The Collective Wig-Out: Seven Days and Counting

Until I'm out of this damn apartment, and end my job.

I'm a little besiged. People offering to come and take stuff away, and then flaking. Then remembering, and calling a friend who never calls back. Other people calling, wanting to know when I'm available for Adult Beverages of Choice, when I'm Sorta Leaving and REALLY leaving. Then there is everyday crap, like changing the oil in the car and paying the bills and making sure the right statements are with me as I travel. Stuff that goes on the plane, stuff that goes in boxes, stuff that goes in the suitcase. Forward the mail, cut off the electricity.

Much of the stuff I've collected over the past 10 years has been free, or gifts. My mindset has been pretty much to accept and let wealth go, cheerfully, so that the people around me continue to enjoy the flow of good energy. At this point, I just want the stuff out of my house.

To complicate matters, I re-sprained my wrist this morning, dealing with a student in crisis. So now it's splinted and feels better, but still. It was just healing from the last go around 6 weeks ago, and I was hoping to make it to the end without more injuries. Not so.

Then of course, it's Friday. That means "Wolverine and Wolf in a Barrel" day for my room, for those of you who work with me. To be sure, there is a little bit of improvement. Since I was sick last weekend I quit smoking. Today, I went out and smoked the rest of the pack in about 4 hours, so maybe the improvement isn't so much and maybe I haven't quit smoking at all. I'm being optomistic?
Somewhere along the line of leaving my ex husband and therapy and surviving, I lost Romance. Maybe I never had it. "Other People's Drama" was drummed into me as something to stay clear of, as a step down the wrong path toward another abusive relationship. Keep everything on a calm and torpid sea, where you can see the coastline! Look at your mother! Look at your Grandmother! Be careful!

I think of that, and then I look at "Wuthering Heights". Where would that book be if even one character had stayed out of "Other People's Drama"?

Somewhere in this mess of my life, I got moving so fast I forgot with my heart that "Other People's Drama" is still a people, attached. That, no less than my students, the way they find their way through life deserves as much respect as any five year old just tottering out. Of course, in moderation. Like salt and lemon juice. My point being, I've done too much. Tried to distance myself from all of it.

And sitting tight, and respecting what they do and how they choose to do it in their own sweet time is strangely akin to that doctor brushing the very ends of my spinal cord on failed spinal tap #2. Did I mention I HATE, hate hate surprises?

I got a call to earth this afternoon by a gorgeous Trader Joe's checker. It was after 5 on a Friday, I'd just picked up a book I'd ordered, and I was powering through shopping to get home and eat and read. I got to the checkstand, and started ripping my ATM card through the machine. She looked me dead in the eye and said, "It's not going to do ANYTHING until I tell it to!" I stopped and I laughed. So she started thinking out loud- why are people always in such a hurry to get out? I tried to explain, complete with hand gestures. "You have to do the SHOPPING, and it's very intense. And then you take the intensity to traffic, and you might lose your traffic mojo if you aren't properly intense in the store." She laughed, said no one had been able to explain it to her before.

I walked out of the store feeling better than I had in ages.