On my bulletin board hangs a drawing made by a three year old with the caption “Awaken to the Exuberance of the Day.” The usual stick figure and swirl of primary colors were created by me during an art process at a Gathering at least twelve months ago. I do not remember the process. I do not remember the instructions. But I remember the results.
My intent was to create an image of how I wanted to wake up every morning. I am not one of those people who slides out of bed and feels the way to the coffee pot. For them only deep breathing will do until the caffeine hits the bloodstream. I am one of those obnoxious perky people who hits the floor running with a smile and a cheery greeting. At least sometimes I am. On good days I am.
The moment of waking is a crucial part of my day. It is at that critical place that I decide how my day will be. This morning I awoke from a dream in which I was spending my time at work doing nothing, trying to look like I was doing something, and hiding out. How was I going to fill out my time sheets to bill clients if I was doing nothing? Doing nothing at work is hard. I have not worked in thirteen years. Some things just do not let go.
My malaise at work in my dream hit the reality of my awakened state and stuck. Today was not going to be a good day. I did not have any particular word that I attached to my beginning attitude, but if I had had one, it would not have been “exuberance.”
A morning attitude, good or bad, is like a pair of glasses that I put on for the day. Sometimes it comes from a dream. Sometimes it is like a hangover from the night before. These glasses are a filter through which all of the events of the day will be processed. How I greet these events will depend on whether I put on a good filter or a bad filter.
“Good” and “bad” sound judgmental and God forbid I should be judging myself. I have searched for other words. Several years ago I used to wake up every day convinced that the nature of the day ahead was written on my bedroom wall. Up at the top of the beige blank slate was one of two words: “shitty” or “good.” You can probably guess which one prevailed. So you see, good and bad are a step up in my world.
I am learning that there are other worlds out there. Better systems of morning attitudinal adjustment exist. I was wowed by the system of Christopher, the fifteen year old autistic narrator of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon. He counts the cars he sees from his morning school bus. If he passes four red cars in a row, it will be a Good Day. Three red cars in a row means a Quite Good Day. Five red cars means a Super Good Day. Four yellow cars in a row means a Black Day. On a Black Day he will not speak to anyone, will not eat lunch, will sit alone in the corner all day and will take no risks.
I love his system. It is orderly, even if illogical. Even he could see that it was not logical, but it worked for him. Is it any more illogical than my system of looking for words on the bedroom wall? Or just waiting for some lousy attitude to descend?
My system is not working. I am not “embracing the exuberance” too often. Too often my pair of glasses is dark and smoky. So I am adopting a new system. If I see two yellow school buses in a row, it will be a Good Day. If I see three yellow school buses in a row, it will be an Exuberant Day. If I see seven red school buses, it will be a Black Day. Who wants a Black Day anyway? I would miss lunch.
I have more to say about this, but the school day is starting soon and I have to hurry down to the elementary school before I wake up.
January 19, 2005
November 21, 2004
A Good Dose
Everyone needs a good dose once in awhile. Or daily. My mother was a believer in the wonders of castor liver oil. I believe that I was in the last generation who received this remedy. I can still see that swooping serving spoon coming at me. I would wrinkle my face and my mother would always say, “It’s good for you.” Then I would be hit with the first belt of bitterness and the oil would ooze from the corners of my mouth. At the final swallow I would blanch with eyes scrunched and face grimaced. There, I was done for the day. I got what I needed.
Sometimes the thought of a dose of intimacy creates a similar feeling for me. I know that I need it because I have been told so. But I do not really believe that it is going to feel good. In my mind it could hurt more than it might help.
Connection comes hard for me. Disconnection is more my natural state, my default mode. I would rather pursue rugged individualism. When a Gathering is coming up I never say or feel, “Won’t it be great to be with a bunch of people Wednesday night?” Because I have been to many Gatherings, I know in my head that it will be great. But I cannot make that connection with my heart. I cannot make the connection to anticipate the joy.
Despite this limitation, I work hard at intimacy. I define intimacy as two or more people sharing their feelings and what is truly going on in their lives. I work hard at it because it has transformed my life.
