Measure Twice, Cut Once

So I'm sitting here having some ice cream and thinking. I've had the kidney stones treated and I'm trying to get my feet under me after this -- btw, it's not a big treatment issue, but all surgeries have the same effect on me, which is to make me review everything going on to assess how I got in this position in the first place. And given that I am going through this mere days before New Year's, it seems like an especially good time to force myself into some organized thinking.

Anyone who knows me knows I don't do organized thinking all that well.

What I am is intuitive. If you leave me a map, I will follow the moss on the tree trunks instead, and without even knowing the map was ever there. I'm not a connect the dots sort of person.

But for right now, I need to force myself to do this, because as I look back at 2009 I realize it was an out of control, whiny, self-indulgent mess. And I'm not saying that to gain sympathy. No, it's just what the year was like. I allowed myself to fall down some emotional rabbit holes that I am now looking back on and thinking...well...I don't even know what I was thinking. I allowed myself to fall in with a few people who really did not turn out to be very positive forces in my life. The upside to those situations is that negative forces need something to pour negativity on, and I've stopped cooperating. Things should work out on their own now.

But I am left with an emotional mess to clean up, and a blank slate in terms of goals. What is it that I really want, besides to be published? That's like saying I want world peace: No shit, Sherlock, but how am I going to get that done?

I need to spend some time over the next week or so, brainstorming with me, to figure out what my goals are and what the necessary steps are. And yes, I can hear some of you laughing, but remember, I'm not organized by nature. What's a normal part of your routine is a giant special tent event for me. I can easily tell you all about a hedgehog named Bridget and her glorious adventures with her Mistress Marian -- and she has plenty in her little life. If I open that door in my head, those tales will just spill right out, the only effort on my part being righting* writing it down. But what to do with Bridget's many scraps? How to make something other than amusement for myself out of them? That, for me, takes gargantuan effort to figure out.

And yes, Mr MM just despairs sometimes. I'm very blessed he's yet to use the front door.

Anyway, I need to do that over the next couple of days, divide out what personal goals I have, combined with my goals for the house (which seriously went to hell in a handbasket over this year) and the garden, as well as have a really good look at what my commitments have to be versus the ones I'd like to make. I really don't care if I have to make a friggin' spreadsheet out of it to keep it all straight -- and in fact, that might not be a bad idea. But I can't go on like this, waffling my way through things and abruptly finding myself in situations. I need a plan.

So I guess I will pop back by when I have a plan. :)


*Freudian much? Or is that egotistical? *sigh* Sorry.