Same As I Ever Was

Did you ever realize, "all of a sudden" that you are just really the same person you have always been?  (In case the title doesn't ring a bell, it's a line from a song ["same as it ever was"] Once in a Lifetime...by the Talking Heads...and if that name doesn't ring a bell, you must look them up on YouTube.)

Here I sit, late at night, trying to enter my hours (the curse of all private practice attorneys) and I realize:  a couple of weeks ago I was doing whatever nonsense I was doing on a Friday afternoon when my boss and another attorney came back from trial.  He could smell victory--or desperation--and had left trial that Friday with an open issue related to punitive damages.  And the judge had requested legal memos arguing our positions filed by Sunday at noon.

He asked me if I was busy and if I "wanted in" on it.  (Yes, not perfect grammar, but that's one of those things we say around here.)  Of course I am who I am and I was happy to be "in on it."  The three of us met and subdivided the issues (I may have volunteered for the two big ones, leaving the two little ones for them--that sounds like me, which would have been a nice thing to do since they had spent the week in trial and were exhausted...but really, I just "wanted in on it!")  I began on the research around 5 p.m., worked until after eleven, then put in most of Saturday on it--I even came up with a new way to approach the issue by analogy. I was actually unhappy when I heard Saturday afternoon that the other side had conceded the issues and we stopped all work on the memorandum.

And now it strikes me, I'm just the same person as I have always been.  Someone walks in with an emergency, whether it's a crashing ICU patient or a mid-trial legal issue, and my heart starts pumping harder, I roll up my sleeves and address the problem.  It doesn't matter if it takes 17 hours of the next 24 or keeps me long after the next RN has signed on, I'll be motivated to do whatever it takes.

But try to get me to do reports of routine junk, practice Chopin I hate on the piano, or enter all of the time I've spent in six minute increments over the last several weeks and I'll do anything and everything I can possibly think of to avoid the tedium. (Yes, including writing a blog post.  I've even cleaned entire houses before starting my hours.)  Wish I could figure out a way to get over feeling such intense dislike of the routine time-consuming tasks that I procrastinate endlessly (almost) and feel like I could reach into my limbs and rip out blood vessels instead of buckling down to the task.  Yes, it's a pretty intense hatred I'm feeling for it.  (Just realized it's the same deep feeling I had as a young-ish teen, forced to sit at the piano late into the night, repeatedly struggling through some Chopin waltz....analyze that!)

So, could this be a plea for help? Anyone have any suggestions for how to force myself to do this kind of boring stuff everyone hates to do?  Cleaning bathrooms...and even the cat litter, is preferable by comparison.  

Growth and Change

How is it that time flies by so quickly?  I can remember my adorable cuddly toddler boy like it was yesterday, and this Spring he graduated from high school.  I guess all kids grow and change.  So for us, this also brings a huge change.  For almost eleven years, in the back of my mind has been this goal of sorts: when my only child is 18 and graduates from high school (both criteria are necessary), he will not have to switch between my house and my ex's house anymore.  While the potential that I might see him much less is there, I've always known the difficulty he  has gone through to not live one place or the other, to be a nomad.  I have been doing it myself for almost as long.  It prohibits any sort of settled feeling; keeps any deep roots from becoming established in one place.  It's difficult.

So early this summer I spent a LOT of time working on my house to get it ready for the rough housing market.  I've had to face a lot of tough emotions surrounding leaving the community I've been a part of for over 20 years (HOW can it be that long??), which I have truly grown to love.  But the realities of what we do for a living won't allow us to live over an hour from our offices--and any real potential for gainful employment.  And keeping two houses is just not feasible with our schedules.  Clearly, I had to give up my house and leave my people in the "country."  

Change is difficult, too.  I actually wrote the first paragraph of this post in May but found it difficult to finish writing about the ideas surrounding change.  Instead, I needed to live with the ideas and slowly adjust to what my new life would mean--to the changes--in order to deal with it.  And it turns out that this works.  By allowing myself time to adjust slowly, it's been better.  No more feelings of being completely overwhelmed, out of control, displaced--these negative feelings have slowly abated as we have moved, step by step, toward the actual combining of households (with my husband of almost four years) and leaving my beloved community.

