Life's Too Short for Crappy Pens

 

I'm a pen snob. I recognize this about myself and know that it makes me difficult to live and work with. My office had the best gel pens: black or blue ink, 10mm, soft plastic outside. But, since the pandemic started, I've been working from home for the last 13 months and my pens ran out of ink. I was faced with the torturous chore of going to Target and sifting through dozens of different brands of disposable gel pens and ink lines. I couldn't remember what the office had, so it took me trial and error of so many pen packs it's embarrassing. But then I found it: the perfect pen. My new preferred favorite is the Pilot G-2 Premium Gel 10 mm, black ink. I originally purchased the 5 mm and then the 7 mm, but the point was too fine and it made me angry. That's right: too fine of a gel ink brought me rage. 

My dentist office kept giving me retractable ball point pens. I guess because of COVID-19 it was cheaper for them to just give the pens to patients as opposed to try and sterilize them between uses. I had three or four of them in my purse; every time I pulled out one of Dr. Mingos' pens, I immediately groaned and searched for one of the gel pens that I knew I had buried somewhere in the purse. At first, I tried to sneak the inferior pens -- Dr. Mingos', the 5 and 7 mm gel pens, or other ball point pens that did not fit my standards -- into our junk drawer. My husband appears to be less discerning when it comes to his pen use, so I thought it was a mediocre solution: I could get rid of the pens without throwing them away. Inevitably, though, every time I opened the junk drawer to use one of the 10mm pens I had placed there for my sole use, I pulled out one of those other unsuitable pens. It was like the pen gods were taunting  me. It then occurred to me that life is too short to use a terrible pen, that the satisfaction that I get from that smooth gel line is one moment of brief happiness that I get everyday. So I threw out all the pens that I couldn't tolerate. Let's just say that I Marie Kondo'd the pens in our household. 

Snow Tail

 Today it snowed. 

April 20, and it snowed. Yesterday, it was almost 60 degrees. Today it snowed. Sunday is going to be in the 70s. Missouri weather is so unpredictable, so indecisive, so fickle that it makes me want to curl in the fetal position until we get one of those very few mild days, where the sun comes out and it's a pleasant 65 degrees with a slight breeze. Ahhhh...I can almost feel the warmth of the sun from past springtimes. 

Today it snowed, and Olive watched the snowflakes, completely mesmerized. This little seven-pound cat who is so full of energy that it's exhausting, sat perfectly still for a few long minutes, intrigued by what she was seeing. It wasn't her first snowfall - she's seen a few snow flurries in December -- but it's been a while. Olive sat so still, slowly batting her eyes at the white fluff falling down as if she was trying to befriend it. Meanwhile, I sat next to her on the chaise lounge, frustrated by a meeting that had just ended. Her tilted face, just enjoying that moment from her kitty perspective, made me take a deep breath and look out the window, a reminder that that type of frustration is unnecessary. It was a good reflective moment that I needed. 

Then Olive proceeded to try to bat the snowflakes through the window, and shortly after jumped onto the back of the chaise, where she perched in the meatloaf position. Her tailed wrapped around the side of my face, and she proceeded to methodically swat her tail on my cheek for the next 15 minutes. I like to think it was her way of literally drilling home the importance of taking a moment to breath.  

Why, Hello Again

It's obviously been a hot minute since I last posted anything here (or closer to 657,000 minutes). 2020 was...a year. It started out promising, and then craziness ensued. For me, overall, it was a pretty amazing year, but saying that aloud today typically results in people reacting like you've just admitted to being patient zero in all this.

So. I consider this post to be my obligatory acknowledgement of the gap year in my blog. I won't attempt to summarize 15 months of absence - even my eyes are glazing over with what that read might look like. But, I will tell you this: 2020 allowed me to achieve my reading challenge by completing 41 of my 40 books goal. So, take that, all you 2020 haters. I'm getting crazy in 2021 and upping my reading goal to 41 books. I'm currently six books ahead of schedule. I know everyone is on edge wondering whether I'll make the goal this year. 

So here's to the next post happening before July 2022. And hopefully being more entertaining or insightful or grammatically correct. 

