Improving

Currently I'm living in this weird state of mind, where I am never fully present anywhere.  I just realized this, because I haven't been fully present enough to assess the situation and give this strange mood a name.

But that's it.  I am disengaged. 

Which was not part of the plan.  At all. 

And by "just realized this" I mean I recognized it at the beginning of the year when I reviewed the past year.  So I've been mulling over this idea for a while, but it's February 10th and it's time to fix it.

When I watch a suspenseful movie, the storyteller (and movie goer and human) in me knows when it's about to get scary.  The music changes, so does the camera angle.  A character does something stupid, goes somewhere alone, meets someone dangerous.  You know what I do then?  I squint my eyes.  I let my vision go blurry because things are less scary if you don't really acknowledge them.  Because a lot of us aren't afraid of what we can't see.  And if a monster is going to jump out of my peripheral, at least I've eliminated one of my senses.

This is not good practice, guys.

About six weeks ago I realized I was doing this in real life.

Mine and Judah's life is kind of scary.  We teeter precariously on edges I wish we could distance ourselves from.  We scrape bottoms of barrels and stretch to make ends meet and we fight monsters on a daily basis.  A lot of monsters who pretend not to be monsters.

So I was walking around with squinted eyes.  I let my vision go blurry so that the chaos was a mess of colors and sounds but I was not overstimulated.

But then you miss it.  You risk missing it all.  Being blindsided by time and life and growth and all the dangerous things that sneak up silently.

I was trying to be a mommy, a social worker, a homemaker, a daddy, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a graduate student, an athlete and someone's (I don't know who?) girlfriend all at the same time. 

I'm imagining life right now like an old school game of Mario Brothers we used to play at Granddad's house.  Where Mario or Luigi would navigate a haunted mansion or castle and be bombarded by bombs and rolling stones and explosive fires and collapsing bridges.  That has been our life. 

I was (am) trying to be good at all of it.  But at the end of the day I kept looking at that grad school course load and dipping into my well for whatever was left... and coming up dry.

Which would result in starting out the next day with less than I needed to do well at anything else.  Which cut into story time and meant the dishes were piled up and in my attempt to ignore all things scary... none of it was getting done.  In an attempt to do it all well, I was mediocre at everything.

It took the clogged bathtub drain to help me realize.

Judah and I moved into the house in September and the bathtub upstairs already drained slowly.  Fast forward to February and it just hardly drained at all until the water stopped running, so I hated showering, hated cleaning the tub.  But the drain is not like any I'm used to, so I wasn't really sure how to clean it or unclog it.  So I just dealt with the clogged tub.  And spent additional time cleaning it after the bath water drained out.  And spent additional time being grossed out.  But no additional time resolving the issue.

Until last week.  When I sent Larry upstairs to check on a sink handle and asked him to take a look at the drain in the tub.  How could I unclog this drain, I asked for the first time, out loud. 

Drano. 

Simplest answer.  Logical answer.  Really, an answer I already knew and had explored but hadn't implemented.

Not too long after, I drew the parallel.  I always, eventually, draw the parallel.  Of simple solutions and asking the right questions and using energy wisely.

It's time to fix some things.  Namely, my expectations for myself.

And I start by opening my eyes.  Clearing my vision and allowing my senses to open up.

Because regardless of what I've led myself to believe, the most scary of all monsters are the monsters who have no name.  Who sneak up from behind, who you did not anticipate.  I have been doing myself a disservice and made us very vulnerable.

I feel like a failure, most days.  Maybe I want to justify all the ways I am shitty by saying I do a lot.  Maybe my mediocrity has been justified by the load I carry.  Maybe I've expected too much of myself and believed the lies.

But I didn't do that on purpose.  And I don't want to do it anymore. 

You know what I want to do?  Right now, in this season, for this leg of the journey?

I want to play with blocks with Judah.  And make homemade play dough.  I want to do well at my job while I'm here.  I want to read books I enjoy and I want to write more.  I want to help others again, in some form or fashion.  I want to keep washing my dishes.  I want to cook and I want to share my food and I want to double my back squat.

I turned twenty six in less than three months.  I've set a new goal for myself, because I finally addressed another clogged drain I had chosen to ignore.  Another issue of mediocrity, held together by fear.  Fear of failure, but also a fear of succeeding.  Hiding behind old facades and leaning on old crutches.  I don't want to do that anymore either. 

I want to challenge myself.  Not burden myself. 

And if I am only a few things to a few people, rather than a lot of things to a lot of people, I want to be excellent.  I want to be proud again. 

So, then, it's not quitting after all. 

It's improving.