Saturday morning ....

It is Saturday morning.  The world is frozen again outside this April (Spring?) day.  Last week the weather was nice and in the 50's.  It turns out it was just a teaser and rain, then sleet, came yesterday.  Spring in Vermont!  My herbs I planted in terra cotta pots in my kitchen window are sprouting.  The Thyme came up first and is bursting out of the dirt.  Basil came second and the Mint is sprouting a couple of small sprouts.  I'm still waiting for Rosemary to burst out of the dirt.

As I've talked about before, being organized is very important to the ADHD brain.  Getting disorganized can create total chaos in our brains.  So today I have decided that I MUST take Saturday mornings as my own.  Saturday mornings to work on whatever I want including projects, writing exercises, etc.  This morning I will be redesigning my son's marketing materials.  I just got a gig to design a website for a court reporting service.  I organized my budget this morning and paid some bills.

I also must write something here on my blog every day.  Even if it turns out to be a paragraph.  I MUST write something every day.

I also have started writing my boyfriend's life story.  Even his therapist from years ago told him he must write a book.  Unfortunately, he is not a writer.  Lucky he found me.  (smile)  

I am not saying much right now.  I might come back and edit this later.  But I must get on to my project of redesigning my son's marketing materials!

Here I am. I'm writing.

So here I am getting ready to go to bed for the night and trying to think of what I should write about.  Sometimes I may not have much to say but I am going to try my best to write something at least once a day. I need to get my writing chops back.  When I went to the writing workshop a few weeks ago ... see that post HERE .... I realized that the reason I could not think of a thing to write when we were given the two exercises is because I have not been writing and thus, just drew blanks!  So I promised myself I would begin writing again ... even if no one ever sees it.  I think one of the reasons I enjoyed being at the University so much many years ago was because I had deadlines I had to meet with all my papers.  I so miss academia and writing papers ... doing the research and pulling all the research together into a decent paper.  One of my biggest regrets is that I did not continue on to grad school after getting my B.A.   I still kick myself over that one many times.  But ... I just have to try to move forward with my life now and do the best I can do with what I have left myself with.  I may not be able to go to grad school but I CAN write.  I just have to commit to it and follow through.

How did I end up 54 years old?    When did that happen????    Yikes!

I have to confess something.  I am jealous ... okay envious would be a better word.  I am envious of Lena Dunham.  What is she ... 27 years old?????   She has accomplished so much at such a young age.  And, yes, I am envious.  She has accomplished everything I SAID I was going to accomplish.  Ever since I was old enough to write, I fancied myself ... a writer.  And yet, I would let life jerk me around in many different directions ... taking me away from what I should have focused on.  And I truly despise myself sometimes for doing the whole self-sabotage thing and doing that to myself.  Having an ADHD brain has not helped.  Not having anyone encouraging my creativity while I was growing up didn't help either.  In fact, having someone who squashed my creativity when I was growing up didn't help.  BUT ..... I have to take ownership for not having figured out how to encourage myself and how to overcome all of the pooh-poohing of my ideas as I grew up.   Others have grown up in a household where they were never encouraged and mostly discouraged and yet they still seem to have managed to fulfill their dreams.  Anyway, this is not supposed to be a pity party.  This is me reminding myself that I am responsible for myself.  I am responsible for encouraging myself now and for getting it together enough to actually finally write every day no matter what.  So here I am.  I'm writing.

I promised myself ...

Okay, so I promised myself I would try to write something each day here.  I don't want this to be a blog about what I did that particular day.  I want it to be full of information and hope and inspiration.  So I'll try.  

I used to journal.  Off and on which is my usual life of inconsistency.  A few years ago I was going through several journals that I had written in over many years.  I threw them all away.  Why?  I realized that I was going through the same crap over and over again just in different forms.  I was not learning it seemed - not learning from my various mistakes.  Sure, sometimes I would learn and make a change for the better but it seemed that day when I sat down and looked through those journals that a big part of my life was spent making the same mistakes over and over again and seemingly gaining no clues on how to change that pattern.
There was a song I heard not too long ago. (My boyfriend has an amazing collection of CD of wonderful singer/songwriters).  It hit home with me because although I didn't burn my journals, I put them all in a black garbage bag and threw them in the trash.  Let me see if I can remember how it went.  I can't remember exactly how it went but I remember it was about burning his journals.  Let me see if I can find it on youtube.  Hold on.

