I awoke this morning with the sinking feeling that I am questioning my own values...self-criticism turned riot. Where am I? What am I doing? Where am I going? I certainly don't have the long term answers to these questions, I mean really...who does? But I do know where I am today and I suppose that is where I can report from.
I am in an old house in a new state with my little family. We moved at the beginning of the month. I've almost had a whole month to get settled in here, and yet I (with good reason) feel less than settled. The holidays had their own special flavor of distraction and diversion. We traveled across the country to spend the days surrounding Christmas with two different sets of family members in two different cities, in two different states.
So when I look around at my new (old) house this morning, I see a scattering of cardboard boxes. Some of the moving variety in various stages of being unpacked, some that contain or are remnants of presents that arrived by mail. I also see suitcases with contents overspilling, as I dug through them yesterday to find things like toothbrushes and shoes. There are piles of laundry, there are stacks of work papers intermingled with children's art projects and there are abandoned craft projects. We have a list of things that are missing (including but not limited to one baby shoe, a box containing the children's handmade dolls that were intended as Christmas presents and my serenity...now where did I put that?).
I have T's intended Christmas present partially knit and yet I haven't found the time to assemble the swift and ball winder to wind another ball of yarn and continue on with the project. Did I have realistic expectations of myself this year?...I think not. Those lofty goals I had are now looming and taunting me, somehow speaking to the state of upheaval that I would like to ignore.
But what I do know are the things that bring me back to center. Writing, folding laundry, finishing a craft project, clearing out one nook and making it feel like home, and perhaps...finally breaking down and ordering a new pair of baby shoes. I suppose that is my list of things to do today.
