Let's Talk Goals...

Okay, starting tomorrow Gold Stars and Goals are back in effect.

I've gone back to a written calendar to make sure I am doing the things I want to do and not reaching Friday each week thinking, Oh I was totally going to do (fill in the blank) next week, next week for sure!

Write it down, check it off, get the star. 

So what am I looking at? 

Nothing really earth shaking. Nothing that is that big of a deal to anyone else. Just things that I can focus on to quiet the OHMYGOSHWHAT'SNEXT chatter in my head. 

I'm doing PoD until I get bored with it.

I'm reading one nonfiction book a month (along with however many fiction ones I get to right now the year goal is 65 total books, but let's be real, I should be bumping that up to at least 75, in fact...hold on a second...there. The yearly goal for books is 75)

I'm going to write 208 blogs this year with 52 fiction and 156 nonfiction. Which was last year's goal as well but last year I broke it into 1 fiction a week and 3 nonfiction. This year I'm just going to write what I feel like on that day and so some weeks it might be all nonfiction, some all fiction. But I do have an end of year goal in site. 

Fitness. Okay, I know normally I do not do weight anymore because of really valid reasons, but I do want to lose weight this year. A few years of that illness, injury, recovery, rinse and repeat has put my weight higher than I like and it's either buy new jeans or lose weight. So we are going to start with trying to lose some weight, the goal is 15 pounds (technically 13 1/2 as of this morning) it would have been 10 but Hawaii was very tasty.

The bigger goal is to run (slowly, I'm a jogger) a 5K. That had already been on the radar and I'm working on it. Having some achilles issues so it's going slowly (even more slowly than my pace) but I am consistent. And consistency is key. Also I think my elbow is healed enough to start lifting again. Slowly, lightly, patiently, but lifting. YAY! So working out 5 days a week and drop some weight. I keep saying I need to go back to limiting sugar way down, and I do. I know that. But mentally I've not made that corner turn yet so when the struggle stops then I'll do that. But fighting against it is not going to do anything but trigger the really dark food compulsions so let's not do that...

The calendar is to track those housekeeping things that I do that nobody notices except me. Like baseboards and ceiling fans and vinegar through the coffee pot. The little cleaning things that make me feel like my house is put together. And I could expound (and probably have) on how I realize that this is all tied to being raised in house with almost hoarding levels of stuff and how it's kind of the same mental issues just flipped but...It makes me feel better. And Brent loves a clean house as well so it makes him feel good too. So I'm going back to weekly chore lists. 

I know, it's weird. But I never claimed normalcy so...

So, yeah, goals are back, sort of. 

I will have things written down and that I'm working toward, but it's just the stuff I do anyway. I just have to accept that my brain feels better when it has a shiny to work towards. I'm like a working dog. You can get one for a pet, but if you don't keep it busy it's going to destroy your house. 

OH! Also with writing. I'm going to finish the series I've been working on for Dana and start something new there. I'm actually thinking of picking a writing cue and writing as many stories from one cue as I can. But that might end up being a blog idea instead. Or both. It could be both. But the every other week exchange with Dana is still on, and if I do wrap up that long story I've been writing it will hit the blog and that will be a good sized chunk of the 52 fiction pieces for 2024. Bonus.

And April is Poetry Month so...

Yeah, I'm not going to do a poem a day. That was just so freaking hard to do that I ended up taking all of May off basically to recover. But I do want to do some extra poetry. So let's say 8 poems in April. That flows nicely. Eight in April. 

Sorry, Skip.

 

Old is New Again...

Well since I'm on the old topic new post wagon I might as well stay here.

When I was setting my intentions for this year (not goals so just shush!) back in January one of them was to not get really wrapped up in the political season. I know what I'm doing. I know that a lot of the hate and discontent you see is actually started by foreign governments trying to destabilize us. I know that the loudest ugly voices aren't actually the majority and that I need to use my focus and time to keep presenting ideas to those that can be swayed. 

So I'm going to do my best to just keep a low profile. Not let it eat at me. Not get involved or engaged in pointless discussions. 

