Wow – I actually got some sleep last night

Well, that was unexpected. I counted up how much sleep I got last night, and it was 9.5 hours. Amazing. After getting 4.5 hours the night before, and 5.75 hours the night before that… This is pretty cool.

Actually feeling like I got some sleep – which isn’t the same as being fully rested (I’m not)… it’s something I could get used to.

I keep thinking / talking about sleep, because it’s so vital – especially for those of us with TBI/concussion issues. A tired brain is an agitated brain. And being agitated on top of all the COVID stuff is just not good.

I suspect that a lot of the issues people have been having around the pandemic and the lockdowns and everything have been exacerbated by underlying physiology. Mentally, we can understand that we need to play it safe. But physically, we get tired – so tired – and for a lot of us, that means our brains stop working the way we need them to.

And when our brains stop working the way we need (and expect), then we can get into a “crisis of self-hood” as I think of it. When we don’t have the same kinds of reactions we expect to have, we can lose touch with our Sense-Of-Self, and that adds to our stress.

It’s not just TBI that scrambles that. It’s hardships that exacerbate our TBI issues. And when you’ve been in recovery for an extended period of time, it can be easy, so easy, to lose touch with the fact that yeah, you’re still impacted. And yeah, your brain still struggles. And yeah, it affects everything in life.

Which is why getting some sleep thrills me so much. Because it means my brain and body actually have a chance to recover and get back to some baseline of at least some competency. And after weeks and weeks and months and months of doing without a level of competency I used to be at before this pandemic hit… well, that’s pretty cool.

Wow. Amazing.

 

The really stupid thing that got me back on this blog…

Last week, I was on a call with a life coach who was pitching their neuro-based approach to peak performance. They’re a trained neuropsychologist, and they had a handful of ways to “hack” the brain so you can basically flip the switch on your success. Super-charge it. Turn it on in ways that we usually instinctively turn it off.

Okay, great. I’m always up for ways to do that. I’ve been doing it, myself, for years, using neuropsychological principles.

But a couple things jumped out at me during that call, that seemed really really stupid. And I don’t mean “stupid” in a way that belittles people with cognitive difficulties. I mean it in the way that professionally trained people who should know better are leading people down a path that goes directly against what they should know, due to their professional training.

Before I go on, let me say that one of the things that discouraged me from keeping up this blog has been all the professional input about concussions, over the past several years, that has not helped. There’s a whole “concussion industry” that’s giving people really mixed messages – from people who have never sustained mTBIs or other sorts of brain injuries (that they’re admitting, anyway). And it’s made it all the harder to have a conversation about what mTBI is, how it affects you, and what you can actually do about it. I mean… I just don’t know where to start.

More on that later. Let’s get back to the professional stupidity.

Okay, so I was on this call, and the neuropsych was telling people that we can turn our lives around by breaking mental barriers. Find something that you’re afraid to do, and do it over and over and over again, using “exposure therapy”. Address your core beliefs about who you are and what you think you can do. Overcome those beliefs by not telling yourself over and over that you can’t do something. Use visualizations to “pre-wire” your system for success. And get comfortable with uncertainty.

All sorts of alarms went off with me on this, especially because the person talking admitted to having been very close with someone who had sustained a TBI years before they met them, and they had ignored the warning signs of suicidal thoughts… they’d even encouraged them to just take some anti-depressant meds — the very same meds which will set off someone with a history of TBI. Long story short, just after they told their friend to take some meds, that friend killed themself. Traumatic, to be sure.

And just as traumatic was the idea that someone who was trained as a neuropsychologist was telling someone to do something (take meds) that even I, from passing conversations with a neuropsych, know can be hugely problematic for a brain injury survivor.

Not only that, but this person was positioning themself as an expert in brain topics, immediately after revealing this massive “tell” about just how clueless they were/are.

Um. Okay.

And then they proceed to talk about how doing things like facing your fears, visualizing, and self-talk will get you on the right track and turn your life around.

Well, okay, so for a lot of people it will do that. But for someone with underlying physiological neurological issues (e.g., someone whose wiring has been rearranged by concussion/traumatic brain injury), those things will only go so far.

It would have been much more helpful, if they’d called out the fact that people with organic/physiological brain issues operate by different rules. And we have to live by those rules, day after day, if we’re going to be able to do things like visualize and self-talk our way to success.

