Today is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life

Today was the first day back at school, for my son. While I tried to stay cheerful and optimistic for him [he was dreading it], that today would be exciting and interesting, I find myself resisting the whole thing.

Getting up at 6:30am this morning brought on a type of déjà vu that made me cognizant of what is to come... cold mornings, and waking up to the alarm. Not a good way to start today, this month, this season. [hate being cold]

The culmination of so many small reasons, the effect of incidences, circumstance, and crappy timing has led me to feel blue. The summer went by so quickly. Yet if I didn't feel that it did, would I still feel as blue? Probably, with school starting, my schedule becomes more demanding. My life becomes segregated into 15-minute intervals and all that time becomes accounted for. I certainly can do it. Did it for the past two years. It is the ramping up phase that I am in and I do not have the push to go with it. Certainly being in this funk does not help.

I saw an episode of Dead Like Me last night and in it the main character, Georgia, has a part time job in a temp agency where her current task is to collate the company manual from foot high stacks of paper around a conference table. She says," When you finish one thing, it usually means it's time to move on to the next thing on the list. We are forever in a constant state of unfinishedness." I mentioned that point to SimonFunk this morning as I drove him to the airport and he replied that it was just like what postal workers face.

I have been feeling lately that my work life is all about sorting and tracking the 'unfinished'. Aspects of my job are like puzzles that I get to solve [which I really like] the rest is a seemingly ebb and flow of paper and information that gets stored and monitored. Last night's comment got me thinking, and now with the postal comment, I can't help but wonder, are my work responsibilities and tasks, any better than a postal worker? It has got to be.

I realize people like me are needed in the world and I don't want to diss my job at all, because I am filling an important role and it is flexible way more than most, which is valuable to me. I would like to be appreciated more, but hey, who doesn't? I just miss working on projects that have end dates and cycles of their own. This Master of Maintenance role has worn away any gleam it had.

I know that I have a predisposition to handle disappointments badly. Poorly even. This inability has been the crux of my depression in the past. Besides everything else I do to manage me, I have learned that when disappointed by a circumstance, it helps if I make a plan and then focus on the plan. I have not yet figured out how to deal with disappointments caused by other people. How do others handle disappointments? How do you handle them?

I will get into the swing of things. I will plan some fun. Create something, either a dress, or food item, schedule a massage and time to think. ... Basically, take care of myself.