 

Expanding My Area Search

I'm getting that antsy feeling again (not to be confused with angsty) that I need to be doing something artsy or involved or challenging. This partially might be due to me spending most of this weekend trying to upgrade my Mac's OS to one that's supported by Chrome or, really, any other major online activity. Apparently I neglected to pay attention to the OS updates, and I quickly fell from even the bare minimum passing requirements. (Also, why must Apple name their platforms ridiculously? Why does it need to be anything other than the OS' version number?)

As I've bored myself to death trying to get first one OS to download and then the next just on the hopes that I might avoid having to buy a new computer, my mind has had plenty of time to wander. This morning I spent a good chunk of time on Facebook, searching events going on in the area. Now that I no longer live in downtown Kansas City, adjusting my search range brought in a whole new array of places to visit and consider.

And now I want to do it all.

I want to attend the class where I'll learn how to make a wood tray. Play Wednesday night wine bingo at a wine/pizza place. Sign me up for the class where I'll plant a succulent and learn all about propagation. I don't need any of those Bob Ross-like paintings from those wine and paint classes, but it'll give me something to do.

I realize that some of this is stemming from the six-week hiatus that my rec league sports have given me between the holiday and winter seasons. (Six weeks was waaaay too long.) Perhaps another portion is that my living location has changed, and I'm still adjusting to have to drive to get to, frankly, any place, person, or activity, whereas before if I got bored, I'd just go for a walk downtown and find a coffee shop to read in or a store to putter about. According to Yelp, the nearest coffee shop is a tiny Starbucks 5.8 miles away. So now I'm looking at Groupon and Eventbrite, trying to see which experiences to purchase to get me out of the house with a destination. Now that I've started looking, I've discovered so many things that I want to do but I can't because three nights of indoor volleyball and/or pickleball interferes.

First world problems. I should just be grateful that I have free time to enjoy and that I have all these options, like taking a class on how to build my own cheese board.

I'm currently leaning toward a cake decorating class. I thoroughly enjoying baking cakes for birthdays, but my decorating skills always end with a cake looking like it was written by either a first grader. What if I could decorate a cake and it actually looked like the design I intended? Although who am I kidding? Even if I take that four-part decorating class, my cakes will still look like a serial killer wrote "Happy Birthday". But at least I could say that I took the class.

When You Can't Cut the Cheese

By this point in my life, I have a fairly good understanding of my limitations. I recognize my strengths, those elements that I can conquer, those that I'll try at least once and then move on knowing that I won't be able to master them. Over the years, I've had skills that I've revisited and tried time and again to at least become somewhat mediocre at performing. 

It's the cheese slicer that has posed one of the biggest defeats for me. I can't even begin to describe the trauma and outrage that trying to use a cheese slicer has caused me. My parents had one, and I always relied on someone else to, well, cut the cheese for me. Something about pulling the slicer through a block of cheese just didn't connect for me. My mom could always cut these perfectly rectangular slices, each side smooth as if it had just fallen apart from the rest of the block, the width of it symmetrical from one end to the other. My slices always came out looking grated, as if the cheese had been pummeled back and forth between two boxers, chunks missing as if a rat had bitten into it.

Once I moved into my own apartment and started purchasing my own kitchen utensils and food supplies, I refused to add a cheese slicer to my kitchen resources. If I needed a slice of cheese, I bought it precut so that I could easily remove a slice from the package. It was perfect, it was stress-free, and I had no need to worry about cutting the cheese. I also bought prepackaged shredded cheese to avoid any muscle strain that might come from grating a block of cheese down into thin strips.

It all changed when I moved in with my fiance. I should have looked through his kitchen utensil drawer more closely, paid better attention to his cheese supply. He's a cheese slicer. He owns a cheese slicer. No precut cheese for him. Like my mom, he somehow mastered cutting the perfect slice of cheese. I tried everything to avoid using the cheese slicer until he called me out for using a steak knife on the cheese block, which left the cheese block with a slightly riveted side and chunks chiseled out of the block. He tried to coach me on how to use it ("Just pull it slightly...you don't actually use it to cut the cheese." which then lead to me losing concentration from the inevitable cutting-the-cheese phrase.). It left him exasperated, me frustrated. I've sworn off slices of cheese. It's fine. I'm fine. I know my limitations. And it's not like I need to have that grilled cheese sandwich...

