The past couple weeks have been chaotic and strange. I had family staying here during a family emergency for a week and a half which kicked my butt into gear to get this place a little cleaner. In all honesty things got out of control during the winter and when spring came and I didn’t get an uptick in energy or feel any better I quickly became overwhelmed and from there toppled into a bit of somewhat functional depression.
I wasn’t much of a presence when they were here but last Sunday they asked if I wanted to go with them to the Boston Aquarium and I couldn’t really pass up the offer. I’d been there many times before but never really added it to my travel blog Catching Marbles. Now was the time!
I must admit I had a great time — but I also gripe that the Boston Aquarium is just about the worste place you can go if you need to take a lot of breaks. There’s elevators but they’re hidden and you spend the majority of your time climbing a spiral ramp going around the large tank in the center of the building. You’d think being an aquarium there’d be benches everywhere to sit and watch the fish – like an underwater zoo – but there aren’t. I counted two benches the entire way up. And if you think you’ll get respite at the end when you have lunch in the cafeteria you’d also be wrong. Their shitty fast food is so bad and so expensive that literally no one was there… And coming out of the aquarium? Well we could either walk the 6 or 7 blocks back to the hospital where our car was parked ooooor we could descend a shit-ton of stairs and go on the T (the local subway.) We’d chosen to walk the first time and got to see the Old North Church because of it but we were all tired by now. My knees have been SHIT for the past two months. I don’t know quite what happened but they went from painful but bearable to me climbing the stairs in my own household like I’m 90 years old, bracing myself on the handrail, taking one step at a time, and cursing. I have hyper extending knees that bend flamboyantly backwards like a chicken or a flamingo. In previous years it’d caused enough pain to prevent me from ever sitting on the ground or floor again – this year it’s stairs. I’m only 33!! This is ridiculous!
So you can guess what I felt when after climbing stairs at the hospital and aquarium I had to contend with many more at the subway station. I held my breath grunted and bulldogged my way through the excruciating pain. And at the end of the day after all that walking I was TOAST. We drove an hour and a half back home and I immediately flopped myself into bed at 7PM. It was only a few minutes before exhaustion hit me hard and I was not only unable to get up to feed myself dinner but I couldn’t find the strength to roll over to a more comfortable position. GREAT. I slept for an hour and a half, woke up, still couldn’t move, forced myself back to sleep, woke up an hour later, and then was able to get dinner. Of course by now my body was SCREAMING at me to do so. I spent the whole next day down, just fucking down. I didn’t get out of bed. But then something great happened, unlike last time where I was down a week I was only down a day and a half before I was up again and let me tell you it’s like I have a fire under my ass! Suddenly my body is ready to tackle the endless energy of my brain! I am running around getting shit done that’s been left for months. I’ve gone on two more excursions this week – one to the grocery store (which always takes the piss out of me) and one out on a brief hike in town. I hope tomorrow to find another hike or excursion.
Everything has become less overwhelming. I am starting to see a bright side. I’m making plans to make this place easier to manage and to give myself some privacy. I’ve also tracked down what I believe is the phantom funky smell in the basement and I am handling that presently. We’ve had repairmen in and out. And now I have to get my ass moving on a writing project I offered to help with (it’s only 18,000 more words due in two weeks – no biggie! *cries*) And I continue to read and review independently published books – the most recent is over 600 pages and absolutely delicious. I’m loving it.
I’ve also decided to stop dragging my feet and make firm plans for helping my mother start an online shop for her soap. But I realize I have to be in EVERY part of the process because she has the organizational abilities of a rabid flea. She doesn’t write down her recipes, every batch is different not only in scent, color, and substance but also the wrapping which she keeps changing…. she lacks the consistency to show up anywhere regularly to get her name out and has no computer or photography skills, most certainly not the social skills needed to get her name out with fellow Etsy people or the like. It’s a fucking mess. And I am JUST starting to see benefits of Twitter and FaceBook pages for my own writing. I am starting to sell one book a month to perfect strangers and traffic is starting to go up with my blogs meaning there’s a small chance I might get add revenue one of these days! It’s been a HAUL though and until now I have not had the energy to help her with her little soaping project. I have some idea though on how to make it marketable. Having her actually follow them…. will be a whole other ballgame…
So in the next few months I have a LOT to do. I have to continue blogging and writing in my manuscripts, have to help finish that outside collaborative writing project I volunteered for, I have to move forward on getting the house and yard more manageable, I have to start repairs on aforementioned house and yard, I have to continue traveling for my blog, all while dodging rain and bad days. I AM UP FOR THE CHALLENGE. (And quite frankly without all this going on I tend to get bored and depressed.) This has left me no room for finding a potential companion – be it a local friend or romantic prospect – though I do wonder if having such a thing wouldn’t calm me down a little bit. It would be really nice to get some encouragement every now and then but I digress. I have become quite accustomed to living a life of solitude. The idea of living with anyone 24/7 doesn’t appeal to me anymore and anything less than that is somehow a bit juvenile in my mind. But whatever works, right? I have a feeling once I do find one someone I’ll soon be polysaturated with other someones. That seems to be how my life works. As with everything else in my life romance must either be completely turned off or going in 300 directions at once. I wouldn’t want to get bored…