Active

The universe has been sending me signals from all directions lately that I need to take action against my unhappiness and dissatisfaction and do something about it.

Probably started with Mom breaking the loop of me saying I can't meet anyone because the only gathering place in a small town is church, and I don't believe so that's not an option for me. She talked me into taking her when she was visiting, and in fact it turns out I knew five people there already, and it seems like it could actually work as a vehicle for service and connecting to my community (and getting some support for my grief and dislocation and unhappiness and dissatisfaction), even for a non-believer. I still believe in people, after all, and that's who goes to churches. And in love, as practice and behavior. So I'm trying that.

Then I had a very productive discussion with my new boss about my work plan and role definition, and also career aspirations. We were talking about some problem that really belongs to another department to solve, but that department has an open position for a head that hasn't been filled, so for now perhaps we should just go ahead and solve it. He quoted a mentor of his who always talked about being "in active" rather than "in passive" (or reactive or something or other, I forget the exact jargon). But basically his mentor advocated the principle of when you're dissatisfied to do something about it, don't just give up passively.

Then today I was driving and heard the end of an interview on the radio with two people. They were talking about happiness as an attitude, and about negative self-talk and how it can stunt action, and about negative beliefs and how they can show in behavior to the world even if you don't articulate them to yourself. Like, "I don't deserve adequate help at home from my partner," if you keep accepting the situation where you don't have it. Or "I don't deserve a raise, or better working conditions." They talked about, though, the powerful force of habit and familiarity, and that when you really decide you do need to take action it might require ending the relationship or putting lots of effort into working on it, and that's a scary place. But how if you don't take action happiness will be beyond your grasp.

I know that I need to live like this. I'm not sure how I got so, so beaten down - that I don't deserve things, and that I am not allowed to do anything. A bully for a boss at work, that will do it - but so thoroughly? And the love of one's life/man of one's dreams deciding, meh. But it's so pervasive now. I can't get my dishes done. There are all sorts of broken things in my house (the book says, "You are no longer a girl who keeps broken things!"), but I don't think I even believe that it's possible for me to deal with any of them.

How did it get this bad? But I'm taking small steps.

I turned off the TV and practiced singing, and worked out most of the melody of a very challenging song. I feel like singing is really coming along.

I spent at least a half hour on guitar, partly on scales, partly on songs, and I think I may have cracked the riddle of bending, or at least started to.

I started cleaning my bathroom, a little bit at a time. Sink last night. Shelves in the tub where the shampoo bottles were sitting this morning. Possibly the back of the shower curtain, or that bit right under the faucet tomorrow. I know this seems insane, but the horribleness of leaning over the tub scrubbing and getting tired while getting my clothes all wet and skin burned by caustic chemicals - I couldn't face it. For months now. Famously. Good thing I have a guest bathroom as well and have been keeping on top of that. Might sweep the floor Saturday. Mirror Sunday. It will then be time to start over, like painting the Harbour Bridge, but at least I won't have to hide my secret bathroom shame. I could have someone look at it and not judge me.

How did it get this bad?

Tonight, nothing, actually. Leftovers for dinner and dishes left around. Watched the director's commentary for Wall-E and was inspired by his brilliance and skill and expertise and quest for excellence, and the great team he had around him and the time they take and the hard work, and I was inspired. But I didn't practice guitar more. I didn't sing. I didn't write. I didn't clean any more of the bathroom, or do dishes or laundry or anything. I've kind of checked in here. And now I'm going to bed.

There's a house I want. My parents both drove by it when they were visiting and seemed kind of excited and supportive. This is insane for them to be doing, because I don't have any money at all to put down, and don't have my finances under control enough to take it on as a responsibility. But I really want it, so I plan to set up an appointment with the loan person at my bank to see how far away I am from a mortgage (if she just cackles with laughter I might reconsider the leave town and live in flats forever vagabond option). But I am allowing myself to imagine it, and almost to want it. But then tonight I was thinking about raising children and having them take their first steps (big part of Wall-E), and thought, "When we have our kid, I can teach them this way..." and then caught myself. I am allowed to experiment with allowing myself to want a mortgage. It is not an option any more to want babies. I forget this.

So part of the work of taking an active stance and making happiness a practice and an attitude is thinking hard about which desires I'm going to allow and then work to actualize - which bits of unhappiness and dissatisfaction are on the list of things to focus on and fix, and which are just part of permanent reality. S. is gone. Australia is in the past. I have hit high middle age as a single person in a town where I have no close friends. I need reading glasses now. My teeth are going back crooked to how they were before the braces. These things are part of reality and can't be changed (well, maybe the teeth can, but only with additional painful orthodontia). But I am not cursed to be lonely and alone forever - there must be a way to connect with people (analog people, not all of you - not like the people on the space ship in Wall-E with their screens). And I am not enslaved by my work so I can't have time to keep my house up. Or get great at guitar or sing in public. And maybe I even deserve to carve out some time to really do the gym thing seriously again, get a proper trainer and really push myself and do it, so that I could be a pageant babe (was watching reality TV last night), or if not a pageant babe or swimsuit model, at least that person again who makes people stop in the hallway and say, "Wow! You look great! Have you been working out?"

Which things to want, which things to work hard on even tho they're not fun and the payoff is down the track, how early to get up, how hard to push myself.

I need to meditate on all of this stuff.

But in the meantime, the sink in my bathroom and the shelves in the tub where the shampoo bottles sit are clean, and I am starting to crack the mystery of bending.

Baby steps.