Thursday, March 27, 2014

No one around

Oh no. Just lost a post. Maybe better that way . . . pour out all the anguish and "poof" it's gone.

I'm alone again, just now, just for a little while, with E flown away, and all the kids with the crazy parents.

It's still brutally cold and nothing like spring, but there's sun and blinding glare.

I'm reading The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt and it is incredibly gripping and moving. I've been crying my way through my morning tea, lying on the couch, seeping in the fireglow, postponing the start of my long day until the last possible moment.

Once spring arrives, it will be easier, I reason, then I read the Globe headline that promises 2 more weeks of winter and I wilt.

E isn't affected by weather. He seems to coast along, thrumming with work and purpose, stalled only briefly by the crises of his children.

Would I were more like that.

I am determined to try . . . within reason. But being overly attached to my daughter's outcomes seems impossible to avoid. Her happiness seems the only real thing I can aim to accomplish right now, but maybe success in school isn't the real measure of her happiness. Her English teacher told me that they did an exercise in class where they each spoke to what they wished for. A explained that she was truly happy with her mom and dad and didn't particularly wish for anything.

There's that. At least something seems right.

Saturday, March 8, 2014

Smoothie

Okay, so I'm drinking smoothies to smooth out this rough, late-winter patch. It isn't working as quickly as I'd like it to. I'd like my energy back, please. Optimism would be nice, too. Hope? What's that?

I'm alone again this weekend and I'm brooding. A friend and I were talking about The Artist's Way the other day, which I should re-read. I'm no doubt frustrated by my lack of creative expression. It isn't that I'm not creating things, but I don't think I'm creating the things I'd most like to. However, when I try to get to what I want to write, for example, I come up blank. So . . . I'm just waiting for something to come clear, which may never happen.

Certainly, what I realize about myself is that I'm incapacitated by emotional upheaval and we've had a lot of that here lately. The boy in the house is apparently in crisis and it seems the other parent on that side is again veering close to the edge, threatening to abandon the kids and commit herself for treatment. Meanwhile, I'm dealing with a sad little girl who misses her half-brother. I'm also facing another year of unemployment after an email from my department warning of dire work prospects.

I would like to change course. I tried to, actually, this time last year, but the route I took was a dead end. In talking to my friend, I realize that I'm doing exactly what I've always wanted to do . . . and I know my ambitions are fairly small . . . but I'm not nearly making enough money to do it for any prolonged period of time. I'm hoping the book I picked up last week at the library, Tapping into Wealth, will help.

If I could work and make enough to support myself and A and have some extra for a rainy day, then I think everything would be fine. This would all feel easier. Life would seem possible.

Currently, my circumstances feel impossibly challenging and I don't feel up to dealing with them.

So, I'll swig my smoothies and continue my navel-gazing until the other people return and I have to deal with their problems.