One of my resolutions for this year is to be more friendly, and make more friends. And try to have some fun. Because we love fun 😠oh no I hate that saying, it brings back memories. Bittersweet. (I miss him. 😠Now it’s only me left in the we ðŸ˜).
I digress.
So this coming Wednesday bestie and I are Girls Night Out. Yay Chicks at the Flicks, yay Beauty and the Beast, yay Fun, yay Us!
I often wished I could be a project manager. Project managers have options. They can grow their careers. Move into general management. Become senior managers. Portfolio managers.
But today it hit me like a ton of bricks. Why I could never be, and why I am not a project manager. I hate asking people to do things. And waiting for them to do it. And following up.
It is a fear-based thing. Today I had to follow up something with someone. And the feeling it invoked in me. I was back to a child again having to ask an elder for something. And fearing the rebuke. Not wanting to nag. Impose. Having to rely on someone.
I don’t ask for my lawn to be mowed. I pay someone to do it. I pay for handyman services.
At least now I understand why.
It took me six months to overcome my ‘sugar-in-tea’ addiction. I had tried before, but I hated the taste of unsweetened tea. Several attempts of cutting the sugar failed. Until one day I went cold turkey. I just decided. I’m doing it. Quitting the sugar. I craved it. I pleaded with myself. Please can I have sugar in my tea? Please?? No. I really want sugar. No.
After six months, unsweetened tea and coffee tasted normal. That was sixteen years ago. Now I cannot drink sweetened tea or coffee. It makes me want to gag.
In December I went cold turkey. I will overcome my latest addiction. I have cried and whined and hated myself and been through the rough. I figure I have another three months to go. I feel stronger than I did in January. Mid-February. I am still not there yet. But stronger. The energies will change. Worlds will shift.
I did such a great job of cutting ties that the choice is no longer mine. There is nothing I can run back to. Even if I beg and plead and stand on my head.
Acceptance is the big new word.
Three more months.
It’s finally happened. Well, it happened a few months ago already, but yesterday it really happened. My title changed. I am no longer just a mother. Mom. Mum (in Australian terms). I’m a mother of a teenager. And yesterday morning I had my first real test.
I had a robot in the car. Incapable of speaking like a normal person, but using a deadpan robotic voice. Followed by the ‘I don’t know what to say because you are asking weird questions’. Questions about the day ahead. General conversational type questions. These are now suddenly weird questions, and I am not worthy.
Not impressed. So I did the only thing I could do. I dropped him off and never said goodbye. No ‘I love you’ and ‘have a good day’ and blah blah. Just nothing. He said thank you. And waited. Nothing. He repeated his thank you in his robotic voice. Nothing. And so he left. And I got on with my day.
Different attitude when I collected him. He asked me are you going to speak to me again? Not if you are a robot, I don’t speak to robots. In general. And then it happened.
I didn’t realize that was how I was sounding. I won’t speak like that again.
It’s so easy to have an opinion, and give advice on someone else’s life. People are generally filled with wisdom. I am filled with wisdom over my own life.
I know exactly what I should be doing, and how I should be doing it. What I should and should not be focusing on. What I should be feeling.
But hearts are rebellious. They follow their own set of rules. They want what they want, when they want it, and they generally want it right now.
I know I should not be jealous. Or envious. Or desire things I shouldn’t. Focus on things that are good and right and helpful.
And knowing all of these things makes it no easier to put into practice.
So apparently, according to my teenage, and soon-to-be teenage offspring, their mother is generally weird, and does random things. Like dancing at a concert. And chatting to the stranger next to her. And taking selfies with both hands. Who does that? And she says random things. In general. Nice to see my kids both in mutual agreement over something.
And they haven’t even read their mother’s blog, or anything she writes in order to confirm their view. (And please may they never).
Yeah. Random. That would sum up their mother in one word, I would say.
As a pet time-filler, I decided to follow Trump on twitter and read some of his tweets.
