I spend so much time trying to catch up with myself.
I really hate that.
Priorities.
I am always telling other people-it's your priorities.
You give the time to the things that are most important to you.
You work from and act on the things (and people) that are most important to you.
Those are your priorities.
What are my priorities?
Bird food on the floor bothers me to NO end.
Do you know my rug in my living room has been completely ruined-and not entirely by my son-but mostly by my daughter-who ought to know better (not that my son doesn't-but he is a bit of the bull in the china shop...)
Dog fur seems to grow in the corners, not just on the dog, but whole new puppies seemingly coming together in the nooks and the crooks and the shadows.
Dishes pile up in the sink and I glower at them as I pass.
Someone needs to make tea--and I am suffering the loss of my tea drop these days-ever since my daughter burnt my tea cozy to a crisp-and then the tea pot itself broke when something somehow tumbled down off a shelf onto it-but we won't name names about who might have done that (E!).
Do we need to discuss laundry? Or the fact I mean to go through my linen closet and donate so many towels and whatnot to the local animal shelters?
Or that my mending box is not just full to overflowing--but has taken over and overflowed a second box.....
These are things I just don't always get to when I know I should be getting to them.....
I am tired of fighting myself.
I am even more tired of fighting my daughter-but I can't do much about that. it is the nature of young children. She is in the haunting phase, among other things.....
I am more tired of fighting myself. I am not Sylvia Plath. I cannot get up at 3-4 in the morning to wrestle with my writing, maintain a perfectly clean and tidy home and dote on my children and man endlessly before crashing to bed at too late an hour to justify my being able to get up at 3-4 in the morning the next go round.
That isn't me.
I am not a complete slob. Although I do live with one. And a bird. Did I mention I am not really a bird person?
I am putting myself under way too much stress.
I worry about the ex. I worry about the kids. I worry about the neighbors. I worry about the rug. I am terrified and worried about the future. I cry myself to sleep too often to count.
I can't go to sleep. I can't wake up. I am not working enough-but I am working too much.
I stand in the doorway looking out and watching the roses grow. If nothing else, I am very proud of myself for defying the ex's in my head (and who arrive at my doorstep) and planting my roses in a semi-circle I can see from my front doorway--which is where I will stand half the day to watch birds and traffic and grass grow and weeds overtake the lawn--in which I take a perverse delight. I love dandelions....
I am tired of fighting myself. I am tired of trying to catch up with myself. I am tired of guilt-tripping myself. I am tired of my obstinate refusal to do anything else except what I want to do when I want to do it in order to impress people who don't actually exist outside my head anyway, except the ex, and I fail to understand why I feel the need to show him I am such a good person anyway--everything is lost upon him.
This is my pledge: I am going to stop trying to catch up with myself. I am just going to be me. Me says I want that hour of Yoga in the morning-because first thing in the morning is the best time for me to do my asana practise.
Me says I want to have that hour after Yoga for writing. I write best first thing in the morning-and late into the night, when I should be in bed asleep if I plan to get up in the morning for either Yoga or writing.
Me says-my art work comes first. The dishes aren't going anywhere. We are not crawling in bugs-the dishes don't stink up the house-and they haven't been sitting there for over a month (Let me tell you about my friend C's house one day--she bought new dishes rather than wash them--hoping some friend would come over, get disgusted and wash her dishes--I HATE dishes and I would go to her house and wash things up because it was so gross...and that was only the kitchen....)
Me-I am no longer going to catch up with myself. I am still going to grouse at the kid about her stuff--but her stuff is not my stuff. Grousing at her is just par for the course until -- I guess until I die or she dies or something. I don't know yet. I can't see a solution here, short of letting someone else come in and fix things. I'm just the mom. She's not going to believe I know what I am talking about til she has kids of her own-which is when and how I realised my mother was not completely insane myself.
Me--I am going to be happy with myself if I finish an art project, even if there are dishes in the sink. I am going to be proud of myself when I finish that poem, even if there is nothing to drink but water in the house (side note--we're Southerners here-if we don't have sweet tea in the fridge we might just DIE!). I am going to be happy with myself if I can find two matching (or not) slipper socks to wear in a day, even if I have big piles of washed and dried laundry sitting in the basket for nearly a month (ok-there's where my month long travails come in) so long as I have tried something amazing to make me smile for the day.
I am ok with the fact that I will probably never be a perfect house keeper. I know after the kids are gone I will still have dogs--and the kids will come back--with kids of their own. I am ok with this.
I am ok with the fact that I do not have extremely high expectations of how I want my house to look or how I want to look or anything like that.
I want to be happy. I want to be content with myself.
That is what I am aiming for.
That means keeping up with my writing. That means keeping up with my drawing. That means keeping up with my painting. And all the other really weird things that I do. Or try to do.
It means I am ok just being me. Without having to castigate myself all the time about what I should be doing rather than working on my art.
My art is who I am.
As long as my house is reasonable, I'm ok.
But then again-I spend alot of time at that kitchen table, working with paints and things. And I have this thing about my kitchen and my area being clean before I work on anything--even if I leave piles of magazines and folders and glues and paints all over the table for weeks on end. :-) Although technically I do clean half the table off every week-end when N comes because he thinks it is so utterly cool to eat at the table--he has to climb up into the chairs. He thinks he is too cool. And he really is.
This is my goal. To stop fighting, to stop pushing, to stop guilting. To be me and be happy.
