Seeing Today

I tend to over think things. Pretty much everything. In fact, on Sunday one of my co-workers asked me if I over think things and told me I should stop. After she left, I over thought that comment for the better part of the next hour. I do have these kinds of issues.

That's why I'm attempting to spend more time looking at where I am. At age 24 I struggle with my past and reconciling it to my belief structure, who I am, how the world should be, what relationships look like, all of these are things that bog me down with questions about the past and what it means now. The future is an empty terrifying whiteness. A blank page stares at me and dares me to write in black permanent marker. Somewhere between these two challenges lives me. Scary, right?

Anyways, today is where they met. To avoid over thinking on topics which my mind finds overwhelming I'm going to try to meet the scary parts at a place where the rubber meets the road, today.

What did I do today you might ask? (Actually you probably don't care but there isn't a boyfriend or best friend calling me every night to ask about my day and so the internet gets another drab blog, you'll deal I'm sure. )

Today I went to work at my office job. I remembered while I worked today why it is I chose that job. Career wise I am where I am for a reason. I left a job that I hated, not to find a job that I loved, but instead to find a sense of stability. Craziness was constantly assaulting me day after day both in work and in my personal life before I took this office job. Maybe it sounds silly but my self worth was, and to an extent still is, tied to how well I preform at work. In retail this is something that can often be measured on a daily basis, if you're having a bad day you know it. It's also incredibly difficult to leave who you are at home at the door of your store. This has been especially true for me at the places where I love the people I work with the most. I was struggling to balance my personal life and my work life and often they were colliding and doing serious damage to my self esteem. It was challenging to separate them and develop ways of interacting with the world outside of my job because of the ever changing schedule. A change was needed.

Now I work in a place where I have the same hours nearly every week. I can count on the same day more or less every day (even though it never is) and the people I work with support me and uplift me in a way that doesn't intrude on my personal life so dramatically. They allow me to share what I want or need to with them but never enter into my world without express permission. I often leave work feeling uplifted and both named worthwhile and protected. It's not a glamorous job, not one that I want to keep forever, but the perfect fit while I struggle through this confusing time for me.

After work I came home and began rearranging my apartment. This is a trick I learned from my mom as a child. Cleaning the house is not a fun task, make it more fun by completely remaking the kind of home you live in. This of course requires serious deep cleaning and often letting go of lots of possessions. That is what I needed tonight though. I moved my giant desk into the living room and started trying to make it more "stranger accessible."

Less than an hour later I went off to dance class leaving the house in obvious disarray. The class size had doubled since last week. The moves were much more complicated but everyone was wonderfully nice. I was so grateful to the older women who were welcoming and chatted with me. This became even more true after the instructor asked me to assist him in showing the class several steps over the course of the night. I was awkward but tried hard and smiled welcoming the challenge but more than a little nervous. After class ended some of the other folks in it said they looked forward to seeing me next week. It was nice to be remembered and wanted.

I returned home and finished some of my cleaning. My world isn't perfectly ordered but I have been able to let go of some things, bit by bit, that hold me to an older lifestyle. Tonight I took a mega block set that my exboyfriend had given to me as a gift for a romantic holiday over to the neighbor. He has two boys that are younger and might enjoy the huge set worth nearly $40. Now I have more space and have severed yet another tie to my past. It's not easy seeing everything though. There are photos I came across of us kissing, spending time together, and having fun. Memories of what it means to be loved flood back in. This is the challenge: to let go of something I can no longer hold and have faith that some day there will be something more than weak memories of a lover I don't have. Shouldn't be hard right?

So that's today. My bridge from yesterday to tomorrow. I had many joys and many sorrows but my day was completely real. All the emotions and struggles, tensions and trials, all the raw moments and astonishing joy, it wasn't from the television or a second hand story, I didn't see a movie or read the paper, I lived my life, today, even though it was scary to write it out, I guess we all manage some how.