The most creative thing...

this campus has seen in 25 years! A back-patting comment I received at a final presentation this week, what a way to kick off my three-day vacation. Albeit it was for some proposed traffic calming measures, which didn't seem all that out of the ordinary to me. But hey, I'll take it. Makes me feel good about work anyway.

This vacation has been feeling like a whole-body purge: I started with my birthday chiropractic adjustment (6 months late), which has left me feeling achy for 2 days; followed by catching up on sleep--basically two catnaps, one on the trip down and one as we were waiting to leave for dinner at Morimoto; and daily dips in the pool and hot tub. I'm still trying to work the tendinitis out of my elbow, it's pretty painful.

I'm also trying not to be anal about schedule and feeling rushed for time. If we make it to the aquarium today, I'll be set for vacation goals. We made it to the cabinet place, only to find that they won't work for our kitchen due to the odd size. We're on to plan B, which is basically back to Lowes/Home Depot, with a little pencil sharpening and harder negotiations.

Still the same

I suppose it should be quite telling that here I am, over a year since the last post, and I still feel the same. It should not be a surprise that it's the same time of year, the darkest and coldest of days, and the eternity of snow.

I don't know why I feel so awful all the time. It feels like I'm one of those plate spinners, balancing precious things I don't want to break. It's like waiting for a sneeze, anticipating everything coming down and crashing all around me. I feel like I'm going to fail at something inevitably, it's just a matter of time.

I know I haven't been living life for some time now, mostly just tolerating it and in autopilot. But I don't know how to change that--I still have to wake up, make breakfast, get kids ready, go to work, work, come home, make or eat dinner, get kids to bed, go to bed. I'm not really having any fun, even the fun things don't really feel fun, they feel like work.

I started reading for the first time in ages the other day; it started off as enjoyable, but now it feels like work again. I just want to FINISH. Everything seems to be about finishing these days, and not wanting to start another thing that I will just have to finish. I can remember my dad saying, Don't start anything you can't finish...and it makes me want to do nothing at all. How do I get past this feeling?

I hate this seething feeling. All the time now I ask myself, Did I really say that? Why did I say that? I just need to keep my mouth shut.