I haven't been blogging much because I've been busy with life. For someone who can honestly say she has no social life outside of hanging out with her siblings and nephews and daughter once in a while and attending church once or twice a week (something I admittedly need to work on), and for someone who can "set her own work schedule," you would think I would not be so busy, but somehow, time just slips away. This is not a complaint, because I'd rather be busy than bored. I'm one of those people who lives too much inside her own head, so the distractions are a nice diversion from regrets and worries that I'd rather not mingle with. Whether it's my work or running errands or giggling at local wrestling leagues or dressing like a florescent fool to attend an 80s cruise-in with my sister, it is nice to get out of my head once in a while.
Unfortunately, I must confess something here: Over the past few months, even as far back as the last couple years, I have been so uncomfortable with the stresses and worries in my head and the seemingly overwhelming burdens of finances and work that I have permitted distractions and traumas to distract me from my responsibilities. It is not easy to try to adjust to single life again, even if only from a logistics standpoint. It is not easy to lose one's mother. It is not easy to run one's own business and to shoulder all the financial responsibilities for two people all by myself. It is not easy to live the feast-or-famine lifestyle demanded by a self-employed freelancer. None of these things are easy, but instead of buckling down and handling them and taking them in stride and with the and peace that I know my God can give me, I've allowed them all to overtake me and paralyze me into procrastination. Not only this, but I still harbor much regret/guilt/etc. from a very tumultuous past, everything from my life long ago in the early nineties to a marriage that was not meant to be. After all these years, I still blame myself for foolishness and bad decisions and rebellious and sinful and selfish attitudes that led me down too many dark paths, hurting myself and so many others in the process. To put it in a nutshell, I have a lot of regrets, and that includes the way I've procrastinated and allowed my anxieties and overwhelm to paralyze me over the last couple years.
I do not really have much of a social life, but that does not mean the good Lord has not collided my path with some wonderful people. I have so many encouragers and wise souls around me, from church members to Facebook friends to amazingly understanding clientele to a very wise bestie across the sea to relatives who have helped me in so many ways I cannot even begin to list them all. I am grateful for these folks, and if you're reading this, you are probably one of them. I receive the greatest advice from so many, even if I have trouble applying it. My tea-drinking bestie recently told me something so short but so profound: "Don't worry about the past. You don't live there anymore." This is one of those lessons I really need to apply, and I'm working on it, but as forgiving a person as I try to be to others, I do a darn good job of holding deep grudges against myself.
So what do I do now? Where do I go from here? How do I put all the messes I've made behind me and start fresh today, on Monday, July 27, 2015? I've come up with a few practical plans, and I hope these will help me. I'm listing them here, so that maybe them being "in print in public" will hold me a bit accountable:
Business Meetings with God. When I worked in offices for so many years, I could not stand the constant meetings. It seemed that some of them were held simply for the sake of some sort of unspoken corporate tradition, and it made little sense to me to pull us out of our cubicles and away from our work to discuss nothing for an hour when I could have gotten much more done back at my desk. However, there is a call for meetings sometimes, when they are intentionally used to regroup, reorganize, and get everyone on the same page. I truly, truly believe that God GAVE me this freelance editing business, because I saw firsthand how it came about, which was a true miracle out of the blue, something I never expected. Even now, when clients come my way - often just in time for my rent or expenses - I see God's hand in it, because it is far too much of a miracle to be mere coincidence. Even my self-proclaimed agnostic bestie sees this and acknowledges that "Somebody up there must like [me]." If God gave me this business, and if it is what He wants me to be doing, and if He continues sending me clientele and gigs, then it stands to reason that He and I should meet once in a while to discuss it. Late last week, I started a routine of praying every morning, specifically about my business and the projects I want to work on daily, and I believe it will make a difference. God gave me this work, and He will help me complete it, in spite of my own procrastination and distractions. Besides, every business meeting is an excuse for another mug of coffee, and that's fine with me!
Avoid Social Media. I am a Facebook addict. I admit that. In fact, seconds after I finish this blog, the first thing I will do will be to post the link on Facebook. I hop on there with the intent of only posting pictures or possibly answering a message from a friend, and I find myself immersed in trending stories, memes, recipes, comments, likes, stati, and a swamp of other things that pull my attention away from things I should be doing and focusing on. It is 900% more difficult to avoid when you have a lonely job that keeps you online all day, with no boss looking over your shoulder to stop you from peeking at Facebook every five minutes. Yesterday in church, our wise pastor spoke on this issue, and he mentioned the advice his wife gave him when he struggles with getting sucked in to Facebook also. She simply said, "Don't look at it." This seems like simple advice, but it really is the key. I have to avoid social networking during my business hours, and I will make every attempt to do so, but it is surprisingly difficult. Yet another thing I need to pray about in my business meetings with God!
