With major moments in my life, I always look back at them later and realize, boy if that happened today, i'd handle it differently because I'm more emotionally mature, or what I care about now makes what was such a big deal then trivial.

I keep thinking that will happen with all this work life balance. Maybe that's part of the reason i have such a hard time with others not being patient. I mean i know that in the real scheme of things this is just a blip, but it gets magnified.

i have decided to act like I'm in my 40' s, where I'm over half way to 80 and some things just don't matter or bother me anymore. i am going to be more calm, less reactive as things gear up. Not be so flustered as the storm of crazy people range around me.

i am over being angry. I am over being frustrated. i am ready to be happy again, to have joy.

who knew i was an optimist who can't live as a pessimist.

I find myself wondering why others can't be patient like me.
I know
Me being the most patient
But i am drowning with everyone's sense of what must be done NOW!
who I owe what to - NOW!
why nothing can wait

Someone told me today that I need to take the hurry out of my life
I cried
how do i take out of my life what i have not made?

I don't want to hurry
I am not in a rush
I am being rushed

I know what waterboarding feels like
That sense of never being able to come up for air
having water poured on you like your drowning
but they just take turns

no one can wait for anything
and i am not one to flee
i fight

and i'm close to being really riled up
so i cry
because amy the fighter - well she's not very nice
she'll drop grenades if nothing else to stop the hurry

no one can just let me get through anything
so to end hurry means to tell others no
so who gets to hear no
i've alredy taken the last of me away
no one else i can say no to without a fight without a grenade

today i went somewhere to help figure this out
with hubby
so far i've gotten out of that i'm the one who needs to do less
but we've established there is no one who can take less right now
no one who can wait

so they all look at me to figure it out
and either i will
or i will fight, tired of trying

i'm not angry i guess, more scared at what happens when i finally decide enough is enough and can't control my mouth - when I pop off. i don't sit in failure very well which means things have to change.

who loses because in the end someone is going to - and that scares me.

All because no one but me can be patient.

i know this will pass, i know this is the worst of it, 6 months from now this will just seem like a bad time, but can I just ask one on this list

please be patient.

im so tired of being patient.

I'm angry.
Angry at myself,
angry at my family,
angry at my spouse,
angry at my friends,
angry at my work,
angry at my children.
Pissed.

Everyone wants something from me. I owe everyone something. Everyone.
Time
Love
Attention
Work
Me.

I'm in life debt and there is no way to declare bankruptcy, chapter Amy 11 and start over. Sure I can work the todo list. Lord knows I can do that. I can figure out a path forward, do the thousand little things I need to do to make it just a little bit better. But I have to give up more right? That 2 hours fo TV that allows my mind to just regroup - have to give it back to the cause. The 30 minutes of reading in the morning, my own form of meditation - owed to someone else.

i belong to everyone by myself. And i am told by everyone exactly how much I'm NOT doing for them. Not enough for friends, family, work, kids, spouse, not one gets enough. I've robbed peter and paul to try and make it work and maybe they feel like they've given me time, not asked for much because they know i was borrowing to give to others. Maybe i'm emotionally immature, selfish and think folks should understand what's happening and i'm not explaining it well.

but when, how, where do i ask for me? Compassion? Love? Understanding? Patience? Is my credit score that low that I can't go to the bank and get a loan on some of this stuff? Can't i trade in the daily phone call to mom for the last year to get a few months where I do work on the phone during my drive home rather than talk to her because it means i can leave a little earlier so my kids get some time?

is it too much for folks to understand that i'm not just doing a job. i'm not exaggerating when i say i'm helping with important issues in our country. that it's a form of deployment not unsimilar to a soldier. that i see this as a personal, patriotic committment. that i have literally hunderands of employees and THEIR families counting on my leadership. that I have thousands of customers who need 1000 percent of my effort so they have what they need to be safe, literally their lives safe?

i am prone to drama and exaggeration, but truly, the cost of not doing this, of quiting now, of cutting back in this moment will affect all of us. can't that mean something to someone besides me?

i am not a quiter

i figure out how to make it work

i have to figure this out or I will be alone.

proud of my accomplishments proud that i helped our country in a real, tangible way, but alone.

for today, right now, I am just going to be angry becuase the only way, the only possible way is to give away all of me - leave nothing back for just me. be totally unselfish. then everyone will have me, what they need from me. and what i need, i guess that doesn't matter right? part of the sacrifice?

i won't ask for anything in return because it's what everyone is owed, my committment to them as a friend, mother, wife, employee, relative right?

i'll try it for a week, see how it goes, see how much I miss me, see what selflessness really feels like and maybe in doing that I'll find a moment for me here and there, a precious second of time to write or read or watch or breath.

i don't like this feeling, i don't like being angry, i don't like being a disappointment to all around me including myself.

so today, i'll just be angry. good and mad.

tomorrow i'll deal with giving it away.

NKOTB

November - High School Reunion

2008 the year of comebacks

'nough said.

I've already made up my mind about what the next 2 years needs to look like for my career. And I feel relieved. For me the hardest part is just making the decision, one I've got it worked out, I go forward, no regrets, and enjoy.