Things like:

• Get enough sleep
• Drink enough water / stay hydrated
• Get regular exercise
• Find ways to calm down the over-active and easily amped-up system
• Keep your blood sugar steady by eating decent meals regularly (and stay away from junk food)
• Have a daily routine that reinforces your understanding of who you are and what you can reasonably expect of yourself, day after day.

If we TBI survivors don’t take care of the basics — food, water, sleep, routine — nothing else is worth much. At all.

And my heart aches for all the people (like me) out there who are being told, each and every day, that their failures are due to bad messages they’re giving themselves, or letting their fear run their lives. I think it was such a waste for the neuropsych’s friend to lose their life (in part) because of the terrible advice that they should have known better than to give. I also get so sick and tired of people lecturing me/us about how we just need to get our attitudes aligned with the right sort of mentality, and then our lives will dramatically change for the better. Never mind the underlying issues with fatigue and irritability and not knowing what the h*ll to expect from ourselves and our systems, from moment to moment, because our brain injury has turned us into someone we don’t recognize anymore. We’re being blamed for results that stem directly from our organic/physiological situation, without anyone even admitting that getting your wires crossed by a car accident, a fall, an assault, or a tackle gone wrong, can and does have an effect on your brain’s function.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I do believe that pretty much all of us spend way too much time being afraid and telling ourselves the wrong things about ourselves and our chances. We don’t do enough of the kinds of things that can and will make us successful.  And we generally don’t have the right mentality that sets us up for success.

But none of those performance-enhancement approaches are going to get much traction, if we don’t address the physical facts of our neurological situation. Failure is not all in our minds. It’s also in our brains. And until we learn to support / heal our brains and do the things we need to do — regularly, routinely, predictably — all the self-talk in the world isn’t going to be much help. At all.

Until we get ourselves on a good schedule – and stay there – eat the right foods (for us), drink enough water, exercise on a regular basis, and get decent amounts of sleep on a regular basis… Until we develop a new Sense Of Self that tells us who we are and what we can expect from ourselves… Until we redefine ourselves in ways that are solid and predictable… those mentality tactics are just going to be all in someone’s mind.

And the fact that a neuropsychologist was spouting all this stuff without prefacing their talk with a disclaimer… well, that just pisses me off. If they’d said something like, “What I’m about to share is intended for people without underlying neurological issues, some of which may have been sustained a long time ago, but are still having an impact in you life”, it would have set much better with me.

But they didn’t. So, there we are.

Oh, well. It’s a beautiful Sunday, and I have another 24 hours till I have to be ON for work again. So, I might as well enjoy myself. This isn’t the first time this sort of professional stupidity took the steering wheel. And it certainly won’t be the last.

Life goes on.

So, onward.

Sleep helps everything

Like most people, I’ve been quarantined. More quarantined than most. My spouse is declining in their mental and physical health, and I’m frankly not sure how much longer they have. Could be weeks. Could be months. Could be years. I just don’t know. And they’re not very forthcoming about what is really going on with them, so it’s well nigh impossible to tell what the deal is with them.

Well, anyway, all the heartbreak gets exhausting to think about and talk about, so I won’t.

Not now.

I’ve been pretty stressed out over a lot of things in my life. The job. The house. The spouse. The COVID-19 situation. Now, I wouldn’t say I’ve been stressed out about everything, in the typical way a lot of people are. Let’s just say, it’s been more to deal with. And adding all the hypervigilance, the masks and gloves and social conflict around it… well, that’s just been overwhelming. Not because I’m terrified of getting COVID. I’m not. In fact, I suspect I may have had it over the winter, before it became “a thing”.

I had this really persistent cough, my chest felt like it was getting tighter every day. I didn’t have a fever, but I felt like I’d been beaten with a stick, and it lasted longer than other bugs I’ve had. It just felt different. Like some weird foreign entity had taken up residence in my lungs.

There were times it got a little scary. But I did breathing exercises to open up my lungs, and over time, they stopped feeling so constricted. And I got a break from it all. Eventually it resolved. So, that’s a plus.

The thing is, I still have issues with my breathing.  When I get really tired, my lungs feel like they’re shrinking, and I have to cough to catch my breath. This is when I’m tired – so tired – and I’m behind on my sleep. When I rest – and do my breathing exercises – I get better. But the breathing problems is a sure sign that I am over-tired and I need to do something about it.

Which is good. Because not getting sleep is a killer for me.

A tired brain is an agitated brain, and there you go. Agitated. Difficult to live with. And me trying to stay calm and collected with a spouse who’s increasingly erratic, emotional, anxious, and volatile.

