I came home sick from work this morning. As a consequence, I had an entire day without a single distraction from my own mind. That usually leads to nothing good. I have been contemplating my life & my choices. The conclusion I came to is...I think too much. I am too earnestly wondering if I am happy, if I made the right choices. It is all so labor-intensive and navel-y.
Individually, yes, I stand by my life's choices. In small doses, though, everything takes so much time & requires so much energy. And, after all my effort, I don't always win. I don't always have finesse, I don't always have the answer or check all the details as thoroughly as I should.
In the end, I decided to let it go. Let go of my ideas about what success should look like and instead focus on what it does look like. The truth is that these past years have looked very different from what I imagined. But there is no denying it-- I am already living my dream. It just looks a bit different, in the same way a postcard never captures the essence of a place.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Of Hairstyles & Saturdays
I went to the salon this morning to try out hairstyles for my sister's wedding & ended up loving this very retro look. After leaving the salon, I decided to keep my hair up while Monster & I walked around downtown running errands. It was fantastic to see people's reactions to my hair, especially older women who I noticed were staring the most. I imagine it reminded them of when ladies did their hair everyday & kept up a glamorous look.
For me, it would be great--but exhausting--to be fully "on" everyday. But it was fun today to play dress up.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Strategy for Work
I have been so tired at work lately--especially around 3:30 - 4 PM. I think I should plan to edit during that time instead of writing a document. My mind is sharper in the morning than in the afternoon.
Tomorrow is a holiday & I must: bake cookies, write a speech, run errands, find some legal documents, etc. It will be nice to have a short week, though!
Tomorrow is a holiday & I must: bake cookies, write a speech, run errands, find some legal documents, etc. It will be nice to have a short week, though!
Sunday, November 07, 2010
My Return to Blogging
After the devastating news that I failed the Bar, I pretty much stopped blogging for a few months. It wasn't that I couldn't think of anything worthy to blog about, but I felt that I was tempting fate by blogging when my world was falling apart. What if I wrote something optimistic on my blog & the next day I learned I failed one of my exam re-dos? How stupid would I feel when I re-read what I had written?
Even now, I am still in the midst of Bar re-writes. I wrote one exam and will write the other either in January or March. But, because I passed the first re-write, I am feeling more optimistic and ready to return to my life in full force.
So, what have I learned? More than anything else, I have learned about the unbelievable physical toll that worry can have on my body. When I first learned that I had to retake parts of the Bar, I knew that the next few months would be really stressful & I tried to think of ways to cope with the stress. But, once my whole world became an anxious ball of worry, I suddenly had to cope with much more than stress. For instance, one morning I woke up with a neck strain. I wore a heated pad on my neck and shoulder for the next few days. A week or two later, while watching a movie with Monster, I was distracted by my worries and suddenly--while sitting on the couch watching a move--my neck went out again!
Last week, I woke up with a lot of pain in my jaw. It was hard to open and close my jaw and the muscles just ached. It took two days for that pain to dissipate but again, I am pretty sure it was anxiety-related as I have never had a problem with my jaw before.
The take away is that I need to learn to control stress better. Yoga is something Monster and I are pursing together and I should probably explore other ways to relieve stress. I already work out four times a week, which helps, but maybe I need to keep fiction by my bedside, too? Read and leave my body.
Even now, I am still in the midst of Bar re-writes. I wrote one exam and will write the other either in January or March. But, because I passed the first re-write, I am feeling more optimistic and ready to return to my life in full force.
So, what have I learned? More than anything else, I have learned about the unbelievable physical toll that worry can have on my body. When I first learned that I had to retake parts of the Bar, I knew that the next few months would be really stressful & I tried to think of ways to cope with the stress. But, once my whole world became an anxious ball of worry, I suddenly had to cope with much more than stress. For instance, one morning I woke up with a neck strain. I wore a heated pad on my neck and shoulder for the next few days. A week or two later, while watching a movie with Monster, I was distracted by my worries and suddenly--while sitting on the couch watching a move--my neck went out again!
Last week, I woke up with a lot of pain in my jaw. It was hard to open and close my jaw and the muscles just ached. It took two days for that pain to dissipate but again, I am pretty sure it was anxiety-related as I have never had a problem with my jaw before.
The take away is that I need to learn to control stress better. Yoga is something Monster and I are pursing together and I should probably explore other ways to relieve stress. I already work out four times a week, which helps, but maybe I need to keep fiction by my bedside, too? Read and leave my body.
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
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