40 for 40 in 2020

And the challenge has been set...

Nailed it! 

Not only did I hit that goal, I surpassed it. The 37th book I completed was finished on 29 December, which means I even slipped in books 38 and 39 between yesterday and today. It was Stephen King's Under the Dome. A big ol' bad boy at 1,074 pages.  The length alone should have counted for two, maybe three books. That book sat on my bookshelf for more than four years, moved from a house to an apartment to a house. With another impending move in 2020, I placed it on my list of books that absolutely needed to be read. I refused to move that massive book again unless it's being donated.

The year 2020 no longer looms ahead. In less than seven hours it will be here. Along with the time to determine whether I'm going to set a new reading goal. Do I stretch myself and push for 40 books, knowing that I almost reached that goal in 2019, even though it was a tough push to knock out some of those books in the last month? Growing up, 40 books in one year would have been a piece of cake. I would tear through three or four books in one week, even with a full day of school, extracurricular activities, chores, and time with friends and family. The books weren't shorter, the days didn't have more time. Was it just more energy and not the same need for sleep?  

I'm weighing all the events taking place in 2020 in my life. There's so much going on, so many exciting events that are going to take time away from being able to read. But I'm excited to try it. After all, 40 is a bigger number for me next year. Let's make it 40 in books too. 

What Ifs

I recently had a conversation with a friend about the "what ifs" in life. Those moments in life where, if you had made a different decision -- no matter how minuscule that choice or selection might have had -- what would your life be like now, where would you, who you would be?

He started laying out his "what ifs", speaking to several different choices he made throughout his life that he felt like could have brought him to a different point, perhaps a different place and moment that would have been better than where he currently is at.

After several minutes of sharing his what ifs, he cut himself off in mid-sentence, raised an eyebrow at me, and told me that I was being quiet. "What are your 'what ifs', Megs? Where do you think your life choices led you down a path different than where you thought you would be at?"

I shrugged half-heartedly. To me, what ifs are pipe dreams or another form of torturing oneself. While I firmly believe in self-reflection to understand oneself better and to avoid repeating what might be considered past mistakes, I also don't think it's healthy to ponder so frequently the what ifs, the could-have-beens, the might-have-beens. My life choices brought me to where I am now, to the point in time where I am and should be. From the small ("What if I had a salad for lunch yesterday? Would I have gotten sick today?") to the significant ("What if I had broken up with my ex-husband that first year we were dating, like I tried to? Where would I be?"), those what ifs can be too overwhelming, too devastating, too complex to even begin to sort through.

One of my favorite movies is Sliding Doors, a movie in which Gwyneth Paltrow plays a woman whose love life and career all hinge on her catching a train. That moment in the movie -- whether she catches the train -- then divulges into two different story lines that show how what can appear to be an insignificant moment can completely change one's life, the movie flip flopping between two different versions of the character Helen: one emboldened, one meek; one finding love, one going through the motions of her life.

My what ifs brought me to my life today: an imperfect life that I am so grateful for. I'm in love with an amazing man who is perhaps the best human being I've ever known. I now have two kitty cats that bring snuggles and joy into my life and are pushing me to crazy cat lady status for the way that I dote on them. My friends, my family, my career -- all those people and moments in my life for which I am incredibly thankful for. Perhaps if my what ifs had gone differently, I would have more money, be more successful, be thinner, have children, be famous, and so on. Or those what ifs could have gone the opposite path, and I could be desolate and alone. But my what ifs have worked out better than I can imagine. So perhaps it's not the looking to the past that I need. It's the what-will-bes, the future that is to come and those moments that are yet decided. Maybe it's a little like being a glass half-empty or a glass half-full sort of person. I think I prefer to be the forward looking person focused on the what-will-bes and not the what-ifs of the past.

Nine to Go...

It's almost the end of October, so let us check in with that pesky reading challenge.

Nine books left to read in roughy 11 weeks. It sounds doable...one book a week...one book taking an average of 7.22 days at this point. 

But Goodreads is once again reminding me that I am behind in life. Thank you, Goodreads, for that reminder of being two books behind schedule and, therefore, only minimally failing at life at this point. I'm glad you can help with that self-esteem booster. 

