March 21, 2007

Frenzied start, settled end

It's 11 p.m. Do you know where your sanity is?

I have found mine, somehow, someway, after starting out the day at a very anxious 7 a.m.

I don't know what I'm embarking on, with this move. Am I abandoning my career? Am I moving toward a better one? Am I leaping too soon? Am I doing it at just the right time?

Those questions confront my ego each morning, in loud, grating "look-at-me!" tones. And I have a big, powerful ego.

Today, I wrestled the ego down gradually. First, I took a walk. Next, I wrote down my fears. Then I made some quiet time for myself, listening to a CD -- about anger theory, actually -- while stretched out on my couch.

It all sounds quite rational now. But at the time, trust me: It was painful.

Around 1 p.m., I settled into the tasks at hand: sorting my belongings, keeping the good and getting rid of the bad.

One big problem I've had in this move is that I've been carrying a lot of paper weight around with me for the past three years -- well, five years, really. I'm a writer, and before that, I was a student. I have notebooks, binders, handouts and New York Times Magazine articles printed on my crappy college printer.

In fact, I've been sorting papers since January. Boxes of bank statements, credit card offers, old electricity bill stubs. It's been rather sobering, actually, watching how my assets and debts have ebbed and flowed over the years.

It's also been grounding, in a way, to tally what I've done over the past seven years away from home. No, it hasn't all been perfect. But I've learned a lot.

I've been in this all-or-nothing funk -- ahem, Ms. Ego -- thinking I can be only all a success or all a failure -- when, in fact, I've been both succeeding and failing all along. I've been at times organized and other times unorganized; at times attentive, at times preoccupied -- always craving more knowledge, always complicating the picture, always thinking about the future.

What I've realized is I haven't always absorbed all of the knowledge presented to me. I've completed the tasks, but not always learned the lessons. I'm not saying that to convey regret. I just want to recognize the rush, rush, rush, the struggle to get ahead, that's led me to this point of needing -- and wanting -- a break.

I'm taking that lesson to heart. Tonight, for instance, I'm not packing. I spent my day sorting, packing and making arrangements. Now, it's time to rest. I watched an hour of frivolous television and I'm blogging. For a hard day of work, I get to write and drink a cup of chocolate milk.

It's not a bad way to end the day. In moments like this, I think I just might learn to allow myself to be happy.

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