Not post FUUUUUUCCCCCKKK YOUOOOUUOOUU on any and every post that tries to both sides the two main candidates for the presidency or acts as if they are somehow morally superior by tossing out phrases like "If you vote for the lesser evil you are still voting for evil." Here's a fucking clue, anytime the options are evil and less evil you choose less fucking evil, you dipshit.

Also, the two major political parties are not the same. They aren't. And if you insist that they are then I know you are not a serious person with serious ideas who deserves to be taken seriously. I know you are a talking points regurgitator who hasn't actually "done the research" or "read beyond the MSM." And I also know you think I am being condescending and dismissive and you really think that you know what you're talking about and I'm just being a tool of the one party system. 

You are trying to tell me that the party that is working it's hardest to vilify my daughter and people like her. To make her existence illegal. Is the same because the other party didn't relieve all of the student debt out there (though they relieved more than any other administration and would have relieved even more if not for losing in the courts). You are trying to tell me that the party that wants to take away all women's (not just trans women's) body autonomy from abortion rights to birth control to no fault divorce is the same because you are mad that this administration hasn't stopped you from getting fewer potato chips in your bag even though they cost the same. 

You want to bring up Palestine and blame this administration for what is happening even though they have been working on getting Israel to comply (subtly at first; within the first few days after the attack warning Israel to not overreact the way we did after 9/11 which COME ON that's an amazing thing to hear any American politician admit just on its own; to more forcefully now). You think that a Trump administration that thinks Netanyahu is doing the right thing is a better idea? Are you fucking high? And if you are then enjoy it now because a Trump administration would go back to trying to make sure that legalized weed is no more. 

And that's the truth that you have to face. This is a two party gig. No matter what you want to think, no matter how you want to justify it, you are either working to keep Trump out of the White House or you are working to put him back in. We do not have a system that supports multiple parties and voting third party during a presidential election is not the way to get us there. The whole system would need revamped from the bottom up. Some municipalities are working on that. Using ranked choice voting and open primaries which, if they are successful, could end the two party system and open us up to the best ideas win. I'm all for that. I have advocated for that for years. Get rid of the Electoral College, get rid of the two party system, get rid of a lot of this bullshit and rework it all. 

But we are not there yet. 

Right now either Trump or Biden is going to win in November. And you trying to claim some sort of moral "oh I couldn't vote for either of them" high ground is bullshit. 

It's a weird way to say fuck your family, but that's what it is

And it's not just my family. It's a lot of families. 

It's not hyperbole to say it's the entire United States of America. Just go read their plans for what they want to do and ask yourself if you or someone you love will be negatively affected by them. Odds are your answer will be yes. Even if you used to identify as a conservative and feel that you should vote Republican because you always have. This is not the Republican Party of yesteryear. It's just not. 

I would argue that it's the Republican Party that the path of movement conservatism leads to, but that's another rant for another day. 

So I'm writing this and if you need to refer to it during the year, feel free. 

I will be voting Blue up and down the ballot again this year because the Red wants my family dead. And that's the truth of it. 

So if you are not doing what you can to prevent Trump from taking that office, and if you are proudly posting about it, know that my silence and absence from your life is actually a really loud FUUUUCCCKK YOOOUUU!

New Post...Old Topic...

A friend of mine posted a lovely gratitude meme for what you might not feel grateful for today. It was all about reframing your perspective and being grateful for the mess your kids make, because they are healthy kids able to make a mess, being grateful for the dishes you have to wash and food you have to cook, because you have food to eat. It was really lovely. 

And of course I had to shit on it. 

Because I absolutely hate that nonsense. It's like a sideways guilt trip. 

Oh you can't be mad that your kid just slimed the walls right after you spent all day getting the house clean. You have to feel grateful that you have a kid.

You can't be bored out of your fucking mind that you have to cook AGAIN and clean up AGAIN knowing full well you will have to do it all over and over because people insist on eating every damn day. You have to instead be grateful that you have the food to make and that your kids aren't starving and that you have a kitchen to clean. 

And I get it. I actively practice gratitude daily and a lot of times my daily gratitude is just exactly those basic things. I'm grateful for my house, for my kitchen, for food in the pantry. And I am grateful for my child and my spouse. 

