Finding my groove
"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, and live along some distant day into the answer. "
~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
I'm having trouble this month, more than other months lately. I usually start feeling this way in February and by the end of the month everything is better, but this year February was okay. Great, in fact, because Nick was back home after 6 months working in another city. Of course I got sick then, as I always seem to do after the stress recedes, but I didn't feel this malaise, this weird identity-quest that seems to fall around February every year. No, no, this year it waited until June.
I know that at least part of it is owing to my grandmother's death. While we were not close, she still was my grandmother and part of my life story, part of my past. I'm sad that she's gone and that with her, all those memories of my dad's childhood and my grandpa are also gone. I have a few little things in my house that remind me of her (possibly more than the rest of my family has, but I've always been a collector of things in a way that the rest of my family has not been) and those make me happy and sad at the same time, too.
I'm also dealing with that post-stress from having dropped a few commitments. I've reached that point in my life where my commitments are what made me, well, me and not having them and not doing them has left me emptier inside than I'd thought it would have. It's a weird thing. I thought I'd feel more free because I didn't have all these things to do, but instead I feel a bit panicky like there's something I ought to be doing, but am not. I don't know. This gets into that weird feeling category that I've been trying not to post about because it's so nebulous and I don't know what to make of it.
I've been working on my writing a little bit every day, which is nice. I'm giving up my writing blog, though, as that is just a depressing thing to have stare at me all the time when I'm not accomplishing much. I think I'm going to start cross-posting over there from these other two blogs and once the paid LJ time is up, I'll concentrate on moving my bits & pieces over that way. That's more of a wait-and-see project. The writing class, though, is going okay. My main problem still stems from the fact that I'm more of a "let's see where it goes as I'm writing it" person and the class is a "plan, plan, plan to the last detail then you start writing" kind of class, so I'm a bit more than frustrated at this point. I have a page full of questions about marriage & childbirth & sex to answer and since I'm not delving into those issues in the novel, I don't see why I need to answer those questions for the class, but that's just me. Who knows, maybe something good will come of it. *sigh*
I'm also reading a bit. I have a book a friend is writing that I'm trying to read mindfully rather than tearing straight through, which is more challenging right now because I have kids at home. I can't concentrate when they're awake, so I read fluff while they're awake, or at least things requiring less thought. I've lost track of what I've read so far this year because I quit Good Reads (they were airing my reading list to everyone no matter how I set up my settings and I couldn't disconnect it from facebook, so I was getting all kinds of "Oh My. You read THAT?!" questions from people that I barely knew, which was irritating me more than the good I was getting out of tracking my books). Anyways, books are good. I like them.
Kids stuff is going slowly. I'm still not terribly excited about this cub scout plan, but we do seem to have a daily theme of sorts. I just need to find a way to make it more fun. David is going to be at his Nana & Pa's house for the next three days, so we won't have as much scout stuff to do, so maybe I'll use that time to plan some other bits of fun stuff into the summer. I liked planning snacks & worksheets & books to go with the theme. I can make it fun again, right? Maybe I'll feel a bit perkier if things are more fun.
Speaking of fun, we're going on vacation next week. We'll be traveling across Texas doing fun stuff here and there. Monday will be our preparation day. Tuesday will be San Antonio: the Alamo, children's museum, & Riverwalk. Wednesday we'll do SeaWorld. Thursday we'll tour Austin with my sister. Friday we'll be in Houston; Nick will visit Spec's downtown (maybe with my dad) and I'll take the kids somewhere fun (I don't know where yet - I was thinking an art museum, but the kids might not like that). Saturday & Sunday we'll be in College Station, making pilgrimages to the duck pond & park, playing ping pong with my dad, touring houses with my mom, etc. It should be a good week.
I'm hoping that someday soon my brain snaps back into normalcy and I can leave all this angsty, tired, crankiness behind.