Choices

October 27, 2020 by Anne Leave a comment

“We do make our history [and] we are making it now — today — by the choices that shape our course…One thing I believe profoundly: We make our own history. The course of history is directed by the choices we make and our choices grow out of the ideas, the beliefs, the values, the dreams of the people. It is not so much the powerful leaders that determine our destiny as the much more powerful influence of the combined voice of the people themselves.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt

(source: Brain Pickings)

One week to go. Until the most consequential election day in my lifetime. I have already voted. I know how I want this country to be, and it’s not how it is right now. You may not agree with me, and that’s fine. But I stand firm in my conviction that we need to be better than this.

It’s going to be an interesting week, for all of us. I just hope that we come out intact on the other side.

Take care of yourselves. I’ll try to do the same over here.

Juggling

October 19, 2020 by Anne Leave a comment

“Do not overlook the little joys.” ~ Hermann Hesse

That may seem to be an odd quote to put at the beginning of a post on juggling all of the various… things… that life throws at us on a daily basis. But it does remind me that, even in the midst of trying to keep what seems like 15 balls in the air, there are little joys.

I worked all weekend, again, which has been my “normal” for the past … 3? weekends? I think? It’s that time of year, and like I always do, I took on too much. Sigh. This is my chronic problem. I love what I do -but sometimes I just, well, say yes a bit too much. But I’d rather say yes to most of these opportunities than no, so… yeah. It’s a challenge.

Yet there were small joys in the day yesterday … a text from my mother while she and my dad were hiking with my brother and his family. Pictures from my dad from said hike. Funny texts in reply from my brother and SIL. Music in the morning. Making a batch of granola. Little things that made me smile throughout the day, even when I wondered how I’d get it all done. (Spoiler: One thing isn’t *quite* done, and I’m in no way prepared for the week, but…)

So I’m trying to remind myself to look for these little joys, even in the middle of the annoyances and frustrations of daily life. A good message – a good reminder – always.

Gratitude

October 14, 2020 by Anne 1 Comment

I am so grateful to be where I am today instead of where I was last year at this time.

Let me explain a bit. While I think I had this blog at the time (I’m pretty sure…), I don’t remember how much I shared, if at all. I may not have blogged at all at the time, now that I think about it. Just existing was enough.

I was really sick with an infection about a year ago. The details aren’t important, but I’ll just say that it involved multiple courses of antibiotics, a hospitalization (and IV antibiotics) barely avoided, multiple visits to my health care providers, and parents who were so worried that they flew 1500 miles for a one and a half day visit. I lost more than 15 pounds – that I couldn’t afford to lose – had no energy, and still had to do my more-than-full-time job, as well as try to keep my life running.

I could barely move off the couch some mornings. I slept more than 9 hours a night and was still exhausted. Even thinking about any type of exercise – walking, let alone running – made me laugh, it was so unthinkable.

But I kicked it – with the help of modern medicine. And now, a year later, my leg and foot may look different due to the long-term effects of all of this, I am so so grateful to be healthy. I am so grateful to be able to run. To be able to stay awake for a full day without having to rest on the couch multiple times (or, honestly, put my head on the desk). To be able to fully focus on my work and my life without feeling like I am moving through thick mud, with a rope around my waist pulling me back.

I am so grateful.

Left turns

October 13, 2020 by Anne Leave a comment

I think we all know that life has unexpected turns and twists… and that trying to anticipate exactly what our lives will look like in the future is an exercise in futility. And yet, I persist in thinking that I can predict where I will be, what I will be doing, and with whom, far into the future. I think most of us do this – and if you are the rare person who can truly live in the moment and not project forward into the future, well, I envy you in some ways.

Life rarely aligns with our neat and tidy predictions. The challenge for me, as I’m sure it is for many other people, is recognizing this and accepting it. Knowing that, while I have control over my actions and choices, I don’t have control over what others do, or what happens in the wider world.

And sometimes my choices set me on a path that maybe wasn’t the one that I wanted my life to follow, but (as is typically the case with these things) that didn’t become apparent until after the fact.

It makes me wonder, what would have happened had I made different choices? I have always loved the movie Sliding Doors. The concept – that we have parallel, simultaneous lives unfolding that result from different choices – has always appealed to me. A similar concept – the multiverse – was in Blake Crouch’s book Dark Matter.

What would my life be like now if I made different choices in the past? What would have happened if I had listened to my gut and turned down the wrong job for me several years ago, when I became convinced that the job I was in was the wrong one? Turns out it wasn’t just the wrong job, but the wrong location. My gut knew this – I cried during the entire two day drive to the location for the new job – but I wasn’t willing to listen.

Recently these thoughts have extended to more personal aspects of my life, in addition to job-related changes… namely, what would my life have been like if I had never gotten married? If I had married someone else, at a different point in my life? If I had been able to have children?

So many questions, yet no answers. This is the life I have. And it’s a good one, despite my occasional bouts of questioning. The challenge for me is accepting that, while looking into the past is appealing at times, the only thing I control is the future.

What choices will I make now that will influence the path of my life in the future?

Kai Skye, as always, nails it with this…

If I see clearly now, how will I use that to make the best choices for me, for the future? So many questions… so few answers. And only time will tell… only in hindsight will I see that where I end up is the result of the decisions I make now and in the future. The life I have is the only one I WILL have. Time to make the best of it.

Blocked

October 5, 2020 by Anne 1 Comment

I don’t write here on a regular schedule, but I do try to write here regularly. And I feel like I’ve been MIA. I’ve opened the Blogger tab multiple times, but never made it to writing a post. Yesterday, it finally occurred to me that I feel, well, blocked. There are so many thoughts in my head right now – so many things to worry about, to remember, to keep straight. And, of course, as we all know, there is so much going on out in the world. I just keep thinking that 2020 has even more surprises up its sleeve… (do years have sleeves? anyway…)

Sometimes when I have writer’s block related to work, and I’m stuck on a manuscript or some other writing, my solution is just to close my eyes and type. (Side note: thank goodness I learned to touch-type when I was 8… it has served me well lo these many years. Thanks, Dad!) I’m finding that it’s the same here. If I just come and start typing, the thoughts come – and sometimes, they’re even coherent. I’m not sure if these thoughts reach that relatively low bar, but it helps to get them out on screen, even if they’re jumbled and messy.

At this point in the year, with so much going on with work and life and people and politics and the country and world, I feel like I’m constantly searching for calm, for equilibrium. Digging through all of my quotes for some guidance, some reassurance, I found comfort in this:

“…have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”
~Rilke

I am not a patient person. I stink at uncertainty. But living is really the only choice, isn’t it? The answers will come. Borrowing trouble, worrying about things yet to happen, is not going to change what ultimately does happen. And it robs me of the now.

It’s time to remember that I don’t – and won’t – have all the answers when I want them. They’ll come in their own time. I just have to remember to live the questions, and breathe, and trust. Easier said than done, but so much better than the constant mental hurricane of whirling thoughts and questions.