My Catch 22

This week's prompts from Sleep is for The Weak were all quite interesting.  A few of them made me stop and think, but I decided to go with the first.

Catch 22: Are you feeling stuck with no discernible way out of something?

courtesy of http://nidabites.tumblr.com/

There is this girl in the dryer.  Her eyes peer out toward the world, looking around to see if anyone notices, if anyone sees her there.  Do they?  She has her hands pressed against the glass, palms splayed outward as though to try to push, but not too hard because what if it breaks?  What if she frees herself?  There really is no way she can free herself, after all.  She needs help.  She's not capable of doing it on her own, so she should just deal with being uncomfortable and suck it up.

It's the story of my life lately.  I feel stuck at my day job.  I feel stuck with my writing.  I feel stuck with my weight loss journey.  Everything that was moving along last year at this time has come to a halt, all of my own creation.  I teeter between wanting happiness and feeling like I don't deserve it.  I find ways to set myself up for failure, never celebrating the small victories, but always exaggerating the mistakes.  It's the pattern of the quilt that makes up the years of my life. 

I'm working to change that.  It's baby steps.  I'm only just realizing that I've spent my life doing it, that I've wedged myself into this corner.  I'm slowly starting to set small goals and trying to remind myself to be happy with each success because that gets me closer to what I really want with life and will make me want to keep going.

It won't be easy, but I'm sick of being stuck all the time.  I want to dance and fly and be happy.  

life is a learning experience...

My response to this week's writer's workshop at Sleep is for the Weak.  I chose prompt # 3:  What new skill would you love to learn, or have you learnt something new recently that you can share with us?

I think about this sort of thing a lot lately.  It was a big thing right after the movie, The Bucket List, came out - accomplishing all those things we put off, but really want to do.  I created a life list.  But it fell into the background like things tend to do when I'm busy, crazy, and lazy.  A strange combination, but a perpetual state for me at times. 

And then my mother passed away unexpectedly last year.  She was awake at night, talking to me about random stuff, and the next morning she was dead.  No warning, no nothing.  And part of my whole grieving process has been a sadness for her because I know she didn't accomplish all that she wanted.  Logically, I know that most of us will never accomplish everything we want.  We aren't granted the infinite amount of time to conquer the dreams our minds can think up.  But we can do some of it.  We can make ourselves happy and try new things and live each day like it's the last.

Over the past six months, my life list has come back to forefront of things.  I've started being more open and more courageous and mostly, more willing to fail.  It's part of why I never did number eight on my life list - learn the guitar - because I was afraid I'd be so bad.  It's funny this prompt appears now when I'm in the midst of what I've been calling my "year of me." A time to focus on myself and not feel bad about it, a time to learn who I am and who I want to be and the journey to get from here to there.  The chance to start learning all those things I've always put off for another day.

One thing I still want to learn:  I have not conquered number eight - learn the guitar yet.  I really do want to learn how to play.

One thing I've learned recently that I can share:  there are no guarantees in life and we only get one chance at this thing - might as well be happy while we're at it.

Writing Workshop: Those We Leave Behind

http://www.sleepisfortheweak.org.uk/2010/03/18/writing-workshop-its-over-to-you/

Prompt # 1: 1. Tell me about someone from you past who you lost touch with and who you often think about

My father died when I was eleven years old and I’ve always felt like, in a lot of ways, it was this huge defining moment in my life. Not just for the obvious reasons, but for the way that I managed to insulate myself away from most people. I went from being very outgoing, taking everyone in and trusting, to much more closed off. I’m a hard girl to get to know. I’ll let a person see glimpses and if I really like you, maybe I’ll give you about 75% of who I am, but it’s so hard for me to be 100% open with people. Over the years I’ve become gifted at keeping people at a distance. I’ve got an uncanny knack for losing touch with people, and for no real reason in most cases.

I still remember right before my father died, my mother took me and my sister, separately, to talk with our neighbor-slash-therapist about how we were feeling about our dad dying. I still very clearly remember saying, “What scares me most is losing everyone else in my life.” And I feel like, to a certain degree, that is what happened. Or at least my perception of it, especially when I was younger. I went from feeling like part of a crazy-but-together family with siblings and cousins and lots of friends hanging about, to thinking that I could only count on myself. That other people left and that was just how it was.

And when I read this prompt, I immediately thought about that. And how, when I was eleven it might not have been in my control to try to maintain those relationships, but as an adult, I can try. I just have to get over that fear, and that pretense I keep that it’s better to only count on yourself.