Twelve years ago I was at the ground zero of my life. Everything had been blasted away and I was dealing with a blank slate. My days were fairly vacant. At first I spent most of the day at home alone with my books. I knew I needed people and eventually I would go out at midday to the mall so that I would be near people. I could eat lunch and read my books in the midst of strangers. It was the best that I could do at intimacy.
But over time I progressed. At some point I needed a calendar to keep track of my events. I started consciously scheduling luncheons with friends so that the white blocks on my calendar would not look so white. I would get on a roll and schedule two or three, and they would happen over the next two or three weeks. And then my calendar would be blank again and I would start another round of calls. But in the meantime there would be a gap. Eventually I learned to make rolling calls to get rid of those gaps.
All of that took hard work and it still does. But my calendar now regularly contains many events of intimacy. I checked on November: a Gathering, the Couples Festival, one artist opening, two dinners, one meeting for coffee, seven lunches and five men’s group meetings. All of these events were wonderful and I had great times.
And all of this is in addition to the intimacy in my nuclear family, who gives me the greatest and most important opportunities for intimacy.
Intimacy does not come naturally for me. And yet I do it anyway. I hope that some day I will be all excited about some upcoming events. But until then, I will keep filling up my dance card and dance with wonderful people. I do this because I have experienced the difference it makes in my life. I get a good dose of what I need.
Sometimes the thought of a dose of intimacy creates a similar feeling for me. I know that I need it because I have been told so. But I do not really believe that it is going to feel good. In my mind it could hurt more than it might help.
Connection comes hard for me. Disconnection is more my natural state, my default mode. I would rather pursue rugged individualism. When a Gathering is coming up I never say or feel, “Won’t it be great to be with a bunch of people Wednesday night?” Because I have been to many Gatherings, I know in my head that it will be great. But I cannot make that connection with my heart. I cannot make the connection to anticipate the joy.
Despite this limitation, I work hard at intimacy. I define intimacy as two or more people sharing their feelings and what is truly going on in their lives. I work hard at it because it has transformed my life.
Twelve years ago I was at the ground zero of my life. Everything had been blasted away and I was dealing with a blank slate. My days were fairly vacant. At first I spent most of the day at home alone with my books. I knew I needed people and eventually I would go out at midday to the mall so that I would be near people. I could eat lunch and read my books in the midst of strangers. It was the best that I could do at intimacy.
But over time I progressed. At some point I needed a calendar to keep track of my events. I started consciously scheduling luncheons with friends so that the white blocks on my calendar would not look so white. I would get on a roll and schedule two or three, and they would happen over the next two or three weeks. And then my calendar would be blank again and I would start another round of calls. But in the meantime there would be a gap. Eventually I learned to make rolling calls to get rid of those gaps.
All of that took hard work and it still does. But my calendar now regularly contains many events of intimacy. I checked on November: a Gathering, the Couples Festival, one artist opening, two dinners, one meeting for coffee, seven lunches and five men’s group meetings. All of these events were wonderful and I had great times.
And all of this is in addition to the intimacy in my nuclear family, who gives me the greatest and most important opportunities for intimacy.
Intimacy does not come naturally for me. And yet I do it anyway. I hope that some day I will be all excited about some upcoming events. But until then, I will keep filling up my dance card and dance with wonderful people. I do this because I have experienced the difference it makes in my life. I get a good dose of what I need.
September 21, 2004
Oto Noto
It has been awhile since I have written anything. Two months ago I was stopped dead in my tracks by vertigo. I will save you all the details about how sick I was because I am tired of talking about it. It is old news.
Some people have urged me to look for the lesson in this illness. Those folks I have shot, so they will not be reading this newsletter. Instead I would prefer to look at the humor in all of this. I have had to look very hard because for a long time there was no humor.
My favorite day was my trip to the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. This is the holy grail in the Boston area for any malady from the neck up. It took many weeks of letting my suburban doctors tell me how much they did not know before I could get to Boston.
Due to an insurance snafu I spent a long time in registration that day. After awhile I was struck by how many blind people were in one place. They kept coming through the lobby. I had not been to Boston for a long time, so I figured it had to be a city thing. Blind people must live in the city. About twenty minutes later it dawned on me where I was – in an EYE Infirmary. My brain was a little slow.
I was released from registration on probationary status and ascended to the medical offices of Otoneurology. That is where they drive through your brain. The secretary proceeded to tell me in a very loud voice about all the forms I was to fill out. Why was she shouting at me? I tried to fill out the forms but she kept shouting at everyone that came in.