What astounds me is how utterly mean-spirited he is. It is very important that he is bigger, better, best (even when he is not), and everyone else is dirt. Unless of course they follow him, adore him, and do what he says. There are no words of encouragement, no trying to lift people up, just put down as hard as he can and glorify his horrid, despicable self.
Question is, how is such a personality created? Are they born with same. Is it parenting. Life situations?
I cannot say I am big on plans. My personality is way too passive for plan-making. Usually I just drift along, waiting for life to happen, and hoping (and praying) for the best. Generally it has worked okay for me. It has given me my not-too-shabby life, but not an-overly-exciting life either. Just a bit of a comfort-zone-type of life. With poetry (and writing in general) being my very-much-needed outlet (yay for poetry). I digress. Sometimes, plans are good.
In their place. Because you know what they say about plans. (Actually, what do they say about plans? BRB, Google is my friend). Got it, this is what they say about plans:
Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.
Well, atm I am busy making plans. Oh, there is something else they say about plans:
Plans are nothing, planning is everything.
So this is getting a bit deep. What I really want to say is this.
Sometimes we really need a plan. Or at least I really need a plan. Something tangible I can obsess about. Keep me up at night. Distract me. And I have a plan(!).
Because everyone at some point in their lives needs a plan (my quote, you’re welcome)
I signed up for a Udemy course (yay Udemy, yay Max Schwarzmuller, yay Angular2). About 18 hours of knockout material to keep me busy, learning, upskilling, and generally being distracted. Of course 18 hours will be morphing into about 180, but sometimes needs must. And then we will make further plans from there. Or at least start knocking on doors. And hoping for doors to open. Not just any windows or doors. The right doors. To open. Right doors are key!
I went on an interview once. It was our first year of marriage and we were on vacation in the U.K. A friend of mine managed to secure for me an interview at a British-based firm. One thing about me. I can always get the job done. But sometimes I need external sources. Use what I can with what I have. Google. Books. Peers. Whatever. That’s what resources are there for. To be used. Because resources.
This particular interview went particularly bad. Perhaps, in a way, they were trying to sift the English-speakers from the not-so-English speakers. Because I had to do a test. And one of the questions was, explain a paper clip. Now, I could see the paper clip in my mind, I could see how it should be used, but for the life of me, I could not at the time figure out how, even in my native language, to explain a paper clip? Words failed. Completely. A thin piece of wire twisted and turned and coiled to hold paper together? Nah, nope, not happening.
Next question. What is the value of pi. Omigosh! I learnt math at school and was good at it, but that was many years ago, and right now, right here, on vacation, without google (in fact, this was pre-google days) I could not think of the correct value of pi. 22 divide by 7? And approximate to something? Words fail.
So it is with great pleasure that my son is able to recite pi correctly to the 120th decimal point. Winning the class competition and chocolates to do so. It might be a small achievement. But at least for a mother who failed miserably at some random interview test (thereby not getting the job or opportunity to move to the UK), there is a son who definitely knows his pi.
I have been struggling with envy the past few weeks. It is the easiest thing to fall into. There will always be someone who has more than we have naturally. We do not even have to look very far to find someone who will have more than we have. Sometimes it is not even natural things that they may have more of, sometimes it can be who they are. More leadership qualities, more energy, more friends, more personality.
Any of these things, if we feel we are lacking in certain areas, may easily cause us to become envious.
Envy is hard to overcome. It can be hard to overlook those trigger points, and get to a place where we can honestly say we are not envious.
Envy is the complete opposite of contentment. We can never be envious And be content at the same time. They are two extremes. At the one end desiring something we do not have, and at the other end, being completely satisfied with what we Do have. And we all have. We are all alive. We are all breathing. While we are alive, we have.
So my goal for tomorrow is to pray for contentment. If, impossible in my own strength, then to God be the glory. Through Christ we can be content. Keep our eyes on the one true living God, for therein lies our peace.
Poems and Petals 