Sunday morning when The Mc went to the rubbish bin he found a bird trapped in a skylight in our mailroom, and we spent the next 45 minutes (with the help of a neighbor with a ladder) helping the little guy back to the real world.

He didn’t mean to get himself trapped, but he was curious and wound up somewhere he shouldn’t have been. Sticking to his instincts, he flew up and kept flapping his wings against the plastic bubble thinking there had to be a way through it and to the light – if he just flew harder and faster and with more resolve.

We laid bread crumbs down in hopes he was hungry and would come down to eat. He didn’t. We threw them up, in hopes he would embrace the Hansel and Gretel-ness of it all. He didn’t. So we did what we had to with a long pole broom and a ladder, shepherding him out by way of what may have felt like violent means.

I need the universe to come after me with a broom.

For the past three weekends, I’ve been in hiding. I’ve been a little worn out and burned out and used up and feeling generally deflated and selfish and a lot like that bird in the skylight.

Flashing back to a 5 year old me who hid in a round rack in the middle of Sears while my mother picked out clothes for my brother and the upcoming school year. You can guess what happened.

I feel like that.

While I didn’t exactly want to be found, I didn’t exactly want to stay lost, either. I didn’t know where I was, I didn’t know how to get home, and in retrospect – I doubt I knew where home was.

There used to be a piece of paper tacked to a corkboard in my kitchen with a list of goals. It was weathered by sunlight and the heat and humidity of a kitchen, with faded print declaring short term, mid term, long term goals spanning finances, health and spirit. Some have been met, some have been replaced, and many have been abandoned in light of life changes…like moving to Ireland by 40.

I’m trying to find my way out of the skylight, out of the rack and back to a path that feels intentional and purposeful, that feels like I’m contributing and moving in the right direction. I’ve written about this and mused about this and bored all of you as well as myself nearly to tears but the fact remains that I. Am. Lost.

This naturally presents an entirely different series of emotions into the mix: guilt (“don’t be so effing selfish, you’re ALIVE”) and annoyance (“would you stop WHINING already”) and confusion (“ummmm where was I supposed to be?”) and that doesn’t help a smidge.

Earlier this week I had a hold of my mojo for about an hour, and I lost it again…squirrely little bitch.

So during this in-between time of loosing and finding again, I’ll stay in the safety of my jammies and the condo with the kitties and the TV and poor Mc trying to be as supportive as he can with me in a funk and cleaning compulsively as though a pristine home where there’s a place for everything and everything in it’s place (my mothers ghost) will provide just the right environment for the mojo to find me again when it’s ready.

Maybe this is supposed to be teaching me patience?

I wrote those last two posts in a total woe-is me voice, which is not the one I intended. “Oh, poor me, we got land to build our little cabin in the woods on. Oh, my life sucks, I have more people I love than I know what to do with. Ohhhhhh the horror, I have a great job in an air conditioned building with a chair and a phone and everything. Oh someone deliver me from my misery, I have a reliable car, two adorable cats, an knitting habit and an amazing camera I get to capture life with. It’s wretched!”

One post is only an hour or so old and I already need to apologize for it. Deep seeded Catholic guilt trapped in my DNA? Mayhaps. Realizing what a shallow, whiny brat I sounded like? Definitely.

I’m a lucky, blessed, and thankful girl. I’ve worked damn hard more than half of my life. I’ve collected a lot of great friends who understand me (even when they don’t) and I have an amazing man to share my life with that understands me too (even when he can’t stand me).

I am thankful for APE and that they allow me to stick around and lend my ::snicker:: talents to their cause in my free time. I’m thankful that I get to take pictures of people and places I care about. I’m thankful that my body still works given that I’ve neglected and abused it over the years. I’m thankful that my brain still works and that I can afford hosting and a domain name to purge my thoughts.

And right now, having spent the last 30 minutes working in a damn spreadsheet, I’m thankful that I can say in approximately 9 months (provided I maintain the current trajectory, which I may increase/improve) I will be completely debt free.

