The summer sun shone round me

I am feeling lazy and oh so tired. I am waiting for the last vestiges of infection to leave my body. I'm getting impatient. I just want to feel like a normal person again.

Summer seems to play with my sense of time. Some days fly by and I can't even remember what I did. Some days drag by. Sometimes time seems to stand still. It stands still in those rare moments when I stop trying to fill up every minute. Once and a while I get to lie down and look at the sky, watching the sun fade away and the stars come out. Summer is so rich in the way that it sounds and smells... lying outside reminds me of last summer. How anxious I was!

I still feel anxious, yet for entirely different reasons. I am anxious about money and work. I am anxious about everything that I need to get done. I am so impatient to get back to school. At the same time, I think I have reached a level of contentment here. I am finally settled, I think. Home feels like home, and it feels good to be here. Work is hard, but I am becoming comfortable there too. Last night I spent an hour talking to one of the instructors, a man half my age and from a different country. Tae Kwon Do has the ability to bring a diverse group of people together, and I am grateful for that. I cannot help but feel that my life would be different without the people I have known in Tae Kwon Do; young and old, from America and India and Korea. I am astounded at the connections that can be made, even with language barriers and cultural differences. Even when they pass in and out of my life very quickly, the experience is somehow transformative.

And so the days pass, one after another. Another day another ten cents. I am so bad at being in the moment, but I am working on it.

THE summer sun shone round me,
The folded valley lay
In a stream of sun and odour,
That sultry summer day.

The tall trees stood in the sunlight
As still as still could be,
But the deep grass sighed and rustled
And bowed and beckoned me.

The deep grass moved and whispered
And bowed and brushed my face.
It whispered in the sunshine:
"The winter comes apace."

- Robert Louis Stevenson

Wallowing, The Sequel

So, thanks to causes beyond my understanding I've managed to get an ear infection. A big, ugly ear infection. I haven't had one of those since I was nine! And they hurt, too. Naturally, I had to start taking the super anti-biotics that seem to be eating away at my stomach lining. And for all I complain about work, I would much rather be there and healthy.... I'm trying hard not to calculate how much money I would have made if I'd been able to go to work these past three days.

Ehhh.

I worry too much. Everyone tells me this. I have much to be grateful for, like the family that puts up with me wallowing on the couch and watching Gilmore Girls all day. Also, the boy who comes right down to see me when I tell him I'm too sick to meet as we'd planned. I'm also grateful for my doctor, who I do like. I'm grateful for TV and knitting. (I want to travel with Anthony Bourdain!) I finally have time to do laundry, so that's good too.

So.

I want to go back to school. And I hate money. Hate it!

Wallowing

Oh. So, I haven't been over here in an unforgivably long time. I have committed the crime of not writing because I feel so overwhelmed - even though I know that is when I need to write most. Self-discipline has been beyond me, and when I do sit down to write nothing comes out right! Summer has been far from "a breeze." Work has been exhausting and all consuming, yet it still leaves me enough time to worry about the other things I should be doing. I have relatives I want to visit, places I'd like to go, and yet the thought of taking time off work makes my insides freeze up with anxiety. I really need the money. Something I have to keep reminding myself of when I am tired and irritated and desperate to spend more than three consecutive hours with my sweetheart. I am tired of snatching an hour here and an hour there with him after work in a coffee shop or in the middle of a party. I am tired of feeling like I'm hardly even seeing my family because we're all so busy. I am tired of feeling sick and put upon by my co-workers. I am already tired of dealing with large groups of children.

I just keep swimming around in my own negativity. I can't seem to snap out of it, so I am wallowing and waiting around for either
1) things to get better
or
2) for my own perspective to shift.

I am hoping both happen, and soon.

p.s. Homemade cherry pie = love. Happy Dad's day.