dog farts are lethal.
  8. There’s a three day weekend coming. While I’m excited about that, I’m still focused on just getting to the end of next week. I know, I know, wishing my life away, but basically? Just trying to get some projects crossed off the list.
  9. I haven’t cooked in ages. I have no desire to cook. It’s too hot. I’m too tired. I’m not prepared. I’m sick of ordering (and paying) for takeout, though. Next week, I get my shizz together. Tonight, I need to menu plan and make a grocery list.
  10. Hard to get excited about puny fourth of July fireworks after the awesome of Disney fireworks… but I’ll still try.

Thursday Ten: A Change Is Gonna Come

  1. As I type this, I think back on the post I wrote last week. The one where I was so maxed out, so stressed out, so overwhelmed. Well… I’m still there. And feeling this way is not a good thing for me. I’m trying to practice self care as best I can – yesterday, I worked out twice! I drank lots of water! I reached out to my friends! But… I’m still having a very hard time and I’m not quite used to this.
  2. There are 39 messages in my spam folder right now and they’re almost all from the Gap.
  3. I am watching season 12 of Greys Anatomy on Netflix and getting my heard stomped on over and over again with all the drama. In a good way?
  4. I downloaded a new app called “Streaks” in order to try to create some healthy habits in my life – it’s the only reason I’ve managed to remember to floss my teeth for the past 8 days in a row.
  5. Tickets for Hamilton Chicago went on sale and by the time I was able to try to get tickets, all I could find were tickets that are $500+ each… or tickets with an “obstructed view.” (Hey theatres: why would you obstruct the view of the stage?) So what I’m saying is: I didn’t get Hamilton tickets.
  6. And I hate that I am even feeling badly about my life at all because so many people I know are going through some SERIOUS stuff and I’m all like, “Wah wah wah…I’m overwhelmed.” Realistically, we cannot compare our challenges to those that other people face – otherwise we’ll make ourselves even crazier trying to minimize our struggles for fear they’re not big enough to be justified. We don’t have to do that. At least, I don’t think so.
  7. You know, a year ago I was terrified. A year ago, I was newly diagnosed with Usher syndrome and I didn’t know how long my eye sight would last. I was looking for signs all the time about my vision – was it better, was it worse? My visit in Iowa changed a lot of that fear to hope. About my eyes. I think that has altered the changing about the other stuff. In some good ways and some less than great ways.
  8. As you can see, I’m working through my thoughts as I type this list.
  9. It hasn’t rained in a very long time and my yards are dry and what’s there is more likely a weed than grass.
  10. Is it Friday yet? It would be really lovely if it could be Friday.

And that’s about when my brain melted

Have you ever started filling up  your kitchen sink to wash dishes (because your dishwasher is broken and every time you think you’re going to buy a new one, well, something else comes up and then you don’t get a dishwasher and you have to keep handwashing everything even though it makes you want to punch a manatee) and then walked away, completely forgetting what you were doing until you register the sound of the still running water and you glance over at the sink, the water dangerously close to the top of the basin?

Or you were pouring flour into a glass measuring cup and the flour crashed out of the jar in a huge glump and then the cup overflows – flour everywhere.

I don’t know what’s up with the kitchen analogies but essentially what I’m saying is this: these containers have a finite capacity to hold stuff. You try to put too much stuff in, and eventually – poof – stuff everywhere.

That’s…kind of where I am. Dangerously close to being an exploding bag of flour or overflowing sink.

And it’s not a great feeling.

My grandma died on Wednesday.

My mom called me on the drive to work – and in the span of ten minutes, I was on a roller coaster: the paramedics were on their third round of CPR and no response to… they had a pulse and grandma was on her way to ER.

Sobbing, I navigated through a dismal road construction bottleneck while sobbing to my coworker on Bluetooth, telling her I would not be into work. I arrived at the hospital the same time mom did, and we were immediately ushered into a family room

Not a good sign.

We waited for everyone to arrive.

There’s not much you can do in a moment like that. You sit, and you cry and you wait. You try to get ahold of family on the phone. You scroll Twitter and feel envious of the people who haven’t had their morning go completely astray. You check your email.

A ventilator was breathing for my grandmother and I was thinking about work and the things I would have to delegate to someone to get done and a teacher was emailing me about an award my daughter was being surprised with the next day at a ceremony I would be unable to attend because I was chaperoning my other daughter’s class trip.

The glass measuring jar. The overflowing sink.

One by one family arrived. The priest arrived. The doctor disconnected the ventilator and we watched as she took her last breaths.

We cried and we hugged and then we didn’t know what to do next and so most of us just went our separate ways.

That push and the pull of all of the obligations facing me in that moment, that’s what has replayed in my mind over the past few days. The moment when I realized that no matter what I did, I couldn’t possibly do all of the things when they needed to be done, to please all of the people.

It was also the moment when I realized: there’s just too much.

If you thought that this was going to be the kind of post that tells you how to overcome that, well, you thought wrong. I had this epiphany several days ago and I’m still pretty much a mess.

I don’t sleep well. My home office is filled with laundry that needs to be folded. There is a crockpot sitting on my counter that needs to be emptied of leftovers and scrubbed clean, but it’s the first time I’ve found to write in days, so I’m typing this post, eating Dots candy and watching the Food Network Star on Netflix. I only feel a little bit bad about that.

In trying to find peace, sometimes all I can see is the clutter on my bookshelves. I stress about work projects and problems that never come to be because I’ve just created some imaginary worst case scenario and beaten myself up over it…only to have it never happen.

I am an overflowing sink.

And I don’t know how to turn the water off.

The thing is, I suspect I’m not the only one. In fact, I know I’m not. And it’s a bit sad, I think, that so many of us are operating in this mode – this gogogogogogogogogogogogogogo mode of getting things done and running-running-running-gotta-get-it-done until we are about ready to collapse.

Until we are wide awake at three a.m. imagining awful things, pulled so far in every direction, feeling like we’re not succeeding anywhere.

Things are going to change. They have to. Because I cannot function like this anymore. My sink is overflowing and I’ve got to let some of this water out. Somehow. Someway. Soon.