Cray to the Z...

I work with a woman I really like a lot. She's older than I am, but I can't tell how much so. She has this odd air of agelessness about her and gorgeous skin that makes it very difficult to tell just what decade she might have been born in (she also never, ever tells anyone her age). But her youngest turned 30 today, and I know she didn't have her kids right out of high school, so I'm guessing she has a few years on me. But that's neither here nor there, really.

As I say, I like her a lot. And she likes me. She's not the sort who has a lot of close friends or who confides in many people but she's said she feels comfortable talking to me. I say it's because, along with my 'retail face,' I also have a 'therapist face.' It makes people tell me stuff. Lots of stuff. Sometimes they tell me things I really oughtn't know. It's cool, though. I like finding out about people. But that's neither here nor there either.

Anyway, she told me today that she feels so comfortable with me because I always seem so 'together'.

...

Me.

...

'Together'.

...

Um... er...

First, I snorted. As I do. Then I guffawed. Then I looked at her to see if she was lying or pulling my leg. She wasn't. Then I looked at her like she was certifiable. I waved a hand over my desk -- my desk that looks like, as my mother says, 'who flung it and ran' -- and I said, "See this? See this mess? This is what every area of my life looks and feels like. This, my friend, is so very much NOT 'together', unless by 'together', you mean, 'a friggin' disaster'."

She smiled and shook her head. "No. I think you're more together than you think you are."

As I say, I really like her.

But girlfriend? Is cray-cray.

Be Still

Once, when Ryan was a toddler, I took her into a clothing store which, obviously, had no shopping carts. She'd gotten to the point where she didn't like to stay in her stroller, so I told her she had to stick close to me while I browsed. A little while later, having been absorbed in a display of spring sweaters, I looked down to where she should have been... and she was gone. My heart rose into my throat and then dropped immediately into my shoes, and I fought back the panic. After a few moments of frantic searching, I found her, giggling, under a rack of dresses. Needless to say, it was the last cartless shopping venture we attempted for a while.

I've discovered that Time is like a toddler, finally free from the confines of the shopping cart. It has an extraordinarily sneaky way of getting away from me, causing moments of panic when I look down to find an hour, a day, a week, a month, or a year just... gone.

It's been a whole month since I've written here. I didn't intend to stay away. It's just been a busy month, full of nothing particularly extraordinary... just lots of weird, up-and-down weather, overwhelming loads of work, a fall down a dark driveway (that resulted in a few x-rays, cracked ribs, and painkillers), chores, good news, bad news, disappointing news...

Just... Life.

Onward through Time it moves, this Life, more quickly with each passing year, month, week, day, hour...

Sometimes, it feels chaotic. Noisy. Overwhelming. And when it is this way (more often than I care to acknowledge), I don't know which way to turn or what to do first, or how to turn it town, how to slow it down...

It's exhausting.

I have a wonderful therapist friend who is always telling me to rest... to just be still. When she gives me this advice, I agree with her... I nod, promise to do what she suggests... and then I go back to juggling the dozen single-working-mother-balls I have in the air at any given time.

And I wear down even further... lose focus... fade.

Last year, I gave my dog a bath outside, with the hose. I dried him with one of our many brightly-colored beach towels and then left it to dry on the deck railing. I forgot about it and a couple of weeks later, after hanging in the bright sun for too long, it was pastel-colored -- shades lighter than it had been originally.

I feel like that beach towel. Except that instead of too long in the sun, I've been too long in the shadows of 'Too Much To Do and Too Little Time To Do It.'

Turns out? Shadows fade, too.

So, faded, out of focus, and worn down, I'm falling back to my therapist friend's suggestion. Rest. Be still.

It's going to have to be my quiet holy mantra for a little while...

Be still... be still... be still... be still...

Be still...

Just. Be. Still.