Who Am I?
Tell me how I'm supposed to breathe with no air
That's how I feel when I know you ain't there
I have apparently hopelessly reset my biological clock to think bedtime is after 2am, so tonight around midnight after laying in bed with my husband's arm wrapped around me for quite some time, I decided the situation was hopeless, carefully peeled him off and got up. Why I married an early-to-bed man I can't fathom. Okay, it could be because we love each other and fit together perfectly in pretty much every other respect. Worth waiting for, my darling man. Even waiting until morning on a daily basis.
I've spent the last few days doing as many things as possible to try and get myself out of the funk I've been in. And watching a lot of TV, though that hasn't helped, of course.
Really, it's simple loneliness and boredom - a combination that puts everyone down a peg on the happy scale. I managed to force myself to do some paid work I've been avoiding, a website design, a drawing of a falcon for a friend who is a medievalist and is trying to get a unique shield registered, and a special Excel invoice for a company were among the items I handled yesterday. I loved it all. I was just "lumping" as Paul would say and it took me practically two weeks to get motivated. Ugh. This is not my usual M.O. None of it was severely time sensitive, but I'm glad I did it anyway.
Tonight I got an email about CouchSurfing, and started to update my profile there, so I was thinking of all the ways I could to find people in Edmonton. (By the way, if any of my LJ or Real Life friends are on CS, please add me! And if you're not on it and like to travel or meet new people and you've got a place to host them, you should join.)
I ended up on Kijij, browsing the "Friendship" category for Edmonton, and thinking that despite all the horror stories I have heard in the past about the internet, I've reaped some amazing friendships from people in the Information Age. There's quite a number of LJ friends I'd be very pleased to meet if the possibility presented itself, and a lot of people I've been keeping up with via the blogging world. And my first internet friendship with someone I met in person was really very lovely and we had some excellent conversations. And that was because she listed Lord of the Rings as an interest on LJ and found me in the same city she was in.
I have some new life goals to deal with this slump. First off, I'm going to make an effort to get some friends in Edmonton. (Hi, people from Kijiji whom I sent here! Hope this post tells you a bit about who I am.) Secondly, I'm going to make an effort to focus on things other than work - my crewel embroidery project that I am now about 1/12th finished by my estimate and enjoying so much that I'm actually starting to take it out in public. Last weekend I was in Saskatoon's Broadway Cafe and one of the serving girls came by and said her Grandma used to do embroidery like that and she thought it was really beautiful. =) I really want to keep working on teaching myself guitar and sign language as well. Those are big goals of mine.
Paul and I really like travelling, and we're talking about using some of his investment cash-out from the old job to take a spring or summer vacation to Cuba - try a vacation that's not just about museums and seeing everything - we're both really bad at sightseeing ourselves to utter exhaustion and coming home more tired than rejuvenated after a so-called vacation and we want to change that.
I am looking forward to pursuing a more active lifestyle, too. Our new apartment in Edmonton has the amazing feature of an in-house gym and swimming pool, and I intend to use them both to their limits! Running and walking with Paul lately has been a pleasure that I dread all day. It's bizarre, I know, but there's random bad moods discoloring everything.
So that's my current story. Soon work - no matter how much I love my job - will become only one of my many occupations. (I have to be careful saying that word around my husband. Apparently the theory of "Occupation" is a pretty big thing in the introductory month of Occupational Therapy school. He either gags or goes off on a school tangent if the word comes up these days.)
And speaking of OT, Paul is very seriously considering becoming a pediatric OT, as he loves his Meadow Lake placement. With how happy he's been coming home every day, I'm hoping he does go that route. Unless he finds something he likes even more...
I know I keep talking about my goals, but it's something I have to do for myself. It's so hard to stay focused on the future these days when I spend most of my time sitting in front of a screen in a tiny town without a car. (I need to get over my intense dislike of phone conversations, too, to make the list of goals even longer.) I need these posts to put my dreams through my fingers even when I'm not talking with people. I need to look back at this and say, yes, I did get something done.
For instance, today with Paul's help, I finished reading/listening to The Wealthy Barber - a fairly conservative book on financial planning with lots of good definitions and a bunch of terrible, cheesy dialog. I have concluded, to Paul's pleasure, that it's too conservative for me and I'd like to be more risky with our money. I mean, I have my own business already, and in a high competition market. I'm definitely game for more risk than the average person. I would love to be rich, but I want to take smart routes to getting rich in the real world. So next on the list is another book about riskier financial strategies called Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Paul and I continue to discuss getting involved in real estate investing in future.
It's interesting, when I was young, part of me was futureless. I had rough ideas that I wanted to be married, self-employed, eventually have kids (though my desire to do this waxed and waned) and travel, but beyond that I hadn't thought my future through a great deal. In some ways I did a great more than many people I know, but in other ways I kind of felt like I wasn't going to make it to my future, probably due to intense battles with illness when I was young and depression and an eating disorder in my teen years. So now I find myself dream-casting for the future. It struck me a few weeks ago in one of our now ever-present road trips when Paul asked about all my hopes and dreams for the future and I paused for much too long for my own taste - and it's spawned my present obsession with figuring out where I'm going and what I want out of life in future. Gone are my days of obsession with the past. Time for a new way to see life. A better one, I think. And I'm starting to snap out of this sitting around like a lump phase.
I will do it! I will! As soon as I finish sitting like a lump in front of the computer writing about it.