Tonight I'm supposed to be working, but its on stuff I hope to shed in the coming weeks. Instead of doing the work, I read 2 books to princess, hung out on the couch with little man talking and snuggled with little munchkin before putting her to bed. Tomorrow night - have to leave by 4:30 for first baseball game. next night same time for princess first t-ball game. I keep thinking ooh god, I need to get this news out in the world and have someone else in place so I don't leave things hanging. Still the balance feels amazing. And the work will still be good.

that was the other surprise for me today. sitting in a team meeting, laughing with the team, I realized, i wasn't ready to leave them and they aren't ready for me to go. So i have a dirty little secret and over the next few weeks I need to work my network and management chain so I can evolve my role without totally fucking my career.

and the money, well lord child i would love that money, but it's not like i'm broke and whats the point of owning an acura mdx if i'm never in it because it's always parked at the office?

This zen moment brought to you by Jacobs Creek Shiraz Cabarnet

I have the opportunity to be promoted to a VP in our company. It'd be a great job, I would get a nice raise, annual bonus would go up and know I could do the job. But, I'm struggling with saying yes because on one hand this puts our family into a new level of financial security. We move from being good to comfortable. From the Honda to the Acura if you know what I mean.

The down side is that first, I don't know if I'm ready for this and secondly I can't totally disengage from the project I'm doing now which means i'm going to have to eliminate any and all parts of my life for the next 6 months to pull it off. This would be easier if I didn't feel loyalty to a customer - and before you say screw them, it's one of those good for the country kinds of projects so really, go for greed or my own geeky way of national services.

Bottom line, if I don't take the position, I have to tell them to hire someone else, likely push VP off for 2 years and hope the new boss is good.

Right now I'm leaning towards having the conversation of not me, not now and working to shed some of the current expectations and pressures that are on me. I want to focus on other things besides just work this year. I'm trying to remember that being glutonous is not good. Still its hard to even think about saying nope, sorry, I know what I'm doing but it' s not right for me right now and you can't wait 6 months for me.

Still the idea of saying no makes me feel more relieved than disappointed.

The princess has not had a great first year of school. She's had more discipline problems than we expected and recently she announced she didn't want anyone to come to her birthday party from her class because none of them were her friends.

Knowing princess, to declare she had no friends is like telling me the moon will rise at 9am and the sun will show up at midnight. It simply goes against her and her nature.

Well today we figured it out. In the context of a meeting about a speech issue she has I was finally able to arrange the peices of the picture to figure out what was really happening. Her teacher, simply a dud, no personality, boring woman.

Lets hold the why the fuck are you teach Kindergarden lady questions for another day okay? Instead, I sit here knowing there is not a damn thing I or princess can do about it. No before the teachers come at me hard, know that I am the daughter of a teacher, Buffalo Gal is a teacher and my sister in law in a teacher, I am all but a made man with these mafioso's and there is zero chance I would speak out against one unless I was damn sure.

I was sitting today in this conference and what hit me was the difference in reaction to my child from the speech therapist to her teacher. I will be the first to admit my kid has a future as a soap star, but she is smarth, enthusiastic and teachers usually love to have her in their class. So the speech therapist is talking about the assessment, the activities they did and I could tell, she gets it - then I turn to look to the teacher and you can just tell, my kid is a pain in her ass.

Think about it, as an adult, we know the duds right - it's not that they're introverted they're just beige and I have a child that lives in neon technicolor with glitter. As one of them was talking I just quietly watched the teacher. hair looked like she cut it herself, several jokes and just conversastional humor fell flat with her, clothing unkempt and not polished and I realized - every day my kid goes to school and thinks - lady get yourself together.

YOU ARE NOT FABULOUS.

I'm now on a fact finding mission to lock down the first grade teacher. I will move from silent - hey she's always good for a check mom to - yes it's me again, coming for another meeting, lets talk about what I expect for my daughter. Should be a fun month but there is zero chance I'm going to have her flame snuffed out and instead I will work to fight the boring, ordinary lady that is this teacher. I will teach the little miss how to be counter culture and fight the establishment through well placed jokes and being mildly subversive without ever having anything that can be used against you. I know how to fuck with authority and it's time to share this wisdom with the next generation of women in our clan.

I forgive you all the things that drive me nuts
I forgive you all the things you do that I ignore because we're in it forever
I have moved from anger to amusement at the oddities that are you
I have accepted you quirks and all

But me, well I am perpetually late and an abdicator of time
My clock, my time piece has never synced with the normal world
i forget it
i ignore it
i miss it
i abhore it

but that trait in me which i have tried to organize, control, overplan out can't be squashed out
an you hate it
you know it is not w0rk that makes me this way
the clock and i miss each other every saturday and sunday too
but you hate it
almost hate me
so angry

and I wonder after how many years together, decades almost know
when will it be cute
or at least not something that makes you scream
when will it be something you just build into the fabric of our lives because you know it's me

i forgive you for not being able to accept this thing so fundamental in me that I feel like a river being forced north that should go south
i pray you'll come to peace with me, who i am, big, fatal flaws and all
and I'm sorry
for not having the watch on
not keeping track of the time
not being near the cell phone
for being late
for you thinking it means I didn't appreciate where you needed to be
for doing it again
and again
for not even trying to act super sorry
for not making an excuse - i'm tired of them and tired of trying
for not being able to stop

i love you madly, deeply forever and will hold out hope - wish time on my side - that i'll get better before another relaspe and you'll come to grow old with me and see that i'm not doing it because i don't care where you need to be, its just who i am

and yes, my dear daughter, someday I will take your husband aside and explain exactly why he needs to stop getting so angry because I know you too possess this gift where you can jump in and out of time. if i can't get your father to understand maybe we will together or I will save you countless arguments with your own prince charming

sigh