Whew---- (Shaking off a very dissheveled self....)
I've just escaped for a few minutes from the maddening merry-go-round of duties and responsibilities that have held me tightly in their centrifical grip for the past two weeks. I have been running from one task to another with only micro moments between them, and I simply had to break through it all long enough to catch my breath.....
Why is it that when we have nothing in particular on our agendas we are bored and unable to focus enough to be able to accomplish the 10,001 tasks which we suddenly remember we never got done; once we are too busy again to do anything about it? I think I'll need at least a year's sabbatical to call a 'time-out' and get caught up on all the projects I haven't completed--and then I will need at least another summer off after that so I can finally relax and enjoy being caught up! I don't remember what it is like to not have a voice inside my head nagging me about how far behind I am in everything. I SERIOUSLY NEED A VACATION.....(and I don't mean visiting relatives, as much as I love them.)
Where does one go to learn the perfect balance between not enough activity, and way too much? Is there a course one could take? (Not that I'd have the time to take it..!.) How is it that something as innocent as teaching a (free) English as a Second Language class one-Saturday-am-a-week to a few local Haitians has spiraled into a multi-evening preparation activity costing ME lots of money each month? I know, I know, I am a soft touch--they cannot afford their own books, and xeroxing isn't cheap--and how was I to know it wasn't tax deductible when I first bought all the supplies??? Now I am kind of stuck, as it was a one year committment I signed on for. If that was all I had to do, it wouldn't be so bad---but I am also taking a class to have my ham radio license updated to a higher level which will allo me to make more international calls. My first license was not that hard to obtain. I assumed the next level would be similar. No one told me that the course I signed up for this time, however, involves alot of mathematical power equations and electrical principals and circuitry---my brain was not expecting to ever have to be used in that way again, after high school, so it came to me as quite a shock!! However, now that I have gotten through the toughest chapter in that book and am still standing, I'm feeling rather good about surviving such an intellectual onslaught.... I'll take the test the end of April--and sure hope I'll still remember what I just learned by that time...
With all this in mind, blogging today for the first time in almost a month is a real stress relief for me----like having a cup of tea with a good friend. It is a dark, cold, and rainy day today; the kind of day that forces one inside to rumminate about better days, and happier things. For me, that would be writing. Essays, poems, or just simple commentaries; they all would fill the bill on such a day. To huddle alone over my keyboard with a warm cup of Earl Grey fragranting the air, sharing my struggle against the 'Tyranny of the Urgent' with all of you, has already strengthened me to stand strong and fight again another day.....but I don't have time to wait for another day ---I've got to get up now to cook something for tomorrow's church potluck, then head out into the rain to see my great-nephew for his 16th birthday party; I still have another chapter in the Ham radio book to read--(this week is all about Antennas), and...those dishes need doing, the laundry is behind, and I am on-call for work....and....and.....and....oh oh here I go, getting sucked back into the merry-go-round--(Large sucking sound) (!Gone!)
