Is It Time for an Overhaul?

~*~ 

Today’s the day – yep, it’s life overhaul time.

And no, it’s not an impulsive or spontaneous decision. Frankly it’s been churning through my head for years. I’ve read about it, reflected on it and practiced at it (that’s another way of explaining failed attempts) – since college – turning 21 – having a baby – burying a sister – having another baby – building a house – turning 40…

All these events in my life, and more, that I’ve thought, this is it. Now my life will change. Now I will… Do all the things that I keep dreaming about: start exercising, get organized, go back to school, plant a garden, write a book, lose 20 pounds and on and on.

But none of that has happened.

Oh, I’ve done things. I handle those emergencies as they pop up. At least until they aren’t critical and I can ignore them again and get anesthetized in a book or TV show.

Otherwise I’ve lived passively, taking things as they coming, drifting.

You don’t get where you want to go by drifting though. Yes, you get somewhere and sometimes it can be good and you think, this is cool but I wanted to go here.

Guess the auto/road metaphor is going to come into play.

If I’m the car and my life is a road, then drifting is a lot like driving without a map. Sometimes you find some gems just taking a drive and sometimes you get where you want to be through dumb luck but mostly you drive through industrial parks, or down streets where people leave old cars and refrigerators in the front yard or, even worse, you find yourself in some slum during a gang war. Any way you’re not where you want to be.

Drifting is easy however. It doesn’t take much energy or thought. It can be pleasant. It can be numbing – which is good for when you don’t want to face all the negative aspects of drifting.

For me, drifting is grey and filled with guilt and anxiety. I’m stuck in the mud in the middle of nowhere, alone and without a map.

Well, I’ve had enough! I want to travel the scenic routes. I want to plan my itineraries, get where I’m going and stop driving in circles.

~*~

I did a Google search on the definition of overhaul and found this rather fitting definition among all the ones that I expected:

overhaul: to dismantle the thing; and to reassemble it after reconditioning or replacing its components so that the useful life of the thing is comparable to its useful life when it was new.

To paraphrase and mix it with my metaphor: It’s time to take apart my life, examine it, repair the worn out bits, replace the not-working bits and put myself back together, refreshed and shiny once more.  

Overhaulin’ is about fixin’ what ain’t working and keepin’ what is. 

It’s easy enough for me to run down a list of what isn’t working in my life. I dwell on that topic enough to drive myself blue and whiny daily, but there’s a lot of good in my life as well – a lot – and, for a twist, I’m going to start this overhaul somewhere far more positive: what’s the good in my life? what’s worth keeping? 

The “whole” of me is far greater than the “parts” and the “parts” are infinite. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself. If I’m going to take apart my life, I need to know what parts make up the whole of me. The “parts” are going to have to be pretty broad in category. I know once I start looking at these parts or categories I’ll see ways of breaking them down further and further, but I don’t want to get bogged down in minutiae. So I need to define the parts of my life specific enough to be able to determine concrete changes for them, but broad enough to encompass the majority of my life.

I’ve got some thinking to do. 

Busy, busy, busy

It’s been a busy week. We had a Nor’easter on Monday and school was cancelled. I started my new diet on Monday. And I’ve also been considering a new blog focused on diet and exercise.

Jay and I have been looking into refinancing our house, since our mortgage is unbelievable. The problem is that this is a new house and a new mortgage. We’ve no equity to speak of and our home has actually declined in value due to the fluctuations of the real estate market. I spent hours yesterday gathering financial data to prove how much of our own money we put into the house (a lot!).

I didn’t think I’d have to pull finance stuff until tax time, which I will be doing ASAP because we are expecting a sizable refund.

No writing this week to speak of. It’s made my To Do list, but it just hasn’t happened. I have decided to focus on Jolaklir the Dragon and work on plotting it in full. I’ve a few scenes written and ideas are still coming to me. The problem is… well, it’s going to be BIG and I had wanted to start with a smaller novel first. But this is the one that’s on my mind.

