I Think I Found the Actual Problem!

I'm a random pinner on Pinterest.  I'm one of "those" people - I pin and pin and typically, nothing comes of it.  I get that "pssst, you've already saved this one" message A LOT.  Yesterday, I was skimming through the website while at work (I know...waste of company time, yada yada....I hate my job and it's hard to stay focused; I have no excuse), and I came across something that really stuck with me.  It was a To Do list and it said "1. Make a list of the things you do each day 2. Circle the ones that make you happy 3. Adjust your life accordingly.".  I was like "WOW that is really insightful!!  I'm gonna do it!!! I will brainstorm what I do every day and I will find what makes me happy!!!".  I was SO excited to do it, I put down Pinterest and got straight to work.

I brainstormed for a few minutes.  Then I did my circles - highlights really, since I was using my computer.  And what I found was pretty enlightening.

Aside from sleeping, eating, and a few things with my daughter and husband, I do very little each day that I actually enjoy and get happiness out of.

My question now is this - how in the HELL am I supposed to transform into a grateful human being if my days are full of empty tasks that don't bring me joy???????

I am certainly fucked.

I am going to go out on a limb and say that I am here, at Step 3, and I need to figure something out. This is why I'm miserable every day.  I think THIS is the actual root of the problem.  It's not that I'm a miserable bitch, although I will admit that some days I most likely am just a miserable bitch, the reality is that I'm miserable for an actual reason - I am a miserable human who's days don't bring happiness.

I started a list of things that actually do make me happy - most are not on my daily to do list, unfortunately.  They are, in no particular order;

1. Going for walks 
2. Playing piano (we currently don't own one but it is my personal mission to find space in this house for one and purchase one within the next year)
3. Talking to friends and family on the phone
4. Going out with friends
5. Going to concerts (seeing U2 in a few weeks!)
6. Listening to music
7. Singing (I have a music education degree so I'm a fairly good singer)
8. Playing with my daughter
9. Spending time with my husband
10. Reading
11. Doing my nails (when I was single, I would sit on my couch every Sunday and do my nails while watching TV and eating cookies...those days are long, long gone)

I need to make time to do at least some of the things in the list above - I just need to figure out where to start.  As Maria told the children in The Sound of Music "Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start...". So today, I'm going to go for a walk at some point - hopefully during my work day, since it will be nice out, but if not then after work and maybe I can make it a family affair.  💓

The Universe is Testing Me!!!

I went to sleep last night, and woke up today, concentrating on this new job I'm waiting on - I should be getting an offer any day.  Well, at least I *think* I'm getting an offer, anything is possible but it seemed like it was in the bag. Anyway, I woke up forcing myself to concentrate on that because it's a good/happy/positive thing to focus on. (What if I don't get it?  Oh....well....that will suck but I will try to focus on interviewing for the position at least gave me experience....probably.....)

And then.

I'm fresh out of the shower, putting product in my newly cut curly hair and I hear creeeeeeeek - the sound of my daughter's door opening.  FUCK.  She's up early and totally ruining my plan for my morning.  I need - yes need - about 10-15 minutes each morning to myself to drink coffee, watch the birds in the yard and enjoy the quiet.  My almost five year old is VERY loud and chatty so I revel in every moment of silence that exists in my house.  But not today.

So here I sit, on my couch, with her at 7am.  I've made her breakfast, she's watching cartoons and she's mostly quiet.

Why was I so pissed when she got up??  Sure, it wasn't what I planned for - hi, life never goes exactly the way we plan (what's the proverb - man plans and God laughs) - but really, what's the big deal? Generally, she's a good kid and she can keep herself busy with a cartoon and some food.  I can still do all of my stuff, I just had to adjust what I normally do so I could include her breakfast in with the other things I wanted to do. 

I'm PMS'ing, yesterday was the anniversary of my Dad's passing, I hate my current job and did I mention the hormones????  Today, I will try to focus on calming down when I want to freak out and scream.  I will try to breath, focus on something that makes me happy (like puppies - who doesn't love puppies????), and try to control the freak out.  Maybe I'll make a sign for my office - "CONTROL THE FREAK OUT". Yeah, that wouldn't go over so well with the boss.....

Day 1: Huh, Maybe That Wasn't So Smart

Today may not have been the best day to start being grateful but I think I did okay.

Two years ago today, my Dad died.  My mom died about 16 months before he did – yeah, that sucked – and it was the first time in his life he was alone.  He had been sick on and off for a lot of years; he almost died in 1999 from a heart attack when he went into congestive heart failure and needed a quadruple bypass.  He had almost gotten hit by a car that sped into the front of their house in March of 2011. He came close again in late 2011 after heart surgery had left him with an irregular heart beat that had him on 24 hour bedside observation.  And there was dialysis, too, for about four or five years before his death and with it came numerous procedures to keep his fistula open for the dialysis needles. (BTW – diabetes is a horrible disease and if it wasn’t for that, I probably would still have my Dad so SUCK IT diabetes!) And then my mom died – kidney cancer undiagnosed until 19 days before she died. And then his best friend died. The man that was basically his brother, who he had grown up with in Brooklyn and who he had followed to Jersey when I was a baby.  Jack and my Dad were inseperable; they talked on the phone every single day, Jack took my Dad to appointments and vice versa when one of them couldn’t drive, when Jack had a stroke at home he scribbled out on a piece of paper “call Angelo” instead of “call 911” like most people would do.  His death crushed my Dad, and I think it just finished him.  He hated being alone and without my mom and his best friend, I think he really felt alone in the world. My sister and I, my daughter, the rest of our family wasn’t enough for him to fight for.  So when things weren’t going well during his last hospitalization, I think he just gave up.

