Day Sixty-Five: No Time to Write

I have currently reached yet another landmark in the wonderful world if writing daily that I have not encountered before. Today is the first day in sixty-five days that I, honest to God, do not have time to write. I didn't have time at lunch, and I am going to a concert tonight immediately after work, where afterwards I will crash at my boyfriend's house in an attempt to get enough sleep to make it through work tomorrow without stress or discomfort. So that leaves me with now.

While I feel both guilty and rushed that I have to piece together points of my day when I can fit in a few sentences, here and there, unfortunately there isn't much I can do. I suppose, in hindsight, I could have gotten up earlier, or I could stay up later this evening, but of course, I didn't think of that. I'm also pretty unhappy with my choice of topic, but it seemed appropriate, since it is the only thing I'm really capable of focusing on at the moment. So here I sit, writing about writing once again.

And, as usual, writing about writing isn't interesting to read, I'm sure, so instead, picture me sitting in front of a computer, sweaty and frazzled from doing twelve other things, tied to my desk for a second. In between answering a ringing phone roughly every forty seconds, I'm typing furiously in order to get down a paragraph, or even a few sentences before I lose my chance. It's 2:00 PM on a Tuesday, I'm hungry, I'm slightly stressed out, and I'm writing. And it's times like these when I really don't want to be writing but would much rather be sitting and collecting my thoughts and my sanity for a moment when I feel most proud of myself, because as mentioned before, I never finish anything.

So sixty-five days in, I may be writing about writing, but I'm writing just the same. I'm busier than a rat at a carnival (get the Charlotte's Web reference, please), but I'm writing. And for me, that means something pretty spectacular. It means that maybe I am capable of actually finishing something, and maybe I am capable of following through on a commitment I make to myself. Sure, I don't eat healthy all the time even though I promised myself I would, and I didn't cut out all refined sugar for a month, like I promised myself I would, but two months into writing, I'm still doing it. And I've still done it everyday. And that's pretty spectacular.

Day Fifty-Four: Can I Change What I Don't Like About Myself?

Like most people, I think, there are a lot of things about myself I am unhappy with. For most people, it's either skin, or weight, or any other myriad of parts: legs, butt, belly, feet, and hair, to name a few. On a more abstract level, it can be temper, aversion to change, lack of motivation, or stubbornness, and that's only a small sampling. I don't know if it's a characteristic of our culture as a country, or as a social society, but it seems that not many people are really happy about themselves. And like most people, I'm the same way. For me, though, I'm most unhappy with my inability to handle stress and my constant inner tension.

Unlike a physical flaw or a difficult behavior, how do you change a true inner characteristic? How can I control how I handle stress when I'm in the middle of thinking about a gamut of stressful (or even non-stressful) predicaments? Sure, I can stop and tell myself to calm down as many times as I want. I can make myself stop and take a deep breath, move more slowly, and think more clearly. But as soon as I start thinking about the actual situation at hand, all that nice, slow, even breathing and clearing of the mind goes completely to waste. I can't change it with behavior change, really -- I have to make a complete change in my thought process and in how I think. This much, I'm aware of. But how exactly am I supposed to do that?

I could be completely full of it, but I think it can't be much unlike changing little things about yourself everyday. As a concrete example, not too long ago I was told to naturally correct my posture for health reasons. I knew I had awful posture, but I couldn't exactly consciously think about standing up straight all the time -- I simply didn't have the time or energy, and it was frankly a little uncomfortable. But what I learned was to correct my posture in segments from the ground up and to just change little things. I'd change the way I balanced on my feet, the way I held my shoulders, and with a nod of my head, the way it balanced on my neck. While it was a slightly painstaking to stop and quickly correct my posture everytime I remembered, it wasn't even really enough change for me to notice. And after a month or so, I had perfect posture, and I never even noticed.