How to shed fat… maybe

I’m contemplating The South Beach Diet. I don’t actually have a lot of experience dieting. I was a stick-girl growing up – even voted thinnest girl at Scout camp, so I never concerned myself with what I ate.

But now I’ve hit forty. And I’ve had two kids. And the metabolism has definitely slowed waaay down. I’m 25 pounds more than I’m comfortable with.

I don’t want to do the whole diet thing where you try a million wacky diet, lose some weight and then put it all back on plus some. I want something that works the first time and that I can easily adapt for a life long change.

Cutting out refined carbs, as well as sugar, and focusing on lean protein, veggies, fruits and whole grains seems like a healthy prescription for me.

And exercise. Yep, gotta do that too. I know it makes me feel good when I exercise and that’s a bonus. I just hate going outside when it’s cold. I won’t spend the money on a gym membership. I’ll figure that out.

I’ve tried watching my calories before, but that really sucks writing everything down. I always give up by dinner. It’s so hard estimating what I’ve had for dinner, especially where we often cook from scratch.

Giving up bread is going to be a challenge. I love bread. And bagels. And cookies.

We’ll see what happens. Can’t hurt to try, at least.

P.S.

Dial-up sucks.

You knew this but need the affirmation

Show, Don’t Tell

I’ve been reflecting on my resolutions for the new year, but haven’t determined on any specific item yet. Part of me wants to revamp my entire life, because despite all the good in my life (and there is an abundance), I am not especially happy. My inner daemon tells me that this is just my blues influencing my thinking. And yet my blues are contradictory. They tell me that it’s too much to try and that I’ve had all these thoughts and plans before and they’ve come to naught and that I should just accept my life as it is just as they tell me to scrap everything and start anew.

Well, isn’t that depressing? And tempting.

But I don’t want to feel blue anymore. I don’t want to be grossed out by my own midsection. I don’t want to keep saying, “Today, I’m going to write,” and then not do it. I don’t want to be ashamed anymore of my house, my body, my lack of accomplishments.

Ugh. Enough whining. DO IT ALREADY.

What works for me: a plan. The days that I sit down and physical write out, “Today, I’m going to…” then things happen. I need to be careful not to plan too much to do. I’ve driven myself into a frenzy more than once trying to get too much accomplished. But the days where I think in the morning that maybe I’ll do this or do that, I forget it all by the time I’m done with my shower and I sit at the computer and play online.

Shit. I can’t keep writing this crap. It’s the same thing over and over.

My life is a bad novel sometimes. I’m forever telling and not showing.

It’s time to show, don’t tell.

Nano not

Blech! What a crappy month so far. No writing done in weeks! I haven’t been so blue in forever.

On the edge

~*~         

         Age had folded her face – maybe late fifties. She pulled her Solara up next to me and walked to a shop several doors down in the strip mall.

She left the keys in the ignition, the car running.

I could steal that car.

It would be so easy. Five, maybe ten seconds and I could be gone.

The few people around would never notice.

She returned less than a minute later, clutching a box of cigarettes. Behind the steering wheel, she lit a butt before backing out. No seatbelt.

Does she know how close to the edge she lives?

~*~

The world just is

~*~ 

Two things happened on Friday that had me thinking. First, a red-tailed hawk sailed not ten feet over my head while I was out walking. Second, a great blue heron glided past me and settled on a river stone as I sat by the Quinapoxet River. 

My first thought was to search for meaning in these two events. Native American tradition sees birds as messengers, with hawks and herons carrying differing messages. But as I dug deeper into animal symbolism, I found so many different meanings for each animal, depending on the originating culture, that they, in effect, became meaningless.   

~*~

Nuns at Six Flags

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Saturday at Six Flags I saw threes nuns in full habit – black veil, white tunic and long black rosary beads. What a contrast to the excess of the amusement park. 

Nuns represent reflection and simplicity to me. And here they were whooping it up on roller coasters. 

I could rant at length about overindulgence, so evident in all the dimple thighs and pooched bellies. Nuns at Six Flags could be a great metaphor.  

But really, they came for the same reason that my family attended – to have fun. 

Pure entertainment is indulgence, but what joy would life be without fun?

 ~*~