Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Baby Steps

Home from work today (ice storm), I made a list of all the challenges I am facing and what I am doing about them. Oddly, after I finished writing the list I was surprised to see that I am actually taking action on each of them. For every challenge, there has been at least one concrete step that I have taken over the past couple of months to address it. I'm not sure why this surprised me - I guess because I feel like I've just been sitting around moping and whining about things. Obviously, there's a lot more I can and should do, and not everything I do is going to turn out well - but I feel like I am in fact trying, and that should count for something.

I think it's all so overwhelming because there is SO MUCH that I am trying to work out and deal with. My car had issues, which I finally dealt with this past weekend. A health issue, which will hopefully be resolved (one way or the other...) on Friday. A punishing commute. Wanting to do creative work and all the typical issues that surround that wish - fear of not being good enough, not knowing how to do it, not knowing how I would pay my bills. Trying to meet someone but simply not feeling any spark with anyone new. Knowing I am in all likelihood going to have to move sometime this summer, and being totally unsure of where I want to go.

When I left Maine, just over a year ago, I wanted to shake my life up. Boy, did I succeed in that. Some days, I feel like I've been turned inside out and skinned alive, and the process of turning myself right-side again is even more painful. But I keep reading Haven Kimmel's book "She Got Up Off The Couch", about her mother's journey from being an obese, poor stay-at-home mom with a totally unsupportive husband, to putting herself through college and becoming a teacher. It's a reminder that we are actually capable of changing our own lives, if we can just figure out how to get out of our own way long enough to DO something, baby steps included. This can be figured out.

However. Directions or divine intervention would still be appreciated.

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