Black Dog on My Shoulder

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I think that was in A Wrinkle in Time? but maybe not…The Google isn’t coming up with it. Regardless, I’m in a mood this morning. We had wonderful thunderstorms last night. But this morning, it’s windy and chilly and cloudy. And I’m grumpy.

And it occurred to me, for all of my griping and angst and worry about last Thursday-Friday-Saturday, and getting out of my routine, and doing things that I don’t typically do… it was three wonderful days with my people.

People who speak my language.
People who get me.
People with whom I don’t have to explain everything.

Even better, it was my work people and my family. So I had three wonderful days where I felt like I belonged.

Then yesterday, in a fit of unproductivity (apparently that is not a word, but go with me here…) I completely lost all the good feelings that I had built up.

It was time I didn’t know I needed.
A break I didn’t know I needed.

Time to reset. Sigh. I did cancel my 9 am off-campus meeting, so that will help. I need to get to it today. Break out of the rut. Get, ahem, stuff done. (Not exactly what I wanted to say…) I don’t need to hit it out of the park today, but I need to at least get a hit.

The only way through is through

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A quick note… a busy busy few days. 
So challenging for the introvert in me. 
I’m dwelling on all the dumb things I said at dinner last night, when I was exhausted. I was completely out of my league. 
Hopefully they forgot all about me, and I can fade into the background again today. 
The work-related thing is almost over; the family related stuff starts this afternoon. 
Whew. 
I’ll get through. 

Staying in my lane

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I was reminded of this yesterday, when in an effort to be helpful it turned out that I was the roadblock keeping someone else from being productive and moving forward with what she needed and wanted to do. 
Yeah. 
I often think that I can help people – and offer that help freely – but I also sometimes assume that doing something is better than “making” someone else do it. 
And that’s not always the case. 
I did spend most of the morning wallowing, of course. I dug myself out of it (kind of) by the evening, but it was a rough day and led to a less-productive day than I had hoped to have. 
So today – onward! and since I have to be in close proximity to the person who I hindered rather than helped the rest of the week, I’m going to work on staying in the background, letting her take the lead, and being helpful when asked. 

Who we are… who I am?

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For we are the sum total of the truths by which we live…
fia skye

This one got me thinking yesterday – deep thoughts for a dreary and quite frankly very frustrating day. 
What are my truths? 
What do I know for sure? (Channeling Oprah, here…) 
What do I know to be true in my life?
It’s hard, when one does not have an established faith tradition, to identify those guideposts for life. 
I suppose that’s why you see so many people writing manifestos… they’re almost the mini-scriptures of non-Bible life. 
Perhaps I need one of my own. A summary of what I know for sure. I know that I would draw from more eloquent writers to generate mine, but I suspect that’s okay. There are elements scattered throughout the different treatises and manifestos I have read over the past few years. And all of them have something that speaks to me. 
Hm… an interesting project. Not much of a post today, more of a circling around the questions, but… definitely something to ponder. 
The Holstee Manifesto is one. Fia Skye, author of the above quote, wrote a fabulous speech called Creative Anarchy, much of which speaks to me (not just the above quote, which comes from that speech). There are others… I’ve always loved the Desiderata, since I used it at my high school graduation ceremony as our non-religious “benediction”. 
Perhaps it’s time to start pulling out the pieces of these manifestos (manifesti?) that particularly resonate with me. 
I’m grateful to have this time to reflect, to think, to ponder. I’ve realized that life doesn’t need to be lived at breakneck pace all the time (most of the time, yes, for me, but not all of the time…) and that taking the time to ponder some of the bigger questions is making me a more productive, and maybe an even more thoughtful human being. I like to think that, anyway. 😉 
And yay, it’s Friday. One of my meetings was canceled. I think I have a plan for figuring out what the heck was so frustrating about my proposal yesterday. I get to see my awesome honors student. And I plan to purge my drawers and closets this weekend, which will feel awesome. 
Time to dive in… 

Dumbledore, as always, knows all

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As usual, Dumbledore is right. I need a pensieve. 
In lieu of that, I did a brain dump yesterday. 
It was 2 pages. 
To say I have a “monkey mind” (such a meditation thing, but it makes so much sense) is the understatement of the year. 
There is always, always something going through my head. I think this is one of the fundamental differences between me and my spouse, actually – he can turn the thoughts off.  He can, as my mom always used to say, “blob”. It’s that innate ability to step away that I lack. 
But if I had a Pensieve? I could siphon off those extra thoughts, save them for later, and then come back to them when I have time. 
I guess the brain dump document will have to suffice for now. 
In unrelated news, they’re forecasting a rain / snow mix today. Sigh. Gotta love spring in the upper midwest! I knew it would happen, I guess, but I had my hopes up that, well, we’d be spared this year. Oh, well – it’ll come eventually, right?