I asked my wife, "Why is everyone in here yelling?" Her answer was clear, "Because people can't hear. This is an EAR place. Oto means ear." More evidence that my brain was a little slow.
But my brain was not missing. I have proof now – an MRI of my brain. My nickname in childhood, given by my loving older brothers, was "Head" due to my oversized noggin. I guess they were right because my MRI pictures come in a very large size. I like to think they are oversized because there is so much information stored in my oversized brain. My brothers still say otherwise
I met my new doctor and of course he was younger than me. That seems to happen more and more. Do they send these people directly from nursery school to medical school? What ever happened to more mature doctors?
He wanted to make sure I qualified to be in his hallowed office. So he took my head and shook it in every direction he could think of and then looked at my eye reaction. Did he do this just once? Oh no! Have I felt worse since seeing him? Oh yes!
I have a few more tests before this Harvard Medical School doctor can definitely say that he does not know what is causing my illness. Up to now the medical ignorance is just speculative. Next up is the Full Battery Vestibular Test. They hook up your ears to a car battery and see if they can get smoke to come out your eyes. That will be followed by a VEMP test. That stands for Very Energetic Mind Pummeling. I cannot wait.
After all of this testing I will be easy to spot. I will be the guy with the big head, droopy ears and fire breathing eyes.
Some people have urged me to look for the lesson in this illness. Those folks I have shot, so they will not be reading this newsletter. Instead I would prefer to look at the humor in all of this. I have had to look very hard because for a long time there was no humor.
My favorite day was my trip to the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. This is the holy grail in the Boston area for any malady from the neck up. It took many weeks of letting my suburban doctors tell me how much they did not know before I could get to Boston.
Due to an insurance snafu I spent a long time in registration that day. After awhile I was struck by how many blind people were in one place. They kept coming through the lobby. I had not been to Boston for a long time, so I figured it had to be a city thing. Blind people must live in the city. About twenty minutes later it dawned on me where I was – in an EYE Infirmary. My brain was a little slow.
I was released from registration on probationary status and ascended to the medical offices of Otoneurology. That is where they drive through your brain. The secretary proceeded to tell me in a very loud voice about all the forms I was to fill out. Why was she shouting at me? I tried to fill out the forms but she kept shouting at everyone that came in.
I asked my wife, "Why is everyone in here yelling?" Her answer was clear, "Because people can't hear. This is an EAR place. Oto means ear." More evidence that my brain was a little slow.
But my brain was not missing. I have proof now – an MRI of my brain. My nickname in childhood, given by my loving older brothers, was "Head" due to my oversized noggin. I guess they were right because my MRI pictures come in a very large size. I like to think they are oversized because there is so much information stored in my oversized brain. My brothers still say otherwise
I met my new doctor and of course he was younger than me. That seems to happen more and more. Do they send these people directly from nursery school to medical school? What ever happened to more mature doctors?
He wanted to make sure I qualified to be in his hallowed office. So he took my head and shook it in every direction he could think of and then looked at my eye reaction. Did he do this just once? Oh no! Have I felt worse since seeing him? Oh yes!
I have a few more tests before this Harvard Medical School doctor can definitely say that he does not know what is causing my illness. Up to now the medical ignorance is just speculative. Next up is the Full Battery Vestibular Test. They hook up your ears to a car battery and see if they can get smoke to come out your eyes. That will be followed by a VEMP test. That stands for Very Energetic Mind Pummeling. I cannot wait.
After all of this testing I will be easy to spot. I will be the guy with the big head, droopy ears and fire breathing eyes.
May 24, 2004
Jaded Hot Tub
I have the "hot tub jades." I would call it the "hot tub blues," but my new tub is not blue. It is jade. I keep calling it green, but the salesman corrects me, "You mean jade." I think that jade costs more than green, just like "pearl" costs more than "off white." Color aside, my new hot tub has me stirred up.
I ordered the hot tub for our deck at home two months ago. I had to prepare for it by reinforcing the deck. The contractor said he would lie under the deck and dig the holes for the new concrete piers by hand. I asked him how deep the holes would be. He replied, "As long as my arm." Ah, the practical side of construction that I know nothing about.
