The end.

Ok, fine, that is a lame excuse for a post.  But yes, I do have writer’s block, in a way.  In reality, I write stuff all the time… in my head.  But lately it never seems to flow out through my fingertips and onto my keyboard.  Why is that?  . . . → Read More: Writer’s block]]> I haz it.

The end.

Ok, fine, that is a lame excuse for a post.  But yes, I do have writer’s block, in a way.  In reality, I write stuff all the time… in my head.  But lately it never seems to flow out through my fingertips and onto my keyboard.  Why is that?  I feel like I do a lot of thinking.  I have plenty of time to kill during my long commutes to and from work, where in the past I’ve had plenty of ideas and theories flutter through my brain.

However, these days I feel a little brain dead, for lack of a better phrase.  My head feels cloudy and blank much of the time.  Part of me wonders if it is because of my job, which is astonishingly boring and completely mind-numbing quite frequently.  I sit in a windowless office all day, with very little contact with other humans.  I talk with people over the phone for a small portion of each day, but otherwise it is all through email and chat.  My coworkers and I have very little interaction.  Not much is required for business, and any sort of social interaction with them is extremely rare.  For one, they are in love with their computers and video games and I am not.  Secondly, I am female and they are not, which makes me foreign and perhaps scary?

The way our office is set up is not really conducive to casual walk-by conversations.  If I were to want to interact with my coworkers I would have to walk down the hall and hang a left to their little den that I never have reason to visit, only to plop myself down and say “hey guys, what’s up?”.  That would end up being very uncomfortable because one would likely stare at me awkwardly but not say anything, the other would make some weird joke and then laugh loudly and nervously, the third one would say “YO!” loudly and then stick his earbuds back in, and the fourth would ask me if I was in love with my Mac yet and then we’d be out of conversation topics.  Sadly, that is an exact scenario of any socialization attempts I would make.

So, instead I sit in my windowless office which I am fairly certain is slowly but surely killing my brain cells.  I honestly feel like I am in a mental fog during most the day, and then finally when I find myself at home it is like my world comes alive again.  I’ve tried everything to make the long office days more bearable- I listen to music, I do squats, calf raises, lunges, jumping jacks, run in place… all sorts of crazy things to get the blood flowing back to my brain. (I’m always terrified that a coworker will walk past as I’m doing one of these activities, further solidifying in their mind how odd the new girl is).  I used to do push-ups before my hand/wrist went all screwy, but that is a post for a different day.  If it weren’t for my dear friend on chat, also working her life away at another company, I’d go insane.  Despite my best efforts though, I feel like this brain deadness is beginning to seep into other areas of my life and that I’m perpetually walking around simply trying to focus on what is before me at the moment and remember the important things required for functioning.  It is strange and frustrating and I’m not quite sure what to make of it yet, but that is my long explanation for the very limited posting these days.

Also, I’ve found myself having a bit of an identity crisis, maybe?  Most of the women in my part of the world are full-time stay-at-home moms or only work part-time.  Obviously, at this point in my life I am not one of them, although I hope to be in the not-too-distant future.  However, I have a hard time figuring out where I fit in as a working mother.  I am not working in a “career” that I love and find challenging but rewarding.  Again, maybe someday I’ll find a more rewarding way to bring in some money.  As a result, I kind of feel like a…misfit.  I’m not like the ladies in my neighborhood, I’m not like the men at my workplace, so who am I and where do I fit within the social fabric of my life?

I’ve found that in my social confusion over the last several weeks that the best thing for me to do is simply walk away from it, to just focus on me and my family and be happy with that.  I think one of the dangers of this wonder that is the Internet is that we are entirely too connected.  It is far too easy to surf blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and who knows what else and see what everyone else is doing and then wonder who and what you identify with and if perhaps there is something wrong with you?  There are the blogs from the cute little SAHM’s who modge-podge everything and make sure there are scalloped edges and tastefully shabby ribbons and damask fabric on everything they touch, and that certainly isn’t me.  Then there are the working mothers who agonize over the work-life balance like I do, but they are lawyers and advertising execs and intensive care nurses and such.  Not lowly sales reps sitting in cave-like offices, waiting for the day they can feel alive and worthwhile again.

