Life is rolling along and everything is feeling good, then whump. I hit a speed bump, or a pot hole, or maybe it was both a speed bump and a pothole. Anyway my tire is flat, which seriously impedes my ability to keep rolling along happily. It’ll all be fine. I just need to find the jack and change out the tire. Then I can roll along again. Right now I’m in that moment when I’ve rolled to a complete stop at the side of the road and I’m trying to remember where on earth I keep the jack. I’m hoping it is here in the car with me.
The things which flattened my tire today:
I looked at the list of things I really should have gotten done already, the list of things I ought to do today, and I compared these lists against the actual hours I have available between now and midnight. The numbers of things are far more than the hours.
I thought about the parenting things which I have left to do this week and how they are going to interfere with the work things. Or maybe it is the other way around. Either way something important is going to have to slide.
We had a boom year financially last year. That means that this year we have a boom year for paying out taxes. I planned for it. I saved for it, but the number still feels a bit like a gut punch. I end up revising my plans for what I think we can afford this year. It is time for me to go over the budget again. I’ll just add that to the list.
Related to the finances, all the old anxiety demons have come howling out of the dark places where they’ve been hiding. “why can’t you plan better?” They howl at me. They blame me for spending too much, for not saving enough, for not being as frugal as we once were. And then once they get up a head of steam, they’ll start in on the many and varied ways that I’m a failure as a human being. So I’m spending psychic energy not listening to them and trying to shoo them back into their dark holes. Out of my head forever would be better, but I’ll tackle that when they are not surrounding me in a swirling mob. One at a time I can get rid of them. En masse, I’ll settle for having them shut up.
Howard has been suffering medication-related insomnia which has not helped him feel calm and happy. So we’re tinkering with that this week. The big bill punches his anxiety buttons too. That’s extra fun. His internal howling voices get restless when he’s having a depressed day. So later today Howard and I will, no doubt, be conferencing about these negative thoughts, both his and mine.
That’s it. I really thought there would be more things, but I’ve been sitting here for ten minutes and everything else that has floated through my head lands firmly on the good side of the ledger or is covered by the list above. Howard and I have both been writing prose fiction. He’s under contract. I’m not, but I know I’m writing the book that I need to write. Maybe I’ll find a contract for it later this year. Kiki is home with us for the week, and that is really fun. Link has been taking control of his homework and is going to bring all his grades up to passing before the end of the term even though he was out of school for a month. Gleek is excelling at horseback riding and I see the things she learns there spilling into other areas of her life. Patch hasn’t been showing signs of anxiety. He just earned his arrow of light and will go to scouts for the first time tonight.
So very many things are going well. I just wish there were two of me to keep them all going.