But...

If I'm bitching about something in my house going wrong. Or I'm complaining about having to cook. Or clean. Or whatever...do not come in and tell me I should be grateful for what I have. Right at that moment I'm upset. And you telling me that I should instead be grateful is negating my feelings. It's telling me that what I feel isn't valid. And worse than that it's implying I have no right to those feelings. 

You have every right to all of the feelings. 

It's a wonderful idea to stop and reframe things. When YOU want to. YOU get to do the reframing. But more often it's other people trying to force you into that reframing mindset. 

I've bitched about it before. How angry I instantly get when I'm complaining about something and someone chimes in "first world problems." Well no shit. All of my problems are first world problems. That doesn't mean they aren't my problems. Don't try and dismiss what I'm feeling.

It's just so condescending.

And a lot of the time it's completely sexist as well. We don't tend to tell men that they aren't entitled to their feelings. We don't tell them, oh don't bitch about your bad golf game, most people can't afford to play golf. We just listen to them bitch. We, for sure, don't tell them just to smile. That nobody likes a frowny man. Their lives could be so much worse. 

But women? We do it all the time. You can't bitch about your government deciding that you don't have body autonomy because you could live in some country where you have even fewer rights. You can never be upset about what is going on because there is always someone who has it worse.

Fuck that noise. 

You can be upset. You can be ungrateful. You can piss and moan and stomp your goddamn feet if you want to. You can also decide to reframe and say I get to do these things instead of I have to. And I'm just glad my kids feel free enough to wreak havoc instead of being too anxious to ever let loose and have fun. 

But that's your choice. You get to choose how you feel. No guilt or shame attached. 

Gratitude and smiling not required.

Numbers...

It's funny, now that I've decided to go back to attaching numbers to everything the storm in my brain has quieted and I cannot decide what the numbers should be.

Do I just hit repeat on last year? With the first quarter adjusted, of course. Or do I do my math wizardry and come up with something new and fancy? Or do I just try and see if all I needed was saying that it's okay to want those numbers but I don't have to set them?

And what is it like to have a normal brain?

Honestly, it's so weird.

The buzz that was constant about not liking not having goals just stopped as soon as I gave in and said, okay fine, it's silly but apparently I need this. But the buzz stopped before I actually took care of it. 

Did I just maybe later my own head?

Like my parents were the pros at maybe later or maybe someday. It's not quite a lie. Maybe we will go on vacation to Disney World. What they knew what that we most likely, like 99.99%, wouldn't, but my little brain was tuned in to that maybe and would be satisfied that maybe we would. I'd go off and start planning whatever thing it was that they had maybe latered me on and would stop bugging them. 

When I was older I swore I wouldn't do that any kid of mine. I'd be honest and say no if the answer was no. I hated that I spent time thinking different things would happen that absolutely were not going to. And I know that some of the things they maybed, or somedayed, me on didn't happen because other shit happened. I didn't get the stereo system Dad told me about because that money ended up being used to go get Susan from Colorado for instance. As a 14 year old all it did was make me mad when I connected the dots between the missing stereo and the reappearing sister, but when I got older I understood. I just wished they would have told me.

So I swore I would always just tell Katie. 

Which, of course, backfired in its own way. We didn't have a lot of money when she was younger. It was probably not until she was in high school that we ever had a cushion. But because she knew we were looking at edges and margins and needing to afford a lot of the extras to do with her education, she didn't ask for things that she wanted to do.

Which I get it, I did that as well, I knew growing up that any school activity that came with an activity fee, or uniform cost, or travel expenses was out of the question. I just wish she had asked for things and let us decide if they were things we could afford or not afford. You make changes to how you raise your kids to counteract the things that annoyed you about how you were raised and end up annoying them in different ways. 

Oh well. What's done is done and since she's not having kids she doesn't have to worry about passing along any annoying child rearing things to them. 

But anyway...now I have to wonder if my brain has quieted down because I maybe somedayed my goal numbers. I'll think about it. Maybe later. We'll see...

Picture This...

I have a few pictures where I know something important about what was happening that you can't see in the actual photo. 

