“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.” – Albert Einstein
This has been a hard week for me. Honestly, it was much harder than I anticipated.
I knew I would struggle to slip back into the role of student while maintaining a full-time job, supporting my husband, who is going through his own transitions, and making sure my two dogs were loved and cared for. Yet I still had this fantasy in my head that everything would be peachy keen and easy as pie because I’m embarking on this amazing journey.
I am a dumb fuck.
The adjustment has been a bigger strain for me than I anticipated, and I feel like I’ve failed on all fronts.
Nothing catastrophic has happened, but I feel so off balance. So Not In Control. And while I’ve been actively working on my control “issues” for a while, it doesn’t take much to hurl me back into that mindset. I haven’t been able to really talk to my husband much this week so I feel so disconnected from what’s going on with him, I haven’t walked the dogs much or given them enough attention and they’re agitated and acting out, which just pisses me off, and the more frustrated I get with them, the more frustrated they get with me.
Vicious circle, meet control freak.
The other night I got home from work and instead of addressing any of those issues, I immediately became overwhelmed with all of the homework I needed to do. So did I organize it into smaller tasks and tackle those like a normal human being? Nope. Instead, I brushed out the dogs, vacuumed the house and stared rewriting my notes from class a few days before. Those were things I could control right then. They were tasks I knew I could master. (Although really, I will NEVER master all of the dog hair in my house.)
Then I sat down and started to do my homework. And freaked out. What the hell did I get myself into? I will never get through this program. I thought.
Yes, overreacting is part of my DNA.
The irony is, that a lot of my assignments this week have been about finding balance. Not the physical balance, but about creating space in your life for the things you love and gradually eliminating the things you don’t. That pretty much sums up what this program means to me. It’s that struggle—the creation of a fuller, happier life—that’s propelling me to do this.
I know I’m angst-y and making a big deal out of this. I know it’s going to get easier. I know I will figure it out. But right now I need to dump out the contents of my head to start over.
(On a side note: All this drama has propelled me to write here more. But after such a dry spell in the land of Snark I have no idea of any of you are still around, though! *crickets*)
Still here, darlin’. Always reading, even if I (uncharacteristically) keep my mouth shut.
As for the (un)balance: Give yourself a break! You’re doing something new, something hard, something which because it is new and hard will unbalance you, at least for awhile.
And what’s that Beckett line? “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
absurdbeats recently posted..We are all going down
I’m not hard-wired to give myself a break! That’s actually one of the reasons I’m pushing myself to do this. But I’m definitely hoping to change all of that one of these days!
Glad you’re still here! (PS: I check in with you as well—I’m so back about commenting though!)
*jumps up and down, waving wildly*
I’m still here!
Do what you can, when you can. You will get there. And if that means putting off the vacuuming for another day, really, that’s no big. One step at a time. One breath at a time.
Hi Mary! How was your vacation?
All that vacuuming is a procrastination tool. Also? You’ve seen my dogs—they are full-time, professional shedders of hair! But you’re right—I need to take it one step at a time. I think I need to freak out before I can settle down!