Spent last week at CMU's School of Writing. One week of glorious focus. It was a bit stressful at times, when there was no clean laundry and nothing to eat, but still - I had a focus, people!! I miss it now. I look around me and the house slants and spins -  my life in a dryer. I sit and watch everything tumbling over itself and wonder what to do.

I suppose it isn't completely hopeless. There will be clean underwear tomorrow, which is a good thing. Husband is (once again, twice again?) out 3 nights out of 5 so we can get by on raw veggies and milk. But I have a dream. A dream where all family members can find socks and no one gets a concussion when they open the fridge door. A dream where I don't mistake my main floor for an episode of "Hoarders" and papers are not inexplicably eaten and digested never to be seen again.

Focus vs. organized house. Let's deconstruct this. Take away the focus, is the house organized? No. What happens when we add in the focus activity? House gets more disorganized. Is it wrong to move forward simply hoping this trend toward disorganization would eventually turn itself around? Or that maybe there could be a balance between focus and house? I need to decide this, because it means going back to university this fall or not.

Life

Boy, life just keeps going on, doesn't it? No matter how hard it gets, no matter how I respond to it - it just keeps moving on.

I think I am newly seeing my non-omnipotence. When I feel like stopping, quitting, picking up the pace, being someone else - whatever action I take on the basis of those feelings, life continues on its course in large part unaffected by me. I can change a lot of things in an attempt to control what I can't control, but ultimately I don't affect what comes my way - who comes into, or goes out of my life, or my kids' lives; what happens to my country's governance or economy; how the earth turns and groans under the burden of sin; or even the chemical and physical processes of my own body. The list of what I don't control is very, very long.

It makes me wonder what I could otherwise do with the energy I expend on attempts to control life. Especially if I put that energy toward changing something I could change - like me, or a situation near me that needs some working on.

I have often wondered about parts of the Bible that talk about helping the poor, caring for the needy, praying for everything, sharing the good news - who has time for all that? I feel I don't even have the energy to care for myself, let alone all these other needs around me. This could be because I am not aware of how much energy I'm spending fighting life, or trying to anticipate and affect what's going to come next in life.

I always thought I spent too much energy on myself - trying to understand myself, change myself, invent myself, love myself. I don't think I was trying to change me at all - I was trying to change life. Really working on changing me requires first accepting who I am, and I've never really done that.

Family

Wow - I've just had a defining moment.

I crept back to the old blog, head hung in shame because I've completely neglected it yet again, and re-read my last post. Following were two comments from my family - who love me, they really love me!

I hadn't been back to the blog and so hadn't seen these comments. I guess I never really expected to get something back from writing this blog.

But those comments really encouraged me to keep on being me, regardless of how frustrating it can be at times, and especially during those times when I feel I don't make much of a difference in this world.

To some people, I do. That makes me happy, and content to be me. Thanks, guys!