Pat, Pat

For the last four months, I've had a slight cough. The doctor can't trace it to anything specific and I'm not sick, so the general consensus seems to be that it's related to the environment. It could be that I've lived for the last four years surrounded by concrete and brick of downtown Kansas City and then moved to four acres of land surrounded by countryside. When I walked out of my backdoor three months ago after riding an elevator down seven floors, I was surrounded by pavement, cars, tourists, and a national monument. Today when I walk out my back door, I see nothing but grass and trees, occasionally some deer, frogs, wild turkeys, owls, snakes, raccoons, marmots, or coyotes. (Move over, Cinderella -  I have more woodland creatures to make my clothes than you did.) My body likely is having an adverse reaction to nature.

The doctor also speculated that I might be allergic to the cats, which immediately led to the doctor telling me that I should no longer let Gus sleep with me at nights. 

So I washed all the bedding and tried sleeping alone without Gus for eight days. My breathing cleared and I found myself coughing less. My lungs felt air again. But Gus was not pleased with the situation. During that time he became aloof and avoided eye contact with me. When I walked into a room, he arched his back, stretched, and slowly sauntered out. 

Based on the online articles that I read, cats can get upset with you, but their short-term and long-term memories seem to indicate that they can't carry a grudge more than a day or so without moving beyond it or seemingly to forget it. Gus' behavior seemed to prove that research differently. 

I missed our cuddles and one-sided conversations, so I caved today when I stayed home from  and let him back in the room. He immediately curled up on my chest, and then for the next two hours proceeded to lightly tap me on the chin, cheeks, and nose with his front paws...always at the moment that I found myself falling into an uncomfortable, feverish sleep. It felt like he was saying, "Hey, hey. [pat, pat] Look at me. Don't pass out. [pat, pat] Pet me, love me, pay attention to me, shower me with attention." According to Animal Planet, this patting of the face is a cat's sign of affection -- the cat is putting his scent on you to show you that he trusts and adores you. I have decided to go with this interpretation as opposed to thinking that Gus was trying to slap me as punishment for his banishment from the bedroom.

So Gus and I are friends again. I haven't coughed yet today either, so hopefully everything is on the mend and all is right in the world again.  

Pack, Pack, Pack It Up

One of my friends told me recently that she enjoys moving. We were having drinks, and I wondered if she had a few drinks before we met. "Wait...are you drunk?" She explained that it was cathartic to pack up all her belongings, to take stock of what she owned, and then unpack it all in a new location. All the possibilities and potentials of having a new home, a fresh perspective, and her old things in new surroundings gave her a renewed sense of purpose and meaning.

Son of a biscuit, I thought. After such a deep interpretation of moving I felt like anything I said in response was going to be shallow. If I confessed my loathing and burning hatred for packing all of my life belongings and then having to move them in 5-to-25 pound boxes was going to sound whiney. So I responded with, "Moving gives me debilitating anxiety and makes me realize that I own way too much stuff for just one person and, yet, not enough for one person as old as I am." We sat there in silence for a few minutes, and then I pulled out two koozies from my purse for our beer, as if to emphasize that my stuff was spilling out of my place and into my purse.

I'm in the process of moving into my boyfriend's four bedroom, three bath home that sits on four acres of land. I currently live in a 650-square foot apartment. I don't own a lot of stuff. I've never liked knick knacks, and most of my items serve a functional purpose. With my plan to sell most of my furniture, it looks like all of my world possessions will occupy a 15x15 foot area in his basement. Even that feels like too much "stuff". Do I really need to keep that tub of scrapbooks that I made when I was in third and fourth grades? How many vases does one person really need, even if they serve a different purpose in the spring (obviously, flowers) versus fall (wine corks) versus Christmas (Xmas bulbs)? If I walked away from it all, I don't think I'd miss any of. I might have a tinge of regret for some of the sentimentally valued items -- such as the jelly bean jar that sat on my grandparents' countertop when I was growing up or my grandmothers' teacups -- but I'm sure I would quickly recover. Perhaps I should feel a remorse that, physically, my existence is summed up in roughly a 15-foot area, but I'm really more relieved. When I die, there will be less for my family to deal with, less to sort through and have someone else bear that guilty feeling of tossing away an item that they thought meant a great deal to me, when it really probably didn't.