Well, it is what it is. I know I can’t get any help from the medical establishment, because A) they don’t understand my mTBI situation, and  B) they’re all busy with COVID patients and extreme cases who have waited till they’re almost dead before they show up at Urgent Care or the ER looking for help.

Even if they were available, they couldn’t help me. Because they just can’t. They won’t. They don’t think there’s anything “up” with me, other than me looking for attention from authority figures. So, I don’t bother.

And I get on with my life. I notice the signs. I take action. I watch to see how it works out, and if I need to adapt, I do.

And that’s about all any of us can do.

I need a haircut.

Maybe next decade I’ll get one.

I’ve missed this

I have to say, I have missed this blog. I’ve been so busy, over the past year or so that I just haven’t done this justice. Or maybe it just felt like I was repeating myself and I was boring my own self.

That’s been known to happen 😏

But things have both leveled out and become chaotically familiar. And I’m not as scattered as I was before. So, it’s time to go a bit deeper with certain parts of my life and really find out what’s there. We don’t have enough depth, in my opinion, so rather than complaining, I’m going to do something about it.

One of the things I need to do is get $$$ support for this blog. I’ve been wanting to do it for years, but I’m feeling even more impetus to do it now. I’ve experienced a pretty amazing recovery from a long series of mild TBIs and I feel this intense drive to pass on what I’ve learned.

It’s worked for me. I need to help others, as well.

And I need to do it on a much larger scale than I have been. So, I’m going to put some thought into how to do that.

If you have any suggestions, let me know.

And that’s all for now.

Getting my balance back — and getting to a stopping place

Well, that was exciting… The summer (thank heavens) is over, and now I can get my life back.

I don’t do well in the summertime. It’s a shame, because everybody else seems to have such a great time with it, running around, doing so much, getting suntans and extra exercise.

I, on the other hand, am not a fan. There are too many hours of sunlight in the day. And the days are hot… wet… uncomfortable in general. I’m sensitive to light and smells and noise, and summertime is full of all of the above. Not much fun.

I also have trouble sleeping in the heat. Keeping the A/C on in my bedroom (and all through the house, for that matter) is a constant source of stress with the noise. When I’m tired, I’m more sensitive to sound, so a moderately noisy air conditioner sounds like a massive fan in an airplane hangar. And that doesn’t help me sleep.

If I can’t sleep, I become more irritable. Volatile. Raging. It’s a problem. I’m not proud of how I’ve gone off the rails a few times, this summer. Between the work stress and summer stress… it’s not good.

I’ve been keeping really busy with work at my day job (sad face) and my own projects (happy face). It’s taken my mind off many of my troubles, but it’s also tired me out. Again, the fatigue business. And that leads to me drinking too much coffee… which leads to more headaches, difficulty sleeping… the same old vicious self-perpetuating cycle.

But now summer is over. Thank Heavens. And I can settle in for the next three months of enjoyment. I love fall. I love winter. I love spring. And now I get to take a break from summer.

I’m also giving myself a break from some of the Massive Undertakings I launched over the summertime. I came up with some pretty awesome plans that I’m convinced could be Very Big Indeed. The thing is, I really don’t have the capacity to follow through on all of them. I really bit off more than I can chew, so to speak, and that’s been dragging me down. I need to pick and choose what I’ll work on… and let the other stuff go.

But it’s all for the best, because as I narrow down my activities (e.g., writing and creating great content that I can license to others, versus running an entire company based on my ideas), I am operating from an understanding how a larger company would — and could — use my content to build their business.

I’m learning about the larger context for my writing, and that’s good. It’s very good indeed.

So, yes, sometimes I need to stop, in order to go. And learning to recognize my limitations and accommodate them is the first step towards being able to make some real progress.

It’s all a process.

Onward…!

And now I feel it for the next week

I had a busy day, yesterday. A quiet day, too. I helped my spouse get ready for their event, drove them there, unpacked the van, chatted with people at the venue, hopped in the van, and drove home along back roads (because the main roads were packed).

I had some lunch when I got home. Nothing huge, just a sandwich, potato salad, chips, pickles. I had a handful of things to do, so I ordered them according to the weather. It was amazing weather, yesterday — sunny with passing clouds, a nice breeze, in the mid-60s. Couldn’t ask for better mowing weather. So, I pulled out the lawn mower from the back corner of the garage, topped off the gas, and got mowing. It took me an hour and a half, but I got the front and back yards done. I also raked up leftover leaves from last autumn, swept out the garage, replaced a down-spout that had fallen off my gutter, and trimmed back some underbrush that was blocking the view from my driveway.

