Now what?

For the past few years, I have been on a journey of personal growth.  How's it going?  Well that depends on who you ask.  If you ask me, I am just treading water, trying to keep afloat.

I know that all the pressure I feel to be a certain way, to do certain things, it all comes from within.  I don't have a lot pressure from outside forces.  Sure, I have school council and soccer commitments, but the pressure I feel from these things would be dramatically less if I could just let some things go.  If I could stop worrying about writing that email, and just get it done!  Procrastination is my biggest challenge.  The longer I hold things off, the more pressure I feel to do them, the more pressure I feel to do them, the more I want to hold it off!  I wrote a school council email just a few minutes ago, and it feels good to have that off my plate.  Then, the stress of all the emails that might come from that...that gets to me.  Yes, communication with other people is a real issue for me!

I guess I just need to remind myself to breathe, and not worry about it so much.

I was talking to my sweet husband last night, and as I was telling him the stress I was feeling, I realized how silly it was.  No one is making me do the things I think I should be doing.  I am the one that thinks up these crazy ideas, like how the house should be spotless (it never is), and how my little projects need to be done (they never are).  I should be looking at these projects as something I'd like to do, not that I have to do.

By the way, the sweet husband thinks the house looks just fine.  Maybe he needs glasses?  But if he doesn't care that much, why should I?  He said I should write down 10 things I want to get done in the next 30 days.  What did I do?  Instant panic!  10 things???  30 days???  That sounds an awful lot like a deadline!  But maybe if I set a deadline it would get done?  Like the painting of my bedroom, yup, that is still not done!  I did move the paint to the bedroom.  Then I moved it to another spot in the bedroom. I like painting, why am I not doing this?  It will look so nice!

But I put it off.  Then instead of doing all the things I want to do, I sit on the ipad at night looking for new ideas.  Yes, I realize how dumb that is.  I have all these great ideas, I build up the supplies, and then I don't do them.  I am all about excuses.  Well I can't do it in one day, where do I have 2 days I could do this?  Nowhere, ok, guess it won't happen then.  OR...I was going to do this today but then someone needed me to do something else, so I did that instead.  Why can't I just put myself first?  Why do I put off the things I really want to do?

My husband said that he is always "putting out fires" - doing the things that people are asking about right now.  That's the same for me.  (He's not a fireman, but I did just picture him as a fireman...hot!) Anyway.....I am always putting stuff off to do other stuff.  I really need to just get some shit done, tell other people that they can wait.  I need a schedule.

I wish there was a way that I could tell that one day was ending and a new day was starting.  You know, like it gets light and then dark, that would be super helpful.

In other words, I need to get my shit together.  I need to figure out what my shit is, and what I want my shit to be.  What is important?  What can I let go of, and I mean really let go - not just not do it, but not even think about doing it, and letting go of the stress and the guilt that I should be doing it.

I've let go of some "friendship" stress, that felt great.  I had coffee with 2 real friends, and it felt so nice to be with people that I actually liked.  I've stopped spending so much time with "time suckers".

I think a big struggle is that I have had a schedule all of my life, and the I have really struggled the last 7 years without that structure.  I think that I don't like structure, so I avoid it, but I think that if I just instilled some structure, that would actually help me.  It's like the old budget debate.  But that is another story.

So, the plan is, get my shit together.  Find out what my shit is first.  This whole idea, it somehow doesn't feel new.  It feels like I've been here before....