Balance

Saturday I went out shopping with a good friend who used to be my co-worker. She moved on to a new position about six months before I did. Her departure was part of what convinced me to look. I saw how happy she was in her new job, and it encouraged me.

Talking with her again, I was reminded about how frustrated I had been in my old job. I have a serious disease to please - and in the end, it ends up displeasing me. Each time I start a job, I promise myself I am not going to fall into the same trap, but eventually I find myself ending up there anyway. I want so much to do a good job, and get my figurative pat on the head. I end up sacrificing myself in the bargain.

I always try to go above and beyond. I guess that wouldn't be a bad thing except, eventually above and beyond becomes the new normal. It becomes the expectation I have to live up too. So I bring it up another notch... and so on.

Cut to five years later and I am typically exhausted and bitter. Yet it really is my own fault. I am not good at setting boundaries. I am not good at stepping back, and saying it's okay to let some things go. Instead I get a giant case of the "It's Not Fair!" and become a martyr.

When I get to this point of overload, I'm too tired to move on. So afraid wherever I go will be worse than where I am. I hate being in that bad place. So afraid of what could be out there, that I stop imagining what could be out there for me. 

Why do I always assume the grass is browner on the other side?

How do I keep myself true to going above and beyond when it's required, but learning to put myself first when it's not? 

Looking Forward

My hubby found my senior class picture recently. It was such an odd experience for me. I thought about two things.

One - I really like the original color of my hair. It has been years since I have really seen that color. I had totally forgotten what color it used to be, before dye. It was like a dark, reddish blonde. Kinda of like a light auburn, but not like the colors I've tried from a box. So how much of a dork do I seem if I bring my senior picture into the salon and say - make my hair this color?

Two - Hubby asked me what I was thinking about with my serious face photo in my pearls. I'm sure I was thinking something like "Like, this is my SENIOR picture! Like, I hope it turns out cute, like it's my SENIOR picture!" Yes, I, like, was a Valley Girl.

It did get me thinking though.. what did that girl want to be when she grew up? If she saw where she landed at 46 would she be surprised? Would she (like) be (like) disappointed?

She thought she would be an actress. She did like writing, but she thought everyone could do it. I do think she would be upset at the state of her butt... and I know she would tell me to dye this (like) mousey gray mop of hair.

Working Vacation

I took a couple of days off this week. No plans, just not working. I am really enjoying my new job now, but I had started to feel a little penned in. It was time to take some time off. It's funny to think that the only real difference between a work day and a vacation day is a stroll down the hallway and a turn into my office.

Before I started my new job, I had been so worried about being dedicated to working while still being in my house. So often, I avoid working on my own creative endeavors within these walls, and I worried I would feel the same way about real life work.

I don't though. I work with ease and dedication when someone is counting on me. Even when I am not feeling it, I plunge in and do it anyway. After a while, I lose myself in acronyms and procedures and before I know it the day is done and work was accomplished.

So I realized my resistance to writing my own work is all in my head, or maybe my heart. Fear is a powerful force.

With empty vacation days looming on the horizon I wasn't sure what to do with myself. I felt the same sense anxiousness I always do. Knowing in my heart I should be doing the thing that brings me peace and yet somehow is the thing I often deny myself. 

I decided to try an experiment today. I walked down the hall and turned into my office with my own laptop in tow. I dedicated myself with the same level to my own work that I get paid for every other day. It was a weird sensation to sit in the same spot, and feel that sense of dedication, but this time to myself.

I got down to work and looked up four hours and five pages later. Turns out all that time writing in my head makes writing on the page a little easier. As I write this I am afraid that tomorrow I will revert to my old ways, but I pray I will choose love and joy over silly fears.

Son Day - Mom Style

So last night I woke up at two in the morning, nothing unusual. I headed to the bathroom, nothing unusual there either. These days Quill joins me in the bathroom, so he can partake of the spare litter box, or the dish of kitten chow.

Even in my drowsy state, I realized something was off. What was it? Hm. Wait, no kitten. Odd. Surely he is going to be coming along shortly...

Hand washing and still a no show. I tried to think back to when I felt him next to me in the night... I had no recollection of him coming to bed. Panic started to set in. He always comes to bed with me. He had stayed up late playing with hubby, but still he should have been right behind me.

