I’m not complaining - Actifit: August 25 2019

They say life is what happens while you are making other plans. I suppose that feels more true some days than others!

I am not complaining, because I know that as challenged as I feel right now at this point in my life, many people have it worse, every single day of their lives -- whether from poverty, war, famine, living with an abuser, what have you. I have nothing so terrible going on. But wow sometimes the poop just hits the fan, you know?

My day went like this. I had the whole day ahead of me. A virtual blank slate. I had collected some items for my child who just left for college, and thought perhaps I would drive to the campus in the evening, after doing the one thing I really needed to do today, which was to finish a short story that is way overdue to my #steemfiction team.

I sat down to work on my writing, but first I actually had to get one work thing done. Every weekend, I type up a summary of what is happening with all the plates I have spinning at work, so my boss knows what’s what. There’s so much going on at work that this little task took me over an hour.

Finally I started working on the fiction piece. I mean I literally had my hands poised over the keyboard when my adult daughter who is living at home right now popped in from the garage and wanted help with a project. I made sure I did not let out an audible sigh. After all, she just wanted me to help her get started. She was launching into her first DIY project, which involved spreading a stain-stripping chemical over all the surfaces of three pieces of furniture -- two of which have a total of 9 drawers between them. It was a lot. She wanted to make sure she was doing it right.

So I helped her with that and gently eased away. You know how it is when people take on projects that are perhaps a teensy bit more complicated or overwhelming than they imagined, and then you can so easily get sucked in and suddenly you’re actually doing the project? I walked back in the house, grabbed a second cup of coffee (because there is nothing better than sitting down to write with a cup of coffee in hand), and opened up the laptop.

Ring. Ring.

It was my daughter at college. She wanted me to drive to the campus right now. No other time would do. She had plans later in the day. There was no point in arguing. I had planned to go at some point later on anyway. So my new plan is that I would flip-flop the schedule and do the errand to the campus now and the writing later.

The drive to the campus is about an hour on a good day. This was not a good day. In Minnesota, we like to say that we have two seasons: winter and road construction. It took over an hour and a half to get there, partly because Google maps told me to take an exit right after I passed it, so I had to go another four miles past the campus and loop back. But it was good to see my daughter. She is settling in nicely and having a great time in her first few days of college!

I delivered her supplies, visited for a bit and started back. That was when I realized that I needed to get gas and I was hungry and had missed lunch. So I stopped at a gas station, filled up, got a beverage and something to eat and headed back through “construction season” traffic. It took another hour and a half to get home. All told, my little errand -- including the visit, the side errand for gas and food, and the traffic delays — took me about four and a half hours.

When I arrived home, I found that the DIY project was not going well. The first part was mostly done, which meant my daughter had spread the solvent and scraped it off of all of the furniture surfaces. But there was detritus everywhere — tools and mucked up rubber gloves and cloths — and there was still another step to do. The next step involved using another chemical, called a “wash” to clean off the remaining globs of stain as well as the residue of the first chemical.

She was done. She had had it. Even with the chemicals, the stain had not come off in a satisfactory way that would allow her to use the new stain color she wanted to get a new result. Also, she wasn’t feeling well, and wondered if the chemicals were causing her to fall ill. So, I did what any demented yet loving mother would do, which was to take on the project. I used the chemical wash to clean off the furniture and cleaned up the whole work site.

It took hours. By the time I finished with all that it was nearly 10 pm. I had no creative juice left in me. All I wanted to do was sit down with a glass of wine and write my evening post.

This is my life right now. There is too much to do. People need things from me. Work stress is out of control, and every night I’ve got to walk or work out to manage that, and by the time I am actually fit for doing anything creative or productive the day is done. I literally fall asleep trying to catch up on Discord, write my daily blog post, and do some curation.

Lately I’ve had this feeling like I am meant to learn some lesson. But I’m not sure what it is. Do less? I don’t know what to give up. My family is everything. And the kids are all growing up and moving on. If they need me, I’m there. Work is hard but I love it and I get shit done. It’s very gratifying. Plus it pays the bills. Giving up exercise is just not an option. It is the thing that keeps my nutty life from completely taking me down. Perhaps the lesson is simply that there just is no way to do it all and that I’ve got to find a way to be centered and whole in spite of the bumps in the road and the diversions that keep me from making headway on my own goals.

So… I’m not complaining. I have a job. I am so thankful for that, and I love it. I have a loving husband and great kids. How awesome is that? I have trails to walk on and a dog who loves to romp through the prairie and chase sticks. It’s wonderful.

I just need to somehow find a way to get it all down to a dull roar and get creativity back in my life.

Thanks for reading!

House Chores