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Life isn't as simple as an LJ post
Jan. 25th, 2007 10:36 pmWhen I was a little girl, I hated to be dirty. My mother jokes that she wanted to just roll me in the mud, because I was so meticulous and unnaturally tidy for a small child.
In elementary school, I used to borrow safety pins from my teacher and pin a little fold in my clothing to hide any spots of dirt. I hated looking dirty; if I couldn't get rid of the stain, I wanted to at least hide it and appear clean.
I like order. I like proper punctuation and clean sentence structures, stories with tidy endings, and labeled boxes for all my different craft supplies. I keep everything – I have scraps of fancy paper as small as a couple of centimeters square – but it is all tucked away in an organized fashion. It is chaos forced into order by plastic boxes and dollar-store shelving units. But my craft room looks nice again.
My LJ is like that too. A chaotic life – neurotic thoughts and silly fantasies – forced into individual posts with tidy titles. And things that don't fit into a tidy post often get swept aside, never to appear in LJ at all.
Russ told me I had a "Zen-like calm" this morning. When confronted with someone who is upset or annoyed (as Russ was this morning, since his cat woke us at 5 AM), I often become very peaceful and serene. I don't think of myself as a calm person, though, because my mind is so often whirling behind the scenes. I just hide that over-thinking like a dirty spot hidden behind a safety pin.
I fear insomnia tonight. I know that thinking that I may not sleep isn't the best way to get myself to sleep, but my mind is off and running. I am considering making what may seem to be a minor lifestyle change – starting to go to a gym – and I can't help but try to predict all the possible obstacles.
Next I do the self-defeating thing that lots of people do: I start thinking about all the other things I should do in my life. I should eat less sugar, I should eat more protein, I should wash the floors on a regular basis, I should wash the cats' food bowls every day, I should go to bed earlier at night, and I should get up earlier in the morning … and, of course, when you start thinking about all the changes you should make, it's easy to get overwhelmed and end up making none at all. I know lots of people do this to themselves, especially at this time of year, but I don't think all of them end up having sleepless nights because they are considering joining a gym.
I want my life to fit neatly into the days, and I want a healthy body and a clean house too. I don't make changes easily because I resent the confusion of changing my routines. And I want to bring this post to some sort of tidy conclusion, perhaps where I have come to terms with the messiness of life and feel secure that I will sleep well tonight, but life isn't really like that, is it?
In elementary school, I used to borrow safety pins from my teacher and pin a little fold in my clothing to hide any spots of dirt. I hated looking dirty; if I couldn't get rid of the stain, I wanted to at least hide it and appear clean.
I like order. I like proper punctuation and clean sentence structures, stories with tidy endings, and labeled boxes for all my different craft supplies. I keep everything – I have scraps of fancy paper as small as a couple of centimeters square – but it is all tucked away in an organized fashion. It is chaos forced into order by plastic boxes and dollar-store shelving units. But my craft room looks nice again.
My LJ is like that too. A chaotic life – neurotic thoughts and silly fantasies – forced into individual posts with tidy titles. And things that don't fit into a tidy post often get swept aside, never to appear in LJ at all.
Russ told me I had a "Zen-like calm" this morning. When confronted with someone who is upset or annoyed (as Russ was this morning, since his cat woke us at 5 AM), I often become very peaceful and serene. I don't think of myself as a calm person, though, because my mind is so often whirling behind the scenes. I just hide that over-thinking like a dirty spot hidden behind a safety pin.
I fear insomnia tonight. I know that thinking that I may not sleep isn't the best way to get myself to sleep, but my mind is off and running. I am considering making what may seem to be a minor lifestyle change – starting to go to a gym – and I can't help but try to predict all the possible obstacles.
Next I do the self-defeating thing that lots of people do: I start thinking about all the other things I should do in my life. I should eat less sugar, I should eat more protein, I should wash the floors on a regular basis, I should wash the cats' food bowls every day, I should go to bed earlier at night, and I should get up earlier in the morning … and, of course, when you start thinking about all the changes you should make, it's easy to get overwhelmed and end up making none at all. I know lots of people do this to themselves, especially at this time of year, but I don't think all of them end up having sleepless nights because they are considering joining a gym.
I want my life to fit neatly into the days, and I want a healthy body and a clean house too. I don't make changes easily because I resent the confusion of changing my routines. And I want to bring this post to some sort of tidy conclusion, perhaps where I have come to terms with the messiness of life and feel secure that I will sleep well tonight, but life isn't really like that, is it?
