"Instead of trying to make your life perfect, give yourself the freedom to make it an adventure, and go ever upward." Drew Houston.
I carry it around. My baggage. There's a few things that weigh on me. Lately, I mostly ignore those things that drag me down. Probably not the healthiest approach to the issues but for now: it is my reality.
Truly, it is not a matter of avoidance, just a profound lack of time. My personality requires copious amounts of time to process things. Alone time. If there was an extreme Xgames for introverts I would be slamming it in high scores.
My life, currently, is not an introvert's paradise. Work is people, people, people, Oh, and more people. My children also require interaction. Strange but they like talking to me and being listened to as well. All my other responsibilities require speaking to actual humans, too. So, sitting and pondering my dreams and the plan to make them happen gets about 0.0002 minutes out of my regular week. Eureka moments to work out bumps along the way are fewer and farther between.
Hey, I am not complaining. I have some real affection for all these people type people. I just simply mean that because I am the one who needs to work things out in utter solitude and in a quiet peaceful place; I have not happened upon many solutions lately. I am recognizing that.
In one of my very first jobs, I worked with a sage, experienced bartender named Bill. He was quiet. He rarely offered advice and was not the boisterous barkeep. I walked in one day and out of nowhere Bill looked at me and said "Hey, Jayne, you need to drop your sandbags." Anyone who has known me more than a minute would recognize the confused, immediate reaction of my face. Try as I might to stop it: my face speaks for me even when I would rather remain silent. Lady Gaga might have a Poker Face but I missed that prize in the gene pool lottery.
Since my face had done the talking I did not need to ask any questions and Bill just continued. "You are a nice, young girl (yupp, I used to be a young girl, peeps) , but you are carrying a lot of crap with you. If you were in a hot air balloon, Jayne- You wouldn't make it off the ground. Drop your SandBags!"
I spent a long time after that pondering exactly what he meant. I was 18. Clueless. I think I picked up a little more weight before I eventually figured it out. Bill meant I was carrying a lot of SEP's. Somebody else's problems. What he could see that I needed was to let go of being a "fixer" for the people around me. To let them take their own journey and create their own outcome.
He was wise and once I learned to do that around 30- being such a slow learner- life got easier and lighter. I was able to forge my own path rather than take on other's chores and struggles.
Yet here I am.....once again. I am pretty sure that my sandbags now are different. I am not trying to change the world for others anymore. I haven't taken on scads of difficult projects that are not of my own making and benefit me in no way, as I used to, frequently. I can say, without doubt, that I do not completely understand what the heaviness is this time.
Much of my difficulty has sprung up from a sea change in my day to day life. Not of my choosing this time but foist upon me by....life? The universe?
Somehow through all the demands, all the over scheduling, the mountain of responsibility; I need to steal some time. Time for about 48 hours on a quiet private beach....with a couple of my journals. Time to figure out again what I can change, where my next challenge is and how I can find the time to get there. Time to drop my sandbags.