So I'm continuing to take a critical eye to what I pack. Maybe I can get that area down to 10x10, or maybe even 8x6. The minimalist side of me is seeping tears of joy at that prospect.

Fresh Air With a Side of Ash

After getting home from work today, I needed to sit outside. Being cooped up in an office for nine hours, staring at a computer screen and attending meetings while breathing manufactured white noise, made every part of me itch to be in the fresh air. So I came home, poured a glass of wine, and now am sitting outside. Sitting outside in front of a computer. But at least the air is fresh, I can hear the birds talking to each other, and the sounds of neighboring machinery (a lawn mower? a tractor? a generator? a bulldozer? what is it?!!).

Someone is burning something nearby. It smelled amazing when I stepped out of my car and into the air. It also was another compelling reason to sit outside for a while tonight. I love the smell of campfires and wood burning. However, when I got to the back patio, the chairs and patio were covered in grayish ash. Motherfucker. Whatever the neighbors are burning is blowing into our backyard. It periodically floats down, like a light dusting of snow, which then makes me think of the stories from WWII, how survivors described how ash would fall from the sky when the Nazis burned people in the concentration camps. So my overactive imagination is telling me that the neighbors have murdered someone and I'm getting a light dusting of someone's essence lightly landing in my hair and in my wine. I realize it's probably more along the lines of debris from the yard or household garbage or a random collection of broken chairs and brooms, but I still periodically turn my head to the side and make a face, a little gag as I brush the ash from my hair.

But at least I'm sitting outside in the fresh air...

Let's Make a List

I love both the US and British versions of The Office. I've seen episodes from both series multiple times, and I just recently started watching the US version of The Office from Season 1, Episode 1 with my boyfriend because he had never seen a full episode of either series. [Insert shocked face, gasp, and an explicative here.]

Last night we reached Season 5, Episode 20, called Dream Team. This is the episode in which ***Spoiler Alert*** Michael Scott and Pam Beesly have started the Michael Scott Paper Company after quitting Dunder Mifflin. It's their first day of MSPC. At different points in the episode, Michael and Pam experience melt downs as they realize that they have quite their jobs to start a new paper company in an economy where paper companies are being replaced by big franchises like Staples and Office Supply. The answer to calming both down? Making a list of things that need to be done. Seeing the tasks at hand written down and then checking those items completed off bring both Michael and Pam back to focus and calmness.

Like Michael and Pam, I'm a list maker. I started making lists as soon as I could write full words. To Do lists, Grocery lists, What I Need to Pack lists, Places I Want to Visit lists, Goals lists, 2019 Goals lists, Blog Topic lists, Books I Want to Read lists...the list of lists goes on and on. I collect all the items on a sheet of paper, numbering each item (although sometimes I'll use a dash instead). I love the orderliness that that list brings to my life. I prefer lined paper and either a black or blue gel pen to write my lists. When I accomplish an item, the best feeling in the world is taking a black Sharpie and drawing a line through that item. If I'm at work, I'll use my dry erase board and alternate items in different colors; sometimes I'll color code them. But it's always a thick black line that gets drawn through a completed task. I used to keep them scattered about, but my ex-husband would pick them up and read them back to me, mocking the things I placed on my To Do list. He quickly made me become a closeted list maker, and today my lists are contained to one notebook. When I'm done with a list, I tear it out of the notebook and put it through the paper shredder for the ultimate feeling of accomplishment.

The lists help me organize my thoughts. It makes me feel less overwhelmed, regardless of how many items might be on that list. I don't understand the non-listmakers, the individuals who fly by the seat of their pants, no items jotted down, no black Sharpie line to indicate a sense of accomplishment. And I might create that list and procrastinate on starting it but, dammit, at least I have a list. I want to take my love of lists and force them onto others. My boyfriend has been talking about making a list of things he needs to think through, and I'm itching on his behalf to make that list. Just jot it down, I think. Use a yellow legal notepad and a quill ink pen. No numbers for you, just a flow of your thoughts down the length of the paper. Make your list. Make it. Make it now. But I can't impose my desire for him to have his list until he has it. I can't judge him for not making his list. Because sometimes I get sidetracked from a list long enough that I can't remember what the list was intended for, or the items no longer are valid, or I just don't have enough reasons to keep going with the list, and the list just ends up shredded anyway.

