A Purge and a Promise

It's been a long time since I've blogged, longer than I thought. It's been almost two months. I've been caught up in the chaos of my life, feeling uninspired, unmotivated, and worse yet, guilty for feeling paralyzed by the not so catastrophic crises if my life. At a recent gathering of my writing circle, my friend Natalie reminded me of the absurdity of comparing our personal muck to one another's. To minimize or invalidate our own feelings of unhappiness by comparing them to the "worse" or seemingly more extreme circumstances of our friends and acquaintances, is to deny ourselves the right to feel what we are feeling. It denies us the right to the human experience.

Lately, I have been living my life, just going through the motions as they say, rather than living in the moments. I have not been finding, or honestly even been looking for things to celebrate, to inspire me, or to write about. It's a rather sad existence, one I am determined to make temporary as I grab ahold of myself and shake it out of me. I never wanted my blog to be a place to whine or complain. The reality is however, that I'm feeling relatively uninspired and rather than resolve not to write for another two, three, however many months, I've decided to plow through by writing what's on my mind. Quite frankly, when my friend Helen and I set out on a journey last year, to make writing a daily part of our lives by starting a writing circle and getting our blogs going, never did we say all kicks and giggles. We just said, let's write.

So first a purge, then a promise:

Purge:

I've been working too much and too hard. I took a new job that is quite challenging. I'm not sure it's exactly what I want. In some ways it's what I didn't want, the things that kept me from joining the admin pool in public school. It has it's rewards too though, and the people I work with are terrific. But when I interviewed I thought it was a new job for the new school year. I didn't realize I was going to have to leave my job of 7 years (and all the colleagues-turned-friends and smiling faces that became so routine it was like being home away from home) six weeks before school got out. I didn't realize even though I had already accepted 12 weeks of adjunct work for the late spring and summer, I was going to have a full time job on top of that. I didn't realize how much I have come to depend on downtime during the summer to treat my sleep deprivation, my vitamin D deficiency, and my writing spirit. I sure do realize now. Though I have the pleasure of double income over the summer, and an increase from my last job, money does not buy you time or relaxation when you work full time. 

Working all summer was going to suck, but it would all be ok because I expected to be in a brand new home. That's the next best thing to vacation, right? Moving into a brand new home. Our house was up on the market and within a couple of weeks of starting above mentioned job, we got a buyer! Negotiations started, a contract was drawn up, and a closing date was scheduled. We packed boxes, sold furniture, had a garage sale and donated unneeded items. We found a house in a neighborhood we loved and could afford, with the down payment made up largely from the proceeds of the sale of the home we were selling. Two days before the scheduled closing, we packed up a U-Haul, moved out, cleaned up, and went to stay with my gracious sister-in-law and brother-in-law. All was good. We were slightly inconvenienced, but it would all be worth it in a few days when we unlocked the door to our new home. So we waited patiently.

And we waited. And waited some more. The closing date was pushed a few more days and a few more days. Don't worry their realtor told us via our realtor, they're cleared to close. Just details he insisted. So our realtor helped stave off the company selling us our new home. People behind the scenes worked hard to try to keep all the pieces together for us, as the closing kept getting pushed. We had now been living with my sister-in-law for 2 weeks. My husband was a train wreck. We couldn't stand to come home at night. NOT because of his wonderful sister and her husband, but because once the day's business was over, it was another day gone by with no closing. 

We had just about thrown in the towel, given up on everything. Then over breakfast at Perkins, we decided to become a team again.  Arguing and crying all week really did a number on us and we weren't feeling like ourselves. We talked, hugged, held hands, and decided everything would be ok. It'll happen. We just had to be patient. We rented a storage unit to unload the U-Haul that we had now had for 10 days, racking up fees to the sum of near $800. Before you call us crazy, remember we were originally thinking two days at my sister-in-law's with a U-Haul was better than unloading into storage and moving again. Our closing dates were originally scheduled for two consecutive days. But now, there was no telling what would happen. So after that breakfast at Perkins, we moved into the storage and returned the U-Haul. The guy actually felt bad for us and knocked two days off the bill. Drop in the bucket, but kind of him nonetheless. The weekend wasn't so bad.

