Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Time, T- Time Time

What didn't come through in that last post is how freaking tired I am of being stressed out and pressed for time. All the time, I am pressed for time. Each day is filled to the brim with scheduled Places To Be and People I Will Disappoint If I Am Not There. I'm not the Queen of England ('cause I know that was your guess) but rather a regular mom with a job. How did this extreme pressure happen? How did it get to be that there are all these places I must be and there's no time for anything else? No time to get together with friends, but rather just Go Here, Go There, And Hurry Up Already. I am so sick of that.

What's more is, the garage still has my crap in it; the house is still messy; it's not all organized from when I moved last October. My husband wants his garage back, like, NOW, and I want to give it to him, like YESTERDAY, and holy mother of geese, WHEN am I going to actually do it?!? Make a difference?!?

I picked up a newsletter freelance thing, which will be great when I'm not working full time. But for now, I have TWO jobs. Plus, the taxes to do. Plus, you know, that little girl that I'm in charge of raising. What time does she get? Whatever time's leftover, is what. Yuck. Then there's that man I married. What about him?

Do you think, "Allright already, stop complaining. You're quitting your job. Problem solved."? Yes, in May. At the end of May. After I explode from being squeezed by all this scheduling. At which point my husband can gather up all the quivering jelly parts of me, put them in a wheelchair, and wheel me up to the table to do some soul-soothing jewelry design with the aid of a robotic arm with computerized voice recognition software.

The problem with working and having a family is and always will be the issue of balance. How to balance work, getting to work, getting ready to work, taking care of child(ren), home life, husband-or-wife-or-partner relationship, and time for (gasp!) yourself. Who is that, anyway, this self-person?

I haven't had time for myself lately, and that very well may be the reason I am going cuckoo at the moment. Oh hell, I take that back. I did do something for myself just last Friday night: I designed a necklace. And redesigned it, and futzed with it, then finally got fed up with it and went to bed. Saturday morning, I got up and redesigned the hell out of it until I was finally satisfied with it. This was what I needed to do, to work with my hands and get absorbed by an activity I actually enjoyed for more than 20 minutes without being interrupted. My soul was soothed by it, and then I had to leave for an all day thing, and then Sunday was work-work-taxes-work-work-bed-wish-for-death-in-order-to-finally-rest.

If I don't get to do something like that, something I enjoy where I can become absorbed and let my body relax and my mind wander and ponder things other than The Schedule And All That I Am Not Doing Well, it does me a lot of good. So how come I feel a little bad for taking this time? How come it has to be taken at the cost of Everything That Is Waiting To Be Done While Your Sorry Ass is Doing Something For Yourself? Because I haven't found that balance I spoke of earlier. I am full-tilt into Go Go Go, and, I hate to use the word, feel somewhat guilty about doing things that soothe me. Why?

That is not a rhetorical question. I actually want to know the answer. And then I just want to smack myself for asking stupid questions.

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