Two months is plenty of time to prepare for installation and placement decisions. I agonized daily about exactly where the tub would go. The big day arrived, I was ready and all went well.
After filling, heating and treating, Merry and I were ready for our first soak together. We slid into the warmth and "oohed" and "aahed" away. At least she did. I was a wreck. I was second guessing all of the decisions that I had made. Should I have bought the bigger tub? Did I place it too close to the wall? Did I face it the wrong way? Did I get the wrong color? And on and on and on.
These questions and the resulting anxiety were eating me up. I could not relax and enjoy the hot tub with my wife. Months of joyful anticipation had resulted in disaster.
I told Merry what I was thinking and feeling. She said, "Let it go, Jim. Everything is fine. It's a great thing that you have done. You have made all of this happen."
Her words broke the spell of negativity. She was correct. I had worked hard to make this happen. Ninety eight percent of what I did was good. And the last two percent was probably good too, but open for debate by someone who was looking for debate.
My inner critic was looking for debate. It was looking for an opening to wound me, a self inflicted wound. I had allowed my inner critic to speak so loud that I missed the totality of what I had accomplished.
Inner critics are tough on perfectionists. The writer Julia Cameron named her inner critic Nigel, a proper, bony-fingered British gentleman. She talks back to Nigel so that he cannot run her life.
I am tired of missing the joy of life because of the debatable two percent. I am going to try to hold sight of the big picture and not get lost in the perfectionist details. Jade is just too lovely to miss.
I ordered the hot tub for our deck at home two months ago. I had to prepare for it by reinforcing the deck. The contractor said he would lie under the deck and dig the holes for the new concrete piers by hand. I asked him how deep the holes would be. He replied, "As long as my arm." Ah, the practical side of construction that I know nothing about.
Two months is plenty of time to prepare for installation and placement decisions. I agonized daily about exactly where the tub would go. The big day arrived, I was ready and all went well.
After filling, heating and treating, Merry and I were ready for our first soak together. We slid into the warmth and "oohed" and "aahed" away. At least she did. I was a wreck. I was second guessing all of the decisions that I had made. Should I have bought the bigger tub? Did I place it too close to the wall? Did I face it the wrong way? Did I get the wrong color? And on and on and on.
These questions and the resulting anxiety were eating me up. I could not relax and enjoy the hot tub with my wife. Months of joyful anticipation had resulted in disaster.
I told Merry what I was thinking and feeling. She said, "Let it go, Jim. Everything is fine. It's a great thing that you have done. You have made all of this happen."
Her words broke the spell of negativity. She was correct. I had worked hard to make this happen. Ninety eight percent of what I did was good. And the last two percent was probably good too, but open for debate by someone who was looking for debate.
My inner critic was looking for debate. It was looking for an opening to wound me, a self inflicted wound. I had allowed my inner critic to speak so loud that I missed the totality of what I had accomplished.
Inner critics are tough on perfectionists. The writer Julia Cameron named her inner critic Nigel, a proper, bony-fingered British gentleman. She talks back to Nigel so that he cannot run her life.
I am tired of missing the joy of life because of the debatable two percent. I am going to try to hold sight of the big picture and not get lost in the perfectionist details. Jade is just too lovely to miss.
April 21, 2004
Connection
Working in the yard can be dangerous. Somehow I always knew that and it has been my dream to have a gardener. I would do well on a large English estate with a full time staff to take care of the grounds. But instead I do what I can in my yard.
Picking up sticks that the wind have blown down. It turns out that this is a hazardous activity for me. Somehow the continuous motion of bending over gave me vertigo
Vertigo can be nasty. The more you move, the worse you feel. It stopped me dead in my tracks. All the things that I had been doing in my life were suddenly on hold and I became depressed quickly.
Depression is not a new state for me, but I do not frequent it as often as I used to. This bout was a different experience in that I could see so clearly what was going on. The self hatred and self loathing appeared quickly with a depth that surprised me. A life that I loved had turned into a useless exercise overnight, at least in my eyes. And I felt the deep shame of being a depressed, worthless person. I was so ashamed of the state I was in that I did not want to be with anyone.
I did not want to face anyone and especially my wife. We have been through this many times in the past and it is so hurtful when I disconnect from her. She knows my patterns well. She let me do what I needed to do while offering to connect as much I would allow. I would not allow much, even though I knew it was helpful.
The day before I became sick I told a depressed friend that he needed to connect with others even though he was depressed. Later, in the midst of my depression I could hear myself mouthing the words about connection, but I could not bring myself to do it. I just could not do it.
When I get into this kind of space I know enough to continue to meet the obligations that I have made. Somewhere I learned that. After a scheduled lunch with a friend he said he would call me the next day and see how I was doing. Then he said, "Or you call me." I responded quickly, "I won't call you. I just won't." I knew that the shame was so big in me that I would not do the thing that I needed to do most: connect.
My friend did call me and other friends called to check on me. Conversations were short because I did not want to talk. But I know that they helped.
I went to the doctor yesterday and started some medicine which should help. I have some hope now that this vertigo state will end soon. Hope makes all the difference in the world. The depression is lifting.
In real estate they say that the three most important things about a property are location, location and location. Maybe in life the three most important things are connection, connection and connection.
This lesson is just starting to sink in with me. It is easy for me to connect when I am feeling good about myself. But it is during the bad times that I need connection the most. When I want connection the least, that is when I need it the most. That is a hard lesson to learn. I wonder how many more times I will have to learn it before I act on it.
Picking up sticks that the wind have blown down. It turns out that this is a hazardous activity for me. Somehow the continuous motion of bending over gave me vertigo
Vertigo can be nasty. The more you move, the worse you feel. It stopped me dead in my tracks. All the things that I had been doing in my life were suddenly on hold and I became depressed quickly.
Depression is not a new state for me, but I do not frequent it as often as I used to. This bout was a different experience in that I could see so clearly what was going on. The self hatred and self loathing appeared quickly with a depth that surprised me. A life that I loved had turned into a useless exercise overnight, at least in my eyes. And I felt the deep shame of being a depressed, worthless person. I was so ashamed of the state I was in that I did not want to be with anyone.
I did not want to face anyone and especially my wife. We have been through this many times in the past and it is so hurtful when I disconnect from her. She knows my patterns well. She let me do what I needed to do while offering to connect as much I would allow. I would not allow much, even though I knew it was helpful.
The day before I became sick I told a depressed friend that he needed to connect with others even though he was depressed. Later, in the midst of my depression I could hear myself mouthing the words about connection, but I could not bring myself to do it. I just could not do it.
When I get into this kind of space I know enough to continue to meet the obligations that I have made. Somewhere I learned that. After a scheduled lunch with a friend he said he would call me the next day and see how I was doing. Then he said, "Or you call me." I responded quickly, "I won't call you. I just won't." I knew that the shame was so big in me that I would not do the thing that I needed to do most: connect.
My friend did call me and other friends called to check on me. Conversations were short because I did not want to talk. But I know that they helped.
I went to the doctor yesterday and started some medicine which should help. I have some hope now that this vertigo state will end soon. Hope makes all the difference in the world. The depression is lifting.
In real estate they say that the three most important things about a property are location, location and location. Maybe in life the three most important things are connection, connection and connection.
This lesson is just starting to sink in with me. It is easy for me to connect when I am feeling good about myself. But it is during the bad times that I need connection the most. When I want connection the least, that is when I need it the most. That is a hard lesson to learn. I wonder how many more times I will have to learn it before I act on it.
April 2, 2004
May Day
Hear Yea, Here Yea! May Day is coming! How many times does May 1 fall on a Saturday? Twelve, in the average life, according to my rudimentary calculations learned in parochial school. So next month is one of the few times left in your lifetime that you will have a Saturday night to celebrate May Day! Shalom Seacoast is ready to party!
May Day is a grand day of celebration in Europe and particularly in England. The ancient Celts and Saxons celebrated May 1st as Beltane or the day of fire. Bel was the Celtic god of the Sun. It marked the beginning of summer, time to move with the flocks up to summer pastures.
The Saxons would have an evening of games celebrating the end of winter and the return of the sun and the fertility of the soil. The revelers, led by Diana, the Goddess of the hunt, and Herne, the Horned God, would travel up the hill shouting, chanting and singing, while blowing hunting horns. Many would wear animal masks and costumes.