Because the Internet is my lifeline during my long, coma-like hours in the office I spend a fair amount of time “connected” to others to a degree.  I finally realized that while I wasn’t intentionally comparing myself to all these other people, I was being bogged down by worrying about if I was “right” or “wrong” compared to these women I had never even met!  I really feel that in our society today we’re all so hyper-connected to others through social media that we begin to lose touch with the most important person: ourselves.

I don’t have a smartphone, and honestly I never really want to.  I see no reason to have that much information and connectivity with me at all times.  I have found it refreshing to step away from the computer and just sit and think.  To reflect on my life, my family, my strengths and weaknesses, my relationships, what I’ve done well, what I can do better.  Maybe our great historical figures were so noble because they had so much darn time to reflect on things, you know?  They weren’t constantly trying to come up with witty 140-character phrases or Facebook stalk their ex.  Instead, they reflected on who they were and mastered their inherit weak points in their character.

So I guess what I’m saying, in a very round-about sort of way, is that over the last few weeks I’ve found it helpful to untangle myself from the Internet a bit, including this blog.  I need to be a better and stronger person who is comfortable in my own skin.  I’m not giving this blog up; I like writing.  Just sometimes good writing ebbs and flows and right now it is just not flowing as I would like it to.  And in this space I don’t want to blog about nonsense that is neither funny, nor helpful, nor inspiring, nor profound, nor creative, nor meaningful or anything else of value.

Well, would you look at that- my writers block has turned into almost 1,300 words!  I guess the advice to just sit down and start writing does work.  Either way, I do plan to continue to write on this little bloggy as I do get great enjoyment from it and based on the word-vomit above it seems to help me organize some of the thoughts rattling around in my brain.  See you again sooner rather than later…hopefully…

- The kid wakes up over and over in the night for unspecified reasons.  When . . . → Read More: One of those days]]> Here I was, looking forward to the weekend with the naive hope that it would offer some relief from the stress of the workweek.  Sadly, my hopes have been dashed.  Here is how the last 24 hours have gone:

- The kid wakes up over and over in the night for unspecified reasons.  When I demanded an answer at 3:00 AM as to why she insisted on waking me up again all I got was an “eh?” in response.  I think she’s faking that she doesn’t understand the question.

-  The kid decides after not sleeping all night that waking up for the day at 6:15 AM is a great idea.

-  Husband leaves for work at 7:45 AM, leaving a tired and very grumpy mama with a teething and also grumpy toddler.  Brewing a recipe for disaster commences.

-  As I am attemtping to make myself decent, I realize the house is eerily quiet.  No noise from the kid in the next room.  I go to inspect and discover her emptying my purse and being particularly taken with the bright red lipstick in there.  In order to investigate this exciting new product further, the kid decides to taste it, smear it on her jammies, and rub it on the carpet.  Awesome.

- The kid spends the rest of the morning ignoring my attempts to distract her with fun items (“Look, honey, a plastic spoon!”) and fakes that she doesn’t understand the word “no”.  I know she is faking because the entire time she is doing something naughty she says “no” repeatedly.  Multiple time-outs ensue.

-  The kid decides that the mild whining and grunting over the last couple of hours has not been sufficient and decides to screech incessantly at the top of her lungs, over NOTHING.

-  Oh, did I mention that through all of this mama has PMS= the overwhelming feeling that I am completely unable to cope with life in general?  I didn’t mention that?  Silly me, since that has made everything exponentially worse.

- 1:00 PM.  I’ve had it.  The countdown to when daddy gets home has begun.  Thankfully, the kid is taking a nap.

The bright beacon of hope shining through all of this today has been the knowledge that tonight I get to go to the SYTYCD live concert.  YEAH!  If I can just keep that in my sights, I think I’ll make it through the next five hours…