So I am off the South Beach diet. I am indulging in cupcakes again. This is me emotionally eating again. And I am noticing the effect on my mood and body - sluggish and irritable. My boss is driving me crazy - so hung up in numbers. I have asked to be cut down to 32 hours at the beginning of the year and now he wants fucking numbers to back up what day I want off even though we didn't do any of this when trying to figure out which day my co-worker would take off when she came back from maternity leave at reduced hours. grrrr. I did go to the gym tonight, only because I missed yoga cuz I was staring at my damn computer. I really do need to use timers when dealing with screens. I am Wondering how the hell I am going to manage 2 weeks of having my cousin here. He is young and his own family is fed up with him and he could be my client if he wasn't my family and I just hope he doesn't end up being both. I have new neighbors moving in upstairs this weekend as well.
Ok focus. One of my colleagues is looking to run the Rock-n-Roll marathon here in Seattle next June and I may have a new running buddy for long runs! That would be cool! I am finally getting motivated to do something with my 3 lacking retirement accounts. I collect them like I do pint glasses. None of these ones have very much money in them so I am hoping to roll them all together and get something I can borrow against for the goats. I am missing goats this week. Got to babysit the boys last weekend and that was good. Get to take Riley out for his birthday outing on Saturday - my cousin had to come in late enough that I could do that.
The best news is that my father is giving me a significant amount of money to start the business and that takes a big weight off - now I just have to get cracking on getting shit done. I decided last weekend not to go to Spokane for a beerfest - wanting to save money, wasn't feeling great and really the only reasons for going were to have a road trip and to see the bartender I crush on but with whom there is really no chance of anything more than that. I'll have to do a road trip some other time. The guy I am "sort of seeing" doesn't act like a boyfriend and even though that is really what I want - a partner - I haven't stopped seeing him primarily because of the sex. Which is damn good. I am still pissy over the other guy running off to another state to be with another woman. I just don't get it. I am scared going into this goat thing all by myself and yet I feel like it is something so totally my own.
I feel like I am never getting enough done on any given day to feel like I am making progress on anything.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Feeling Bi-Polar
What seem like rapid mood shifts between total elation/excitement and sadness/depression - pretty much all weekend. The ups have been - surprise - all about goats and my developing business. I got to work out at the New Moon Goat Rescue and Sanctuary on Sat. morning and see the famous abandoned goat Betty White. She is beautiful and skittish. I loved being around all the goats with their personalities and antics. The woman who runs the place has her own horses and goats and one of the horses gives one particular goats "kisses" all down it's back. So very cute! So I got some horse love as well as much goat love on Saturday. Hanging out with the other volunteer and her daughter in the sun with the animals was so peaceful and good for my soul.
Which was important since I was practically in tears on the drive up and later that evening. Through the magic of Facebook I figured out that a dear friend of mine is getting married and moving to another state this week. Now this friend and I have a rather torrid history and have a profound love for one another but for many reasons it has not led to an actual relationship. We have been intimate in person but that was, in many ways, the smallest part of our time in relationship with each other thus far. Even when he lived not far away in Seattle I rarely saw him. I have only seen him once since he moved to the east coast but in the back part of my brain/heart whatever, I have been holding out hope that he would return and we could get this thing right for once. That isn't going to happen now. And the thing is it's probably better this way. Who I want and who I need in a relationship have thus far been different people. I go for the ones I want but aren't really right for me. I don't really know if I have passed up any of the "right" ones because I didn't want them. I think that for the lasting connection there has to be a high percentage of both want and need (good for me-ness) for both people. No one and no relationship is perfect but all of mine have had fatal flaws that cannot be overcome simply by my wanting it to be different. The true reciprocity is what has been lacking - it's always been that one is more into the relationship than the other. Or it's not been working for either of us.