I used the leaf blower to clean off my driveway, stairs, and deck, and then I ran my snowblower till it ran out of gas. It’s best not to let it sit with old gas in the engine all winter. I’ve had the snow blower nearly 15 years, and it’s held up well, but I need to be smart about storing it over the winter. At last.

After that, I had a snack, took a shower, and put up a new huge bookshelf in my study that I got from the neighbors for almost nothing. I’d been needing a new bookshelf, and the timing was perfect. It took a lot longer than expected, because I don’t have a lot of room to maneuver in my study, and I had to put it together in a very small space. I also had to partly take it apart, because the way I’d assembled it first made it impossible to turn upright. Eventually, I got it, but I was not expecting it to take me three hours to do it.

Ah well, so it goes. I now have enough shelf space in my study, so I can get rid of some of the piles. I also have a lot of books I want to get rid of. I was interested in a lot of stuff, years ago, that just doesn’t have anything to do with my life, anymore. And I need to get free of all of it.

I also need to get rid of some of the computers I have. I don’t need to hang onto them. There’s no point.

Lightening my load. Getting my life in order.

It feels like I’ve been doing that a lot, lately. Picking and choosing and prioritizing. As it should be. I can’t do everything in my life, and I don’t have unlimited energy. So, when I do find something I care about that matters, I need to make the most of it.

I’m also getting clear about where I want to go with my work in life. Future directions. Areas where I need to focus.

I’m sore as anything, today. Just aching. But it was worth it. I got a ton of stuff done that I’d been needing to finish.

Whatever I do, and however I do it, I just want to make it count.

A quiet day… a busy day

Today is turning out to be interesting. My spouse has an event I’m helping to prepare for. I’ll pack the van, drive them over, help them set up, then come home and take care of my own projects here. I have some book cases I need to set up, books to move around, furniture to move, the garage to air out, the lawn to mow… etc.

And with the house to myself, this afternoon and evening, I can get it all done.

Plus, it’s going to be a cool day, today — temps in the mid-60s, which is a nice change — so I won’t have to run the air conditioners. I can actually open some windows.

And get a nap. Absolutely, get that nap.

I was up early, this morning. Couldn’t sleep past 5:00. So I got up and went out for a long walk. The early morning was cool, the bugs weren’t out yet, and I didn’t see that many people.

I still have an hour before I need to get going, so I’m making the most of it.

It’s quiet. But it won’t be for long. So, I’m savoring it while I have it.

 

 

For June: Do one positive thing a day for myself and my dreams

Just keep steady, in a good way

Let’s just face it.

I’m stalled.

I’ve been stalled for months, even years. Even longer than that, actually. No matter how I’ve tried, I haven’t been able to break free of the rut I feel like I’m in. It’s just felt like one problem after another that I’ve handled… that is to say, other people’s problems. And in the process, I solve my own.

I get paid to solve other people’s problems. I get paid pretty well, too, so that solves a lot of problems in my life. I need money to survive. I need a certain amount of status and security to stay healthy and not die. I know people who treat money like an optional thing. They don’t want to get entangled in it. They have more important things to worry about.

And I’m happy for them. I really am. If they can make it — or survive the stresses of not having enough — that’s a quality I admire. But I can’t do it. The stress throws me off too much. It disrupts my sleep, and when that happens, I can’t function. Even worse, my behavior takes a nose-dive and I lash out. Yelling. Slamming things around. It’s not good, for me or the other people around me. I’m stronger than people realize, and I can do some damage, if I let it all loose.

So, I need to keep things well managed, in a steady state of balance. That means getting enough sleep. And that means not getting so stressed out that it starts to wreck my life.

I keep myself in a pretty regular routine. And it works for me. I manage to get enough sleep, most of the time. I eat regularly, exercise regularly, take care of my responsibilities, hold down a job.

But I’m in a rut.

So, I need to get myself out of it. I need to take action on my own behalf, to at least create the impression that I’m taking care of myself. I’m so busy taking care of everyone else, I get lost in the shuffle of my own life. And that needs to change.

So, I’ll do one positive thing a day for myself. Something that brings me happiness, not just maintains my steady state. And I need to prioritize it over everything else. Yes, I may need to do other things, first thing in the morning, to get myself going — exercise, eat breakfast, take care of my spouse — but then I need to just take a little time on something that contributes to me. And my future.

