Cleaning the Cobwebs

Half day. Kids gone in their various directions and I find myself alone, such a rarity these days. I decided to clean my craft room. The state of it is a reflection of the frame of mind I've been in lately- chaotic, neglected, un-inspired. Ive been thinking a lot in the past few days and getting my head on straight about some stuff. Ever notice how sometimes things can be going great but somehow you find yourself miserable just the same? Well- me anyway. Nora was helping me make some buttons earlier and suddenly I saw what the work area had gotten to.

After the girls left I set to it. Lit some incense. My dad hates incense; he says the smoke makes him feel like he's choking. But I love the way it burns when it first hits my nostrils and how the smell never fails to lift my spirits. I also put on some Weepies and turned it up. Something I am coming to realize is how quiet my life has become. I work all day in a place with no music, and then I come home and work in the kitchen and get tired and go to bed. I have lost music. I am figuring out what needs to happen for me to get that back.

I rolled up the cheap little rug we had placed in front of the computer and threw it out. It's constantly bunched up under the rollers on the chair and I suddenly wondered why we were still battling it. I do it a lot- fighting against things that aren't working. Sometimes I do that because I don't know how to fix it. What I am realizing is that sometimes you can't fix it. You don't fix it. You fix yourself.

The only person you can really control is yourself and your own attitude and reactions to situations. That's what I'm working on.

I have been writing poetry for many years, some of it better than others. Slowly, I began getting a pile of words together that I liked the most. 

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Tuesday night, solace and white wine

I did have to go and tell the whole blogosphere that I could shine anywhere, didn't I? What a jackass. Work has been grueling. Defeating. Overwhelming. Today I had to fight the urge to flee the building. I have a stack of paperwork thick enough to provide a comfy cushion for my elbow, thanks to a system upgrade which has rendered me even less computer-adept than I was before. Left work at 5:30 after shoving the pile of un-processed papers in my drawer for the night. Went by the grocery store where I dropped $83 and some change like it was nothing, then drove over to the mall to pick Maddie up and then back to the ball field for one more pickup. But Hunter needed a ride home so I did that, praying my groceries would not be a soggy blob by the time I made it home. I threw a little unhealthy convenience food at the kids and plopped down at the computer with a glass of cold wine and let myself go numb. Numb is how I feel after a day like today. I try to think of a friend of mine, who has a job she hates but somehow never seems to lose sight of herself and keeps her spirit intact and travels out of town on her weekends off and just generally inspires me. What drives her that doesn't drive me? I desperately want to know. I disappoint everyone around me.

Finally, the kids have grown bored of waiting for me to get off the computer and they go put a movie on. I am glad. I just want to be alone after dealing with people all day. Joe is out of town and so Nora will want to sleep with me tonight. I'll be in bed by 9:30. I am a shell.

I have a chapbook of poems being published and I am happy. I feel unworthy but glad. I have written nothing recently. I want to but my mind, it's so tired. How to balance it all? The things I do all day give me things to write about, but they sap me so much that I can't write about them.

And too many uses of the word "I." It makes me nauseous.

But when I am drawing up a joint injection and the milky Kenalong is mingling in the syringe with the Lidocaine and I change the needle out like I've done it all my life and the Asian doctor says something that sounds like "trichantery" and I know she means "trochanteric"- it's like maybe it's all meant to be. Maybe.