A quiet corner to quiet my cornered mind

Do you ever ask yourself if you have the grown-up version of ADD?
(Okay, I think it's called ADHD, these days).

Perhaps the other, approved name is multi-tasking, which of course makes it okay, even triumphant, to have a lack of singular focus. There's always so much going on inside our heads, it's crazy.

I've been working on my book. A re-write. Yet, I can't sit for more than 20 minutes without finding myself 'stuck.' I don't know where to go next in the story so I find myself playing with my iphone or browsing through my favorite websites - that I've already browsed through 20 minutes earlier.

I check prices of flights to Spain and now Argentina. I can't decide if I want to spend the (lots of) money to travel because I have the time. I desperately need a break from my current reality. Who knows when I'll find a job again. I need to take my grandma to the DMV, to get her her hair done, to get that blood test. I need to sign her up for Access Transportation. I still need to make breakfast. And what about that guy I was sort of dating, but not really? Of course I haven't heard from again. He kisses me good-bye, but I hardly see or hear from him. He's busy running his company, traveling constantly for work.
I need to look for work, apply for unemployment (can't believe I still haven't done that), take the spots of chipping nail polish off my fingers. I need to practice yoga daily, even if it's at home to prolong my class series at the studio I go to.

And my career. What about that career. What was it again? I can't remember.
I have a friend, she is a graphic designer. She's content where she is, working hard, overly hard for a company that hasn't given her a raise in almost 2 years, and at any minute could lay her off. That's the case in most companies these days. The point is, she's content. She has a job that pays the bills. I wonder if it's better to be content, and not so ambitious, than to be always dealing with the failure of your ambitions and dreams.


Maybe I need to go back to that quiet corner and just sit there for a couple hours (leaving the phone with internet access in the car)  until I force myself to find my focus. Where will I end up next?
I haven't grown up, I've only grown older.

Unstructured Yo-Yo

This morning I made eggs with chopped tomato and basil paired with a side of whole wheat toast drizzled (okay, accidentally, sorta drenched) with olive oil. Fresh, healthy; a breakfast that could only be made by someone who has a lotta time in the morning. Someone say, unemployed.

Once again here I am. My last endeavor was not a good fit. The feeling suffice to say was mutual. Now, cast out into the uncertain crowded blue sea of job hunters, I'm reminded of that scene in Alice and Wonderland where the characters are engaged in a 'caucus race'. Frantically they ran round and round and round - with such purpose. Really, all they were doing was running in dizzying circles, going nowhere. They believed they were going somewhere. That's how I feel about looking for a job. Sometimes that's how I feel about life. Slap a fancy name to anything and it'll sound important and necessary.

Each day I walked into that office feeling I wasn't truly who I was there. I couldn't wait until 5 o'clock, or the weekend, so that I could transform back into me. Maybe it was the environment, so bland and uncreative. Alas, it's a job, the evil necessity of adulthood. Does it really matter who you are, or being true to a you that you haven't quite figured out? You go in, you do your job, collect your paycheck. If you're really lucky, it turns into a career path, better opportunity. This one didn't.

While in the shower this morning sudsing away the ego-shattering events of the day before, I had a realization. A very disturbing realization. For nearly 6 years I have been a yo-yo in my own life. My job status comprised of a collection of lay-offs and contract positions leaving me swinging in an in-between space of nothingness, just waiting for the next opportunity to snap me up again. My relationships....not that much different. They too seem to be on a contract basis. While the realization wasn't that groundbreaking, the realization of how much time had passed stung like soap dripping in my eyes.

Where did I go wrong? How do I become the person driving the yo-yo instead of the swinging yo-yo itself? And why the hell do some have it so easy?

I'm not someone who does well with structure. I know that. Do I need to betray who I am and give-in to the structure I find so binding to find the success I keep chasing? I don't plan well, I'm not methodical, first item on my to-do list is to make a to-do list. Yet, I have expectations, dreams for myself, ambitions I can't implement. I feel like I'm trying to drink a glass of wine while in a straitjacket.

Where does it end, or begin?