A year to the day

I woke up this morning thinking about my neglected blog, knowing it had been about a year since I had posted anything, and thought, this morning I'll pour a nice cup o' joe and write a few words...

And, while uncanny, it's not surprising to me that it has been literally exactly one year since I've dusted this thing off and took it out for a spin. This week as the wee one has started school and the hubby was out of town and I had a long-overdue few days to myself, I have been able to do a bunch of the things I used to do all the time, that I haven't done all year. Of course I was sick as a dog for 3 of the days, but hey, at least I was alone, right?:

• Mop my floors (they have been mopped, but I have not had the pleasure of mopping them. I love the smell of Murphy's Oil Soap.)
• Work on my next story. I am hesistant to call it a book, but at pg 140 and still kicking, it's certainly not a haiku.
• Sit up in bed at night and read (for pleasure; not for school)
• Nap in the mornings, after the kidlets scamper off to school
• Clean out my nail polish drawer (how many shades of red does one girl need?)
• Save all my photos onto CD, freeing up room on the computer and bringing peace of mind (if there's a random computer crash, the pix are safe) (if the house catches fire, I just need to grab that one case and run)
• Clean out my closet
• Change car insurance
• Wash the windows
• Bleach all the white towels and sheets

Sounds like a lot for a week, but mostly it felt like puttering. The wee one helped with the windows and the mopping. She can wield a broom like nobody's bizniz. Plus you know how when you have this running internal to-do list, of I can't wait till things settle down and I can... Well, I did all of them, and am still gonna do thank-you notes and ofoto albums today, if I can.

What was I doing, pray tell, that prevented all these things?

I was finding myself, then losing myself, then finding myself again.
I was, as Michael Douglas said in Flirting with Disaster, having an experience.

"And by the way...w-w-why are you not wearing pants?"
"I had an experience, that's why."
"What do you mean?"
"I resisted at first, and then it evolved, and it continues to evolve for me."

That's sort of what's been happening.

On my good days, I think back fondly and with a lite smile call it an emotional rollercoaster.
On my bad days, I seethe with resentment and call it my own personal blair witch project.

Some days it feels like I let myself out of a cage last year, other days I feel like I was in one. Emotions are weird; unprocessed emotions are weirder. And I realize that I am one of those remedial ones that needs time to process. Tasks I bang out super-fast. I pay bills the moment they arrive, I don't miss deadlines, I, as they say, get 'er done. But feelings...I need time. I need to chew them around slow like a horse - you know when they do that thing that looks like they're chewing? They're thinking. They do it most when taking in new information. And to interrupt it interrupts their thought process. This year I kept trying to digest and someone kept poking their finger in my mouth -- made it difficult. I think they thought they were helping (not).

So now I can just sit and chew to my heart's content, and see that even though it was a rough year, a life-changing year, a momentous, difficult, joyous, necessary, delightful, magical year -- I can see that it's okay for it to be over. This October can be something more quiet and introspective and personal than last October. I can focus on my kids, and their halloween costumes, and on getting enough sleep, and decorating the house, and keeping up with old friends, replying to emails, concentrating on school (only 3 quarters left!), and on my own sometimes-precarious sanity.

They weren't kidding when they talked about fall being a time of change, of going within, of solitude and clarity and peace and homefires and a strange feeling of bittersweet contentment.