Except My Own Confusion

“i like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till i drop. this is the night, what it does to you. i had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.” – jack kerouac

I saw this quote on another person's blog entry, and it very much spoke to me right now.

I'm not sure why, but I feel like my life is just completely out of control right now.  Nothing is wrong per se, but it feels wrong.  And it's unlike the feeling of good stress - that feeling where you are justatinybitaboveyourthreshold for work, but not overly so.  I enjoy that feeling.  I like having just a little, teensy, itty bitty too much work to do.  The kind that will keep you up just an extra 10 minutes, just 10 more minutes until you are done.  That kind.

This kind, though, feels overwhelming and completely dissatisfying.  I love all the pieces of what I'm doing, but each piece right now does not feel okay together.  I'm no longer living in the present moment, and it makes me sad.  While I'm waiting on a winery customer, my thoughts dash to the night's motorcycle course that I can't be late for.  When I'm on the motorcycle waiting my turn for an exercise, my thoughts are on the class I'm teaching for the next day.  While I'm in class and trying to gather my thoughts on a particular topic, I'm not thinking about anything else except the class, but I'm distracted if that makes sense.  My mind is not necessarily on anything else, but I'm not 100% focused. 

I'm not sure if it is the level of committment required of each piece, or the time, or the responsibility of each piece, but I'm starting to feel very overwhelmed and strung-out. 

Poor Joel and LG, too.  Little Guy has felt the snap of my voice, the strain in my face.  Joel is a saint and delivers nothing but patience and understanding.  But they, too, are pieces of my life and they aren't going very well with the rest of the pieces (hello, work/family balance). 

I cried as I was driving from one location to the other yesterday, in my rush to switch which piece I was paying attention to.  I'm not talking soft sniffles, I'm talking loud, racking sobs.  I wasn't really upset at anything - although I gave myself reason to be upset at certain things - almost as if I'm giving myself an excuse of what to get mad at, just so I can get mad.

It doesn't make sense to me, either.

But, the motorcycle course only lasts until Friday evening.  I will have time this weekend to work on prepping my class for the next few weeks.  My class, too, is only four weeks long.  My poor, neglected dissertation is almost ready to be pulled across the finish line.  And there's some decisions, too, that I'm desperately trying to sort out in my head.  And I know that it doesn't sound like a lot - and maybe that's the thing - there's not a LOT that I'm doing, but each piece requires a LOT of time from me.  And I think the absence of free time (just 30 minutes!  just 30 minutes!  somewhere!  where is it?) is making me high-strung and horrible to be around.  I so desperately need, crave, desire, HAVETOHAVE my downtime.  I'm a high-performance individual, but I have to have time to myself every day.  I don't think I really realized it before.  It's always been there, and I've always done it, but now that I'm craving it, I'm thinking it may be exactly what's bothering me.

I'm looking forward to just being able to breathe calmly and start being more collected.  I can really feel my stress taking a toll on my body, and that's completely unhealthy and unaccepatble.  Where is this calm, yogafied person I once was?  Where has she gone?

Hopefully I'll be back with a better blog entry next week.  This weekend I'm aiming with some quality time with the dogs.  And Joel and LG.  They deserve it from me.