When Things Are Not Ideal

Someone once told me when I start to worry I should take the worry as far it could go and follow it up with the shockingly insightful question, “then what?” Or better yet, “so what?”

Let’s say I’m worried about how much longer it’s taking us to pay down debt than I hoped.  Taking that worry as far at could go would mean it would take the rest of 2013?  But, “then what?”  Well, we’d be done with debt in December ’13 instead of June ’13.  “So what?”  So, it took longer than I wanted.  So what?  So, I don’t like that.  Why?  Because it sucks booty.  But, is it okay?  Yeah, I guess it’s okay.  It’s not ideal.  I still drive a ratty car, and to be honest I sometimes have a pity party over it because Dave-Freaking-Ramsey has entered my life & convinced me not to buy new, used or ANY car without paying for it WITH CASH.  Ugh.  I know too much.

I’m feeling this way about our debt, about the shaky ground I feel in pursuing a writing career (i.e. why am I doing this?  Why am I trying to fool people?  They will. find. me. out.  I’m feeling this way about the struggles of working 40-45ish hours a week rather than the 30-35ish hours a week I did last year.  I’m feeling a bit lost -still- in the midst of this major career-almost-knee-jerk-reaction-to-crisis + debt + the uncertainty of writing.

I’m feeling this way about not keeping up here at Gabbing with Grace.  I wish I knew how to do this differently, I wish I knew how to keep up a consistent schedule here while writing my book, but I don’t.  And I’m beginning to feel almost constantly overwhelmed.

But don’t you love this, you liar?  I *thought* you loved writing enough to get up an hour earlier, to work harder, longer?

If I can silence the shrew in my head long enough to take the irrational fear as far as it goes I can ask, “so what if Gabbing with Grace doesn’t amount to much?”  Yeah, true.  It’s not the end of my life.  But it’s not ideal.  What if your Memoir is never published?  It’s a sad thought.  Almost too much for today.  But I’d live.  I’d mourn, pick up & likely, start a new project.

I’d like to adopt a daughter, but for reasons I shouldn’t go into right now, it doesn’t look like that can happen for us.  Or, if it does, it will be through miraculous intervention.

So what if you never have a daughter?  So what if you never provide a loving home for an orphaned baby girl?

Well, it’s depressing & sad because I feel like I have a lot of love to give to a daughter. ..(now, I’m crying)…but, I will get through it.  It’s not ideal.  It’s certainly not what I thought would happen, it’s not what we’ve been planning.  Again, it’s too sad for today, because apparently, I’m due to get a visit from Aunt Flo tomorrow.

From everything as a big as my empty heart for a daughter to as small as trying to grow my hair out I’m solidly in the uncomfortable stage: the uncomfortable amount of hours on the job, the uncomfortable debt-repayment stage, the uncomforatble uncertainty of the direction of the next 5-10 years of my life…I’m in the middle.

I read a post yesterday that I haven’t been able to get off my mind about life in the middle as we sit here in the middle of this significant week leading to the culmination of Easter.  From the post…

“And here’s a fun secret: the story is not over. Though Moses and the Hebrew people have crossed through the middle of the plagues and through the middle of the sea, they have yet to cross through the middle of Sinai and enter the land. And here’s the thing about the land. They have to work to stay in it (and we learn that they don’t do a very good job). The promise of land is the promise of more middle…Beauty, true beauty, God’s beauty, is in the middle, betwixt, between, underneath, and outside of the boxes we create. We live, whether we want to see it or not, right smack in the middle. Existence is chaos and we are in it! What I absolutely love, more than most things, is when the categories we make recognize and celebrate the middle spaces as spaces where we meet something both fully transcendent and completely imminent. The Jewish celebration of Pesach embraces the middle as the place where we meet God…”

So what if I’m still in the middle?

~

Today, I’m hitching my bloggy wagon with Heather’s Just Write.