I'm just your average, everyday, divorced 38 year old girl -- overweight, tragically unhip,
and trying to make a life for myself. I live with two furry beasts, Dave and Abby, whose
feline mission in life is to choke me with their fur. Nothing special.
Friday afternoon. So it's a little gray and a little quiet (for a change) around here this afternoon. I've got my "MTV Laguna Beach" iMix playing on the laptop and I'm getting all angst-y and introspective. It's a good thing, so don't worry.
Here's the thing: Life seeks its own equilibrium. The extreme highs are always followed by extreme lows because that restores Balance. It's the oddest thing, after being such a wildly extreme person (mostly on the low side) my entire life, to sort of cruise along in equilibrium. Sometimes I find myself thinking how boring it is...and then I shake myself - hard! - and realize that this is the best thing ever. It does, however, make you very drama-averse. At this point, anything or anyone that brings undue emotional baggage just isn't getting a foothold in my life. I don't think there's anything for the drama to stick to anymore, if that makes sense. A body at rest will stay at rest until it's acted upon by another body and, when your life has become a drama-averse body, it takes a lot to get you to do something dramatic. This is a good thing.
So, here's another thing: when does feeling good about yourself, your weight, and your life change into stagnation? I'm not really worried about it, but the thought does occasionally occur to me that perhaps the equilibrium I'm feeling is, in reality, apathy. I don't think that's the case because apathy (for me) is generally accompanied by depression and other things that make me feel badly about myself, and nothing could be further from the truth right now. I honestly don't think I've ever felt more secure, happier, and more sure that what I'm doing (and who I am) is right and good. I know it sounds very Pollyanna-ish, but there it is. Still, there's that tiny, niggling worry back there, way in the back of my head, that says, "are you just being lazy?" when I don't go for a walk and decide to do laundry or run errands or clean the house (amazing!) instead. I don't know what the "right" answer is, but I know that - for me, for right now - this is what Happy looks like.
Tuesday afternoon. Well, it's moderately less busy here at work this week, for which I am very thankful. I did get a direct call from an external customer today, which is not supposed to (ever) happen, but we had a nice conversation, she let me know what was happening to her, and I told her that I'd find someone in Tech Support to call and help her (which I did). I feel the fog of work stress lifting from my life. It is a good feeling.
One of the wonderful things about the last week - and there were, in point of fact, many - is that I kept finding pockets of contentment and outright happiness even in the sea of work stress. It's amazing, really, to think about how much easier everyday stressors are to handle when you're on an even keel and taking good care of yourself. I eat properly 99% of the time, I get a reasonable amount of exercise, I drink mostly water and one decaf, nonfat, sugar-free latte a day, and I don't let the stress come out the door of the office with me - when I walk through those doors at the end of the day, I take a deep breath and exhale all work-related thoughts. Seriously! That was so not true last year this time.
As I drove from the Junior League training back to the house in order to change before picking Alcott up on Saturday, I realized, as the sun shone in through my car's sunroof, that I have the life I've always dreamed of. I have friends and I have purpose and I have drive and I'm not scared or ashamed of that drive any more because it's not some ego-driven thing, it's not about keeping up with or showing up anyone else, it's about being the best me - Denise, 37 year old project manager who lives alone with two cats in a disorganized and not clean house - possible. I also realized that, morbid as it might sound, if I died tomorrow, there are people that would really miss me. And I wondered what Denise from last year would think if she could see me now.
Monday afternoon. I really hope that someone got the license number of the Mack truck that ran me over and stole the last, um, week or so away from me. Wow!
I know...I haven't been here, I haven't been keeping up with my email, I haven't done my laundry, you haven't been fed (wait, that's just my cats!), and I haven't sent out the Valentine's cards I promised I'd send out in lieu of the Christmas cards I just didn't have time to send in December.
(You know what's even sadder than the fact I haven't been around all week? The fact that I started this post at 2:30pm yesterday and I'm just getting it finished. And it's less than 100 words long. Sigh.)
