Shedding old things – End of the Day for September 16, 2014

Looking back over the last several months, I have come to think of this as a time of shedding. From getting rid of old cruft around the house to removing a bit o the cruft from my life and mind, we have all been shedding something. Joseph is rapidly shedding his childhood and turning into a young man. Rosanne is shedding one career and blooming into an amazing academic career (along with several other related ones. I still feel that I am mainly still shedding my old life, my old career, my old ideas, my old feelings, but I am not yet sure what I will become in the next few months or years.

I said it out loud again, after not saying it for a while, but my surgery 2 years ago, while not really life-threatening in any way, knocked me for the biggest loop of my life. While I may have recovered, and improved, physically, mentally I am still a bit of a mess. It set into motion a great many large changes in my life and I am till trying to sort things out. As often happens, I feel stuck only with so many things I don’t want to do, but don’t yet know exactly what I DO want to do with my life. Some days this feels frightening. On other days is feels depressing. On still others it feels filled with untold possibilities. I’m never quite sure what day I am going to wake up to from one moment to the next and often find myself traversing all possible emotions in the course of a day. I can feel quite wearing to live in this way and, honestly, sometimes I just feel — tired.

I can imagine, and sometimes hear, from my family that it drives them a bit crazy, too. Their never sure which “Douglas” they are going to face each day and it adds a bit of conflict to our lives that we really don’t need. Life could certainly be worse in many, many, ways, but you can only face the trouble you have and sometimes they can feel a but overwhelming, even if others don’t find them that troubling.

One side effect of all this is that I often have to force myself to do things, even if I don’t much feel like doing them. My brain isn’t always the best at choosing what is good for me so ‘fake it till you make it” becomes my modus operendi. Tomorrow is one of those days. I have been invited to an event at the Metropolitan Water Distract which will provide a bunch of information on the drought for my gardening blog. I know it will be useful, but facing the heat, the transit ride and the return home doesn’t thrill me at all. Still, I know, intellectually, that I need to do this. That dichotomy, that mental battle can defeat me sometimes, as it did with 2 other events this week, but I can only take each day as it comes.

Hopefully, by tomorrow night I’ll have some new content for the blogs and one more successful day under my belt. I’ll let you know.

Previously on End of the Day: