You know how every few months I go a little crazy and I start singing songs about how I wish my life could be a little different and then I quiet down for a bit and then “I Wish My Life Could Be A Little Different” cycles back around and have I thanked you lately for sticking with me as long as you have? I honestly don’t have many long-termers in my face-to-face life. I’ve said it before, and I mean it: We should meet up for burritos.
Please be patient, because the following probably isn’t going to make much sense. I’m just sorting things out by typing out loud.
I talked to someone last week who is NOT a therapist. We spent absolutely zero time talking about the differences between my life now and my life five years ago, yet I drove away from our dinner with a gut full of Margherita pizza and a gut-wrench sort of yearning to turn back time and make different choices.
I have never described myself as a people person. I once had a job interview during which I was asked if I enjoy being social. I answered honestly, and I did not get the job. (No hard feelings. My title would have been Fax Room Manager and I probably wouldn’t have met Jeff which also means I wouldn’t have met Meredith or Harper. So many people out there are much better suited (figuratively and literally, because the place had a strict dress code) to be a sociable fax room manager.)
In high school I spent a lot of time looking at the floor and sort of dreading the five minute breaks we had between classes. One of my teachers detected my weird anxiety, and he let me skip class entirely one day to spend 45 minutes by myself practicing the piano in the choir room. Best gift ever for a seventeen-year-old weirdo.
So anyway, I’ve been making lists of things I need to accomplish and things I want to accomplish and long term goals vs. short term goals and somehow I always start thinking about other people’s problems. (Do you remember that O.P.P. song? Me neither.) And then I start obsessing about how I can help to FIX other people’s problems. But I can’t. I can’t fix other people’s problems.
I need to come to grips with the fact that I am better behind the scenes. Leader hats don’t fit me very well and getting face time has never been important to me, and I’m slowly learning that getting face time is actually not good for me at all, and stop looking at me like that. I told you that this would probably not make much sense.
My Lazy Journal has been really fun so far, but yesterday I put up the following Buddha quote, and someone I really like asked something like, “Um, are you sure that’s a Buddha quote?” and IT’S NOT A BUDDHA QUOTE! BUT, regardless of who said it (probably a guy named Keith from Paducah), it’s good stuff. It’s Way to Live stuff. Especially the part about letting go of things not meant for you. That part has been on my mind for three days now. (The cold never bothered me anyway, and so forth.)
Five years ago I invited you to join me for a Fluid Pudding BowelPrepAlong. We may get a chance to try it again. I’ll know more tomorrow. Can you even imagine how exciting it will be to announce a second FPBPA?! Could this be a blogging first?! Could I possibly be a bowel prep blogging pioneer?! WHERE IS MY FREE TRIP TO DISNEY WORLD?!?!
I’m turning comments off for this one, because I think we would all be better off just watching the Olympics or perhaps not watching the Olympics. Maybe the next time we meet up I’ll talk to you about my bedroom goals. (It’s all about organization, Gutterhead. Have I mentioned that we would like to move?) ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>