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You stealthy fucking beast you. I forgot how much of a pain in the ass you are.
~ me
First night back on graves, found myself in bed and tired at 0615 am...off to a good start.
At 0940am the buzz-sawing would not end. Backyard buzzsawing. Would.not.end.
At 1005 it ended...a little too late.
I was up. My brain was up. I just want that thing to shut down for a little while latley. I did what I do when my brain wakes me up. I started to write. Scratched out feverishly, it was flowing pretty quickly. I was interrupted by a text from another sleep-deprived soul declaring that his sleep own deprivation from the night before was my fault. But then he called me a "Salty Veteran"...only other salty veterans or newbies who were raised taught right use that term. I'll take it. The Salty Graveyard Veteran was up!
I never got back to bed. Started wandering the house, pup in tow, across the new kitchen floor, into the finally finished family room, to my brand new, yet to be christened closet. Everything in that room was covered in sheet rock dust. I decided to start swiffering...half asleep and in a nightie, I figured I had 12 hours to get some stuff done and still get a nap in.
Swiffering. Half-asleep. In a nightie. = things single girls can do when they live alone. I love living alone.
I began the day with this thought: don't compare yourself to yourself...be who you are today, not 2 years ago, not what you're going to be some day. Where you are is exactly where you need to be.
Some Pandora music station belting out country tunes, I had this discussion with myself about a discussion I had with my Muse earlier this year that we both felt I was going to embark on a year full of "decluttering" starting with making MY house MY home. The end of that conversation between her and I also concluded that as soon as I get my place exactly the way I want it, the sooner I'll find a reason to leave it behind and move on to something even bigger and better for my life. Nonetheless, I smiled as I cleaned up and put things away, with the idea that the closet was just the beginning of that process. The real, true to life version of that thought. It's been unusable space for many, many years. Damaged, worn, broken. Sounding familiar? I thought so... Now it's fresh and new, reporposed, proud, shiny, so good now that it makes the rest of the room look old and outdated.
I got about 1/8 of the room done, dusted, mopped, and wiped down before I decided that I had enough.
Wandered into the backyard with a mirror and some tweezers. Yeah, overgrown is always easier to spot in natural light. Had enough eyebrow torture for the day and then found my way into the garage. Still in the nightie and now flip flops, I started moving wooden palettes in the garage. Splinters and all, I maneuvered them around imagining what bed frames and rustic American flag coffee tables I would be making. "I'm 50 Shades of Crafty" I said out loud and to the pup. "I just need a circular saw, a sander, some bolts, and a drill." All the things that the sleep-deprived should not have access to. Thank God Someone is looking out for me.
Before I knew it, morning was afternoon. I was still in a nightie, still unshowered, and still trying to keep myself from being completely covered in sheet rock dust. Leaving the house was off limits for the day. I had already wasted too much time and I just didn't want to leave the confines of my walls.
I looked up training courses, new jobs, federal, state, and local jobs, positions with "Director" and "Manager" in the title. I thought about teaching, I thought about standing in front of a classroom, I thought about doing something with my expertise that would afford me some new exposure to the world.
As the afternoon wore on, I wore out and finally found myself finally back in bed, deciding that it was nap time. I found myself in bed next to an old phone with old texts and old memories. Memories that I traced back to June of 2010. What had I said about not comparing yourself to two years ago? I was about to foul up my entire day, my mood, and undo my entire strange slightly productive recovery from sleep deprivation. It seemed like my subconscious took my declaration early in the day as a personal challenge. I should have stopped while I was ahead.
I read those texts from two years back. The emotions, the frustration, the want, the rejection, the desire, the attraction, the confusion, more frustration, more misunderstanding, more games, more unanswered questions, more, more, more... The last thing I needed to confirm or remember in the cluster that has been the last three weeks of my life. I read them all. It was more dangerous for me than the circular saw would have been.
Sleep deprivation set in even harder after unearthing the emotions that I thought were flushed away. I tried to lay my head down and just like someone had poured a bucket of cold water on me, I jolted out of bed with the stark realization that I was living in a groundhogs day moment, a deja vu moment of working graves, still single, not happy with being up all night and asleep all day, it was hot, I was sticky and sweaty, and alone. I was alone. Sleep deprivation turned mini panic attack turned to a phone call and a text to a good friend. It turned into calling work for a 2 hour late start of my shift for the night. I had to get some sleep, right? The panic turned into a pity party. I turned it before it got too panicky, but still, it was there. It had reared its ugly head and stared straigth at me.
Over the course of 10 hours, I had declared for all of the Facebook world that I was not going to look back or forward but just in the moment. In my pitiful, sorrowful, sad and lonely state of mind lying there in my bed sleep-deprived and sticky from sheet rock dust and the Summer weather, I had done the exact and total opposite.
I decided to get up. Get in the shower and then maybe get back to bed. I turned the music back on. I listened to the thoughts I had recorded typed from the words I had feverishly written out earlier. I listened to my voice on those recordings. I like my voice. I could narrate something. I know what it's like to express emotion, sorrow, frustration, joy, confusion, hope...all those emotions that make for successful communication. Communication. My conundrum it feels like lately. Too much, too little, not clear enough, not concise, not decided, too decided, too much, too forceful. Words...they have meaning, but I found myself again knowing that actions speak louder than any words ever could. I felt like my actions in my personal life hadn't spoken louder than my words. My words in those texts, emails, blog posts, in my life.
I'd like to blame graves entirely. I'd like to blame the warm weather. I'd like to blame sleep-deprivation, but I can only take responsibility for how I let my day evolve and unravel. These last couple of weeks have me thinking about all the big and small moments in the last two years. I have read old text, messages, emails, and blogs. The changes make my head clear and my heart happy. The similarities from years ago to now make it fuzzy again and my heart heave. I have to find a healthy balance between the two.
I wanted to give up and stay in bed, stay home, stay in that rut that my mind had carved out. But then this still small voice, my inner Scarlett O'Hara kicked in. I saw my progress from a couple of years ago to now. I saw where I hadn't changed. I saw where I have taken full advantage of learning from new opportunities and mistakes that I saw coming from a mile away. I saw missed opportunities and great decisions made. I saw regrets and I saw where I have put my foot down, lead with my mind, but still heard what my heart was saying. I tried to find the silver lining in the clouds and trust my natural born instincts. I saw that I was all these things and more.
12 hours later, after the rollercoaster of my day, I made this declaration:
I feel like I might have the same bones, the same structure, as I did two years ago, but like my new closet, my heart and my mind have been decluttered and in some ways rebuilt. Painfully, yes, but still repurposed, cleaned up, emptied out, and filled up again. Like the new closet, I'm putting things back in there with some semblance of order. Cleaner, dusted off, wiped down.
Living. Existing. Changing. Evolving. Drastically. Statically. Constantly. Decluttering. Slowly...but surely.
haha. your house looks great. i love this post.
ReplyDeleteaside from the graveyard nemesis, you nailed it:
"I began the day with this thought: don't compare yourself to yourself...be who you are today, not 2 years ago, not what you're going to be some day. Where you are is exactly where you need to be."