ahem...

I picked up a book recently called The Renaissance Soul--Life Design for People with Too Many Passions to Pick Just One.  I think I've met my spirit animal in this book. Many would be quick to say, "Aw, Madd, you're just ADHD."  Au contraire.  I am a Renaissance Soul.  In my quest to do all, see all, read all, taste all, however, this blog has gotten lost in the shuffle.  I am reining it back in.

What inspired me?  I'm dejunking, sorting, sifting, throwing etc.  Specifically photos and mementos.  I found something I'd written in one of my classes last December in China:

"I think I have an identifiable problem.  Simply put, my problem involves my dread of many events.  Instead of living in and enjoying the moment, I find myself with a pit in my stomach and then hoping that something will soon be over--a subway ride, a particular Chinese class, a week at school, a dinner engagement.  These are not horrendous tasks or unpleasantries--just something I imagine that I want to have behind me.  The biggest and most understandable currently is wanting my body to be healed.  I want time to pass so that I can look BACK on falling off my bike--look BACK on limping around, look BACK on being physically conscious of pain in each and every step.

I am not sure of the origin of my dread complex.  I have always defined myself as someone who is optimistic--I try to find joy in each moment and most assuredly joy in the journey.  Nevertheless,  I DO enjoy crossing dates off on the calendar, and I am never happier than  when I can put on my pajamas and climb into bed.  Anticipating the end of each day gives me pleasure.  Thinking about the end of a week, month or year gives me satisfaction.

Perhaps my concept of the passage of time needs to be re-examined.  I probably need a good jolt of reality to bring me up short and force me to see the intrinsic value of each passing moment.  I am aging.  I see my siblings ahead of me greying and taking slow more methodical steps.  We are healthy, but we are growing older.  I need to wrap my head around that.

My suspicion is that subconsciously I am taking a good firm stock of my mortality.  My grasp of time is shifting.  What used to spread out in a vast carpet before me now appears more finite--I can see the edges.  I can see that the grass ends.  It has edges, and I am approaching them."

Not super writing, but it struck me when I read it.  There is so much power in seeing your thoughts in print.  And so I take up the cross again.  Not going to waste my time on apologies.  Let's crank it up...rrrrrRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRR...

A little blast from the past lurking in a box with some dead bugs and immunization records:

From the Provo Daily Herald, summer 1977.  I worked for a friend of ours who started Rent-a-Kid.  Basically I accompanied kids as they raked lawns, washed windows etc. all over Provo.  I am impressed here that I can sit cross-legged.  I'd like to be able to do that again.  This summer we were poor, expecting an October baby, and still quite idealistic.  My other part time job was as a Fuller Brush "man".  That's another story for another day.