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Well here is a not very good recording of it ... but this is it!!!  

David Dondero - Journal Burning Party

Here are the lyrics:

well the party's no fun if you're not drinking

and the bar is no fun if you're flyin' straight

sittin' in the corner with a pen and paper

like a journalist with a deadline date.

got an old suitcase full of journals,

and i used to try to use them as a reference point.

now i kinda realize that i run in circles,

run in circles with a black ballpoint.

well, i've got an idea, if you wanna try it.

meet me in the yard by the barbeque pit.

we can take everything that we've ever written,

make a great big pile and take a match to it.

we'll have a journal-burning party.

we'll get a clean slate, honey,

at the journal-burning party.

see, we'll write it down and then we'll burn it up.

we're going page for page

up into flames.

march 28, 1993.

those words mean nothing to me.

november 5th, 1994.

i don't wanna read it no more.

you see, i tried to reflect,

it just made me depressed.

so let's have a journal burning party.

we'll get a clean slate, honey.

come on.

i always wanted to write a song

and say "come on",

so come on.

come on.

all right.

come on.

come on.

come on.

come on.

come on.

=================================================================

That song so resonates with me.  So here I am at 54 years old - gosh I'll be 55 in July!  And I'm still trying to figure out what it means to grow up and be responsible.  

When I moved here, I was so sick of the gypsyesque lifestyle that I had been leaving pretty much all of my adult life.  READ:  Leading a life of impulsive life changes and compulsive / impulsive self-sabotaging but also pretty interesting sometimes life.  I so was looking for more simplicity, stability, security.  When I first met Gary, I was so intrigued that he had been working at the same job for 17 years and had owned his own home for 30 years!  Wow.  And, as I've gotten to know him and fallen in love with him and realized I had found my soulmate, I realize just what an amazing man he is.  I am going to start a book about his life.  He is a true success story:  crazy horrible childhood - leading to drug and alcohol use - leading to a life as a major drug dealer - leading to prison - leading to recognizing he no longer wanted this lifestyle and wanted to go straight - leading to becoming a daily runner and reader of books - leading to getting out of prison and continuing his daily running and reading of books and giving up his previous lifestyle completely and forever - which meant losing all of his so-called "friends" - which led to finding a job that he still works at and also led to some lonely times but also a time of self-reflection and finding himself.  It really is an amazing story of someone who did change - who did manage to turn his life around into something much more positive and productive.  He recently had 20 years clean and sober.  I was so proud of and for him.  It was a true milestone for him.  

I think I'm going to add a TAB called Gary's Life Story or something ... and start writing some blog posts about his life that maybe one day I can turn into a book!  ... :-)

Yes, I do still dream big.  I'm working on pulling my life together enough that maybe I can really realize a dream or two more ... :-)

Imma Writer !!!

I went to a Writing Workshop on Saturday at the Rockingham Library in Bellows, Falls, Vermont.  It was about Creative Non-Fiction with Elayne Clift.  I realized while I was there that my writing has suffered so much over these last few years mainly due to non-exercise!  The two exercises we were asked to do, I had nothing when it came to read each of ours.  I kept starting and stopping and scratching out.  I think I was in my head too much when I really should have just written from my heart.  My latest attempt at this blog is to begin exercising my writing.  Maybe I will improve!

I am trying to get better at many things and also to begin doing things I enjoy even if I have to do them by myself because my boyfriend doesn't share some of my likes.  We do a lot together and I have to get used to the fact that most couples don't do everything together!  That also is one of my issues I'm working on.  It felt so good to go to the writing workshop and spend 3 hours with other "writers".  I've spent a lot of the weekend trying to get more organized in my home office.  I still need to purge so many little things and create a more simple, serene space and home.  I watched much less television.  I know that for my brain to not feel cluttered, I must have no clutter and must be organized and maintain that organization as much as I can.

It is getting late so I'll go for now.   I know no one is reading this blog yet, but I will try to write every day something and post pictures and try to post interesting articles, etc.  Maybe one day if I continue to be as consistent as possible, more people will find my blog interesting or informative.

Night Night

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