After a Few Disaterous Distractions, Time for Daydreams Is Delayed: Part I

Life decided to hit me with quite a few disasters in the past few months, which left me distracted and a bit too worried to enjoy daydreaming.

Disaster One

As you may or may not know, for the past three years I've had a 120+ round trip commute for work. Why would anyone do that? I had several valid reasons.

I worked at a college. It was a good job. We used the health insurance for my daughter and for myself. There was also the possibility of tuition for her when she was ready to go to college, whether there or at another school in the "Tuition Exchange" groups. I really liked my job, and the people I worked with. Also, times are hard and jobs are hard to find, so when you've held a job for so many years, you don't just quit, especially without something else waiting for you.

I would still be making that commute, for most of those reasons if I hadn't been blindsided, rather literally, by some serious health problems.

I'd been suffering with some knee pain for several weeks. I thought it was a sprain or some such thing and that it would get better on its own. I also hadn't met my high deductible and was hoping it would just go away. It didn't. What did change, however, was our health insurance. My husband had recently started a different job with better health care, so we switched over. The very day we made the change, the pain in my knee was so unbearable that I went to the emergency walk-in clinic. It wasn't sprained. It was "just" arthritis that was flaring up. They gave me one of those 5-day pack of prednisone to help the inflammation and swelling, told me to wrap it, and I was good to go. It worked. By Friday, the last day of the medication, the pain was just a mild nuisance, easily ignored for the most part. However, also on that Friday, I began to have a severe feeling of pressure in my head. It got worse as the weekend progressed. It was Easter weekend, and on Monday, I felt fine.

It was a wonderful day. My younger daughter and I went north to shop for her prom dress. We also got to visit my other daughter, my mother, and my father and his wife too.

Tuesday, I went to work, and by the time I got there, I could barely see. I left after only a few hours and made it home. It was a very scary drive. Everything was blurry, but I knew that I HAD to make it home. The next day I went to the eye doctor. He said it was from the prednisone and my diabetes.

"Diabetes? I don't have that."

"Yes, yes you do. Get to your doctor today or to the E.R."

I got an appointment for the next day with a new doctor, because I really didn't have one here. As of a year and a half before all my lab tests were fine. Somehow that dreaded "D" thing had snuck in. The doctor sent me for tests, which showed that I am, indeed, diabetic. The prednisone had caused a major optic shift because it spikes glucose levels, especially in diabetics. My fasting blood glucose numbers were scary high, in the upper 300s and lower-mid 400s. (They should be at or below 100.)

I could not see to drive, so I had to go on medical leave from work. I was able to start to sort through some things that had been waiting since we moved here in 2009. I finally got a filing system going and was making great progress...until...

my near vision decided to go away, too. I refused to give up. I bought 3 pairs of "cheater" reading glasses from the dollar store, the strongest they had, the weakest, and one in between.I was able to get by with that for the computer and for the things I absolutely had to read. Sometimes I had to use a magnifying glass in addition to the glasses, but I got by. Unfortunately, that kind of vision was not going to let me catch up on all the books I have piling up waiting for me to read.

For the next few weeks I never knew how, or if, I would be able to see until I woke up and saw...or didn't. It gave me time to think. I realized that rather than go back to my job after (if) my vision settled enough to fix with glasses, it was time to let it go. I didn't like the idea, because I'd been in that job for about eleven and a half years.

NEXT: some daydreams, another disaster, and more distractions...

Habit, Habit, Who's Got the Habit?

New habits are hard to create. Sometimes it feels like getting a new habit to be a habit (rather than just a plan of action) is one of the hardest things to do, especially a good habit. It can be even harder than stopping a bad one. I wonder if it would be easier to start a bad habit. hhhhmmmmm…

The habit I am aiming for is right here. I want to develop the habit of writing on a daily basis. It is easy enough to do. It just isn’t a habit yet. It’s still just a plan of action. I think about it a lot. I have a lot of time to think in my commute, but when I arrive at a place where I can transform those thoughts and plans into actions…well…I get distracted by other things that have higher priority, and then I forget about all the great ideas and plans I came up with in the car. I don’t completely forget them. I remember them again when I can’t do anything about them; while driving, at the grocery store, in the middle of the night. Those places and times are ideal for executing the plan, if by that I mean “kill” the plan. If I want to execute the plan as in “implement, complete, fulfill” etc., then those are not the best of times to be remembering.

In my last blog I talked about NaPlWriMo. Yeah. Well, those ten pages I was so pleased with…that’s all I have. I kept forgetting to do more, plus I was busy and distracted by more important things. What could be more important than my writing goals? Family visiting from far away, work, sleep, breathing…lots of things.

To be fair to myself, I do write every day. I write about things that matter to me. I write about important things. I also write the things I have to write for work and whatever things might need written for home…like grocery lists and to-do lists. But work-writing, keeping up with friends and family via email and social media, and reminder lists do not count as the kind of writing I mean when I say that I want to do on a daily basis.

I have “real” writing that I need to get back to. There are several unfinished plays, as well as a few that could use some polishing. I started a BIG project way back in high school and I really want to finish it. I’ve completely re-written and revised the parts of it that I have done over the years…my characters call and talk to me all the time…when I’m driving, or at the store, or asleep, or in the middle of something else that I can’t stop. That is the kind of writing I mean. And poetry. I don’t write poetry on purpose, but it attacks at will, and I have to let it out.

Poetry is the one kind of writing that I cannot put off. I keep paper and writing tools in the car…just in case. I don’t recommend writing while driving. I also don’t recommend photography while driving. That doesn’t mean that I never do either one. You can check out some of the things I’ve captured by pure luck.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.247820683199.172656.605003199&type=1&l=ba6b2dd454
I might use my camera in the car, but I don’t take time to focus or even aim. I see something I like and I point the camera in that general direction and click. Sometimes I get great pictures. Sometimes I get the dashboard or some other close up of the car. I don’t post those anywhere, but I do keep them as proof of my method. I write poetry in the car in much the same way. I scribble the words on a notebook, and sometimes by the time I can pull over or park I can still remember them. My handwriting for notes is hard enough to read when I am looking at it. It’s amazing that I can decipher the driving notes at all. Usually I can’t.

I really need to find time to write each day. It is important to me. Time. We never get enough, at least I don’t. I spend 8 hours a day at work, 3 hours in the car getting there and home again. I need to sleep. There are everyday life things that I have to do at home…and then I am tired, and sleepy.

Time. If anyone knows where I can get more time when I am able to be productive, please let me know. I have some other habits I’d like to develop, too. I think it is important to get the habits going now, rather than waiting for New Year's resolution time. Resolutions are easy to break. Habits, if developed the right way, become part of who we are not, just something that we do.

I am open for suggestions...how do you develop good habits? Or, should I just give up and start up a few bad ones?