I have one from Halloween when we were in Colorado Springs and the office staff dressed up. It's me and Joanne (I think that was her name), we both dressed as witches so we took a picture together. 

At that moment in time an infection was working its way through my bloodstream and I was quite literally dying. It would still be a day or two before I would notice anything and get to the emergency room for treatment. And then two days after that on the follow up to my doctor before the NP would tell me how close I came to it going very very badly for me. 

I have family pictures that are the very last time I was going to see my father. I didn't know at the time that it was going to be the last. But every time I see those pictures I think, this is the last time I saw my dad. 

I have a photograph of Jack and Ann that was from the last time they visited before Jack died. Again, no way of know that was going to be the last time we saw him. But it was. 

And for years I had the photograph of my parents and the photograph of Brent's on the same shelf. I hadn't thought about the fact that those pictures were the last ones we had of our fathers. It wasn't a plan to put them together. Some sort of "before" shrine. It just happened. Once I saw it though, I couldn't unsee it. And I separated the photos. Except when I make our ofrenda. Then I put them back together. 

And there are moments in time where you sort of step outside of yourself and know this is where it changes. This is a moment that will mark before and after. And mentally you freeze that moment in your head. When Ann called to tell us Jack had died, I was sitting on the bed in our room and Brent was in the shower. Which is why I answered my phone. Ann had tried calling Brent's first but he, of course, didn't answer because he was in the shower. So she called me. I looked at my phone too quickly and thought it was my sister Ann calling not my mother-in-law so I was very confused as to what she was telling me. That and the fact that Jack was only 58 so we were not at all expecting that. 

But I knew that moment, that was a before and after moment. And right then Brent was still living in the before and I was going to have to drag him into the after. I would have to do the same with Katie after I told her father. You kind of step out of yourself and see the world differently.

I have a set of pictures that comes up in my on this day memories every year that work the same way. You can't see it in the pictures but everything was falling apart. And I remember as I was taking them, trying for some sense of "this is fine" to project out in to the world, I remember thinking most people wouldn't have these pictures. But you always will. 

Those moments where you step outside of yourself and view your life from a bit of a distance. Where you have to disassociate just a bit to make it through. 

And you will. 

There might be a before and an after, but if you keep going you will make it through. 

And you can decide if you keep the pictures. 

All the Stars In Heaven...

I've got 7 days before I'm going to start the second quarter of the year with goals in place.

It's super interesting to me to look back and see how excited I was about having none this year. It was an idea that took shape around my birthday last year and then I went ahead and finished out the 2023 goals and went on to 2024 with confidence in my new idea. 

And promptly decided that I did not like it. 

It felt like being in a boat without a rudder. 

It gave me 2020 flashbacks. 

Which, I totally get, we were all off kilter in 2020 but the no goals thing for me is tied into that and now I've got PTSD feelings when I think about not having goals. 

So weird. 

I mean weird because I know it doesn't really make sense. I know that the things I will set up as goals are things that I do normally anyway. I read, I write, I work out, I take pictures, I do whatever it is I do. But if I'm just doing those things I feel like I'm not doing anything. It makes me anxious. But attach a number to it and BOOM! I'm good again. 

I'm sure it has to do with the way I was socialized. You had to work (and I don't), you should always try to be the best at what you are doing (and I'm not), you should always keep in mind that what you are doing is not for this world but for the reward of the next....

Oh. Wait. There it is. 

Growing up I was supposed to be the best at whatever I was doing and also know that the reward for that would come after I died. 

Holy shit. I replaced heaven with gold stars. 

Hunh. At least gold stars are real I guess?

Okay, I know for my believers out there, you hate when I talk about heaven as made up, but that's what I believe. 

I believe you should be the best version of yourself you can be because it's the right thing to do. But what I didn't really get was that the foundation for that was tied to a reward and so I just swapped out my rewards from something intangible to something tangible. 

Not for all of it. I mean, I don't think I should be kind because I set myself up for 10 acts of kindness this year. I think I should be kind because it's the right thing to do. Kindness makes a difference not just in my life but in the lives of those I am kind to, who might then choose to be kind to someone else. But because all of my childhood do the right thing was followed up with and you will be rewarded for it in heaven I have a do this then that feeling. 

