Ticking Time Bomb

I’ve returned from my much needed vacation to the “Western Caribbean.” I quote it because we didn’t see much of the Caribbean. Due to social unrest we didn’t make our stop in Roatan. So we went on the Belieze.  Due to tropical storms, we went on to Cozumel. After Cozumel we stopped in Progresso Mexico, which was a nice beach day. But that’s not what this post is about.

Since returning from my cruise I’ve been bombarded by time. It’s difficult to explain what I mean.  It seems so many people are talking about time. The fact that our small group is reading a book about time and marriage relationships contributes a lot to this.  The book talks about people believing time waits for them.

But rather time waiting for us, we’re waiting. Not necessarily for time, but we’re just waiting in general. I can see what they are talking about. My life has been a series of waits, which is weird cause I HATE waiting. All my life I’ve been craning my neck towards tomorrow and not living for today.

In High School I thought all about college, in college I thought about graduation, at graduation I thought about jobs, while I was working I thought about when I could quit and get on with my life. With my thoughts always preoccupied with what’s to come I wonder how much I missed out by not being totally present in the here and now.

This has always been something that frustrates me about myself, (one of the many things). I wish I could be perfectly happy where I am, but it seems I’m always looking forward to something.  That’s not to say that having goals and fun things coming up is a bad thing.  Those aren’t bad things, it’s good to look forward to things. But if you can’t be happy for five minutes once you reach that goal then what’s the point? You’ll get there be happy for a second then start wondering what’s coming next.

On just a slightly different note, I think time has everything to do with my stress levels. On the cruise time was extremly flexible, it was almost liquid, (except, of course, when you were in a port of call). I felt relaxed and happy.  You could leave your cabin and go do an activity, go lay by the pool or just sit in your room.  It wasn’t necessarily the fact that I had a bunch of free time, although, that was nice. It was the fact that time didn’t really matter.  Then I came back home. I simply tried to drive to the grocery store to pick up a few things and I got stressed.  Why? Because everyone is in such a rush and so rude.  It’s truly contagious.  I’ve only been home since last Monday and I can’t count how many people I’ve called and asshole or wanted to flip off. I don’t flip people off though, I think that’s the epitome of rudeness and I don’t want to be like that.

It’s really hard to feel relaxed or even content enough to enjoy the moment when people are freaking out around you for no good reason.

Home Sweet House

Right now my mind is muddled mess.  For those of you who follow this blog, or know me personally, you’re probably aware of the fact that my parents sold their house.  This week I flew to California for a total of three days to help them pack and move.  When I arrived most of the packing had been done. The only thing that was left were those annoying odds and ends that don’t really go anywhere, but you use on a daily basis. That’s what I got to help with.  We left California on Monday around six in the evening. The hardest part for me about the whole thing, aside from coming to terms with the fact that I won’t be back to the desert for God knows how long, was leaving the house itself.

My family moved into that house when I was eight years old. We’ve had many a birthday, Halloween and Christmas at that house. When I was younger I would imagine myself coming home with a family of my own and that was the house I always saw. So it was actually quite painful to walk away from it knowing that I would never know who was inside it again. The emptiness of it didn’t bother me; it felt lonely to me. It honestly felt like leaving a pet behind or something. I felt like we were forgetting something so I went on at least three walk throughs and peeked in every closet, opened every empty drawer and cupboard and found them all cleaned out.  It took me awhile to realize the thing we were forgetting was the house itself.