After a long hiatus

It's been a while since I was here.

See, uh, I have this problem. I guess you could call it my ADD--I have trouble keeping up with more than one stressful thing at a time. On a good day, I can do two or maybe three, but I start to break down after that. Too much to remember, too much to keep track of--I start ignoring, by necessity, the things I can't handle or which aren't essential. Like anything that doesn't involve my job, my husband, or the food and shelter we both rely on. I am not a good multi-tasker. I am good at hyper-focusing on what needs to be done right now, though. So I did.

I bought my house. The whole time, I meant to blog about it. It was, after all, a huge, huge move for me, both personally and financially. I am so grateful for the long, long time I invested in doing the right thing before this, even though it was hard to keep track of my bills and I nearly got derailed by my ex-fiance and our penchant for buying things together which he never intended to pay for. My good credit made the difference in getting the loan I did and buying that house. It paid off. What a relief, actually. For a long time I had wondered when being a good girl was going to get me somewhere.

It was expensive, don't get me wrong. I am now in the red on my balance sheet by more than 100 grand, and thinking about that hurts. I think often about how I need to invest in a retirement plan before it's too late. I think about Roth IRAs and treasury bonds. I admit I am kinda scared to do this. Scared of investing? Yeah. I mean, if my money is in my tiny low-yield savings account, at least I know where it is, right? At least I know where it will be when I wake up tomorrow. That's not an appropriate plan--I know that.

Tim finally got through his probation period on his job and even got a little raise. Having him in my life has made a huge difference. Not for the paycheck, of course, though that helps both of us. We have dramatically bettered our circumstances since we met, mostly by pooling our resources, working together, and being willing to trust each other. That's more work for me than it is for him. I'm not a truster by nature. Having someone who consistently loves me, even if he doesn't always like what I do--that's priceless. For me, knowing that I finally love someone who isn't just sucking that love up and spitting it on the ground is amazing. He's worth it, is what I'm saying. I finally love someone I don't have to hate myself for loving. Anyone who doesn't think this matters is pretty ignorant about the human psyche.

Anyhow, my latest endeavor is this--learn to listen.
It's very basic, I know. I am sure you've all got it mastered.

The gist is this--if I learn to listen to my body, I will feed it and exercise it when I should. I will medicate and baby it when I should. I will test it's limits when I should, and no more than I should so I can stay healthy. I will stop all these things when I should, when my body is done--eating, resting, exercising, being social, whatever. If I listen, that should be the key. (See here for the inspiration) Listening and paying attention are, of course, my weakest areas. Think about it--if you, all your life, listened and listened and tried so hard to pay attention to all the things you were supposed to, and STILL missed half of it, and forgot a good portion of the rest right after you heard it...wouldn't you get discouraged? Wouldn't you learn to cope with that by just not paying attention sometimes? I don't mean consciously, although I have deliberately tuned out before. I mean that the brain gets tired of constantly struggling with something that doesn't pay off. Maybe that doesn't come across the way I mean it. I don't meant that I choose not to pay attention and that's why I am like this. I mean that one came before the other. I mean it's so damn hard to catch what I need to when I need to, and takes so much effort, that I'd honestly rather not. Even if I hate myself later for it. How I cope with the outside world is that I force myself to stop and write things down. I force myself to put things in my calendar right away, even if it's awkward. Otherwise I would be without a job. With me and my body, it is a lot easier to fudge, but I really shouldn't allow that. I need to learn to listen to my body, and pay attention.

Learning to listen to people--of course that's worthwhile. Anyone can see that. I don't need to explain. Listening forces you to stop talking at and forcing yourself on the world and everyone in it. I am not some kind of guru because I understand this, though I can't tell you how many self-help workshops I've seen that try to teach this as if we don't know. Teach me how to make myself do it--now that would be a workshop I'd pay for.

I figured out one reason I love facebook. I love it because I can listen to people without struggling to talk. The statuses scroll down the screen and it is not such an effort to pay attention. Of course, it's a view through a cloudy glass; that's certainly a weakness. I know one thing--if I had to keep up with all the people I like in real life, I would definitely not be able to do it. Debate the pros and cons of that, but facebook lets me pay attention to people at my own pace, and that has helped me to be a better friend. In it's own way, facebook forces me to listen--to whatever it is you're posting. Most people view that as a negative--people can rant on FB without interruption, and sometimes interruption is healthy. I agree, but if you turn it around, it lets people with attention weakness, like me, stay all the way through the performance, so to speak. For better or for worse. It's ok; I'll take the bad with the good.