Effe yeah, that feels gooooood.

Towards the end of 2009 I was burned out. Burned. Out. Work was kicking my butt and I had too many social irons in the fire. There was no one to blame but myself, which sucks because it’s so much more simple when you can blame others for your own problems. I’ve seen plenty of people do it (myself included) and we all make it look pretty easy.

I started backing out of things and trying to explain to friends that I just couldn’t do it anymore. I’m not sure they understood. If I was them, I’d have thought I was being dramatic.

In baby steps, I stopped writing for Atlanta MetBlogs and stepped down as city captain. After a year of successful Atlanta TweetUps, I stepped away from hosting them. I stopped making as many dinner play-dates during the week. I regained focus on my finances, my relationship and myself.

Last weekend the weather in Atlanta was perfect for errands and spring cleaning, it was one of those prefect early non-winter days that have everyone in the city out playing in parks and holding hands down the street. I did both and then some. I ran errands with The Mc which included us picking out new glasses frames for each other (be afraid) along with seventy other things and actually made for quality time. I paid off an old lingering debt with thanks to a nice tax refund and a baby bonus from [redacted]: LIBERATION! I cleaned the loft and consolidated my to-do lists. Even after a day of errands and chores, the list still a mile long…how is that possible?

What’s left that’s still filling my yellow sheet? Does it matter? There’s more, there’s always more.

I tell friends there will be crap in their inbox when they die, and there won’t be anything on their tombstone about how much they got done, or with what efficiency – what’s my problem?

Meh. I’m not trying to be a selfish a-hole, it’s just working out that way. It doesn’t mean I don’t miss you or I’m not thinking about you, because I am. You can probably feel it.

I’m working diligently to make it so that one day very very soon my to-do list will be shorter, and that I’ll be a better friend and blogger. Truth is: I miss you. I also miss me.

I wonder if you’ve ever been where I am, and how you got out of it. Backing out of commitments clearly isn’t enough, and not loving as many people as I do isn’t an option…and OMG can someone get me to stop COMPLAINING about this boring, boring crap?!

51.

51 posts. In 2009, I watched this blog crash and burn.

I started this damn thing nearly ten years ago. TEN YEARS. Back then I was writing up posts in Notepad (light coding, mind you) and FTPing up static files. I converted to Blogger. I later converted to WordPress, and spent hours in a bar with Dave and Paulie helping me fix things that broke during the move.

Somewhere in there I met The Mc, continued to heal in grueling, Kleenex abusing weekly therapy sessions, and subsequently found myself with less time to write and less things I needed to purge.

I counted a few weeks ago and found I’d only written/posted 51 times last year, as opposed to an average of 300+ in the years prior.

Unsure of what 2010 holds, I’m still thinking about the blog. I’m thinking about and missing writing, I’m thinking about and missing the things that used to make me write. I’m also thinking about all the effing self-censoring I’ve been doing that has stood in the way of writing. Oh, but the list of excuses goes on and on: the cats won’t let me sit without wanting to be petted, that I’d rather be with The Mc than write/run/walk/justaboutanythingconstructive. Twitter and Facebook which mean a shift in thinking complete coherent thoughts to thinking in 140 character summarizations. Then there’s the other mostly secret blog I’m keeping about the big thing in our life I’m still not allowed to talk about. There’s watering the plants. Doing laundry. Running errands.

Meh.

This year, despite being off to a contradictory start, I’m going to try to do better.

For me.

Note: this post is not a solicitation for advice. It’s rambling, cleansing and only very lightly considered/edited musing…what blogging was once upon a time intended to be.

I’d like to blame my restlessness on something. Anything would do, but just now I’m focused on the mythical perfect plot of land we’ve been hunting hungrily for over the past two years in North Carolina.

It’s not that though. I know it’s not. At least, not entirely.

