I was going to write a post today about something meaningful, but then the toilet started leaking and I give up.
Tune in tomorrow to find out the next thing that broke or went wrong!
This extremely positive post is yeah write’s nomo writing challenge Day 10.
My alarm went off today at 5am as it usually does. I remember seeing my phone, thinking that I was still super tired and that the night when by too quickly. The next thing I knew, I heard my son getting up and coming into my room at 6:30. I overslept by 90 minutes.
And sure, I’m always super tired and super whiny about it, so you’re probably thinking that me sleeping is a good thing but I had so much to dooooooooo. (I can whine about anything, just so you know.)
I usually have two cups of coffee before I get in the shower at 6:30. Today I had exactly zero cups of coffee before getting in the shower. My shower took extra long because I couldn’t remember what to do because I DID NOT HAVE ANY COFFEE.
I had coffee waiting for me after the shower, which I downed before leaving the house at 7:30. That’s the absolute latest I can leave and still make it to work on time. But because I was under-caffeinated, that hour I had to get ready to leave for work was a disaster. I got tinted face cream in my hair. I almost forgot to brush my teeth. I couldn’t find socks. I did manage to make my to-go cup of coffee for my drive to the office though, so that was good.
Except when I was about a block from my house, I reached for the coffee and it wasn’t there. So I had to go all the way around the block, run into the house and get the coffee, in heels no less. (Note that I drove around the block. I only had to walk from the car to the house in the heels but come on. I was soooooo tiiiiiiiired. *whining*)
By the time I got back on the road, it was almost 7:40 which meant the traffic had time to build up. I got to the office five minutes late. I hate being late.
I finished the last few sips of my on-the-way-to-work coffee, then headed to the office kitchen to make another cup of coffee. There was no half and half. That’s when I remembered that I bought an extra soy creamer to bring to the office so I’d have it in case no one bought half and half over the weekend. Do you know where that creamer was? In my fridge. At home. There was skim milk in the office fridge, but skim milk is gross. Someone ended up fetching me a cup from the outside world so thankfully I didn’t have to die from lack of coffee.
I’m relieved to be working from home tomorrow. We have about a gallon of half and half and soy creamer and about 60 coffee pods.
Hopefully that will be enough.
This is yeah write’s nomo writing challenge Day 9.
I think I’ve mentioned a time or two how much I am bothered by owning stuff. I often go through these periods where that feeling surges and I’m compelled to get rid of everything. At the same time, I have some strong pack-rat tendencies that have me saving things “just in case” and because of sentimentality.
Add to this the fact that I’m so tired (always) that I often don’t have it in me to do anything about any of the stuff. There’s a whole section of my basement devoted to things I know I’m going to sell… eventually. Then there are the bins of things to go through, combinations of stuff from our old house, keepsakes, and stuff of my mom’s. When I get to thinking about all that, I start getting overwhelmed.
Also, selling stuff is an enormous pain in the ass. Craigslist means that I’m getting emails from randos. I’m not dealing with ebay. It’s too cold for a yard sale, as that is primarily an April through October thing. Usually, my go to is to sell on the Facebook online sale pages. There are tons of them where I am, which is great, but it’s a lot to maintain listings of so many things. Don’t even get me started on all the pictures I have to take and all the listings I have to create in the first place.
I finally got my act together and listed all of my jewelry for sale. I don’t actually like wearing jewelry and I never wear it so every day that I look it, I’m bothered by it all. I sold five necklaces this past week. It was wonderful.
I took a bin full of my kid’s old clothes to a resale shop and made $35. Trying to sell each individual piece would have taken me forever. I probably could have scored more money selling everything separate, but who has that kind of time? Not me.
Then I listed a ton of toys on Facebook. I now have four shopping bags of stuff sitting by my front door waiting for buyers over the next few days. I have a few pending sales. This makes me very happy.
I still have so much more to purge, but I’m so pleased by my progress this weekend. I hope I can keep up this momentum.
This is yeah write’s nomo writing challenge Day 8.
I seriously almost forgot to post.
I’m in bed and my kid is sound asleep next to me. There was a fire in our neighborhood and he was scared to sleep in his own room. I remember being very afraid of fires when I was a kid, so I let him sleep here. I was going to go to sleep and I was just about to close the laptop when something about daily November writing caught my eye.
I almost blew the whole thing on day 6.
But I didn’t! Hooray!
This is a terrible post and I’m sorry. This is life though.
This is yeah write’s nomo writing challenge Day 6.
Last night I was sort of not in a great mood. And then life did the thing that it does and I ended up in a worse mood. Then I was up all night (life things) and my kid woke me up at 4:30 (time change things) and my mood was, dare I say it, sour.
A few years ago I randomly noticed a tweet from some bloggers I didn’t know which took me to their blog. I didn’t know it at the time, but that tweet was going to change my life.
When I couldn’t sleep, I thought about the Simon & Garfunkel song, I Am a Rock. I loved that song the first time I heard it because the lyrics spoke to me. I’m not a rock or an island, but I wished I could make myself either so many times. The rock feels no pain and an island never cries.
A link on the blog I got to from the tweet led me to yeah write. I’ve gone on and on about this writing challenge and the community I found there. This community welcomed me as a writer when I didn’t know if I really was one, but that isn’t the story. The story is that that one little tweet led me to some of the most amazing people.
The thing about amazing people? They know more amazing people.
Writing might make me seem like the type of person who is outgoing and fearless. I might seem like I want a lot of attention, that I’m comfortable in my skin, that I trust myself. More than anything, writing is a compulsion. I write because I have to and I share my work because I have to. I didn’t expect anything in return from writing. I expected to write in a vacuum forever.
I still wanted to be a rock or an island. But I kept meeting amazing people.
Sometimes life has a funny way of taking you down a path you didn’t know you needed to go down. Sometimes it opens you up to more amazing things, more amazing people. And these people lift you up when you’re down and keep building you up until you can stand up alone and not feel like you need to be a rock or an island.
Sometimes you get to be the light for other people, the arms raising them up because they need the boost. Sometimes you remember that friendship, true friendship, is a reciprocal arrangement to support those you love and who love you back. You remember that you deserve that reciprocity. You are worthy of it. They deserve it too and so you give it freely and without condition just like they do for you.
This morning, I needed to be lifted. I was remembering so well why I’d always wanted to be a rock, an island.
But I have this amazing group of people, a brick wall of support, who saw my hurt and jumped in to raise me back up.
Tonight I’m so glad I’m not a rock.
This is yeah write’s nomo writing challenge Day 5.