Fighting to get out

I can liken my attempts at trying to organize thoughts since my last post here with a horde of people all trying to leave a building at once through one door and everybody blocks everybody else and nobody can get through and indeed, some are trampled.

As I walk with Richard or lurch my way through aerobics class, or stand in the shower, I think of snippets of ideas of things to write about but have been a bit short of time to think carefully about how I want write them.

I have wanted to explain to my California friends who read this why we who live in parts to the East --- where there is a real winter and a real spring -- go nuts when the bare twigs of the redbud tree overnight appear to have been air brushed with pink, what we think when we see the mass of golden forsythia, or a bed of gorgeous, fancy daffodils with ruffled dresses in the back a house that has been abandoned for years  - somebody lovingly planted those beautiful varieties of daffodil and they bloom on year after year -- why the sound of peepers out in the pond brings such joy after the dead silence of the winter months, why the warm sun makes one want to run around and act crazy. Why we bloggers with cameras go a little off the deep end taking pictures of flowers that they can buy and plant in their yards in January.

I have had sort of a liberating experience since the last of March. My mom, some time before she died, told me in a conversation that she was still learning lessons in her 80s about life and people and what not, and I hope that I too, will continue to have a mind pliable enough to be molded and shaped and made better by learning lessons as well. Any way, I have learned a very valuable lesson. No amount of stressing or worrying or fretting about getting my work done is going to help get it done. Duhh. Seems like an obvious thing, but you would have to had walked in my shoes for a while to understand this, and also understand my somewhat obsessive personality about some things.

Back in the day, I often worked long into the night trying to meet deadlines and suffered nights of insomnia when I did quit at a reasonable time, tossing and turning as I tried to figure out how to finish by the deadline. The first step in laying down that burden was taking Sunday off. For years I worked 7 days a week, and then I finally was able to make a decision to have a day of rest. What a concept.

I have never missed a deadline. Never. But I will be missing a deadline that is coming up in a few days. Through no fault of my own, I will simply not be able to finish the work by the time specified. And guess what? I am OK with it. I am working as diligently as I know how to finish as much as I can as quickly as I can. I have had to sort of put writing the blog on hold, unless I can make myself write "quick and dirty" posts that I have not gone over and gone over and gone over and tweaked and fiddled with and rearranged. And I have not been able to pay attention to some of the blogs I enjoy reading very much. I have no idea what any of them are up to, but I'll get around to it eventually.

I decided that I will stop work every once in a while throughout the day to step outside and enjoy the changes as "Spring comes laughing down the valley..." I will stop at a reasonable hour...  I will relax a bit with my newest Alexander McCall Smith book...

 I will not kill myself over this job.

And best of all: I am sleeping well at night with the window up even higher to catch the sounds of the spring frogs Well, except for last night. For whatever reason, I had a ridiculous dream about my old boss...

Have mercy!