Match that with the fact that I have rejected the work until you die, and always make sure you are the best in the room with stay at home and take care of things and be the best you in the room and don't worry about anyone else and I think my subconscious revolted and said BUT WHERE IS THE REWARD! I need that dopamine hit! If you aren't going to go to church 5 days a week and have someone tell you that you are earning gold stars on the heavenly star chart, bitch, you better get out a star chart here! I NEED THAT DOPAMINE HIT!

Or maybe not. 

Maybe it's just that we all like to be told good job. And if you aren't doing anything that gets that from the outside you have to do it for yourself. Nobody cares that I still try and read books by people different from me to expand my worldview. Nobody cares that I wipe down the baseboards so they don't get covered in gross dirt. Nobody cares if I come up with an exceptionally clever caption for a picture. Or even if I take a picture. But I still want that good job feedback. From me. 

Not working for a heavenly reward.
Not working for parental pats on the back.
Not working for a promotion or a pay raise.

After years and years of living a life that is my own, that I don't really care what anyone else thinks about it, I have to accept that I do care what someone thinks. And she holds the gold stars. 

Nonostalgia...

I always hate the part where people talk about their childhoods. 

And it always happens. 

New friendships. New potential romantic relationships. 

Everyone loves to talk about their childhood. 

Oh remember this TV show or that one? (Nope, can't say that I do. I don't really watch TV. Which I know opens a whole new REALLY? conversation.)

Oh gosh, remember how we used to play outside all day? (Some kids did. Some didn't. I'd bargain it's the same today.)

We used to drink from the garden hose! (Look, let's be honest, why do people act like that's a big deal? Did you haul the water from the creek, boil it, cool it, then run it through the hose? Or did you just turn on the outside spigot and get a drink? It's as interesting as watering a potted plant.)

These kids today are...fill in the blank, soft, spoiled, unaware, whatever. (I'd bet the same things your parents said about you when you were a kid.)

Why do they always want to talk about their childhoods as if that means anything anymore? I mean, you're an adult now, if you want to go outside, go outside. If you want to drink from your garden hose, drink from your garden hose. If you want to watch Sesame Street all day, watch it. These are things you can do now. But you don't want to do that, and you'd be embarassed to talk about it if you did. So why do you want to talk to me about doing it when you were a kid? 

Hopefully what you did at 5, 10, 15 and even 20 years old are the least interesting things about you. Don't make me relive your awkward years. 

Or if you insist on talking about your childhood there had better be something interesting to share. 

Once a friend told me about the time she met Jimmy Carter when she was 8. She asked him to move out of her way because she was trying to see the president. She had thought he would be wearing a sash for some reason. She said he was a lovely gentleman and they all had a good laugh at her expense about the sash thing. And also, that she's still more than a little disappointed that he wasn't wearing one. 

Now that's a great "when I was a kid" story. 

But most aren't. 

And I get it. I do. People just are trying to connect. To find things in common. But is it a real connection to say at 10 years old we were probably doing the same thing? I mean I ate eggs for breakfast this morning and I bet you've eaten eggs for breakfast as well. Is that something cool we should make a meme about? Sure, it's no garden hose drinking but...

I just hate that part of the conversation. The bonding over childhood. 

And maybe it would be different if I had had a different sort of childhood. Maybe if I had drunk from the garden hose while playing outside all day as soon as Sesame Street was over. Maybe if that had been my childhood instead of floating in a vat of artificial amniotic fluid, being grown as a clone replacement for the original me that was slowly dying from old age. Maybe if my implanted memories were about School House Rock instead of an actual one room schoolhouse. Maybe if I had shared bonding moments with my new supposed peers instead implanted ones with their grandparents. 

Maybe. 

Maybe if I ever meet someone who starts a conversation with "Remember when it was time to change out the fluid and it was so cold you'd shiver for what seemed like a week?" maybe then I'll get the whole garden hose thing.

(Write about a character who isn't nostalgic about their past at all, and show readers why)