Magic Bullets

We all spend a lot of time looking and praying for magic bullets. I know I do. I know you do, too. It's how we're wired. We think if we can just find that one magic bullet, we can lose all the weight we need to lose. If we find it, we'll make all the money we'll ever need. If we get shot with it, our pain will go away. Then we would be happy and live the life of our dreams, right?

Nope. Not even if you found them all and stood in front of a firing line and were riddled with them.

Wanna know why? Because once that magic bullet worked, you'd turn your focus to something else that made you unhappy and be wishing for a magic bullet to fix that for you, too. I know this because my old man called me out on it today. We've had a pretty good month as months go and today I started stewing because my tags are expired on my old car (which isn't running) and I need to either get new tags or get rid of the car and it needs to be cleaned out and I'm tired and I don't want to do it and waa, waa, waa.

You (and I) would be better served by enjoying this moment. Just this one. Because you don't truly know if you'll get another moment. Or the next moment might be hideous. If, in this moment, you are comfortable, just go with it. I'm not saying don't plan and work toward the future, I'm saying stay present so you can be at peace with whatever happens next. So if it's great you can smile along with the Universe and if it sucks, you can pull up your jeans and lean into it until it passes.

But if you find one of those magic bullets, call me. Maybe I can stand behind you while you get shot with it.

Negative Voices in my Head

Part of my implosion seems to have much to do with the way I talk to myself. (Which I do more and more lately--but that's a story for another post.) Anyway, as soon as I get frustrated, the first thing I hear myself say is "I hate everything". Yes, like my brain might be four years old and think that it's the center of the universe. My rational mind knows that chaos rules and that even when it seems like the world is against me, it's just how life is going at that moment and has nothing to do with me. It's that little voice in my head that thinks it's important that's stomping it's little, angry feet.

The other voices I'm hearing more and more lately are those snotty high school girls. You know the ones. The ones who are prettier, smarter, and more creative than you and remind you of it constantly. "Who do you think you are? You can't do that." On the days when I really "can't do that" it just reinforces the building holding my pity party. I'm arrogant by nature, though I try to hide it, and I hate it when the voices in my head are right.

I've been trying to counter Negative Nancy with Grateful Grace.  When Nancy is complaining that she hates everything and is mad because I think I'm better than I am, Grace talks about what she's thankful for at that moment. "No, I can't run today because my knee is hurting (AGAIN!) but I can walk and no one has to push me around in a wheelchair." Or "Yes, I know the scale went up a pound instead of down, but I have food to eat and a solid roof to eat it under." Or "The fact that I even have time to write is a gift." Grace is getting her ass beat, but at least she keeps standing up to give it a go.

Death of a Character

So, I read The Mists of Avalon again. I read it several times when I was in high school and I loved it. When I found out The Forest House was out, I read that, too. I love Marion Zimmer Bradley.

That said, now that I am reading her again (thanks to my husband who has recently gone on Amazon and bought me all of the Avalon novels) I am stunned by the overwhelming sadness of her work. I finished Mists and Forest House. In both novels, several of her characters die. In Forest House, both of her main characters die and it is not a pretty death.

I've done a lot of writing. In all that time, I've only had one character die. And, when I realized that they were going to die, I cried. I then dried my tears and finished writing it. Still, even now, it's hard for me to read. How hard must it have been for Bradley to know that her characters were not going to make it beyond the end of the novel? I wonder if she cried when she wrote it.

Anyway, I'm two novels into the saga. I have several more to go. I'm wondering if I am going to feel this back-breaking sadness in all the rest of her novels. I don't remember feeling this way when I read her the first time. I wonder if it's because I am older and I have been in love and married and given birth that I'm now able to see the desperate sadness that she wove into her tales. I wonder if my writing has changed to reflect how I have changed over the years.

I don't know. I do know that I've finished writing one novel and I finished Draft Two of the second one. I'm letting it sit until November, when I will start working on Draft Three which I intend to be my final draft. I have a short story with one of the same characters and that is actually the story where my only character has died. Maybe when I am done with Novel Two, I will go back and rework that short story into a novel and see where that takes me. Although, I don't know how I will deal with writing Corinna's death all over again. I guess I'll just cry and get over it.

Creating My Bubble

I've started to feel more and more that I need to cut myself off from the rest of humanity in order to retain my sanity. Not from the people I love and care about, but from the rest of the world. Working in the medical community, where I've experienced so much of other people's pain and suffering, has increased my desire for this just about ten-fold.

Aside from my conversations with Mr. Daniel, I've found the easiest way to do this is to move at a different speed from everyone else and make myself deaf and blind, if possible.  For example, when I'm driving, I'm that car that's going ten miles below the speed limit. If you were in the car with me, we wouldn't be talking because the music would be too loud. On the days when I walk/jog my three miles, I've got the iPod in one ear, I'm whispering the lyrics, and my glasses are halfway down my nose, so I have to tilt my head up to see out of them.

Is it safe? Nope. But, let's be honest, if something bad is going to happen to me, seeing it coming isn't likely to stop it. I'm not completely oblivious, but in my head, I'm in my own space and no one can bother me. If I'm too slow for them, they can go around me. If they're too slow for me, I can go around them. If I can't see them look at me, I can pretend that they don't exist.

I need my own space. I need to be able to heal myself when I've spent the day absorbing other folk's misery. I can't always turn to Mr. Daniel because it's not good for me and sometimes it's not even legal to do so. So if cranking my music and traveling at my own pace without the benefit of my glasses gives me that healing, then just pass me if I'm in your way.

It Doesn't Matter How Tired You Are...

...don't skip your workouts.

Aunt Flo and Mme. Migraine ganged up on me last week. So, I backed off my workouts and didn't do any from Thursday through yesterday.

Know what I got for my lack of effort? A torqued neck. It's better today, but my range of motion still sucks.

Lesson learned? Get off your ass and do your workout. You won't feel any more tired afterward than you already do if you ass is dragging and if you don't do it, you're more likely to get hurt doing some little thing that shouldn't hurt anyone.

By the way, NO idea how it happened except that I did way too much sitting during that time. I'm happier and better off when I'm moving.

I Miss Blogging

Since I quit my job as a CNA, I've missed blogging. I kept thinking that I needed to have a cause or a plan or a subject in order to have a blog. But, if you look around out there, there are a LOT of blogs about nothing in particular. So, this blog is about me, which is decidedly nothing in particular.

Stuff I'll be posting about:

• My World's End Diet. Whatever I weigh at the end of this year is what I'm going to weigh. I'm not going to keep trying to lose weight, just maintain wherever I happen to be at. I'm sick of beating myself up because I can't get the numbers on the scale to go down. Of course, until then, I plan on kicking my own ass.
• My Writing Career. I'm working on my second novel which, so far, is taking 6 years less to finish than my last one. 
• My Jaunt Through Perimenopause Land. I'm about two years in, as best I can tell, and it sucks. 
• Shit That Makes Me Happy. Music. My Old Man. My Dogs. Not necessarily in that order.

So why name the blog Tracy Implosion? If you're familiar with Metalocalypse, you know the lead singer's name is Nathan Explosion. One day, my husband had me pull up a band on YouTube (which I cannot remember the name of now) because he thought I'd like it. I told him it was OK, but the screaming wasn't guttural enough. He asked who I was and what I had done with his wife. After I stopped laughing, he said that I had become Tracy Explosion. Well, not really. But I think I might be imploding. So there you go.