So what little elements of myself can I change to be a more calm? How can I change the proverbial posture of my serenity? I feel like to answer this question, I need some sort of life coach, or an in-house Buddhist monk. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to start meditating again everyday, as I did for a very brief stint in college. The scary part was, it worked quite well. I guess it's worth a shot to keep myself alive for a little longer.

Day Thirty-Eight: I'm Pretty Sure I'm Slowly Killing Myself

I'm pretty sure I'm slowly killing myself. Every morning, I wake up and my brain turns on. I think about having to get up, I think about having to take a shower, and I think about all the crap I have to do that day. My brain is always going like the Energizer bunny, and sometimes I think so quickly from one thing to the next that I completely forget where I'm going when I'm walking. I'll stride into a room with purpose, only to realize I either walked completely past where I meant to be going and into the room I am currently in, or I'll completely forget why I ventured to where I stand. But strangely, I'm rarely scattered, and often don't forget things, no matter how much is on my mind. Maybe that's why I'm so stressed out all the time. I have a constant running list of crap I have to do and remember.

It doesn't help that I always need to be moving, as well. If I'm not doing something, generally, I will get antsy and bored. So even when I'm relaxing, I feel like I'm wasting time and I'm stressed that I'm not making better use of my time. No wonder I'm in such bad shape.

As a result, my body is constantly tense. My muscles are always tight, I have nervous ticks, and I'm pretty sure my pulse is quick all the time. I've tried desperately to chill out and calm down, but nothing seems to keep me calm and more slowly moving once I stop my relaxation technique. I've tried meditation, reading, candles, consciously telling myself to calm down whenever I remember, watching my breathing, and relaxing my muscles. None of them work. In fact, the only thing that does help is being absolutely exhausted. Then, I'm slow, calm, and serene. However, I'm also working on low fuel. So yes, I'm pretty sure I'm killing myself.

I'm probably going to die of heart failure, purely because I am working my poor heart so much to keep my body moving as fast as my brain, and my brain keeping up with itself. So it's high time I really figure out how to relax myself before I start doing some real damage. Suggestions are most welcome.

Day Twenty-Four: A Chronicle of Pinching Pennies

After almost a month of writing, I had an epiphany today. In the midst of all this ridiculous apartment-hunting, budgeting, and adding the numbers over and over, I had the thought that approaching my new life and the challenges that come with it might make a decent blog. I could write about starting out; about saving, calling the cable company, cooking for myself, cleaning my bathrooms, and building Ikea furniture. Okay, so it sounds about as exciting as morning church services on TV. But who knows? It might make for some fun and interesting reading at my own expense. Consider the possibilities.

Hopefully, I've been a little persuasive so far. If not, this may change some minds. On Sunday, as I previously mentioned, I was in an absolutely terrible mood. The storms of female times hung over my head and rained on anyone I tried to involve in conversation. Everyone who opened their mouth in my general direction was talking entirely too much. Needless to say, I was about as warm and inviting as a gila monster. I was definitely not in the mood to trudge out in the rain and look at an apartment. And then, my boyfriend called and I become an absolute disgrace. Cue the ominous music.

Bless his soul, he's nothing if not honest with me. After hearing my girlish groaning and childish stomping that I was absolutely not going to burden myself with looking at a potential place to live because I was too stressed out, he said something to the effect of, "...about what? Go. Go see it. You need to go see it, and you're as ready as you're going to be to start looking. Just go look at it." That's all it took. The flood gates opened, and I was a blubbering, incomprehensible mess. He was at a complete loss for words. My mom got annoyed at him for not supporting me, and annoyed at me that I was going out anyway. In ten minutes, I managed to send everyone in my life into a tizzy. Ah, the power of female ways. This was not a good way to start a new leg of my life.

So although I've leveled out since then and I don't feel nearly as stressed out, I'm still on a pretty rocky road with this apartment-hunting mess. I might make this a full-time writing topic if it's interesting enough, or I might not. But it's definitely a possibility.