I started to check all his usual spots, and nothing. I rechecked them all again, this time calling his name in ever increasing decibels. Full-On Freak Out anyone? Yes please!

I woke hubby up and we looked again. I went into the garage and in a complete panic went outside. Suddenly a sleepy-eyed Quill strolled out of my office, confused by all the fuss. I scooped him up and snuggled him with a vengeance.

I spotted his kitten hidey-hole this morning. He is getting behind the books on the bottom shelf of the bookshelf. He is really a cave kitten.

I just love this picture of us that Trish took. Whenever he is unsure, I am his security blanket. As long as he can get behind me, all is right with the world for my sweet boy.

Hostile Work Environment

The other day I was sitting at my desk and my co-worker, kitten Quill, was busy killing something by my foot. I started to feel a little pawing at my leg, but I brushed him aside without much thought.

You see my boy is often confused on what (or who) is a climbing tree. Usually he scurries up the back of my chair (picture Velcro kitten), uses my back for the last foot, and then leaps from my shoulder onto my keyboard.

I've learned to save my work often... and wear high collars.

So back to the pawing - suddenly he got the idea he could just use the front of me as his climbing post. Claws in the leg and claw in the breast. It was not good. So I shouted out -

"That chit is not professional!!"

Of course this made me giggle, as I wiped away the blood. I do love my boy, but his work ethics are sketchy. I may have to report this as a hostile work environment.

Switched

For those of you who read my cat blog, you already know about the kitten switcheroo of 2012. Hubby had wanted another girl. So I had looked for a female kitten. We found Quill and were busy falling in love with our new little girl. We took her to the vet a week and a half later, and after a thorough groping by the vet, we had ourselves a boy instead.

Dude looked like a lady.

I don't even know why exactly, but it was such a shock to me. I think I was afraid in the moment the vet announced the misunderstanding, that hubby would not accept Quill. My fear could not have been farther from the truth, and I knew that too. Hubby embraced his new boy without a backwards glance. Hubby has an amazing gift - once he welcomes you into his heart - that is where you stay - no matter what.

I think I also feared in that moment that maybe I had chosen the wrong kitten. I had worked myself into such a frenzy about choosing the right kitten. One we would love, and you would love too. If I missed a sign as clear (or unclear) in this case as the sex, what other signs did I miss? Suddenly everything I thought about her, now him, was turned around. The girly blog I had planned, the point of view I imagined, were all changed now.

Watching him purring safely on my arm when we got home I had a revelation. I realized the switch was a gift. One I would never have thought to ask for, but was exactly what I needed. Suddenly I had no comparisons to Fin. I was free to fully love this boy for everything he is. In a case of nothing is a coincidence, I had spent the week blogging about how much I loved my first boy Eugene. Now I had a new boy to love, and love him I do.

This little boy had sneaked by all my defenses, and pounced straight into my heart. Sometimes, despite your best efforts, you don't always get what you want, but you get what you need, and it turns it's what you wanted all along.

Did you need to use this keyboard?

First Friday

Okay friends, you get the first peak again...

I think she is enjoying her Mom's lap. Looks like a smiler.

She's still a little shy for her own blog just yet.

We're still deciding on a name, but I think it will be a variation of Quill (Quilly or Quillian). I was joking about naming a new kitty Sequel and then I thought of Quill. Sorta fitting for a writer's cat. She loves the keyboard and adding in her two cents too.

She is so tiny. She was rescued at about five weeks from her stray Momma with a brother and sister. The very nice woman who rescued her had already fallen in love with her. She said she was the bravest of the kittens and the natural ringleader. She is probably about six and a half weeks now, we scooped her up on Tuesday night. Still a little skittish around hubby but she was around me too at first.

I had gotten to a place where I thought my grieving was almost done. Mother's Day was awful, getting Fin's ashes back was horrible, but I thought I was doing okay. I think I was just stalling fully grieving over my girl with my kitten frenzy. Suddenly I had a kitten, but I was struck with the sadness I had been holding back, when I realized no other baby would be my Finny. Not that I will love a new kitty less, but she isn't Fin and that made me sad in a way I had tried to avoid. 

The good news is that it's hard to be sad for long when you have a bouncing kitten ready to make you laugh. Bouncing kitten is good healing.