Two weeks and I'll be finished. So much work to do. So much confusion in my heart. It's like I'm deliberately trying to avoid completing the degree. I need to focus, but here I sit blogging. It's hard to breathe. My heart keeps racing and I keep re-reading the same thing.

I will put everything on hold for the next 16 days and just grind this out. I must finish to have all the options open to me that I've worked so hard for. I deserve that. I learned long ago how to compartmentalize, no matter how stupidly I may try to self-sabotage. My heart and all the other things going on in my life will still be here when I'm done.

I've put what I wanted out to the universe. Now I must see what unfolds.

Compassion. Love. Self-forgiveness. Patience. Reality.

What exists is in front of me. Finish the work.

Circles and circles

I had the pleasure of being in the company of some very wise women yesterday, planning an event that I want to succeed on so many levels. In sharing stories at the table, I was reminded of how many times things in my life have circled around to be revisited. Friendship with women has been one of the great challenges in my life. I have never found it easy, until I was able to let go of some of the expectations I have of people and try to remember that I need to be a better friend to have good friends.
Despite that recollection in one part of my life, I found myself doing something yesterday that I had learned long ago was counterproductive. I was sharing information about myself. Too much. Talking too much - again. Still. Rather than standing silent and letting the moment be, I had to jump in and share details. I don't learn anything about anyone else if my mouth is open. 
End result - no sleep. (That and a late afternoon coffee.)

While I was lying there, listening to the friendly, next-door-neighbour dog barking through the night and the usual level of snoring, it came to me that perhaps I'm being played like a fish. Line is reeled in, then rest, reeled in, then rest.  Middle of the night analogies are always a dangerous thing. Lack of sleep does not aid logical, analytical thinking processes. Perhaps it's just worry about Mark heading off with the kids. It feels so strange. At the same time, I'm so looking forward to the visit on the Island. Gee, mommy guilt and anticipation of freedom. There's a new pairing.... she says very sarcastically. The circle is coming around again. Changes, changes, changes,

Universe?

Just when I had given myself the gift of letting a personal "drama" go, something happens to flare it up. Costume in imagination, flirting and my stupid heart just sucking it up. It's only how I'm perceiving it. I am fine in my life , alone or not. I am beautiful and smart and talented. I'm a good woman and a good mother. I can be without a partner and have a very full life. There are so many adventures still to have, including my upcoming solo trip to the island! Head clear and gratitude for health, friends & family. Namaste.

Controlled chaos?

Yes, control is an illusion. Mark and the kids are at the other house. They're packing everything up so the house will be ready for new renters. My assignment work is pretty much done. It's time to gather everything up and go out and join them to finish the work.
Tomorrow will be a training day, so I'll come in early for a good run with my partner. Time to log some more serious km than we've been doing.
The chaos currently includes:

• two Masters courses
• getting house ready for renters
• work stuff (ramped up somewhat)
• 10 km/triathalon/trail running training
• parenting 
• personal stuff

If I could manage the pesonal stuff better, I would be way more efficient. I swear I'm self-sabotaging, but two years of self-sabotage doesn't seem reasonable. When I looked at the time and realized it was two years, I couldn't believe it.

I've put it out to the universe: send me the tools to resolve this or move past it. It can't keep going like this any more because the only person it's hurting is me.

Namaste.

A forced break

It's been a while since I've been sick and darn it if I didn't pick up my son's chest cold. It's brought training to screeching halt today & pretty much everything else too. It's given me time to snuggle with Catie, work on my vision board, do some course work & watch a chick flick. I didn't nap and the forced rest is making me a little stir crazy. I have come to rely on training to be my "me" time when I burn off stress. Oh well. Time to deeply reflect is important, too.

Well, here we go again. Tomorrow is the start of the 2013 part of the school year and my family will go back into its regular routines. I'm up to my eyeballs in my last two Master's degree courses. I have 3 more weeks of instruction with my grade 8 socials class and an action research project to complete as I try out a Project Based Learning exercise with them as we look at the European Renaissance. I've started training for snowshoe racing and my long-term training to run a half marathon. I will have a lot more data analysis on my plate as I begin organizing information around the School Improvement Plan. Oh yeah, and then there's the library.

My life is going to be very regimented for the next three and a half months. My main focus outside of work has to be on my Masters. The exercise regime helps me stay healthy and think clearly, but I will have to ensure I build it in carefully. I haven't ever done this before, but I'm going to build a daily calendar to lay out the work that needs to be done. I need to see clearly where my time is going to be spent. Less chaos right now and more structure, is going to keep me sane and happy.

More later. :)

Is it possible to totally misread what you think is a personal breakthrough? When you have an "aha" moment, then second guess your interpretation? I wonder. The other day, I felt all "aha" about why I've been feeling so blue. It's not midlife crisis....well, yes it is, but beyond that,  I realized that the reason I've been particularly gobsmacked is that I (and here's where things get dicey) wasn't "pursued" by my significant other. I pretty much fell into his lap. He invited me to camp, we made out, we've been together since. We'd been friends (one he definitely did not want to go out with because of a long-standing policy about dating friends' exes) for nearly a year. He definitely didn't want to get married or have kids. Here he is, nearly 20 years later,  stuck with me and kids and career and mortgages and no freedom. His marriage proposal was to suggest we rent a hall. His engagement gift was an Ikea chair. OK, admittedly I asked for a chair. I wanted someplace to sit and read. He understands that when I read, I mentally disappear. I haven't been able to sit and read and mentally disappear for so long, I wonder how I keep my job as a teacher librarian.

So, aside for feeling sorry for myself and wanting a man to want me passionately and pursue me because I am the woman of his dreams and desires, I wonder if I'm just remembering selectively. I mean, he obviously married me. He didn't run away screaming. He could have high-tailed it at any point. He's a good guy. He's still here despite my significant mood swings of late. He loves our kids. He cooks. He cleans - sometimes. He uh-huhs occasionally when I talk to him about stuff. He looks after the kids while I go out and run or bike or whatever I need to do to stay physically active and sane.

I guess, I wonder if that's it. I sat with him through a really nice dinner and a hockey game. It was nice. We hugged & kissed a little. I kept wondering if I could go home & go to sleep or sneak out and find a good party somewhere. Weird extremes, huh? That's my head these days. I want some external validation that I'm beautiful and desireable. I want to be seduced. I want to be courted. I want someone else to clean the toilets. I want to go to an interesting movie or play or symphony and talk about it afterwards over a glass of wine or a cup of good coffee. I want to go dancing and feel sexy with someone on the dance floor.

I don't want to feel like I have to do things quietly. I don't want to walk into a room where everyone is watching a screen and could care less what anyone else in the room is doing. I don't want to go to "mindless land" for 48 weeks of the year and only live for 4 weeks in the summer. I actually want to have someone to live life with me instead of living through a TV or a computer. I'm trying to exist outside this screen. Hopefully, I'll be able to either convince my family to join me or I'll have to make changes, because I don't think I can live this way much longer.