The cool thing is that this person and I had a long conversation and I cried, he felt bad and we know that we will stay friends. And I want him to be happy and this relationship-soon to be marriage- I think really has the potential to meet his needs and make him happy. By being married, he is fully off my radar of potentials. It's just how I work. I will re-adjust and hopefully be able to find the "right one" without now wondering about he & I. So it is a loss, but it's also freedom that I wasn't willing to give myself.
Then today has been the great goat business naming venture. I love my friends and family. They are creative and excited for me and supportive in this venture in a way that would not happen if I was merely changing jobs. I meet a friend for coffee this morning and she said that she hasn't seen me this happy in years....years! Another friend told me by phone a few weeks ago that I am sounding "like myself" again. This is fabulous for me to hear and it bespeaks the drag my current life has had on me. I am encouraged that I am on the right path for myself in the feedback I get from others not just about the business itself, but the impact it's having on me and the way I am being perceived. Truthfully I am getting super nervous about things, being in charge of that many live animals and their well-being. Mostly though I am giddy with the excitement of it all and the balance and peace I feel being around these amazing animals. This coming weekend is the annual adventure to the Puyallup Fair with my dear friend and our crazy rituals. More livestock will be pet. We will "Free our Glee" - as the tag-line incites us to do, and we shall do so with gusto!
Which was important since I was practically in tears on the drive up and later that evening. Through the magic of Facebook I figured out that a dear friend of mine is getting married and moving to another state this week. Now this friend and I have a rather torrid history and have a profound love for one another but for many reasons it has not led to an actual relationship. We have been intimate in person but that was, in many ways, the smallest part of our time in relationship with each other thus far. Even when he lived not far away in Seattle I rarely saw him. I have only seen him once since he moved to the east coast but in the back part of my brain/heart whatever, I have been holding out hope that he would return and we could get this thing right for once. That isn't going to happen now. And the thing is it's probably better this way. Who I want and who I need in a relationship have thus far been different people. I go for the ones I want but aren't really right for me. I don't really know if I have passed up any of the "right" ones because I didn't want them. I think that for the lasting connection there has to be a high percentage of both want and need (good for me-ness) for both people. No one and no relationship is perfect but all of mine have had fatal flaws that cannot be overcome simply by my wanting it to be different. The true reciprocity is what has been lacking - it's always been that one is more into the relationship than the other. Or it's not been working for either of us.
The cool thing is that this person and I had a long conversation and I cried, he felt bad and we know that we will stay friends. And I want him to be happy and this relationship-soon to be marriage- I think really has the potential to meet his needs and make him happy. By being married, he is fully off my radar of potentials. It's just how I work. I will re-adjust and hopefully be able to find the "right one" without now wondering about he & I. So it is a loss, but it's also freedom that I wasn't willing to give myself.
Then today has been the great goat business naming venture. I love my friends and family. They are creative and excited for me and supportive in this venture in a way that would not happen if I was merely changing jobs. I meet a friend for coffee this morning and she said that she hasn't seen me this happy in years....years! Another friend told me by phone a few weeks ago that I am sounding "like myself" again. This is fabulous for me to hear and it bespeaks the drag my current life has had on me. I am encouraged that I am on the right path for myself in the feedback I get from others not just about the business itself, but the impact it's having on me and the way I am being perceived. Truthfully I am getting super nervous about things, being in charge of that many live animals and their well-being. Mostly though I am giddy with the excitement of it all and the balance and peace I feel being around these amazing animals. This coming weekend is the annual adventure to the Puyallup Fair with my dear friend and our crazy rituals. More livestock will be pet. We will "Free our Glee" - as the tag-line incites us to do, and we shall do so with gusto!
