Everything be everything

| posted in: life 


Life has been going rather smoothly on the surface lately. We’ve been enjoying the pool, and cooking at home. Michele said the other day that we’ve finally gotten over the last move and are starting to feel really at home here. I agree with her. Even though it will be three years this October since we moved, I think we are just now starting to hit our own pace here.

Of course the Universe takes delight in challenging you when you start to get too comfortable. Now that we are hitting our own pace we may have to pack up and move again. I’ve largely given up trying to guess what the State will do about my contract. Currently I have about 280 billable hours left on my contract extension. Rumor has it the agency will extend some contractual people through next June. The most likely candidates for this are people associated with critical projects. Depending on who you ask, my project is critical.

I did run off the reservation a bit worrying about re-financing the house, sell a car, and trying to lower our monthly out go as much as possible. While these are all good ideas, I tried to do it all at once. The result was predictable, especially for someone moderately ADD. I couldn’t focus on anything long enough to make a difference, and, as a consequence, everything started to suffer. Thanks to a series of conversations with Michele I was finally able to break down and express the emotions that I had been ignoring in my vain attempt to solve everything simultaneously.

Together we were able to see that I had too much on my plate. We set aside the mortgage re-finance for now, and I have stopped worrying about reducing our monthly expenditures. When the time comes, if necessary, we’ll cross that bridge. I feel much better as a result. I can keep several balls in the air at once and be okay emotionally in the process. But when I take on too many tasks I stop taking care of my emotional self and trouble always follows.

Author's profile picture

Mark H. Nichols

I am a husband, cellist, code prole, nerd, technologist, and all around good guy living and working in fly-over country. You should follow me on Mastodon.