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Waving the White Flag

January 12, 2012 by Farewell Stranger ·

Image credit: Neil Wykes on Flickr

I’ve given up. Given in. Surrendered.

At the end of December I saw the info about January’s National Blog Posting Month, in which the goal is to post every day for the month. Like the impulsive git I am, I signed up.

I immediately knew it was dumb. That this, of all times, isn’t the right time for me to be able to do that. But I saw a comment from someone who had done this previously, and she indicated she’d found it really helped her writing. Like the glutton for punishment I am, I thought that sounded great.

The thing is, it was great. Even though I only lasted 10 days (9? not long anyway) I actually really liked it. It did help me think about writing in different ways and I enjoyed the challenge. But the other night I called it quits. I admitted what I had known was coming, took a deep breath and packed it in.

Life is a little easier now, and I feel less like my head is going to explode every night. I’m going to bed at a decent time and getting up earlier to have extra cuddles and cartoons or to go to the gym in the morning.

But I’ve lost momentum, and my writing mojo. I no longer know what to say. I’ll find my groove again, I’m sure, and go back to posting a reasonable amount and focusing on what I really want to share.

But for now I’m waving the white flag.

Filed Under: Randomness, Writing · Tagged With: admissions, blogging, perspective

Dear Had-Enough Girl

December 11, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

Last Wednesday was not a good day. In fact it was a bad day. A terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.*

By that point we had been in our new house for a week and a half. We had no furniture except the bed we’d bought when we got here and while hanging out in an empty house with no furniture sounds kind of fun, it’s only actually fun for about a day and a half.

The people who lived here before us had a cat. A big, hairy one. I like cats, but I’m horribly allergic to them so being in the vicinity of a cat (or the evidence of a cat) for a prolonged period makes me fairly cranky. And this cat left evidence. There was cat hair everywhere, which we attempted to resolve by vacuuming and steam cleaning the carpets. And washing the windows because there was cat hair stuck to them. But then we discovered that the washing machine and dryer here do a lovely job of pasting cat hair to our clothes, and that was really the last straw.

By last Wednesday I was beyond cranky. I was downright miserable, and making life downright miserable for the two boys and one dog who live with me.

I had been trying to stave off the rage by tromping through snow and chasing sunsets but on Wednesday it wasn’t working. I was sick of the cat hair. I was sick of not having enough cutlery and enough towels. I was sick of someone else’s washer and dryer and desperately wanted to get our new ones delivered already.

I’d had enough.

And then—as it is wont to do—the Universe intervened.

First, a bit of backstory: Several months ago I subscribed to Daily Truths from the Brave Girls Club. (They’re called “A little bird told me…” How perfect is that?) More frequently than I would have expected that daily truth hit on exactly the thing I was struggling with. But then for some reason I stopped getting them. I tried to resubscribe but no dice. With everything else going on I didn’t worry about it, especially since I caught some of them on Facebook.

Anyway, on Wednesday evening, as I was starting to wonder exactly how hard it would be to invent a fast forward button for the bits of life I really didn’t want to have to live through, I saw one of those daily truths on Facebook. I normally skip over those when I’m in a bad mood, but I clicked on that one.

Those who wish to sing always find a song.

Artist: Sally Rose

“Dear Had-Enough Girl,” it said, and I knew it was talking to me.

“First, just take a second and breathe, ok?…deep deep deeply breathe in and out. Close your eyes for a second and remember that it’s ok if you feel completely overwhelmed at the tasks that are ahead for you… It’s okay if you want to throw a fit some days and let someone else be in charge.

So do it…throw a fit for a few minutes.”

I love unexpected messages that completely enable me.

And then kick me me in the pants.

“Now that you’ve got that out of your system…think for a minute about how you want the rest of the day…and tomorrow to go. How you really want to feel, what you really want to accomplish, where you really want to end up…and decide right this second that you are going to do ONE THING to take a step in that direction.”

All right, little bird. Message received. Time to take a deep breath and get my priorities straight.

Thursday was MUCH better.

*With thanks to Judith Viorst for such a perfect descriptor.

If you like, you can read that daily truth in its entirety.

Do you have a source of daily inspiration? Does it ever hit the nail on the head?

Come and visit us at Just.Be.Enough. this week. We have a giveaway for a totally inspiring book!

Filed Under: Be enough me, Hard things, Hello, Inspiration · Tagged With: admissions, anxiety, Be enough me, call for back-up, gratitude, perspective, The Universe

Our stuff has arrived

December 7, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

Finally. We’re all one med dose away from an insane asylum.

Excuse me while I disappear for a bit to unpack. Further updates as events warrant.

Filed Under: Happy things, Randomness · Tagged With: admissions, call for back-up, gratitude, meds

A is for Anxiety

November 21, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

A week ago last Saturday, I sat down for a bit after a party we hosted so we could see as many people as possible before we move. I hopped on to Twitter and saw a tweet from @moonfrye (aka Punky Brewster) and I didn’t even have to think about how to respond.