Hell, my old boss/surrogate father wrote in a birthday card he gave me three years ago “To my favorite restless soul…” which really, says it all.

I know this scares the crap out of The Mc – knowing no matter what he does/we do I *might* not be happy. I am, I’ll continue to be…it’s just compartmentalized and I think there might always be something “missing” with me. I’m broken.

We were visiting our storage unit(s) a month or so ago – pulling out one big item to give to a friend – jostling remaining items around ala Tetris in hopes of consolidating from 2 units to 1. In hopes of making us feel less disorganized, I suppose; and less greedy for hanging on to so much crap we’ll probably never need.

Moving, stacking, shuffling, cursing, sweating. I grabbed one of my see-through plastic file totes to stack it on one of its brethren and noticed something pressing up against its wall trying to claw its way out.

Immediately I knew (my heart knew) it was a list I’d made many, many, MANY moons ago – before the gray, the love, the children. I popped the top of the bin open, snatched up the sheet and hastily folded it before shoving it into my pocket.

We kept playing Tetris.

Was the list what I’ve been looking for? Was the empty space in me the sum of the items I’d listed years before that I couldn’t remember to recreate and hadn’t checked off my life “to-do” list yet?

I snuck a look at the list a few days later.

Did that. Did that. Didn’t do that but don’t want to anymore. Did that.

Damn. The list wasn’t going to fix me after all.

It’s months later, and I’m breaking bread with my old friend Paulie – who is also (and I don’t think he’ll mind me saying so) also infinitely restless and terminally lost.

It occurs to me there are only a handful of things that are different now than they were during that pocket of time I look back on now and think I was “happy”:

- I was not blissfully happy in a loving relationship, and didn’t have kids I adore
- I’m not volunteering nearly as much
- I’m not running (see also: bad knees, inertia)
- I’m not up to my blue-green-gray (depending on the day) eyeballs in debt, struggling to get by but insisting on “treating” myself, regardless
- I’m sans my close knit group of girlfriends
- I’m not seeing Melinda (my therapist) once a week

Is that it? Am I only happy when I’m in a state of chaos?

If you’re the child of alcoholics, you already know the answer: please turn to page 23 to continue your adventure.

Busy busy busy.

I can hear my friend Harry mocking me and I picture him with a goblet of red wine in his hand, smirking after he over pronounces the “s” as a “z” and rolls his eyes. Mocking me with love.

It seems like I’m always going. Somewhere, something. Appearances, I call them (also mocking, also Harry’s voice). It’s not that any of these things are void of substance, per se (as I tread carefully, trying not to offend) or that I don’t enjoy them. Rather, it’s that I do enjoy them but they leave me drained, tired, and behind on things I like to think I’d rather be doing. Things that in reality, given the time, I probably wouldn’t be doing anyway. I’d be twittering and naval gazing and eating German Chocolate cake for dinner and wondering why according to the BMI I’m 2lbs away from being grossly overweight (Srsly. No joke.).

It’s easy enough to correct, everyone says. You know what? Everyone can suck it.

I don’t want to change…exactly. I want it all. Even if I know I’ll still be lost.

Was I happier when I was “poor”? Was it because I spent less time on the run, and more time running? Was it because I spent more time being alone because I couldn’t afford to go out and play? Was it because I spent more time in my head and less time being over stimulated? Was it because I was writing more and purging demons regularly? Was it because I was closer to my mourning and my grief? Was it because I was physically healthier? Was it because I had a deeper, more aching and desperate appreciation for what little I had?

“What would you do if all your dreams suddenly came true?”

Me? I’d probably be miserable.

(To be continued. There’s more, but this is already too long…so I’ll break the rest of my thoughts into another post.)

In the last few weeks we’ve said good-bye to a family member, looked at half a dozen houses and had a fight (we never fight).

I’ve been allowing myself to be pulled like taffy from event to event, obligation to obligation.