Now I need to go make a list...

Happy Birthday, America

This morning I visited the National World War I . Something about visiting a museum honoring the men and women who gave their lives in WWI to protect the spirit of America and the concept of freedom for both American and the individual on the Fourth of July seemed poetic and a prime example of patriotism.

This wasn't my first visit to the museum, but something about leaving the museum filled me with an immense melancholy and, admittedly, guilt. Over 37 million men, women, and children from across the world died during WWI; some civilians, some soldiers. Some gave their lives unknowingly, while others voluntarily signed on knowing that they might not make it through their service and the war. Some soldiers died a mere moments before the armistice was signed between the Allies and Germany at "the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month".

The sheer dedication and patriotism that those Americans felt to enlist in 1917 when the United States entered WWI is remarkable. While we were walking through the museum, my boyfriend asked me if I had ever considered signing up for the army. The closest I came was when I was 17; while applying for universities and writing essays for scholarships, I at some point had the Army on my list. Or maybe it was the Army's recruiters that had me on their list. I spoke to an Army recruiter at length, which ended with me getting a free pair of white tube socks with Army written lengthwise on them and several follow-up calls from their recruiters. In the end, I knew I was not a good fit for the Army: I have no upper-body strength, I hate being yelled at, the thought of killing someone terrifies me, and the late 90s were still not a good time to be female in the military. I found that I could support my country, but only from afar.

So when we stepped outside the museum, it seemed fitting that a gloomy rain had settled over Kansas City. The Fourth of July has never been at the top of my list of favorite holidays, which I have been told time and again by friends and family is un-American. However, it's not because I don't love my country. I am so grateful to live in a place that allows me the freedom to do almost anything that I could possibly imagine (really, the only thing that limits me is public nudity -- I wish it was okay to go outside in just my tank top and underwear, which I guess technically is legal, just not socially acceptable). I can vote, drink, marry who I choose, wear tank tops and short skirts in public, kiss someone I love in public, write this blog. I love the smell of fireworks, but cringe watching people set them off. I'm like a little kid when I have a sparkler on the Fourth of July, but am always slightly afraid that I'm going to light myself on fire. I feel a societal pressure to spend the holiday with friends and family, grilling out and having beers, when sometimes it just isn't possible to get together with everyone -- and sometimes, I just don't want to. I want to enjoy an entire day off from work without any pressure to be social.

I'm grateful for each day I have, but today was a reminder of just how fortunate I am.

Happy Birthday, America. Thank you for all that you have given me.

Rain, Rain, Go Away...For Quite a While. Please.

May 2019 was the wettest month in Kansas City history. Out of 31 days, only 9 days contained no form of precipitation. Even as someone who loves dark, gloomy days and thunderstorms more than anything in life (well, almost more...I still rank a good Old Fashioned or back scratch higher), I'm over the rain.

I could talk about how the rain has caused devastating flooding in the area (and stemming out into the greater Midwest). Every day seems to bring a new river flooding warning. More people that I know have had flooded cars or basements than any other point in the time they've lived in their households. Or that the flooding has prevented farmers from planting -- or just flat out destroyed any crops planted as of today. Or that no one is going to be able to spend time outdoors this summer due to all the mosquitoes that the rain and swampy conditions have brought us.

But I want to talk about the two real travesties.

1. My hair. My curly hair is devastated by the humidity. It's either frizzy and massive, like I brushed my hair with a balloon, stepped into a puddle of water, and then grabbed the end of a live wire. This usually doesn't happen until July, when the Missouri heat and humidity makes me look like a Q-tip that was rubbed so vigorously that the cotton has unfurled from the stick.
   
2. My inability to pull weeds and mulch. After moving into a seventh floor apartment in the middle of downtown KC four years ago, I finally have access to property where I can pull weeds, mulch, and plant flowers. I was given permission to do whatever I want to my boyfriend's flower beds, and I have been looking forward to the day that I can do all the things to it for months. (I'm not saying this is the only reason why I'm dating him, but...well, I really do miss having weeds to pull. I never thought I would say that, but dear sweet God. I need to pull some weeds.) The rain is preventing me from getting wrists deep into some good mulching and planting.

