For those of you who camp out in front of the computer, waiting for me to drop my latest track, my apologies for posting at 1130 last night.  I felt bad, showing up late to my own party, and then bumming everyone out by discussing the latest celebrity death.  But then I thought.  Why do I worry? I worry about so. many. things.  The blog should not be one of them.  It’s not like my boss is going to burst in and give me grief about deadlines.  As far as the blog goes, I am my own boss.

“Oh Lou, you lovable old curmudgeon, you can’t rush the creative process, now get the fuck out of my office before I scald you with hot coffee”. And then I’d toss my hat up into the air, just to let him know that I mean business.

It’s exciting, busy times, it’s summer and I’m in a happy place.  I’ve been able to bend my life towards a more favorable  position.  This  is why I haven’t been pumping out lengthier pieces.  Masterpieces  cannot fall from my fingertips on a daily basis; some days, it’s just a small token.  A quick phone call, a drive-thru transaction, a quick hug and kiss on the street, popping by for a short coffee.

My sister-in-law Kate is coming next week, and we are going on holiday.  I think I may take a blogging holiday as well.  I’ll still post something daily, but I don’t want to chain myself to this daily task.  I don’t want to resent it.  We often lament our jobs and occupations because we feel powerless, feel we don’t have a choice, have a say.  But when it’s your own project, why place the very constraints you hate most on yourself?  That’s like being cute little Mary Tyler Moore, but having some Incredible Hulk condition that turned you into grump old Lou Grant. I’d rather be a young MTM, if that’s all the same to you.

I’m trying to…accept things better.  Take what comes, come what may.  Sometimes I get so twisted up with stress about the slightest things.  Traffic. Current events. Money.  And…oh, I don’t know…the future? Immigration, writing, fertility, health, time, marriage, failure, success, tweeting, bathing suit shopping.  There will be forks in roads, and choices to be made.  How will it all work out in the end?  It takes time to unravel that kind of knot, and then a new worry washes over you, and the knot is not ever completely undone.  And because of that, you are never fully present in any given moment.  And then you worry about not living your life to the fullest, and in that very moment of worry, you are missing precious seconds of your life.  But I’ve always been a worrier.  When I was a child, I fretted so much that my mother actually gave me a framed copy of the Serenity Prayer to hang on my bedroom wall.

I kind of thought it was a stupid prayer.  Of course you worry about the things you can’t change…because you can’t change it…and that worries me.   I have an almost pathological need to not disappoint. So much so, that I think it’s a major cause of the heartburn that often makes a cameo appearance in my chest cavity. If you ever want to slay me kike a dragon, all it takes is the “I’m not mad, I’m just extremely disappointed”, and I will fall like Goliath.  (I’m sorry to mix metaphors, hope that doesn’t disappoint anyone). I never want to let anybody down.  But, in the end, that kind of mentality, though it comes from a good place, may lead to a bad spot.  It’s like putting everyone else’s oxygen masks on during an emergency, before you do it for yourself.  I need to take those stressful, helpless feelings and just treat it like a stray animal, drive it deep into the woods, pretend you to are getting out of the car, and then drive like hell the minute that wolverine is out of the truck.  Or just lead it across the street inside your mind, and try to be unfettered by useless, negative thoughts.  Not that I’m doing anything back breaking over here, or being put out by other people’s expectations of me.  I have so much to offer, and give of myself happily, but I recognize how I don’t always care for myself the way I do others.  I can see the value in knowing your limits, accepting change, rolling with the punches, and in taking a break, even if it’s from something that you love.

  All Images Courtesy of Google