Yesterday I felt the need to write a post about September 11, and then I did a whole bunch of other chores and activities, and took a brutal spin class at the gym. So, having been up since 6:00 a.m. for the memorial service, at the end of the day I was too exhausted to write my check-in.
Honestly, the whole week tired me out.
Now, every time I go and complain about my petty problems, I feel the need to add qualifiers and say that I understand that my problems are minor, that there are people in the world who have far worse problems, that I myself have had far worse problems, yadda, yadda, yadda. But, in terms of Stressors: Petty Mundane Category, this past week was a bit of a challenge.
I was so excited to get back into the routine, and I still am, but I also realized (again) that transitions can be hard. Transitions are hard on adults, but they're exponentially harder on small children. Honestly, I think it was all the excitement and newness of school starting and a new babysitter and soccer that led to Nathan's HUGE meltdown on Wednesday.
And I, myself, felt a little meltdown-y at times this week, though of course my meltdowns were tempered by adult maturity. But still, all this routine and discipline? All this exercise and peppiness and being good? That's exhausting.
(Not that I was all that good. I definitely used food to console myself this week.)
Then on Friday I forced myself to listen to several hours of a local radio station's 36-hour telethon for Children's Hospital. Family after family coming in to tell their horrific stories of children with cancer, children who died, month after month stuck in the hospital. One family reported a success story about their son, four years cancer-free, getting to play in his first soccer game. The DJ talked about how many listeners out there were headed to youth soccer games this weekend, complaining about the hassle of it all, and how much this one family cherished the simple everyday opportunity to see their son play soccer.
It's the kind of thing that definitely gives you perspective, but it also makes you sad.
And I need to stop and mention here a fellow blogger, Anna See, whose 12-year-old son drowned this week in the aftermath of the D.C.-area flooding. The blogging community is coming together to support her and her family, and I'll let you know of any support efforts in the future.
Then yesterday was Sept. 11, and I felt the need to reflect, and to mourn, and to remember. It was a hard end to a hard week, although I will say that I experienced a very positive moment last night. I watched Nathan and a bunch of other kids playing tag in a park, this park that was once an army base, that was named Patriot's Park in honor of 9/11. And I saw, right there, the ultimate evidence of something good coming out of something bad.
And so another week begins. I'm not even going to talk about my goals from last week, because I failed miserably at those. Sitting down to write this play script, it is so hard. I am such a procrastinator. It's easy to buckle down and meet work deadlines, but it's hard to sit down and force myself to write this creative script that's due, I don't know, sometime in October. I pretty much found every excuse imaginable to avoid doing that thing.
On top of that, last week was the first week in awhile where I didn't have any freelance work, and I miss work. When I was busy with work, I didn't get so stressed about stupid stuff like my house being messy, but when I have nothing but idle time--or, more accurately--time when I should be doing something else--I just sit around and feel guilty.
I want more work. I don't know how to set a weekly goal for getting more work, because some of this is sort of at the mercy of forces outside my control. Maybe I will just will it to happen, you know, like The Secret? That works, right?
Also this week I'm going to focus all my efforts on being a good Weight Watcher. I went to the meeting this morning, and the leader asked everybody to rate their daily Weight Watchers score on a scale of 1 to 100. We all talked about being at a 100 on Mondays after the meeting, and then maybe another 100 for Tuesday, but then the will power diminishes throughout the week so that by Friday we're not even trying. The leader challenged us to be at an 80 for the whole week. So, that's where all my energy is going this week, to being at an 80. Everything else will have to slide.
And now go and visit original SuperIma LeighAnn, whose life is on the upswing! Yay!
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