There is this part of me that is so very angry with him for giving up. Why weren’t we enough?? Why didn’t he want to be here to see my daughter go to ‘real’ school?  Why didn’t he want to be here to see us buy a house??  But it wasn’t about us, and I have to force myself to remember that.  It was about him.  He didn’t want to be poked and prodded anymore, he didn’t want more doctors, more medicines, more surgeries. He wanted to rest and he wanted to see his family again that had gone before him.  So I think that’s where he is now, in heaven and hopefully he is off playing bocce with his best friend today, the anniversary of his joining the heavenly ranks. Playing bocce, drinking a cold beer (or a nice chianti), and laughing. That is what I wish for him today.

I am trying today to focus on the fact that I was lucky enough to call him my Dad.  There were people that, when they learned who my father was, were impressed – wow, they would say, THAT’S your father???  Yes, yes it was.  He was a good man who always helped whenever anyone needed it. He went to the church at 9:00 at night to lock doors, he went there at 6am to unlock them.  He organized clothing drives for unwed mothers and pancake breakfasts to raise money for the school that he already supported with our tuition.  He picked me up from the side of the road when my car died in the middle of the night, he lent me his car so I could get to school.  He organized the lunch for my daughter’s baptism, he helped me buy every single car I have ever owned.  He loaned my sister money so she could buy her first house and when her marriage fell apart, he offer to help her pay her mortgage until she could get back on her feet. He bailed my brother out of jail more times then I could count and Lord knows how many tickets of his my Dad paid.  And I was so very lucky to have him.  I am grateful that I had as many years with him as I did; he really should have died back in 1999, and then again in 2011, but he didn’t. He hung on until he just couldn’t anymore. And for that, I am grateful.  

I recently read something on Instagram that said “Life can be awful.  And then it isn’t.  Life can be awful again. And then it isn’t. And in between the awful it can be amazing and beautiful.  And then it can be awful again”. Life is cyclical; in order for there to be good times, there must be bad.  Today, I must remember that although right now may be ‘awful’, amazing is just around the bend.

When I WokeUp This Morning...

My first thought was not one of gratefulness.  It was more like "ugh, five more minutes....do I really have to go to to work today.....I really don't want to go to that place AGAIN...."

I work for a pretty good company - decent benefits (although people probably assume they are better since I work for a subsidiary of a very large insurance company, but I digress), nice people (except for my boss), I have my own office and they pay me well. 

Eventually. this will focus only on the good.  I'm not there yet.

This place drives me CRAZY.  Absolutely fucking crazy.  My boss is sick and won't go out on leave; says that her illness won't change her life, she will continue living even though she's sick.  When she told me that, I didn't know that her continuing to live her life would also mean that she would turn into a gigantic bitch.  She's nasty, rude, condescending and just plain mean - and this is in meetings.  Aside from her, there's the time off issue.  I can't work from home so if I need to be somewhere else, like picking my daughter up from school on a "half day" (half day my ass....school starts at 8:25 and gets out at 11:45 - that is NOT a half day) or dropping my car off for work, I need to use up my time off.  Also, the last time I felt like I was important to the organization and I felt like my work mattered, was probably a few years ago.

I know, I need a new job.  And possibly a new attitude.  I am working on getting both of those in place.

Our jobs, to some extent, define us whether we like it or not.  We are there more then we are at our homes and most of us spend more time with our coworkers then with our families; in many instances, our coworkers become family.  So it is hard to not let it get to me and to not 'bring it home' at the end of the day.  So today's goal on my grateful journey....

Goal 1: Be grateful for the job that gives me the paycheck that pays for school, pays the mortgage, puts food on the table, clothing on my back, shoes on my feet (cute shoes, at that) and takes care of the cats.  Okay, so I pay half of that stuff - well, the school and the mortgage half...but anyway...grateful...grateful....grateful!!

This will be my goal today.  Focus on the money.  Hey, I have to start somewhere! And if I can't focus on the money enough to feel grateful, then I will try it again tomorrow. Try, try again as the old wives say.

Why Am I Doing This?

I've lost a lot in this life - my parents, my brother, my best friend, misc loves & likes & all sorts of things in between. And still, here I sit at 43....feeling ungrateful. 

Ungrateful for the life I have, for the family I have left, for my well paying job and the house and all the things that job lets me have. I try to be grateful each day, but I struggle. I struggle every single day. And I don't like to struggle. Who the hell actually likes to struggle, especially with something like this??

So I want to hold myself accountable on this journey. I want - no - I NEED to be more grateful for everything. All of it. We are only on this planet for so long and I have to stop being angry and start being grateful. I hope that, at some point in all of this, I become happier and I can look at my losses with some level of gratitude, with more smiles and less sadness.