Lately, I can't seem to focus on anything that doesn't have to do with my foot or with running or with this potential move or my mother's surgery for more than five minutes at a time. You should see me at my day job. I'm irritable and cranky, and I can't even proofread a bio or a proposal without at least once finding myself wandering into a daydream full of "what if's" and "maybe I should's".
And I'm starting to falter a bit. My proofreading and editing are off - I'm missing commas and typos and mistakes that under any other circumstances would make me jump out of my skin or want to throttle the writer and say, "Seriously? Seriously, THAT's a sentence? Where the hell is the subject?" (I don't ever REALLY do that, of course, but oh, so many times I want to.) Even with my own writing, I must go back to these posts nearly five times a day looking for errors. Usually, I find at least one.
My days are spent with very short, only somewhat-focused bursts of productive energy, punctuated by much longer spans of discombobulated and often confused internet searches and web-browsing. Which is saying something, because corporate headquarters blocks every other website I try to view. It takes some serious effort to be unproductive at my job.
Even my personal productivity is faltering - I look at my email inbox and see 36 messages flagged for follow-up, and many others I haven't even read yet. An offer for a paid costume design that might actually be really fun just sits there, unanswered, because there's no space for it in my brain. No way for me to respond when I'm not even sure if I'll still be here for the production.
I don't know this person - the scatterbrained one who lingers in my head. She's a new visitor. Generally, when feeling overwhelmed, I become more productive. In a time of crisis, I'm usually the one you want on your team, because springing into action and creating order from tangled messes and impossible situations seems to be what I do best. But something about now - about this time - is making it a lot harder. Impossible, seemingly. It feels like something has to give - like one of these things has to go. I have to kick something out of my head to make room for a few more, because each of the tenants in there is taking up way more than their fair share of space. I just don't know which one to boot because they're all paying the rent.
When I was in college, I worked at a pizza joint in West Philadelphia - one of several jobs. I answered the phone, manned the register, prepped deliveries, etc. The job was...um...less than ideal, shall we say? I soon discovered that there was a loaded gun in the register drawer (okay, it WAS West Philly), drugs were being sold out of the shop (if I got a call for a delivery of blue cheese and ONLY blue cheese, I had to get "Big Nick" on the phone) and one of the delivery men liked to corner me in the storeroom and also follow me home. It was awesome. The only upsides were the free food and the fact that I could walk home from work.
Needless to say, quitting that job made for a pretty good day. A great day, actually. The satisfaction from notifying my boss to walking out the door one last time was off the charts.
But I'm not a quitter. Nor do I usually enjoy quitting when I have to for any reason. In fact, quite the opposite. I hate it. Quitting, to me, is failure. It's admitting there is something I can't do - at least, in many cases. Unless there's an earth-shattering reason for it, I just don't quit. Anything. Ever.
But today part of me wants to quit running.
And I'm starting to falter a bit. My proofreading and editing are off - I'm missing commas and typos and mistakes that under any other circumstances would make me jump out of my skin or want to throttle the writer and say, "Seriously? Seriously, THAT's a sentence? Where the hell is the subject?" (I don't ever REALLY do that, of course, but oh, so many times I want to.) Even with my own writing, I must go back to these posts nearly five times a day looking for errors. Usually, I find at least one.
My days are spent with very short, only somewhat-focused bursts of productive energy, punctuated by much longer spans of discombobulated and often confused internet searches and web-browsing. Which is saying something, because corporate headquarters blocks every other website I try to view. It takes some serious effort to be unproductive at my job.
Even my personal productivity is faltering - I look at my email inbox and see 36 messages flagged for follow-up, and many others I haven't even read yet. An offer for a paid costume design that might actually be really fun just sits there, unanswered, because there's no space for it in my brain. No way for me to respond when I'm not even sure if I'll still be here for the production.
I don't know this person - the scatterbrained one who lingers in my head. She's a new visitor. Generally, when feeling overwhelmed, I become more productive. In a time of crisis, I'm usually the one you want on your team, because springing into action and creating order from tangled messes and impossible situations seems to be what I do best. But something about now - about this time - is making it a lot harder. Impossible, seemingly. It feels like something has to give - like one of these things has to go. I have to kick something out of my head to make room for a few more, because each of the tenants in there is taking up way more than their fair share of space. I just don't know which one to boot because they're all paying the rent.
When I was in college, I worked at a pizza joint in West Philadelphia - one of several jobs. I answered the phone, manned the register, prepped deliveries, etc. The job was...um...less than ideal, shall we say? I soon discovered that there was a loaded gun in the register drawer (okay, it WAS West Philly), drugs were being sold out of the shop (if I got a call for a delivery of blue cheese and ONLY blue cheese, I had to get "Big Nick" on the phone) and one of the delivery men liked to corner me in the storeroom and also follow me home. It was awesome. The only upsides were the free food and the fact that I could walk home from work.
Needless to say, quitting that job made for a pretty good day. A great day, actually. The satisfaction from notifying my boss to walking out the door one last time was off the charts.
But I'm not a quitter. Nor do I usually enjoy quitting when I have to for any reason. In fact, quite the opposite. I hate it. Quitting, to me, is failure. It's admitting there is something I can't do - at least, in many cases. Unless there's an earth-shattering reason for it, I just don't quit. Anything. Ever.
But today part of me wants to quit running.
Almost a year ago, I made a decision to take running seriously - like truly seriously. Just to see what would happen. I've had some marginal success, at best, since doing so, but now being injured and having some time to really think about it, I'm starting to wonder what I'm striving for - what I'm working so hard for when the rewards are so incredibly selfish, and the likelihood of anything more than an ego boost coming out of it is slim. At a time when I can afford to be anything but selfish, if there's one thing that needs to get tossed out the window - or even just stored in my back pocket for a little while - it might be this.
As it stands, I'm backsliding. It's like rolling down a big grass hill - I switched from sideways to vertical, and the momentum has come to a grinding halt. Pretty soon, I'm going to have to start all over, covered in grass stains, and climb back up to the top of the hill. That is, if I ever get to the bottom.
There's also that part of me, of course, that says, "Don't quit. You were given this particular ability for some reason, and then squandered it with cigarettes, booze and eating disorders for years. You never did it right. Never had training; never gave a damn. Now you're doing it right. See what happens." It's a curiosity, even. What can I actually do? The jury's still out on that one, and maybe I'd like to know.
I spend a lot of my time day-dreaming. Starring in my own mental short films. My whole life, these movies have portrayed me as an actor, a dancer, or both. Lately instead, I've been cast as a runner. Part of me wants to know the reason for the alarming shift - and part of me wants to pretend it didn't happen.
When it comes to moving out of New York City, I've adopted the mindset that I'll just know if it's right - like, the universe will give us a great, big, neon sign. Or, at the very least, a hint. I'm starting to see more than a few hints that it's right.
It's almost as if I've been delegated to untangle a huge knot in a piece of rope. One end is tied to the life I have now; the tangled part ready to be tied to the life that I want. I just have to figure out how to unravel the mess first. And I really hate messes.
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