There’s a lot of stuff I can do for myself. I have a bunch of books I’d love to read. I’ve been wanting to read them for a while, and I will surely get around to them. And there are other undertakings — writing, designing, artwork — that I want to get back into. My legendary (in my own mind, anyway) projects take on a life of their own, and they bring me a lot of happiness. But I’m stalled between a number of choices. Each of them has benefits. Each of them has downsides. I might be able to do any of them and be happy about it. But I have to pick one. And move on. Get going with just one, so I can get out of my rut… make some progress.

So, that being said, I’m picking one project and doing something positive about it, each day in June. I may not blog about it, every single day, but I will have that focus. I’ve made the commitment to myself, and now I’ll carry through.

The main thing is to have a deliberate focus in my life. My job is… fine. But it’s not how I want to spend all my free time. My marriage is on good footing, although it seems to be getting more challenging each week. My health is pretty good (though I could stand to lose 15 pounds). Overall, my life is… fine. But I need a specific focus on something that is mine and mine only, so I don’t feel like I’m just evaporating into the mist of everyone else’s dreams and ambitions.

I can do that. I will do that. I am doing it.

Onward.

Greetings from the island of missed opportunities

Happy Belated Memorial Day to All
Thank you for your service.

Last weekend, I had every intention of taking care of essentials. Getting my hair cut, mowing the lawn, going for long walks down the road, blogging on Memorial Day to thank veterans and their families for their service.

I got a fair amount done on Saturday. Then it rained for two days, and the rest of my plans were shot. The naps I was going to take didn’t materialize the way I’d hoped. I was still tired from last week, and I was irritable. I was off my regular schedule, which made me antsy. And I had too much time on my hands to think about how my life had taken so many wrong turns, and how I couldn’t seem to get it back on track.

When I’m tired and I can’t catch up on my sleep, problems happen. I cause them, of course… and then I need to fix them.

So, that’s how I spent the weekend — dealing with my self-made problems.

Fortunately, a lot of stuff got worked out, and I’m on better footing than I was, last week.

And life goes on.

The thing is… Sometimes things need to fall apart before they can get fixed. I’ve been kind of limping along on, for months (maybe years) at work and at home, trying to make the most of bad situations and challenging conditions, without knowing what to do about them. Either I was too tired, or I didn’t have all the the information. Or things (politics at work) were out of my control. And I just made the best of a problematic situation. Of course I did. That’s what I always do.

I tend to complain a lot on this blog, but to be honest, that’s mainly because I don’t whine about a lot of things in my everyday life. I keep that proverbial stiff upper lip. I make the best of things. I keep positive and can-do, as all Americans are taught to do. Being anything less is an affront to everyone around you and a sort of blasphemy in this country. Of course I can do it! Of course I’m capable of figuring things out! I’m an American. By God.

Every now and then, though, I just have to let that go and indulge myself in a little realism — how I really feel. How things really seem. It’s not giving up. It’s just being honest about how I feel about the situation… before I rally to get myself back on track.

I always rally. No doubt about that. I’m still here, after all.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot about missed opportunities, lately. I’ve missed so many, due to slow processing speed, foggy thinking, and of course fatigue. The kind of tiredness that wipes everything messy, like all the class notes being smeared on the blackboard (or whiteboard, as they have now). And nothing makes sense, anymore.

I think about all the dreams I’ve had, and how logistically impossible they’ve all been. I have responsibilities. I have a household to maintain. Insurance to keep. A job (or two or three) to do, each day. The things I always wanted as a kid… most of them haven’t happened, in large part because I just didn’t have the capacity to keep up the pace required to do them all.

And there’s a sense of loss to that. A deep sense of … I dunno… deprivation? Failure? It’s hard to put my finger on it.

Then again, when I look at my life and all that’s happened, I can’t feel badly. Not for a moment. I’ve been able to experience some amazing things, and I’ve really had a great run. I continue to, as well. Even more now, than before, because I know so much more about my limitations and how to work with them. Ironically, my life started to come together after I learned about how limited I am. Only then, could I put systems in place that offset my difficulties. Especially with regard to memory, sleep, and prioritizing things in my life.

I learned how to listen to people, how to talk to people. Before I knew that my short-term working memory was horrible, I thought I could keep things in my  mind and interact with people by just being quiet. Now I know better, and I know that I have to keep engaging with people during our conversations, or I’ll forget what they said just a few moments ago. Not only does that help me remember, but it also makes me a better conversationalist. By far. And I’ve gotten over my self-consciousness, I’ve quit telling myself I was an idiot because I couldn’t remember sh*t.

