Need a Refill

I don’t even know what to write about.  All I know is that it helps me to write.

I’m traveling again, and I am lonely.  This is a trip that I’ve taken too many times.  I am at the state capitol for a legislative forum.  While I know that this is important, I also know that I have more important things going on locally.  More immediate issues require my attention.  I have brought staff along with me on this trip so that I can hole up in my hotel room and work from my laptop.  I wish that I could have stayed home, but the bureaucracy I am part of requires that I attend this forum. I tried my best to delay my appearance for an additional day, but that same bureaucracy won’t allow my staff members to drive an official car.  I could have asked them to take one of their personal vehicles, but I just couldn’t.  Even though they would have been reimbursed, it didn’t feel right to ask.  So I drove the official car.   It feels like I am their mother chauffeuring them on a field trip.  They are excited, and I’m happy to see that at least.

Overtired and Overwhelmed

I’m back from my trip to Springfield and the State Fair.  All in all, I probably walked twenty miles while I was gone.  My organization was part of a display for our state government’s booth.  Of course, we had to park about two miles away from the building where we would be working.  There was no way we could carry our display materials, so we made the half-hour jaunt and then begged someone for a golf cart to carry our stuff to the building.  It was inconsiderate and  half-assed planning by the state gov.  Ha!  Just what I was expecting.  Par for the course.

Maybe it was my bad attitude, but I just didn’t enjoy much of anything about the trip.  I wanted to be home.  Now that I’m home, I don’t want to be here very much, either.  I guess you could say that I am frustrated on all levels right now.  I’m being pulled in so many directions simultaneously.  No one thinks that I’m doing enough for them.  Everyone needs something from me.  No one is giving a damn thing back in return.

T was mad at me from the moment I got back home from this trip.  He had wanted me to drive back on Friday night.  That would have meant that I wouldn’t have gotten home until around 10:00 p.m., so I decided to stay the extra night and catch up on my sleep.  I knew that if I returned home Friday night, I would unpack, do laundry, straighten up the house, etc., and I would be worn out.  I went to bed early on Friday night (in my hotel room) and headed home on Saturday morning.  Guess what?  It was all waiting for me.  They all survived.  Still, he’s not happy with me for not doing things his way.

Today was spent on laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning, changing sheets, and visiting my mother.  She’s not happy with me, either.  Other people have company everyday. Other people get to go out and do things with their family. Other people take their mother out for Sunday brunch.  Ugh….I wish I could be other people!  I need to be more than one person!  I reminded my mom that other people have more than ONE child to do things for them.  Other people’s children may not be trying to raise four kids and work full time.

One bit of good news, but it is overwhelming me at the present moment.  Andrew was accepted into the school in Chicago.  Now we have to find a place for him to live by September 1.  I’m so excited for him, but I have no idea how to begin looking for an apartment from 190 miles away.  I don’t know the first damn step to take.  I feel like a helpless hillbilly.  To top it all off, T isn’t being very helpful with this, either.  I will probably have to take some time off from work later this week and head to the city with Andrew.

Lola and Emily start back to school on Tuesday.  They have asked if I’m going to take the “first day” off work so I can take Lola to class and hear all about their days when they come home that afternoon.  Impossible, but I am going to try to sneak of couple of hours in the morning so that I can take Lola to Third Grade.

Luke wonders when I can take him shopping to buy what he needs to go back to school in Milwaukee.  He returns on August 26.  Wonder how he’s going to get back to school???

Tomorrow I have a board meeting.  Tuesday I  am speaking at Kiwanis during my lunch hour and at City Council in the evening.

I need a haircut.

I’m worn out and unhappy.  I wish I had a clone and the real me could crawl into bed and pull the covers up over my head.

 

 

Double Rainbow

Tonight on my way home from work, I saw a double rainbow.  I almost drove off of the road, because I could only pay attention to the beauty before me.  The rainbow crossed the entire sky and landed in pockets of light radiating across the fields on each side of me.  I ended up driving directly under the arch.

I had worked late, had to attend council tonight, and I was tired.  While I had planned on plopping down on the couch as soon as possible once I got home, I haven’t been tired since I drove under the colors in the sky.  I have felt energized and invigorated.  Oh, there was no big revelation or anything like that.  I simply felt happy and at peace by seeing such beauty.  My problems, my little life, are so insignificant in contrast with the vast beauty and grandeur of nature.  As I went about my evening’s duties, my mind kept going back to the double rainbow.  What did it mean?  It had to mean something.

What a year (or more…) of change it has been!  Absolutely every single part of my life has been affected by change.  I look in the mirror, and I don’t even know who I am anymore.  Most especially, I don’t know where I am headed.  Once, I thought I had my life all laid out neatly before me, but “the best laid plans….”  Well, we know how that saying goes.  Life seems to be like a roller coaster ride.  Problem is, I can’t get off the ride.  I can’t say, “Slow down.”  It keeps on traveling down the tracks, and my only choice is to hold on tightly and see where this ride takes me.

I am always looking for signs.  I believe that we miss signs all the time.  There are cosmic mile markers that most of the time we are just too dense to pick up on.  For me, a dead bird upside-down in a lamp and double rainbow in my path mean something.  I’m not sure what that “something” might be, but I am waiting and listening.

I feel change all around me.  I feel on the verge of something. Sometimes, I am so very impatient for it to be revealed to me.   Other times, I feel a strange peace.  The next chapter will reveal itself when the time is right.  Bit by bit, it is unfolding before me, but I can’t quite discern what or where these signs are leading me.  I’m listening, though.  I am observing.  I am trying my best to be patient.

Some spiritual meanings of double rainbows:

• A double rainbow is a sign from the cosmic Universe that you are about to have great blessings fall into your lap, and that one good thing will lead to another.

• A double rainbow is the symbol of transformation.

I’m ready.  I’m ready for a transformation.  I’m ready for change.  I am ready for a few blessings.  It has been long overdue.