Today was the first day with no rain in what felt like years. But, don't worry: the next six days call for precipitation at some point during each day. My soul is slowly turning gray and melancholy like each of those days. It's a good thing that it's not causing me to be melodramatic.

Whenever I take a day off from work in the middle of the week -- whether to run errands, spend a day with my niece or nephew, volunteer, whatever random reason it might be -- I'm always surprised by the number of people who are out and about as well. Who are all these people, running amuck during the middle of a business day? What sort of lifestyle do that they have that allow them the freedom of being outside of an office on a week day?

Sometimes they're college kids from UMKC, KU Med, or one of the area community colleges, studying or enjoying their free time between classes or part-time jobs. With a twinge of nostalgia, I miss those days of youthful worries. Worrying about studying, writing a paper, taking an exam, collecting quarters to do my laundry, my job as an RA...it all seem so simple compared to the life of adulthood: work, bills, family, adult relationships. 

In conversations reminiscing about our youth, so many people say that they wish they could go back to their high school days. Not me...take me back to college, the days of spending countless hours with my friends in Iowa City where we did random things like binge watch Pride and Prejudice (back before "binge watch" was even a phrase) after dinner; went to the bars on the weekends to drink and dance; stayed up until the late hours of the night debating philosophy and planning our futures; riding the Cambus to part-time jobs. "Stick it to me Tuesday" became not just a cheap way to eat Pokey Sticks dipped in ranch, but a way of life.

However, I wouldn't change my life today. Would I go back to college? Maybe, on some of those stressful days at work where projects and issues seem to be converging all at once. Yet, in some ways, as a divorced, middle-aged woman, I'm reliving my college days...just, you know, with more responsibilities. I still meet my friends for dinner and then debate the meaning of life and where our futures are headed, we still drink on the weekends. It's just now our evenings end earlier, our drinks might be more than the 2-for-1 nonbrand house specials, and dancing requires a full body massage the next day. While we might have to plan a little more in advance to go to a movie or get everyone together, it still happens. No, I wouldn't go back to a previous time, as much as I loved those years and friendships at that time. 

I just need to figure out how to get back to those mid-week days of being out-and-about without being on PTO and still fully employed...

Zzzzzzz...Nope

When I was a kid, I could sleep like no other. My parents said that I fell asleep quickly and in strange locations, that it was not unusual to find me asleep on the stairs or on the toilet, as if I gave up in the middle of whatever activity I was in and let sleep overcome me. Putting me in a moving vehicle immediately equated to me falling asleep. On the flip side, trying to wake me up was like trying to awake a hibernating bear: difficult and dangerous to do. 

To this day, a moving vehicle immediately puts me to sleep, and I'm grumpy and groggy after waking up. Yet when I was a teenager, it all changed. Somewhere along the line, I lost my ability to easily fall asleep and stay asleep. I found myself going through bouts of insomnia, unable to sleep throughout the night. Instead, I found myself lying awake at night. Worse yet were the nights where I was so uncomfortable that I had to get out of bed, feeling so out of control that the only thing that made me feel better was to clean. My mom said she missed when I moved out of my parents' house because those sleepless nights meant that she would wake to a dusted house, kitchen cupboards reorganized and straightened, and laundry folded.

My insomnia runs in phases as an adult. Usually it's just a week at a time during a stressful week, which is common for most people, but it can ranges for months at a time. It hasn't been this bad since the last year of my marriage, as the stress of a failing relationship and dealing with the death of a parent overwhelmed me to the point that I couldn't sleep due to fear of what was happening while I was asleep. However, in the last five months, my inability to sleep has progressively gotten worse where I've only slept three to four hours each night, finding myself waking up every hour or two and staying awake for anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour or two. Yet now I'm too exhausted to get out of bed to clean as a coping mechanism like I did as a teenager, so I feel like I'm wasting my time as I lay in bed, trying to count numbers backward to get myself back to sleep.

