The magic tripod that allows me to maintain a highly productive lifestyle collapsed. Some Exercise, Decent Diet and Stress Management (are the three legs) stopped happening. I KNEW it was a mistake, but I scheduled two big events on the same weekend. I cooked for the anarchist cafe AND organized and held a big meeting for a new project that I am launching. And of course, the former exposed me to a whole lot of germs in black hoodies.

So, it is sort of a case of hard-to-prevent bad timing, but even before that, there were too many commitments with not enough fun. Even some of the things that used to be fun turned into areas of stress and obligation for me.  I did start dropping some things before I got sick, but there are some things that I just couldn’t budge without a crisis. Meanwhile, Zombie mom posted about her own work-a-holic nature, which made me raise my eyebrow, but it is easy for me to deny this since I don’t have just one “job” and most of my projects don’t pay money.

This all fits in with a parenting article that I read recently about the importance of unstructured family time. In particular, parenting in the last decade faces critiques for not providing enough outlets for children to entertain themselves and, in turn, has limited their initiative in  creative play.  What is best for kids developmentally (and maybe for people in general?) is having more unstructured family time, where you are just chilling out and someone says, “Hey, let’s play Monopoly” or “I am gonna build a cabin out of these Lincoln Logs” or “Wow, mom, the fridge is really dirty! Can I clean it?”  Of course, this is about not having your self and your kids in too many commitments.  I really don’t wan to be a mom that ignores her family because she has to work all the time or a soccer mom that lives and breathes to drive her kid to the next activity. Not to mention, that I want to MODEL myself as an adult that takes care of herself, making time for my own dental appointments and taking time to sit in the sun with a book and a cup of tea every once in a while.

A while back, my therapist gave me a great tool to frame this all in.  It is sort of a zen approach, where I think of all the activities that I participate in without obligation and as something that I am choosing to do right now, not necessarily forever.  Both setting my commitments up that way (with actual or potential end dates), but also giving myself the opportunity to change my mind about things as I go feels ridiculously revolutionary.

Being sick for a month also gave me a clean start. When I had to put everything on hold to vomit and lie shivering in bed, it was a reality check that I COULD do that.  My clients love me and they waited for me, I am not so poor that I can’t miss some work time every once in a while.  It was sort of like hitting a reset button. My diet cleaned up, my routines disappeared, and gee golly, the world didn’t freakin stop and my life actually didn’t change that much. Oh, I did lose 5 pounds.

So the upshot is cool new projects that will hopefully move my career in a good direction and a break (and exodus?) from the projects that aren’t serving me.  A renewed intention to focus on my career, both serving my clients and also moving my work in a direction that will be sustainable for me on a longer term.

More importantly, was the not-so-gentle reminder to take care of myself. Oh, and hang out with my dogs more, who seem to be magical converters of stress and obligation into joyful, frolicky runs, furry-soft cuddles and long lazy nights of sleep.

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It is still in progress, but due to the quality of my camera that took the video, I think that it won’t get all that much better than it is.  It was a pretty fun, silly thing to help with.

Here are the lyrics (by Kangs):

Boots and braces drooling faces; Hugo doesn’t win most races
Braces and boots hollers and hoots; clumsy, klutz are names he suits
1 2 3 4
woah, oh, oh. Boots and braces! woah oh oh. Boots and braces!

Boots and braces drooling faces; Hugo doesn’t win most races
Braces and boots hollers and hoots; clumsy, klutz are names he suits

Gimpy lame-o that’s what they call you; you stand proud  then you fall down
4 legged tripod you’re a clumsy dog; sit up, stand down,  hit the ground

Knuckling under oi oi oi what you gonna need? Boots and braces
Step, trot, fall flat oi oi oi what you gonna choose? Boots and braces
woah, oh, oh. Boots and braces!  woah oh oh. Boots and braces!

Scrape your feet on the floor you need booties more and more
Torn crutia twisted legs wear a brace Simon says

Knuckling under oi oi oi what you gonna need? Boots and braces
Step, trot, fall flat oi oi oi what you gonna choose? Boots and braces
woah, oh, oh. Boots and braces!  woah oh oh. Boots and braces!
woah, oh, oh. Boots and braces!  woah oh oh. Boots and braces!

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Interestingly, I had a week a couple of weeks ago in which I was regularly expressing that I was happy. I remember that week feeling very busy and productive, but not tired. I also remembered my dreams every night that week (which is not common for me), which were rich, interesting and vivid and involved many of my close friends.

J- attributed this elatedness to the longer days that we have been seeing. I would not dispute this since I know that sun affects my well-being dramatically. I am and have always been a summer girl, feeling better physically and emotionally when I am out more and have more light in my life.

I primarily attribute the change to a new proactiveness that I have harnessed. I have found much more focus in my projects. I have really narrowed down what is important to me and have made progress in integrating these things into choices around the ways that I am spending my time. This has led to concrete things getting accomplished, as well as a clear directional path ahead that I have lacked and sought for some time.

In turn, this has been a great opportunity to restructure my time and better my time management. For a while, my life has been a bit of a checkerboard, taking work when I can, running my dogs when I can, fitting in errands and self-care. This has been great for having a flexible schedule and occasionally spontaneous moments, but as I get busier, it has meant more running between things and less time to focus on any particular thing. Right now, I am in a transition process to the new schedule that I have created, but even having it as a possibility has seemed like a relief.

These issues are all, actually just background issues. I think that they provide the frame of reference for simply allowing the POTENTIAL for happiness. These things have been contributing to an overall sense of satisfaction and purpose that have my head clear and give me a general sense of well-being.

–I suppose that I should clarify this a bit since I would not want to give the impression that a sense of well being is so simple on a blog that is, in part, about radical politics. I have also been experiencing a great deal of angst lately upon thinking about the state of the world. I have been considering the community of my future children as one that is so destroyed by our culture that my children will be living with me, a complete stranger; and how wrong that is. I have been noticing the election and having very vivid fears about how bad things can actually get and having a lot of sadness around the lack of satisfactory options that I have for rectifying what the government is doing. I suppose that the sense of well-being that I am referring to a sense that I am simply doing my best and am satisfied with the frames of reference that I am making my choices within and that my current trajectory is sustainable.–

So, with all of that being said, I see that the actual manifestations of happiness come to me when I am laughing, eating a good meal or playing with my dogs. Of course, these are simply examples (and the most frequent ones). If I am having a bad day, I really just need to take my dogs to the park and watch them gleefully run around or hang out with A- or R- who will pretty much make me laugh whenever I see them.

While self-satisfaction creates the platform for my happiness, being truly happy is ultimately a collective process.

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I found out about the place because one of my geocoins was placed here by someone.  We sought three caches.  Vya’s Adventure, Hiding in Wait…, and Back In Black (Stone). The first and the last were pretty easy with clues in hand.  Apparently the second provides a photo to help that my palm pilot can’t download.  That was pretty tough, although my new gps pegged the coordinates as right on. Still, J- and I were tromping all up and down a crazy hillside when my gps was basically sitting on it the whole time. I got close to it at one point, but had taken the wrong access point and turned around.

I hope to go back soon and I will definitely bring my camera this time and post pictures.  Check out photos by sdarken on Back in Black (Stone).

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