I’m not an idiot. I have organic limitations to my memory, and I just have to work with them.

I also learned how to pace myself and take care of myself on weekends. I used to push myself constantly — keeping a steady level of stress in my life, to boost my “tonic arousal”, keep myself alert and aware of my surroundings. I realize now that while the stress is tasty and energizing like junk food, it’s also terrible for me. Like junk food. I’ve given it up, and I go to extra lengths to get as much sleep as humanly possible. My spouse helps, too, not pushing me so much to stay up late watching movies and late-night t.v.

I just can’t go without sleep for long, without there being serious repercussions. And the changes I’ve made have been hugely helpful to me, my spouse, our marriage, and my work life. It’s a win-win all around.

Most important, perhaps, is how I prioritize things in my life and say “yes” or “no” to things. I pushed myself really hard, up until about 10 years ago, just driving-driving-driving towards my goals. In a way, it worked wonders for my career. It built up my skills. It won me recognition and respect. But it also fried my nervous system. I was chronically over-committed in so many areas, working long hours, driving a long commute, doing extra jobs on the weekends, and pursuing my hobbies. I traveled a lot. I was always juggling a lot of balls in the air. And I could do it. For decades, I did it.

Until it undid me. My fall in 2004 was directly caused by being overcommitted, over-tired, under-rested, and not paying attention. It was nearly fatal to every aspect of my life, a kind of delayed reaction payback that forced a reset in my life that permanently altered so much.

I lost a lot in the process, including my ability to drive-drive-drive.

And along with that, so many opportunities disappeared. Just evaporated.

…

But when I think about it, I’m not so sure that’s a terrible thing.

I’ve gone from quantity to quality, now. I pace myself better. I pick and choose. I know I can’t do it all, nor do I want to (anymore). I realize just how much time and energy I wasted in all the rushing around, all those years. I was driven by a long history of TBIs / concussions that scrambled my thinking and set me careening through life without good systems in place to keep myself on track.

And that’s not a bad thing. It’s a very good thing, in fact. I don’t need to be doing all that stuff, at every turn. I don’t need to over-extend myself, every week and every weekend. Sleep is good. Rest is essential. And actually enjoying my life… well, that’s a concept I’ve gotten used to.

So, all in all, missing opportunities isn’t nearly as terrible as everybody makes it out to be. I’ve gotten over my FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), to the point where I actually look forward to missing out. I see that the rest of the world can easily lose its mind by racing around at top speed, without stopping to think about what’s going on.

I have my music. I have my books and my house. I have my marriage. I have my steady paycheck. And the work situation seems to be sorting itself out, at last. The most important opportunity is still available: to appreciate and enjoy it for what it is, each and every day.

It’s always good for me to check myself

I can do this

On Thursday afternoon, I was a nervous wreck.

Most of the day Friday, too.

Then, by Friday night, I realized that the recent re-org is potentially a really great thing. For me, anyway.

See, for the past three years, my boss has been pressuring me to do a job I don’t want to do, and I have no interest in doing. They’ve been urging me to be more socially pro-active and get out and drum up political support for the program I run. Go network. Hob-nob. Make my presence felt in the world.

I, on the other hand, really just want to get things done. Because no matter how much I politic and get people “in my corner”, if people aren’t doing the job right, none of it is going to pan out.

And, in fact, a bunch of things didn’t pan out over the past three years — partly because I was so divided in my attention that I missed things. Some things I missed so terribly, I was sure I was going to get fired. I didn’t, but the whole experience was pretty terrible.

Anyway, on Friday I was talking to a co-worker about the re-org, and it looks like that whole hob-nobbing, uber-politicking aspect of my position is going to get offloaded to other people. And that’s fine with me. I hate doing that. With a burning passion. And now it looks like I won’t have to do it, anymore.

Praise be.

So, lesson learned (yet again) : Don’t jump to conclusions about what stuff means or what’s “destined” to happen. Because it might not. And I don’t want to waste my energy, getting all freaked out about things that will never happen.

I need to save my energy.

Speaking of which, today’s a bonus day — cold and rainy and grey and quiet. A lot of people are out of town for the Memorial Day weekend. And I can move at my own pace. Tomorrow, too. Long weekend. Good thing. I’ve been needing this.

Yeah, it’s all good. It usually is, I just don’t always realize it.

Onward.