Frustrated, I've tried all the things that everyone recommends doing (or not doing) before bedtime: no caffeine, no electronics, using the bed for mainly sleep (or bed-specific activities), therapy, taking melatonin, exercising, getting out of bed until I feel sleepy, and so on. I reached the point of exhaustion so many times that I found myself needing sleep desperately, so I reached out to my doctor for prescription sleeping pills for the first time, just to break the cycle of not being able to sleep. I also bought a blackout shade for my room. Between the sleeping pills and blackout shade, it finally seems to have done the trick. 

I miss those days of my youth where I could flop down and immediately be asleep and stay asleep. It's the roving adult mind of mine that lets the stress and frustration of the day creep in every night, like a monster lurking underneath the bed that has finally figured out the best way to pounce on me. Thoughts of work, finances, health, current relationships, dead loved ones, loneliness, the future, and the frustration of not sleeping all flow into my mind as I'm trying to fall asleep. It's a tidal wave of thoughts and feelings that I've dealt with previously that I just can't seem to shake right now, a melodrama of my own making.

But something shifted last night: I had the first good sleep I've had in months. Perhaps it was the combination of the sleeping pills, blackout shade, exhaustion, and finally shutting my mind and emotions off that allowed it. Even knowing that I was losing an hour of time due to daylight saving time, I allowed myself to sleep later than normal. Hello, sweet, sweet rest. How I've missed you.

Tonight finds Kansas City in the midst of a snowfall, a winter weather warning in affect until 6:00 a.m. Perhaps an inch or two of snow has fallen already, covering the streets that are coated with a sheet of ice from the rain that pelted the ground all day. Rain that turned to ice when the temperatures fell below freezing once the day finally morphed into evening.

From my apartment, I can see downtown Kansas City. The falling snow, icy roads, and late hour has left the city quiet. Snowflakes flutter past my window, swirling in a slow circular movement. The sky is eerily purple, a hazy hue that has taken an odd color due to the reflection of the streetlights, city skyline, and snow.

It's a beautiful, lonely sight. I love snowfalls like these, watching the snow shroud my city in quietness. Yet the stillness of the city combined with the silence in my place leaves me melancholic. It's a reminder of the aloneness that I occasionally feel, a feeling that I know is not just isolated to me but that everyone feels at some point in their lives. So I try not to dwell on the loneliness that's wrapped itself around me as I look out over the snowy city. Tomorrow will bring clear skies and interactions with a dozen different coworkers, friends, and family members. The quiet of this snowy night will once again be filled with the sounds of moving vehicles, trains on the railroads, conversations, and the other city sounds that I have learned to tune out as background noise. And this pensive, melodramatic mood will shift back into that average mustering of optimism and appreciation.

Validated

Yesterday I finished the book I was reading.

Today I feel better about myself. Goodreads has let me know that I'm back on track for 2019. Maybe I don't need to write this year off quite yet.

At least that is, until I check my reading challenge status tomorrow and discovered that I've fallen behind once again. 

Goodreads might be the single most judgmental source I have in my life right now.

Reading Challenge Fail

I logged into my Goodreads.com account this morning to check how many books I've read so far this year. I thought for sure that one of the books I finished reading around the holidays I had completed after January 1. 

I had not. Instead, what greeted me on my homepage was the progress on my Goodreads' 2019 Reading Challenge. 

Son. Of. A. Bitch. Less than four weeks into the new year, and I am already behind schedule. Despite its small font, the "1 Book Behind Schedule" note feels like its staring at me accusingly, as if I've already failed miserably in 2019. That I might as well write 2019 off and pray to God that 2020 is a better year. I hope that Goodreads.com is not sending me an ominous premonition of the year to come. 

1 book behind schedule...already I see the pressure of 2019 coming down on me in a self-selected reading goal. I'm panicking as I try to map out a plan as to how I can get back on track. I oddly want to receive praise from Goodreads.com. (If I read three books today, will it tell me that I am 1 book ahead schedule...????)

I'm calculating how much longer it will take me to read my current book based on the pages left in my current book (I'm on Page 102 of 231); the rate at which I'm reading it (I'm going sooooo slow...I should have just counted watching the Ted Talk as reading the book); and how whiny I've become in the last 10 minutes since I discovered that I'm already behind on my reading goal. At this rate, I will complete the book in 2045 and Goodreads.com will have forever banned me from their website, let alone any future reading challenges.