Hurry up!

Do most people feel like they’ve let a whole section of their lives just slip by? I feel like I’ve always been busy yet I haven’t done anything.

When I was at the age when I didn’t have a say over where I went, I always had to go “camping” on the weekends. From Friday evening until Sunday evening, we were all sequestered on a 40 acre plot of land in Dresser, WI. Camping is in quotations because usual camping trips involve activities like swimming and hiking. Our “camping” involved mowing the lawn and doing a bunch of other work to reach a point at the end of the day where we could sit down for maybe 30 minutes and think “Gee, the weather sure is nice today.”

This lasted until I was 16 and could both drive and hold a part-time job; so for two years, I did fun things on the weekends. Then it was off to college where I worked on the weekends because if you haven’t developed the need before the age of 18, you definitely develop the need after age 18 of having to support yourself. That need became obsessive with me. I suddenly realized how much money I was going to need to keep a roof over my head for the rest of my life and I couldn’t image that there would ever be enough money left over for me in this big bad world after everyone else took their share.

I used to sleep until 10am when I was a kid. I would go to bed early too. I couldn’t get enough sleep. If I would have been the only one in the house, I would have slept longer. Now, I feel panicky and flustered the whole day if I don’t get up by 8am. See, I’m in a hurry to get things done so I can get to some point of reward. Something that will be great but I have no idea what that is.

Most times, I arrive early to where ever I’m going and if I don’t, I’m very uptight about it. I’m supposed to work from 8am - 4:30pm with a one-hour lunch. I can’t remember the last time I took an entire hour for lunch or arrived at work at 8am. I’m usually there by 7:15. I usually don’t take a lunch but instead eat at my desk so I can leave by 4:30-ish. My goal with this schedule is to get all of my work done so I can move on to other things that I want to do. I never seem to get to those things. I can’t figure out why. Seriously, I can’t.

I work hard. Really hard. Once I get to a point where my hard work is noticed, I feel like I can’t slow down for fear of letting someone down. I should just try to keep people’s expectations low, I’ll have a lot more free time that way.

I can start a lot of things that I like, but I rarely get to see them through. I started a performance class and another dance class with several friends six years ago; they’ve all done a lot in that time and have moved on to some great things but I haven’t. I’ve sunk. At this point, I’d be happy if I could plateau. If you could see inside my head, you’d find a lot of really good ideas and plans in there. Somehow, my body never catches up to my mind.

Tonight, I should sit down and come up with a plan to change this….but I really gotta get that lawn mowed first.