Join Me in Snarkville

In my life, I’ve known what it means to be burned out.  I often wonder how it is possible that a not yet 35 year old woman could have possibly been burned out as many times as I have.  It may be that I’ve burned out in some areas of my life; perhaps my own way of forcing me to move on (when on isn’t always forward); or it is further proof that I have the attention span of a gnat. The list is rather endless, but I’ve burned out of several jobs, countless boyfriends (but that’s normal, right?), a car, more craft projects than Prince wishes to think about, and random other things that used to be important to me and now I can not even recall what they are.

Well, I’ve been burned out again recently…  In fact, my past three months of less than perfect health is probably proof.  The even more spotty blogging and well, the general short temper in my own life is also proof positive that something is going on with me that isn’t good.  Sometimes, I don’t know if all burn-outs are weighted the same.  Some seem to push you away from something because you are sick and tired of it and others push you to refocus and pare down the numbers of things in your life.  Certainly, this most recently flash-over was the latter for me.

If I was a better knitter (or knitting person) I may say that knitting got me through it.  In fact, the only thing I could handle was to force myself to focus on one pattern at a time and push my way through the process.  Since this ‘burning’ time began I’ve completed two sweaters, a pair of socks, a dishcloth, and I’m almost through half the second pair of socks.  If anything, I can say, I’m not burned out of the knitting.

But knitting wasn’t the problem.  I spent the last few months trying to do something for my family in addition to everything else firmly believing that I am superwife, supermom, and superhuman.  I didn’t talk about it for my own reasons, leaving a huge unbloggable hole in my life.  Can anyone else see where this is going?

I burned my candle at both ends and in the middle and I’m a little singed on the edges.  But as I cough up the last remaining bits of my lungs, I firmly believe that I’m more superhuman because I recognized that I was crashing and burning a merely two months later than I should have.  Denial and this Queen are good, good friends.

Yes, I know I’m being vague because I’m still not ready to talk about the details.  However, I thought I’d share that I was a bit charred on the edges.  I think this is why the purging has been so important to me of late.  I was out of control and it was some small part of our lives that I could control.  (I do want to thank our friend Jasmin for the tip on selling DVDs on Amazon.  I’ve cleared out a large number of the ones I wanted a few bucks for and it was painless — as long as you ignore the tick I get every time I get an e-mail from Amazon these days because it seems to mean MORE shipping.)

Yesterday, I began down the path of being less burned out.  The path of refocusing on the important things in my life and putting my priorities back in line.  This isn’t going to be an easy road, but it is far less bumpy than the one I’ve been on for the last 5 months.  And I think that is why for the first time in weeks, last night, I slept.  I slept well and completely.  I woke up without having to pry my eyes open this morning (though far from bouncing out of bed).  But I slept.  And today, I’m putting back in my life the things that bring me joy and are important — starting with the blogging again.  Hey it is a process, right?

Further proof that this is good for me and my family.  This morning I found that Duke had used his fridge letters to spell out his very first sentence (though without the space or the period).   He spelled out “IHUG” on the fridge.  I saw it just as he was telling me that he made the word “HUG” and I showed him the sentence and asked, “What does ‘hug’ mean?”  And he said, “I hug my mommy.”  Well, it won’t pass the Puppy Test but he’s 4 and I’m thrilled (right up to the point that instead of kissing me goodbye, he zerberted me up my nose).