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Random thoughts
Total stream of thinking tonight, perhaps that's what happens when I give my brain a chance to breathe. I am on vacation. Not going anywhere for any length of time - perhaps just some ferry rides. I was running errands today and as I was going west into downtown over the Boren Street overpass I saw many cops and EMT vehicles at the rail. My first thought was suicide and a split second later wondering if it could be one of my clients who sleeps under another overpass near there and who has recently been suicidal. It turns out I was right on the suicide part but thankfully (for me) not on the who. I can't be in downtown Seattle, or often Capitol Hill either without perpetually scanning to see if I see clients. I want to see them before they see me, some don't have good boundaries and I need my "down time." I believe it is part of my increased struggle to keep my life separate from my clients' lives. I get too involved, feel too responsible, hold their needs higher than my own more times than I care to admit.
Another part of this is my own need for recognition. When I tell people what I do I am frequently viewed as some kind of saint or a mushy brained bleeding heart that coddles people. I am neither of these. I do not work miracles. I listen to people and help them find services and support them in their struggle to make a better life for themselves - often against great odds. Yes, I care about them, no I am not going to take them home. It seems that actually caring about other human beings is really getting lost in all of the politics and money-grubbing that is going on. I hate listening to the hard-core right wing nincompoops who prattle on about family values and Christianity blah blah blah when the so harshly judge others and do not hold each other to the higher levels of conduct that they want others to do. Who, I ask, are they to judge? Is it not "|God" who does the judging? And who is Glenn Beck? I have my own spiritual path and our country was founded on the idea (apparently no the practice) of freedom of religion. This despite the fact that the Native Americans or First People got slaughtered for being "different." As humn being we are fallible, I get this. And I may not remember my Catholic teachings so well anymore but I do know that Jesus said something about those without sin throwing the first stone. Except that his believers are flinging stones all over the place and not managing to see the hypocrisy of it all. Jesus also hung out with the homeless, the poor, the prostitutes and did not fear them but walked by their sides. I hate to break it to folks, but it doesn't take a Jesus to do this. Or a rocket scientist. I do this every day. But it is wearing me down listening to all the anguish and troubles. I am so frustrated that more people don't seem to care. That police are ever ready to kill or harass or assault but community policing is going the way of the dinosaur. Respect is something that should be given first. So many police officers do a good job of making sure that they are targets of disgust and resistance.
The goat business is my way of taking a time out from all of this craziness. I want to be present for the disenfranchised. I want to help those who are struggling. But I need my own sense of peace to do that and I don't have that right now. I am constantly feeling like something the cat dragged in. Not my cat mind you, he doesn't go outside. A farm cat. An alley cat. A feral cat?
I have also been thinking about college tonight. As I attempt to clean up my apartment I am coming across things that spark my brain - like the Quarterly magazine from my undergrad alma mater. Don't care as much about the grad school stuff. Earlham College. A mid-west liberal arts college. Snobby? Perhaps a bit. But truly I never stop being grateful for the opportunity my parents and gave me to go to this school. A top notch education, a real community, a chance to find my voice and a treasure trove of true friends and acquaintances. So many of my values that my parents started to instill in me really became my own during my 4 years at Earlham. A year or 2 after graduating, a classmate wrote a long article which was published in the magazine, about how she didn't know what her degree was good for. It struck me as pathetic and whiny and entitled. So I wrote a response which also got published. I am thinking of that tonight and wondering if she has had any change of heart in the 15+ years since that article. I am also thinking of two of my cousins who are just starting their sophomore years of college and who are very different from each other and from me. I hope that they have as great an experience as I did - at least in retrospect. Goodness knows I look back on some of my journals during that time and I sure don't seem that happy. It was hard. I was still shy, skittish about relationships and dealing with undiagnosed depression. But I learned a lot, had fun and got the foundation I needed for the life ahead of me. Perhaps it's only in retrospect that you realize how much you really learned. My grades sure weren't that fantastic. However, from the point of starting at that particular college, my life has unfolded in a way that makes sense. I could never have predicted where I am today, and yet, looking back, it all fits me.
