Day Eight: I can't keep the days straight
[ Posted by Rebecca Thu, 08 Nov 2007 18:57:02 GMT ]
The past two weeks have been nothing but a blur for me. I don’t really remember much of what has happened, except for a few highlights here and there. The motorcycle ride, geocaching, walking with friends, counting down the days to a deadline, counting the days to Thanksgiving when I’ll finally have a four day weekend and something that will vaguely resemble a vacation from life.
I’ve been in my head a lot lately, trying very hard to stay focused on the here-and-now, while also trying, in perfect and conscious futility, to plan every aspect of the next six months of my life.
I’ve also been chewing on a story I want to write, wondering if penning a version of it over Christmas will get it out of my head enough to allow other creative thoughts to flow. I’m burdened with the fear that I will not be able to create three grade-A short stories in my creative writing class in the spring, because the story that I want to write now is clogging the hose through which creative thoughts stream. Do I need to remove it first? Do I need to shove it in the back of my head and deal with it later? Is is aching to get out for a reason? I don’t know.
All of this has landed me on another planet. I guess the best way to explain it is to say that I feel as though I am outside of myself, watching Me go through the motions of daily living - waking up too late, rushing around to get ready in the morning, getting to the parking lot five minutes too late to find a spot, paying $9 to park in the garage, clumsily hanging on to awareness for the few minutes it takes me to make a cup of tea and ingest caffeine, the elixir of life.
Then there’s the endless piles of paperwork at my job, the ridiculous complaints that I accept with a reassuring smile every day. The annoying commute home in the afternoon, plagued with people who drive too far above or too far below the speed limit.
The evenings at home where I debate taking a nap or exercising, cooking or eating a can of soup, cleaning or doing homework. The never ending attempt to escape the permanent noise of city dwelling - everything from the highway noise a few hundred yards away to the tv in the next room to the noisy neighbor who lives downstairs and fancies himself a talented country singer.
I feel like I see myself doing all of this but I, the heart and soul, am only vaguely affected by all of it. Maybe I’m just too tired to be emotional, a thought that is shrouded with doubt because it seems that usually, I’m crazy with emotion. Or maybe I’m just stabilizing, and that concept in and of itself is so foreign to me that I’m having difficulty recognizing it for what it is, and accepting what I never believed I could be.
Maybe I’m bored, and need to do something crazy and exciting, like sky diving. Maybe not.
Or maybe I’m ready to be done with this phase of my life, and I’m looking forward to the adventure and challenge of the next phase, not knowing when it will arrive.
Anyway, all of this is to say that when I logged in a little while ago so that I could post a blog entry, I noticed that I had two entries labeled “Day Six.” Apparently, even though I know what date it is, I can’t seem to know what day of NaBloPoMo I’m on. I’m living in such a fog that I can’t remember the one-to-one relation of the date in November to the day of the posting challenge.
I’ve been mishearing things all week and getting to work late and not sleeping well. I guess it should be no great surprise to me then that I can’t keep the days straight.
