in medias res

The Measure of My Days

Lately, I’ve been noticing that I spend most of my time doing things that don’t really matter. The things I want to do, I don’t do. The things I don’t want to do, I do. (Thank you, The Apostle Paul.) A very wise friend of mine once said that if you don’t do the small things now when time is tight– such as making time for relationships and reading and rest – then you never will. There will always be something more pressing. Another wise friend has been explaining how connected every aspect of our lives are – my inadequacies in one area can affect my relationships or performance in another area.

I’ve been doing a lot of mulling in the new year…

[Cue Baz “Luhrmann’s Everybody’s Free To Wear Sunscreen”?...

record scrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaatch]

Maybe not.

I have decided to stop discussing my romantic relationships on this thing – unless something significant happens. We’ll see how long I hold out. If I can help it, I don’t want to hurt people.

I’ve also spent way too much time working. I had an especially stressful week right before Christmas. I was working myself gloomy. I bought an elf hat with ears to help get me in the Christmas mood, but it didn’t work. I felt overwhelmed and tired. When I was volunteered to edit 100 pages of a colleague’s dissertation (on psychometrics) the same week I had to proof and electronically edit two manuals by myself, I reached a breaking point. I was working too much, and I had nothing to show for it.

This semester, I’m doing things a little smarter. I cut back my hours at work, signed up for some empty hours at school (to get Sallie Mae off of my back, and to get student insurance). I put most of my Ph.D. applications in the mail this afternoon. When I met with one of my professors, he asked where I went last semester. I was here. I was here, and no one saw me because I hid.

No mas!

By the way, can you tell how much older and wiser I am now? Or, at least, older. I aged over the break – had my 26^th on the 26^th. I’m almost 30. I spent quality time with the family and listened to the pitterpatter of little feet – namely, David and Casey’s cats Dan and Ann. I also discovered Taco Boy with Edie, did some good catching-up with my high school friends. I ate. It was largely uneventful, but I was surprised with a big, beautiful digital SLR camera for Christmas/birthday. It was useful when I packed up my bags a few days later and rode into the Texas sunset to watch my good friend Heather get married. I love Texas. It’s the Southiest of the South – warts and all.

I hid behind my camera most of the weekend, and I vacillated between feeling beautiful and connected to the people around me, to feeling awkward and unwanted. I think the latter comes mostly from a feeling I don’t want to have – that I hate myself for even having. And even after I returned to Tallahassee, to my lovely roommate and to several refreshing days with my Laurie, the feeling persisted...

I think it’s probably normal right now, but when all of your ex-boyfriends (and a few almost-boyfriends or small crushes) are engaged or married, when your youngest brother’s friends are all getting married…it can make you start to ask some painful questions.

I know the advice. And I don’t want to be the girl who wants to get married. (That girl gets on my nerves!) Besides that, weddings make me tired. Dysfunctional marriages make me tired.

I keep telling myself that this is liberating. Every direction I thought my life was going to go – it isn’t. I get to rethink everything. But I still mourn a little, pay my proper respects, to the life I maybe secretly was hoping I would have.

When I start feeling this way, I like to stretch out wide so I take up most of my bed. Then, I put my arms behind my head and think about sleep. I don’t want to miss out on having a bed that’s just for me. (…because you know how crowded a bed can get once you get too many cats!)

***
In other news, if you have been waiting anxiously on an update on the packaging video I was agonizing over for work – the one where I wanted to have the F-Cat with the moving arm? Well, the wait is over. It’s here! It features a persnickety flamingo and a stern but easily ruffled narrator. (I can hardly take credit for it now. While I got together the chunk of ice, it was another gal at work who carved out the sculpture. I got to put in a joke here or there, but we’re calling it her baby now.) So, please, enjoy the thrilling adventure of packaging test administration materials. (There are a few jokes that make me laugh, but mostly it’s d-r-y. For what it is, it’s decent…)

Enjoy.

And ssssttrreeettccch...

My next update will discuss my trip this weekend to Pass Christian, Mississippi with a group to do (still much-needed) Hurricane Katrina relief. We're gutting houses. I had to buy safety gear. "Safety First!"

(Note: A group of Mennonites built the camp where we're staying. Some kids who went before were talking about how they got to hang out with the Amish, and how it was wedding season, which is like mating season for them, and that all the women just sit around and wait for some guy they barely know to come up and propose, and then they're married! My thought was, "No, that's a small Baptist college - not the Amish!" Ka-chigga!)

posted by tara @ 7:31 PM