As society became more agrarian, Diana became the Queen of May and Herne became Robin Goodfellow (a predecessor of Robin Hood) or the Green Man. The Green Man would become the Lord of Misrule for the day.
People would put up a maypole by taking a growing tree and bringing it into the village. People would go off into the woods to collect trees and boughs and get into all sorts of hanky panky. May Day used to be a day of great sexual license. One writer reported that a hundred youths had gone off into the woods overnight and “scarcely the third part returned home undefiled.”
The puritans banned May Day by an act of Parliament in 1644. No wonder the customs never made it to America. It was restored in 1660, but it never was quite the same. The sexual elements went underground. And later the Victorians overlaid a more moral tone on the festival, emphasizing innocence.
Like Halloween, this is a time when witches, fairies and ghosts wander freely. The veil between the worlds is thin. The Queen of the Fairies rides out on a snow-white horse looking for mortals to lure away to Fairyland for seven years. The fairies, pagan spirits, would help Earth to clad herself once more in green. Green is the color of the fairies.
May Day could be the oldest religious festival in the Northern Hemisphere. Ritual human sacrifice to a death/fertility goddess was an early practice.
Here at Shalom Seacoast we are committed to reviving May Day in America. We think that the human sacrifice thing may be going a bit too far. But we need the fairies and spirits to be among us. Mostly, we need a reason for a party.
May Day is a grand day of celebration in Europe and particularly in England. The ancient Celts and Saxons celebrated May 1st as Beltane or the day of fire. Bel was the Celtic god of the Sun. It marked the beginning of summer, time to move with the flocks up to summer pastures.
The Saxons would have an evening of games celebrating the end of winter and the return of the sun and the fertility of the soil. The revelers, led by Diana, the Goddess of the hunt, and Herne, the Horned God, would travel up the hill shouting, chanting and singing, while blowing hunting horns. Many would wear animal masks and costumes.
As society became more agrarian, Diana became the Queen of May and Herne became Robin Goodfellow (a predecessor of Robin Hood) or the Green Man. The Green Man would become the Lord of Misrule for the day.
People would put up a maypole by taking a growing tree and bringing it into the village. People would go off into the woods to collect trees and boughs and get into all sorts of hanky panky. May Day used to be a day of great sexual license. One writer reported that a hundred youths had gone off into the woods overnight and “scarcely the third part returned home undefiled.”
The puritans banned May Day by an act of Parliament in 1644. No wonder the customs never made it to America. It was restored in 1660, but it never was quite the same. The sexual elements went underground. And later the Victorians overlaid a more moral tone on the festival, emphasizing innocence.
Like Halloween, this is a time when witches, fairies and ghosts wander freely. The veil between the worlds is thin. The Queen of the Fairies rides out on a snow-white horse looking for mortals to lure away to Fairyland for seven years. The fairies, pagan spirits, would help Earth to clad herself once more in green. Green is the color of the fairies.
May Day could be the oldest religious festival in the Northern Hemisphere. Ritual human sacrifice to a death/fertility goddess was an early practice.
Here at Shalom Seacoast we are committed to reviving May Day in America. We think that the human sacrifice thing may be going a bit too far. But we need the fairies and spirits to be among us. Mostly, we need a reason for a party.
March 12, 2004
The Nutty Perfectionist
I’m nuts. Today I am nuts. I do not know why today is the day more than other days. Maybe the “nuts” police visited me during the night and sprinkled fairy peanut dust over me. I woke up nuts.
How can I tell? An early tip-off was when I was following a yoga DVD and my mind would not come into the room and join my body. It was in other parts of the house doing many different tasks. Or maybe it was the four different cooking recipes that I was working on in the kitchen all at once. It is important to find an outlet for being nuts and multitasking can keep it going pretty good.
Crying while standing in the shower was another tip-off. No, my heart was not broken. I was just feeling too much pressure from the shades – window shades. You probably are unaware of how stressful shades can be.
I promised to go with my wife to the shade store today and we were having a difficult time fitting it into my schedule. (When I get nuts I get quite a schedule.) We settled on an afternoon trip to the store – no need to waste my more productive morning time.