The next step I am nervous about and I feel that it makes sense. In that weird sort of way that it can only make sense based on individual quirks and experiences. I am feeling new kinds of connections with old friends and acquaintances who are becoming better friends as the days go on. A growth spurt. I haven't had one of those in a long time it feels like. Stretching new muscles. A little achy but in a good way. I am also realizing that sometimes you need to slow down in order to move forward. That includes the brain, not just the body.
Another part of this is my own need for recognition. When I tell people what I do I am frequently viewed as some kind of saint or a mushy brained bleeding heart that coddles people. I am neither of these. I do not work miracles. I listen to people and help them find services and support them in their struggle to make a better life for themselves - often against great odds. Yes, I care about them, no I am not going to take them home. It seems that actually caring about other human beings is really getting lost in all of the politics and money-grubbing that is going on. I hate listening to the hard-core right wing nincompoops who prattle on about family values and Christianity blah blah blah when the so harshly judge others and do not hold each other to the higher levels of conduct that they want others to do. Who, I ask, are they to judge? Is it not "|God" who does the judging? And who is Glenn Beck? I have my own spiritual path and our country was founded on the idea (apparently no the practice) of freedom of religion. This despite the fact that the Native Americans or First People got slaughtered for being "different." As humn being we are fallible, I get this. And I may not remember my Catholic teachings so well anymore but I do know that Jesus said something about those without sin throwing the first stone. Except that his believers are flinging stones all over the place and not managing to see the hypocrisy of it all. Jesus also hung out with the homeless, the poor, the prostitutes and did not fear them but walked by their sides. I hate to break it to folks, but it doesn't take a Jesus to do this. Or a rocket scientist. I do this every day. But it is wearing me down listening to all the anguish and troubles. I am so frustrated that more people don't seem to care. That police are ever ready to kill or harass or assault but community policing is going the way of the dinosaur. Respect is something that should be given first. So many police officers do a good job of making sure that they are targets of disgust and resistance.
The goat business is my way of taking a time out from all of this craziness. I want to be present for the disenfranchised. I want to help those who are struggling. But I need my own sense of peace to do that and I don't have that right now. I am constantly feeling like something the cat dragged in. Not my cat mind you, he doesn't go outside. A farm cat. An alley cat. A feral cat?
I have also been thinking about college tonight. As I attempt to clean up my apartment I am coming across things that spark my brain - like the Quarterly magazine from my undergrad alma mater. Don't care as much about the grad school stuff. Earlham College. A mid-west liberal arts college. Snobby? Perhaps a bit. But truly I never stop being grateful for the opportunity my parents and gave me to go to this school. A top notch education, a real community, a chance to find my voice and a treasure trove of true friends and acquaintances. So many of my values that my parents started to instill in me really became my own during my 4 years at Earlham. A year or 2 after graduating, a classmate wrote a long article which was published in the magazine, about how she didn't know what her degree was good for. It struck me as pathetic and whiny and entitled. So I wrote a response which also got published. I am thinking of that tonight and wondering if she has had any change of heart in the 15+ years since that article. I am also thinking of two of my cousins who are just starting their sophomore years of college and who are very different from each other and from me. I hope that they have as great an experience as I did - at least in retrospect. Goodness knows I look back on some of my journals during that time and I sure don't seem that happy. It was hard. I was still shy, skittish about relationships and dealing with undiagnosed depression. But I learned a lot, had fun and got the foundation I needed for the life ahead of me. Perhaps it's only in retrospect that you realize how much you really learned. My grades sure weren't that fantastic. However, from the point of starting at that particular college, my life has unfolded in a way that makes sense. I could never have predicted where I am today, and yet, looking back, it all fits me.
The next step I am nervous about and I feel that it makes sense. In that weird sort of way that it can only make sense based on individual quirks and experiences. I am feeling new kinds of connections with old friends and acquaintances who are becoming better friends as the days go on. A growth spurt. I haven't had one of those in a long time it feels like. Stretching new muscles. A little achy but in a good way. I am also realizing that sometimes you need to slow down in order to move forward. That includes the brain, not just the body.
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