Make Time for My Kiddo and Me. As far as I am behind on work, I sometimes get in these modes where I feel guilty for stepping away from it even for normal things like using the restroom, eating lunch, or letting my dogs out. I literally feel as if I am not "allowed" to step away from work because I am so backlogged. However, I have noticed that this insistence on working until the wee hours, barely taking five minutes to eat dinner, has caused other problems in my heart and in my household. I do get away now and then, but on a daily basis, there are many days a week when I collapse into bed realizing that I've spoken and/or listened to barely a word from my favorite person in the world, my daughter. Cissy is seventeen, and she will not be home much longer. I become embittered toward my work and worry when I feel as if they've robbed me of being able to spend any quality time with her, especially because I know our time together in this wonderful "just us" household will not last forever. She is growing up, and while I am only three or four feet away from her for the majority of most days in our work-from-home, relatively solitary lives, I often feel as if we are a million miles apart. This breaks my heart, and I have to put a stop to it. I have been trying to do this proactively by taking her out to do things, just the two of us. Since I found out I was pregnant in March of 1997, one prayer has been on my heart more than any other: "God, help me to be a good mom to this miracle, this angel you sent into my life to rescue me from myself. Help me to be the mom Cissy deserves." I have failed at this many, many times, and I regret it every time I go to bed feeling as if I've ignored her, neglected her, or simply not enjoyed her due to my own self-involvement. As hard and as scary as it might be, and as illogical as it might seem to step away from my work that is so far behind, I must make a concerted effort to interactively be there for my darling daughter. God blessed me with a wonderful, amazingly resilient, smart, beautiful, helpful, obedient little person to raise, and I need to make time to enjoy that blessing.
Budget Better, with Time and Money. I am not wealthy. This is no secret. In fact, there are weeks when I truly wonder if we will have gas in the car to make it to the gas station. I have some out-of-the-ordinary expenses right now that form a knot in my stomach when I think about them, things like divorce filing fees and taxes that I'm trying to pay off and the necessity to buy a better car and even upcoming things like Cissy's eighteenth birthday and the holidays. On top of this, there are the pesky little everyday and every-month things to deal with, like groceries and rent and utilities and car insurance - the stuff each and every one of us must contend with. I have chosen (and felt led) to work in a freelance capacity, and for now, that seems to be what I am supposed to do, but it does lend itself to a lot of uncertainty; it is difficult to budget when one side of the equation is a big, glowing question mark with no pay date. In order to make the money I need, I basically sell my time, which is yet another resource that is limited to how long my brain and body can dedicate to my work on a daily basis. Sometimes, my body is needed elsewhere, for errands, etc. Sometimes, my brain decides that thirteen hours of reading and fixing punctuation is simply a bit too much, and it decides to check out, at which point I cannot do a very good job of doing my job. I am only human, unfortunately. I am not generally wasteful with money, as I am quite cheap and debate over everything I buy or spend money on, but I have been wasteful of time. A new goal is to budget my money and my time better, to save when I can and to work my hours during my hours.
Stop Focusing on Fear. For me, anxiety has always been a problem. I have mentioned this many times because it is something that affects my life (and the lives of many others) on a daily basis, if not a momentary one. Right now, in this second, I have a softball-sized knot in my stomach because I am heading out to get the mail in two hours. Really! The mail! And the fear about this actually began yesterday, when I decided that we need to make our weekly mail run today. I cannot explain why, and it is a bit embarrassing to be this way, but the tiniest little thing grows to a giant thing in my head. Unfortunately, when my fears and anxieties and worries and catastrophic thinking overtakes me like this, they keep me from being able to focus on whatever it is that I should be doing. My mom was always telling me not to "make mountains out of mole hills," but as wise and as right as she was, this is more great advice that I've always struggled to practically apply. Forget the mountains. My mole hills usually morph into entire planets. One should not be scared to get the mail, but I always am. One should not lie in bed terrified that she is going to lose her home even three weeks before the rent is due, but I do. I know God is not fond of this, as it indicates a lack of faith, but it feels like something a bit more biological or chemical than that. Either way, I pray daily for peace and strength and try to remind myself that this spirit of fear is not coming from my Provider and Protector.
Purposeful Positivity. I am not happy about politics. I am always worried about money. I am full of guilt and regret for past stupidity and hurts I have caused. I do not like much of the reflection I see in the mirror (like my purple tooth and my flabby arm wings). I feel ancient, since I'm pushing on 45. I am not a huge fan of myself in any regard, and I feel like a loser and a slacker and as if I seldom measure up. I have a very difficult time accepting compliments from anyone about anything and am convinced that they are just trying to be nice when compliments do come my way. I am always certain that the worst possible thing, no matter how absurd, will happen. If I were part of the Winnie the Pooh cast, I would most definitely be Eeyore. There is no denying that negative thinking is very powerful in a very bad way, so it stands to reason that positive thinking must be very powerful in a very good way. I am trying now to focus on being more positive about our country, our world, my life, and myself. I am trying to avoid posting so many angry rants, trying to accept compliments at face value, trying to tell myself that there are a few good things about me and that I can accomplish some things in life. I am trying to look at possible good outcomes instead of imagining horrible ones. This is not easy for me, the epitome of a negative Nancy, but I am trying, even if it's just something as simple as taking part in a Facebook Post Positive Challenge or making it a routine to write in my gratitude journal daily or forcing myself to see the bright side of storms. I am grateful for people in my life like my sister and my friend Wes, who help me see the positive side of things!
So this is it, the practical steps for me to work together with God to fix the things I've messed up, to get past the mistakes I've made, and to live better from this Monday forward. By the end of the day, I will have faltered on some of these, but the point is to keep trying and get back on the wagon when I fail, just as I've had to learn to do with my longstanding diet. For those of you who are praying people, please keep praying for me. Yes, I'm 44, but He's still workin' on me, and boy, does He have His work cut out for Him to help me make a U-turn off of some serious detours I never should have taken.
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