That's how I feel when I know you ain't there
I have apparently hopelessly reset my biological clock to think bedtime is after 2am, so tonight around midnight after laying in bed with my husband's arm wrapped around me for quite some time, I decided the situation was hopeless, carefully peeled him off and got up. Why I married an early-to-bed man I can't fathom. Okay, it could be because we love each other and fit together perfectly in pretty much every other respect. Worth waiting for, my darling man. Even waiting until morning on a daily basis.
I've spent the last few days doing as many things as possible to try and get myself out of the funk I've been in. And watching a lot of TV, though that hasn't helped, of course.
Really, it's simple loneliness and boredom - a combination that puts everyone down a peg on the happy scale. I managed to force myself to do some paid work I've been avoiding, a website design, a drawing of a falcon for a friend who is a medievalist and is trying to get a unique shield registered, and a special Excel invoice for a company were among the items I handled yesterday. I loved it all. I was just "lumping" as Paul would say and it took me practically two weeks to get motivated. Ugh. This is not my usual M.O. None of it was severely time sensitive, but I'm glad I did it anyway.
Tonight I got an email about CouchSurfing, and started to update my profile there, so I was thinking of all the ways I could to find people in Edmonton. (By the way, if any of my LJ or Real Life friends are on CS, please add me! And if you're not on it and like to travel or meet new people and you've got a place to host them, you should join.)
I ended up on Kijij, browsing the "Friendship" category for Edmonton, and thinking that despite all the horror stories I have heard in the past about the internet, I've reaped some amazing friendships from people in the Information Age. There's quite a number of LJ friends I'd be very pleased to meet if the possibility presented itself, and a lot of people I've been keeping up with via the blogging world. And my first internet friendship with someone I met in person was really very lovely and we had some excellent conversations. And that was because she listed Lord of the Rings as an interest on LJ and found me in the same city she was in.
I have some new life goals to deal with this slump. First off, I'm going to make an effort to get some friends in Edmonton. (Hi, people from Kijiji whom I sent here! Hope this post tells you a bit about who I am.) Secondly, I'm going to make an effort to focus on things other than work - my crewel embroidery project that I am now about 1/12th finished by my estimate and enjoying so much that I'm actually starting to take it out in public. Last weekend I was in Saskatoon's Broadway Cafe and one of the serving girls came by and said her Grandma used to do embroidery like that and she thought it was really beautiful. =) I really want to keep working on teaching myself guitar and sign language as well. Those are big goals of mine.
Paul and I really like travelling, and we're talking about using some of his investment cash-out from the old job to take a spring or summer vacation to Cuba - try a vacation that's not just about museums and seeing everything - we're both really bad at sightseeing ourselves to utter exhaustion and coming home more tired than rejuvenated after a so-called vacation and we want to change that.
I am looking forward to pursuing a more active lifestyle, too. Our new apartment in Edmonton has the amazing feature of an in-house gym and swimming pool, and I intend to use them both to their limits! Running and walking with Paul lately has been a pleasure that I dread all day. It's bizarre, I know, but there's random bad moods discoloring everything.
So that's my current story. Soon work - no matter how much I love my job - will become only one of my many occupations. (I have to be careful saying that word around my husband. Apparently the theory of "Occupation" is a pretty big thing in the introductory month of Occupational Therapy school. He either gags or goes off on a school tangent if the word comes up these days.)
And speaking of OT, Paul is very seriously considering becoming a pediatric OT, as he loves his Meadow Lake placement. With how happy he's been coming home every day, I'm hoping he does go that route. Unless he finds something he likes even more...
I know I keep talking about my goals, but it's something I have to do for myself. It's so hard to stay focused on the future these days when I spend most of my time sitting in front of a screen in a tiny town without a car. (I need to get over my intense dislike of phone conversations, too, to make the list of goals even longer.) I need these posts to put my dreams through my fingers even when I'm not talking with people. I need to look back at this and say, yes, I did get something done.
For instance, today with Paul's help, I finished reading/listening to The Wealthy Barber - a fairly conservative book on financial planning with lots of good definitions and a bunch of terrible, cheesy dialog. I have concluded, to Paul's pleasure, that it's too conservative for me and I'd like to be more risky with our money. I mean, I have my own business already, and in a high competition market. I'm definitely game for more risk than the average person. I would love to be rich, but I want to take smart routes to getting rich in the real world. So next on the list is another book about riskier financial strategies called Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Paul and I continue to discuss getting involved in real estate investing in future.
It's interesting, when I was young, part of me was futureless. I had rough ideas that I wanted to be married, self-employed, eventually have kids (though my desire to do this waxed and waned) and travel, but beyond that I hadn't thought my future through a great deal. In some ways I did a great more than many people I know, but in other ways I kind of felt like I wasn't going to make it to my future, probably due to intense battles with illness when I was young and depression and an eating disorder in my teen years. So now I find myself dream-casting for the future. It struck me a few weeks ago in one of our now ever-present road trips when Paul asked about all my hopes and dreams for the future and I paused for much too long for my own taste - and it's spawned my present obsession with figuring out where I'm going and what I want out of life in future. Gone are my days of obsession with the past. Time for a new way to see life. A better one, I think. And I'm starting to snap out of this sitting around like a lump phase.
I will do it! I will! As soon as I finish sitting like a lump in front of the computer writing about it.