But then the schedule was trashed by a power outage during the yoga DVD viewing. Certainly I could not do yoga without a DVD to follow. God forbid I should try to make it up as I went along! I also could not do all the other things that I wanted to do on the computer. The power outage created a vacuum in which many scheduled tasks could not be performed. What kind of inefficiency was that! How would I finish my list of things to do?
Using my well honed powers of analysis, I suggested an early trip to the shade store so as not to waste the time during the power outage. We even called the store to make sure they were unaffected by the outage. (“We” means I asked my wife to call.) This change in schedule sounded good to someone who was not nuts, but it caused a lot of problems for me.
You must first understand shade shopping. Design decisions abound. Measurements have to be made and relayed to the store correctly. At many points this can be screwed up. And perfectionists like me do not like all those possibilities for failure – especially when we are nuts. It is hard enough on a good day.
I knew that I would not stand up to the pressure of all this if it had to be accomplished in a limited period of time. And the new schedule, which I had created to be efficient, was going to have a small window for shade shopping. I would be rushed. Today, I could not do rushed. Nutty perfectionists cannot be rushed. Therefore, I was standing in the shower crying.
I have learned that when I am crying for no good reason, it is time to reevaluate whatever corner I have painted myself into. It was the “I have to buy eight shades of different sizes and different designs in a half hour” corner. So I asked out. I asked to go alone in the afternoon when time would be endless. I calmed down.
Now “calming down” when you are nuts does not mean becoming calm. It means being just a little bit less wacky. It means bathing your body in liquid other than tears and remembering whether or not you have already shampooed your hair. It is not exactly “be here now” but it is better than “being everywhere else but here now.”
Will I be nuts tomorrow? I do not know. It comes and goes like a sponging relative. I have no choice but to let it in. It is fun for awhile, but it gets old real fast. But right now I am not worried about tomorrow. It’s only noon!
How can I tell? An early tip-off was when I was following a yoga DVD and my mind would not come into the room and join my body. It was in other parts of the house doing many different tasks. Or maybe it was the four different cooking recipes that I was working on in the kitchen all at once. It is important to find an outlet for being nuts and multitasking can keep it going pretty good.
Crying while standing in the shower was another tip-off. No, my heart was not broken. I was just feeling too much pressure from the shades – window shades. You probably are unaware of how stressful shades can be.
I promised to go with my wife to the shade store today and we were having a difficult time fitting it into my schedule. (When I get nuts I get quite a schedule.) We settled on an afternoon trip to the store – no need to waste my more productive morning time.
But then the schedule was trashed by a power outage during the yoga DVD viewing. Certainly I could not do yoga without a DVD to follow. God forbid I should try to make it up as I went along! I also could not do all the other things that I wanted to do on the computer. The power outage created a vacuum in which many scheduled tasks could not be performed. What kind of inefficiency was that! How would I finish my list of things to do?
Using my well honed powers of analysis, I suggested an early trip to the shade store so as not to waste the time during the power outage. We even called the store to make sure they were unaffected by the outage. (“We” means I asked my wife to call.) This change in schedule sounded good to someone who was not nuts, but it caused a lot of problems for me.
You must first understand shade shopping. Design decisions abound. Measurements have to be made and relayed to the store correctly. At many points this can be screwed up. And perfectionists like me do not like all those possibilities for failure – especially when we are nuts. It is hard enough on a good day.
I knew that I would not stand up to the pressure of all this if it had to be accomplished in a limited period of time. And the new schedule, which I had created to be efficient, was going to have a small window for shade shopping. I would be rushed. Today, I could not do rushed. Nutty perfectionists cannot be rushed. Therefore, I was standing in the shower crying.
I have learned that when I am crying for no good reason, it is time to reevaluate whatever corner I have painted myself into. It was the “I have to buy eight shades of different sizes and different designs in a half hour” corner. So I asked out. I asked to go alone in the afternoon when time would be endless. I calmed down.
Now “calming down” when you are nuts does not mean becoming calm. It means being just a little bit less wacky. It means bathing your body in liquid other than tears and remembering whether or not you have already shampooed your hair. It is not exactly “be here now” but it is better than “being everywhere else but here now.”
Will I be nuts tomorrow? I do not know. It comes and goes like a sponging relative. I have no choice but to let it in. It is fun for awhile, but it gets old real fast. But right now I am not worried about tomorrow. It’s only noon!
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