I don't remember if it was Monday or Tuesday, but it doesn't matter. My realtor, also a dear friend, called me at work and I could hear it in her voice. What happened? The buyers lost their financing and it was all over. Both deals dead. Just like that. Buyers without financing equals no sale. No sale equals no down payment money. We spent the next two days moving back into the same house, and we've been here ever since. Minimal furniture, ten percent of my kitchen, no personal photos or decor, and our house back on the market. There seems to be more to the story about the buyers, but honestly I don't give a crap anymore. Knowing what happened won't change the series of events. Most of our things are still stored in the hopes the house will sell again soon. There's no way we're unpacking to pack again.

Finally, I've developed some weird anxiety in the past month. I'm not prepared to go into detail here, because it's a very specific and irrational anxiety I seem to have developed in response to certain images to which I was exposed. I know that sounds cryptic, but the best way I can explain it is to tell you to think of a time you saw or heard something traumatic or disturbing, and you just couldn't get it out of your head. Now imagine it stuck in your head, and causing nausea, sweating, or just nerves. That's what has happened to me. I've never had any kind of clinical anxiety issues in the past, never suffered from clinical OCD or phobias. But this anxiety is a mild case of that kind of thing and it's really upsetting to me. I'm finding coping mechanisms and the longer time goes since I saw the images, the more the anxiety seems to dissipate. I'm not sure if it's the issue itself, or the fact that I'm having the issue that's bothering me more. Those who know I me, know I'm a bit of a control freak. I was talking to my husband about it, and I can't seem to separate the two. Either way, it's very real and very unsettling.

So the summer of transition, or what I hoped to be the gateway to the next exciting phase in my life- new home, new job- has become a disappointment. I try not to minimize my feelings by saying it's not a big deal, my family is healthy, my marriage is strong, blah blah. Because while all of that is true, Natalie reminded me that I'm allowed to be disappointed, saddened, deflated about my current circumstances. Yes, there are people in the world who are experiencing far more catastrophic things, but my shitty circumstances are shitty for me. And I am allowed to feel shitty about it!

And with that, I am purged of the crappiness of this summer and ready to make a promise.

Promise:

I've got to find some inspiration again. In two weeks, both of my summer obligations will be over and I'll be back to just work. I say just work, because one of the nice things about my new job is that because I am no longer a classroom teacher, I usually leave work empty handed. I think about work, and stress about things that need to be done, the way others do. But I don't have papers to grade or lesson plans. I work balls to the wall all day, and then I leave and come home. I don't have to do anything until I get back the next day. 

I promise myself, with you as my witnesses, that I will find inspiration again.

The NWP Summer Institute starts tomorrow. My friend and colleague, Stacey and I, are facilitating together. We have planned all sessions for the next two weeks, and I'm involved once again in my passion, writing. I look forward to participating with the other teachers and drawing on them for inspiration. I will be writing.

I promise myself, with you as my witnesses, that I will find inspiration again.

I have started several pieces and I have a journal page filled with ideas for new writing. I'm going to write more. I may work on a book, start a new study, or just continue with daily blogging, but I'm going to write. It feeds me, and starving myself of it does not help solve my problems or make them go away. Even if my writing is filled with sadness, I will write. I'm not going to worry about my mood or what others want to hear. When we do this, our writing can become disingenuous. Pat Schneider says all writing starts as nonfiction. If we write our stories and our feelings, and things the way we remember them, we can always alter details for the sake of story later. 

I promise myself, with you as my witnesses, that I will find inspiration again.

I look forward to the next meeting of my writing circle. These women give me the courage to write and to feel. They listen without judgment, they support without obligation, they write and they share and they write some more. I can't wait until our next meeting.

I'm going to chase my dreams and put plans in place to help make them come true. Starting now.