Now that the house has come together and I have time to reflect, I realize I've missed writing.  So, I'm back and hope to make this a regular thing!  Did you miss me?

Have a comment? Advice? Random observation? I'd love to hear it. Click "COMMENTS" just below.

Again, it's been a while. Life's been busy.  Where to begin?  Perhaps the most pressing on my mind right now:  I was happily training to run the Marine Corps Historic Half Marathon (May 20 in Fredericksburg, VA) and looking forward to my first 10 mile run on Easter (April 8).  Then, on Saturday morning I was just Jazzercising away, tripped over my big feet and sprained the tar out of my left ankle.  Boy was I PISSED.  I've fallen on rare occasion in Jazzercise over the 20 years I've been participating, but always jumped right back up.  This time it was clearly not going to happen.

So, all of Easter weekend I was angry and morose over my injury but more so over the prospect of not making the half marathon.  It was so painful and swollen I even went to the ER for an x-ray (which showed no fracture, thankfully.)  I iced, elevated, wrapped and rested that sucker as much as anyone could.  After a week or so, I started thinking I could possibly get back to training in time to run in May.  At two weeks, I ran about 4 1/2 miles on it, with the air splint in place.  A tad awkward, but really not too bad.  Bike riding helped me maintain fitness too.

But late last week I ran a third time, and at about 2 miles my left knee really started to hurt in a weird way.  I stopped after another quarter mile, not wanting to create further injury.  That knee gave me stabbing pains for 3 days, and last weekend (3 weeks to the race) I realized that I'm going to have to give up the idea of the MCHHM for this year.  I am remarkably depressed about it!  I totally had my heart and mind set on the goal, and giving it up is much harder than I thought.  Besides, my ankle still hurts quite a bit.

To boot, I have a very old tear in my shoulder which I seem to have re-injured, (it's so old it is from my days as a bedside nurse, pulling up a patient) which gives me pain in about 3/4 of the positions in which one uses his or her shoulder....including lying on it to sleep, which I apparently do regularly.  Been waking up when ever that happens for several days (getting very sick of that, too).

Then, there's my back.  Did I mention the foot pain I had beginning last July?  It turns out (after a very fun nerve test on my leg and MRI of my spine) that I have a lumbar disc ruptured which is pressing on a nerve root, which (thankfully, considering the possibilities) gives me pain in the tops of my feet.  This was identified a couple of months ago and I don't consider it too serious--in fact, I had been doing back stretches daily which had nearly eliminted the pain for a few weeks.  That is, until my ankle sprain changed my whole routine, so as I write, that's back too.

My mother used to say you start falling apart after you reach age 40...now I guess I see what she meant.  Oh well, for a return to blogging after an absence, I guess this wasn't very positive, but I think I'll get back to that place soon.  How has life been treating you?

Starting to Get Excited

I was just going to stop by the store for some milk, a frozen pizza and a few apples, I swear.  Unfortunately, (really unfortunately for so many reasons) there's only one of those mega-stores whose name I'm not going to use here...to pick up a few things.  And I'm easily distracted I guess. But who wouldn't be distracted by such exciting scenes as these: 

I wandered--or I should say, was drawn--toward the side of the store, which had been transformed from leftover holiday merchandise into a garden section bursting with the promise of imminent Spring since my last visit to the store.  My imagination took off!

So many things to grow! So much potential!  The plans and ideas started bubbling up....what can I manage this year?  I want strawberries, blueberries, asparagus... sunflowers... do calla lilies grow this far north?  

I somehow resisted the garden magazine section, which I'm sure is bursting with beautiful garden photos and ideas, but for the first time, I feel like Spring is about to arrive!

So soon, I'm going to do the planning and research work; start the seeds indoors, and get the garden underway!!