Last night I watched the sky light up over downtown and made a vow to myself to take it back: my time misses me. My legs miss stretching and hitting the pavement, my mind misses long nights of physically (not mentally) exhausted sleep. My fingers miss typing and spilling out my cares, worries, observations and frustrations.

Like doing the right thing, it’s really that simple – but rarely that easy.

As night threatened to fall on our last day at the beach, The Mc and I sat on our rented patio with drinks in hand watching the beach goers making their ways home with rosy skin and sand in places no one wants to think about. We made small talk about the books we’d read or were reading during the last few days and I summarized a few chapters from The Last Lecture that resonated with me, ones I thought would hit home with him as well.

Suddenly and unintentionally the conversation became more serious.

The thing that left an imprint on my feeble little sand coma mind was not just the adoration and honesty with which Randy Pausch wrote about and for his children, but the insightfulness demonstrated as he prepared them for a world without their dad. His desire to leave them with his wisdom – a lifetime of lessons and learnings and mistakes and morals and values and a smidge of his zest. Words, emotions and travails he wouldn’t have the opportunity to convey first hand.

The Mc lost his dad when he was 12 and I (as you probably know) when I was 23. I thought about what we, as a couple that won’t become parents, will pass along – and to whom.

What is my legacy, what is our legacy? Who do we pass life lessons of our own on to, let alone the lessons our parents provided us? Will that wisdom die with a generation? Does it matter? Is it like someone telling a toddler not to touch the stove, knowing full well they have to experience the heat for themselves to realize the lesson behind the words? Or is it possible there’s a nugget in there that needs to be churned up and washed off to show someone twenty years from now “See? It only looked like a turd. Would you have known that ruby was in all that muck?” Who do we leave the proverbial turd for, and what does it look like? My blog? A novel we have yet to write? Weekends with extended family and ramblings to teen children that don’t belong to us?

Anyone who has reached their thirties knows that part of growing up means going through waves of gaining and loosing friends as your values, priorities, and interests change. In as much as the bubble written with hearts over the letter “i” in the epitaphs scrawled in yearbooks are genuine and real at the time, and that the promises and professions of “BFF” and pacts to keep in touch and grow old together dissolve with the years. So, too, do adult friendships.

In my twenties there were at least two waves of friends who came and went once they married or became parents. It’s not a fault I find with people, it’s a rite of passage. I accept, I move on, because parenting isn’t for me, I chose another path. Now that The Mc and I are in our mid and late thirties respectively, we ponder our future. Not what’s for dinner or where we’ll be in five years or even what the cabin is going to look like…but the real future. The end future.

We moved from the porch to the couch and continued to talk about how different our future looks when compared to those of [most of] our friends.

When all our hair is the color I just suffocated and we’re trying to deny the possibility of Depends being on the grocery list, they will be welcoming home college students, or grads, or adult children or even grandchildren. We will welcome visitors to our home. Siblings, nieces, nephews, friends and their children; but none of our own.

We wondered aloud if we’d made the right choice for the right reasons – knowing full well that we had – but questioning is always good and healthy. We were bouncing about the possibility of an alternate reality for the sake of our own potential future loneliness.

There were no answers that night, and there aren’t any tonight. Ours is a future we’re choosing because it fits us, and it’s just as scary to face a future where you’re bearing the responsibility of shaping another human being as if you’re facing a future without.

Still, there are more questions at the end of the conversation then there were when we started. Will we be old and alone/lonely, or alone and surrounded with friends? Will they be friends we haven’t met yet, or will the relationships we have today survive children (and my opinions of how little people should be reared)? What will happen if he goes first, or if I do? Will there be a strong enough support network to carry us through? There will be no offspring arguing about who will or won’t house us, how to pay for our medical care, or what to do with our remains…how soon can we get that paperwork in place? Who will provide the horrifying antidotes for our eulogy if there are no children waiting for an opportunity to embarrass us?

Like I said, I don’t have the answers…hell, I’m not even sure I knew I had the questions.