aroraborealis

I'm in the midst of some small rearranging in my room. I've been doing enough small art projects that I want a place to do that to see if I do more if I have place that's better set up for it. And I rearranged some storage so that I now have an open corner where I think I'm going to put some cushions for a sort of bohemian lounge area. I'm excited! I haven't substantially reimagined my room since we moved in here on halloween in 2012 ... or, I've had lots of ideas, but this is the first time I'm actually making some changes.

mekHad a small desk taking up space that I'm trying out to see a) if I like it and b) if not, what I learn from it to help me decide what to replace it with. Having installed it, I see I also need a seating object. Oops. But still, I'm excited!

I remain disengaged with work, but I'm liking the little places in other parts of my life that I'm getting more traction. More of that, delightful self!

I've been feeling extra swamped and short on time since the holidays, and attributing it to a few things. But this weekend, I stopped and did some math and discovered that I've worked over 50 hours in the last 5 weeks for the community organization I've gotten involved in. Well, no wonder I'm feeling a difference, given that!

I don't have any reason to think it's going to keep up at that pace -- January was unusual for the organization, and it took us all by surprise -- but if it does, I'm going to have to rethink my involvement or the other demands on my time, or both, because I feel like I've been racing at a breakneck speed through my days, and I don't think I want it to be like this all the time.

I recently had someone at work ask me to mentor her, explicitly. I know that a lot of the people who work for me see me as a mentor (because they say so), but this was a first. It feels incredibly fucking awesome to be seen that way by smart, capable people who I respect and admire. Holy shit. It is a powerful force against the voices of insecurity and self-doubt when they drop by for tea.

When I think of Rick, I think of his deep, resonant voice, and his big belly laugh that invited you to join. I think of how sweet and loving he was with his son Gabe and other little kids. I think of how he would listen carefully to what people would say, mulling it over, never simply taking their words at face value. I think of how little patience he had for bullshit, including his own. I think of how hard he worked, and how much he dedicated to making a better life for his family.

Rick had a wonderful turn of phrase, an ability to shine a light on a conversation or way of thinking that could always make you laugh and think at the same time. One of his phrases that I still use is "God sauce" to apply to anything religious-y. Reiki? God sauce. Bible? God sauce. Magical thinking? God sauce. I can see him holding his hand over an imaginary platter as though pouring out from a ladle.

Rick died unexpectedly in October, leaving his amazing and loving wife and son, and so very many people who loved him. He was one of those people who filled a room in a wonderful way, cracked jokes, listened thoughtfully, was generous and loving and kind. He was one of those people who can leave a him-shaped hole in your heart, even if he wasn't part of your day-to-day. I do and will miss him so so much.

God sauce, just pour it all over everything.

A thing I hadn't really thought about when I switched from moving from managing a team of 6 or 7 to managing a team of 40 is this: if each person has only one crisis a year where they need their manager's help, with 40 people, that's almost every week.

And it turns out, the frequency is a bit more than that. So it makes sense that I feel like I've been actively helping people put out fires at a high rate since March.

It will come as no surprise to exactly no one who knows me that I don't want to have kids. I've fantasized for years about permanent sterilization, but, of course, I know how much our desires and inclinations can change over time, so I always had age 40 in mind as the point at which I would pursue a permanent solution to the problem of my potential fertility. Since moving into a household with kids, I've been even more sure that that's not a path I want to pursue in life. (I love living with other people's kids. Almost as much as I love not having any of my own.) (Okay, not even close to how much I love not having my own.)

So, even though I'm about 18 months from my 40th birthday, I feel ready to make a longer term decision. So! I met with an OB/gyn this morning to talk about my options. I went in with Essure as my likely preferred option. It's a minimally invasive procedure with good outcomes. The other permanent option is tubal ligation, which is a real surgery.

While I was talking to the doctor, she suggested I consider the Mirena IUD, primarily because the low dose of hormones could alleviate some of my endometriosis symptoms, and most women on the Mirena don't have periods, which is obviously appealing. But it's also appealing to know that pregnancy is totally off the table. So, I'm thinking about it.

I'm interested to hear thoughts and helpful questions, if you have any, but it will make me angry to hear anything along the lines of "But what if you change your mind?" or "Don't you want to keep your options open?", so please skip those!

Yeah, yeah, aging brings aches and pains. But the last few weeks have been unreasonable in these things cropping up:

In August, I developed tennis elbow. Then I was on vacation, which helped (less typing), but I seem to have picked up a case of piriformis syndrome from my mom (I mean, maybe I got it from her genetically, but the joke here is I never had problems with my hip before but after visiting home while she was struggling with it, it cropped up for me), and recently I've developed some Achilles' tendon issue that might be related to the low-level plantar fasciitis I've had for years.

I suspect all of the lower body stuff is related to each other, but I'm still not fond of the cascade of small issues emerging in a cluster. Let's have this be it until I'm approaching 50, shall we?

Belated happy my birthday to all of you! I hope the day treated you as well as possible, and that so does the year to come.

I was born in 1976, so now I'm 38: exciting!

Actually, I've kind of stopped caring about the numbers, and, in fact, most of the time, I have to stop and do the math to figure out what year-of-age I'm in.

I was born in 1976. When as much time has passed from now as since then, it will be 2052, which feels like quite a distance into the future. I'll be 76. I wonder what the world will look like then, and if I'll still have many of you wonderful people in my life -- I hope so. By then, a bunch of the kids I know will be over 40, themselves, and probably many of them will have kids of similar ages to their current ones. It's already weird to know adults who I first met as babies; I imagine this will only get stranger.

Sometimes, I feel like whatever I was going to do with my life, I should have started it by now. I started feeling this way around age 30, I think, when I had this sense of, well, ok, you did college and got a job and now aren't you supposed to have your life figured out now? Our society is really good at front-loading pressure on young people figure things out, and especially in terms of a career, it's like, well, I hope you're in the field you always want to be in, because BAM! now you're a grown-up and you don't get to shop around anymore.

But when I look at the actual numbers, that shouldn't have to be true, because, really, I've only been working what I'm going to call "real jobs" (for the purposes of how it applies to my life) for about 20 years, and if I'm lucky, I have at least 30 more years of working ahead of me, and hopefully after that I still have lots of things to do even if I'm not doing them for money. Why shouldn't we all get to do a variety things along the way?

It's hard to go back to being a novice, but it's also so important. I love this Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal's take on this point. I should print it out and laminate it and hang it in my shower.

If I'm lucky, I'll be happy and healthy past 90. I hope I can keep learning and growing and being both a novice and an expert, making mistakes and learning from them, having adventures, having boring times, and all the richness of life.

On Friday night, I stopped at a liquor store on my way to visit uberjay and T. Inside, there was a local distillery (Ryan and Wood) rep showcasing some of their wares, so, naturally, I stopped to take a taste, first of the gin, which I quite liked, and then of the rye, which the rep described as his favorite of their spirits.

While I was tasking the rye, who should walk by but uberjay himself? So I got his attention and foisted onto him the remainder of the rye I was tasting. And then, of course, he tasted the gin. And then, after discussing all the delicious cocktails we'd be making with them, I bought a bottle of the gin, and he bought a bottle of the rye, which inspired the rep to say that he was glad he hadn't packed up a few minutes earlier as he had planned.

"You're like a one-woman stimulus package!" he told me. Which uberjay pointed out might have to be my new tag line.