We have had so many great visits with friends in the last few weeks. Maybe I’m in denial but I’m not thinking about moving away from all these people, I’m just feeling grateful to have so much love in my life.

I’m sure some of you are thinking, “Blah blah blah. She’s happy. She’s doing something bold. Whatever.” Well, hold on because I’m going to bring it back down to Earth again for a minute.

Elena based this week’s Be Enough Me prompt on that tweet from Soleil Moon Frye. And this week it’s not so easy for me to answer.

Friday was my last day of work and, despite what some people seem to think, I’m not freaking out about having walked away from my job. I’ve been leading up to this for a while and, though it hasn’t entirely hit me yet, I’m mostly just glad that I don’t have to be responsible for certain things anymore. But it turns out sitting at a desk for eight hours a day is a good distraction from other things.

I’ve written before about how I’m nervous about leaving my parents. But I’m not the only one feeling that way.

For my part, I’m acknowledging and anticipating my own angst (and hoping against hope that Connor doesn’t totally freak out when he realizes we can’t just pop up to Grandma and Grandpa’s house for a visit) while holding on to the faith that this is the right thing for us to do. A necessary thing, even. I can find that faith when I need it. I just can’t force that faith on my parents.

My mom is in the stomach-lurching, chin-wobbling phase of this process, the one that requires lots of deep breaths and some Kleenex. I know how she feels, because I read a post she wrote a couple of weeks ago about what our move means to her and had the same requirement for deep breaths and tissues. I’m worried about my dad too (for all sorts of reasons, actually) and he’s much less likely to say anything about how he feels about all this.

As for how I feel, well, I feel like I’m doing this to them. They’re talking about moving as well, which would make sense because my brother and one of my sisters live there too, but I don’t think they would necessarily choose that for themselves. It means moving out of a house they like and away from a mild climate to a frigidly cold Canadian winter. There’s a reason they moved here from there in the first place.

So my old friend anxiety has returned to watch this process unfold, bringing its sidekick insomnia with it just to make things extra fun. And I guess that’s how I’m feeling.

Pass the Kleenex.

The first day

Linking up with:

Filed Under: Hard things · Tagged With: admissions, anxiety, family, telling the truth

The Truth

October 30, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

Just before 4:30 on Friday, I left my afternoon meeting and got into my car. I drove a few blocks and then pulled over to an empty parking spot on the side of the road, pulled out my BlackBerry, and wrote my resignation.

And hit send.

As of November 19, I will no longer be employed at the organization I have worked at for almost six years. I will no longer be employed at all, in fact.

The truth is this causes me a slightly-larger-than-small amount of anxiety.

The truth is it’s more freeing than scary.

When we started talking about making this move I presumed I’d get a job and then move. I applied for some, interviewed, and then sat there waiting for the phone to ring. And one afternoon I realized I was waiting for the phone to ring but hoping it didn’t.

That realization was freeing too.

By all normal logic, I should have a job. My husband is a stay-at-home dad and I have a preschooler who’s growing so fast I’m starting to hope capris become a hot style for three-year-old boys.

We intend to buy a house in Calgary, but with the equity in our current house we’ll be able to do that. We sold that house on Friday – the papers have been signed, the for-sale sign has been flipped, and less than a month from now we’re going to hit the road.

I’ve busted out of the golden handcuffs before and it’s not easy. (One of these days I’ll have to tell you the story about how spending a weekend at an alternative treatment centre with my mom when she had cancer ultimately led me to leave a totally secure job and take a pay cut to do the kind of work I wanted to do.) It hasn’t been easy this time around either. But I have never once doubted it’s the right thing to do, and after all that’s happened over the last few months I’m not prepared to take the wrong job just so I have a job. Sometimes I think you have to just GO. The right job will find me.

“Aren’t you scared?” a good friend of mine asked a few weeks ago. “Shitless,” I answered truthfully. But I’d rather be full of fear for a short time than full of regret forever. (And then last week, for similar reasons, that friend quit his job too. The truth is out there, people. It’s spreading, and it’s AWESOME.)

The truth is we spend too much time being scared. We think “scary” equals “wrong” so we stay scared and we do nothing. We stay the course.

The truth is I think I’d die if I stayed the course. Physically, I already came as close as I care to. I’m not letting what I “should” do steal my soul.

Image credit: kxlly on Flickr

There’s a whole other layer to what’s happening in my work environment right now and, while I decided to move on before that begun, it’s been, frankly, awful. There are things I want to pour on this page, but I can’t. That’s one truth I can’t tell. So I don’t have this outlet and my emotion and frustration and grief over a difficult situation have overflowed elsewhere.

Truth: It’s affecting people I care about, and that’s hard.

Truth: It’s damaged a relationship, possibly irreparably, and I regret that while at the same time feel like I can’t do anything about it.

Truth: It feels like I’m leaving part of me behind in this process. Not just the part I have intentionally ditched, but a good part. A stable part. A rational part.

It’s the truth. But it has consequences.