life is about the journey

I know what you're doing right now... you're counting down from week one to two to three to um... six? Yes, I know how to count and no, I did not bump my head and go into a coma for two weeks. Nor did I contract swine flu and spend the last two weeks in bed (although lord-a-mercy the thought of two weeks in bed just sounds so good right now). Weeks 4 and 5 are coming! They are, in fact, being written right now, at this very minute, while you sit here reading about this week, week 6. So finish shaking your head and throw in a few "ohnoeshedi-ent"s and then get over yourself. Because if I can get over myself after this week, so can you! Just sayin'.

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Eleven years ago, Jason and I got hitched for better or worse in the Hillsborough courthouse in front of a jail cell by one Mr. Cleatus A. Marmaduke III. He had bug eyes, wore a blue and white checked polyester suit and moved and talked like he existed in a vat of molasses (pronounced MOE-lasses for you uninitiated). One of our witnesses made the comment that the setting and the justice of the peace looked like something out of a bad Southern movie you’d find on Lifetime. I was roughly three months pregnant and our latest prenatal tests had come back iffy. Jason had better health insurance and we had a big church wedding on the horizon, something I absolutely did not want, so the JOP ceremony gave me the wedding I desired and took care of the health insurance issues in one fell swoop.

The next day, after a lovely lunch at the Carolina Club and a night spent consuming room service, watching movies and going to bed early at the Carolina Inn, Jason and I checked into UNC. The next day all our fears were allayed. The bean that would later emerge as Evelyn Drue Gloege was fine. The tests were false positives and she was happy and well. I spent the next two years angry, feeling as if my hand had been cosmically forced. I won’t even get into the insanity that was the church wedding. I can sum it up in seven words: spent my wedding night in the hospital. By the way, if you ever want immediate attention in a hospital, go there with bird seed in your hair. After it spills all over the front desk while you’re signing in, they will take you back immediately and give you drugs. Think of this tip as my gift to you.

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I want to full-on, smooch all over the person who invented Tamiflu because without this little wonder drug, I wouldn’t be posting at all. Instead, I’d be cleaning up projectile vomit for the second night in a row and wishing I would just die and put myself out of my own misery. But I’m leaping ahead of my entire week and starting with the ending. While this is just like me, I figure if you’re reading you want the entire recap and not just praise of my new H1N1-destroying wonder drug.

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Ever had one of those weeks where you were so busy, you wonder how you got to Monday? And were you so busy that when you got to Monday, all the stuff you did was a blur and you can’t quite put your finger on exactly what kept you so busy that entire time? That was my week, last week. And while I’m doing a lot of tasks that seem simple and mundane to the outside viewer, I find myself calmer and happier than I’ve been in a long time. Well, okay, except last Wednesday night, but I’m allowed the occasional exception to the rule.

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The Kübler-Ross model, better known as the five stages of grief, can really be applied to all areas of life. For example, while writing my 101 goals in 1001 days, I was definitely in stage one, denial. It's not that I was unrealistic in setting my goals; and even after a week's contemplation I still believe I will meet and, in some cases, surpass my goals by July 2012. That said, I think I was smoking something illegal when I came up with a few of these goals. There is really no other explanation for it. And while those of you who know me might remind me that I've become the worst RW of all time since quitting cigarettes back in July of 2006 (July 7th, 2006 to be exact), maybe I inhaled someone's second-hand smoke while writing these. Granted, my neighbors don't look like crack-imbibing junkies but how well do you know people, really?

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Shopping for Halloween costumes with my tween is akin to getting a root canal. I've never had a root canal but I know people who have and they never emerge from the dentist's chair smiling. In fact, they often look like they are caught in that place between sheer, outright pain and Novocaine and it's not a good place to be. And that's the look on my face after visiting multiple Halloween stores and Party City. Because Drue is tall, she no longer fits into child-sized costumes. While they still fit her width-wise, length-wise we're already in trouble. Long dresses and skirts hit her mid-knee and anything mini is micro-mini on her long body. And Drue wearing micro-minis is something I'm not prepared to deal with since the moment she emerges in one, Jason starts googling words like "gun store" and "shotguns". Really, though, all I want is some transition for tweens and teens that meets somewhere in the middle between child sizes and slut.

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I’ve spent the better part of the day reading about climate change. Sure, I already knew about global warming and its effects on the weather, fragile ecosystems, and our health. At any given time on any given news site or blog, I can read about tragedies around the world, be it flooding, poverty, or wide-spread diseases like hantavirus or malaria, that seem to be increasing as temperatures rise. I know the crucial number - 350 – and what it means. I know I should use less energy at home, drive efficiently and drive less often and buy carbon offsets. I know this. It’s been shoved at me on every website touting “eco-friendliness” out there. I know that on October 24th, there will be a 350.org campaign in 158 countries around the world. And I think all of that is wonderful. But, I have to ask myself as an individual, what can I really do day-to-day? When I hear terms like “use less energy” and “sustainable”, what do they really mean? And how do I motivate myself, much less others, to do more?

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This year, Lifeinflux, along with thousands of other bloggers around the world, will join in on Blog Action Day 2009. This year's post will be about climate change. Right now, there are over 7000 bloggers registered to participate and these 7000 blogs have over 11 million readers. Won't you add your voice and blog?

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At least, so says Oscar Wilde. I’m inclined to agree for purely personal reasons.

T.S. Eliot once said: “I don’t believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates.” Stagnate is a great way to describe my mental state for the past five years. In 2004, I was 30. I was separated from Jason and trying to make it on my 1997 salary after several years out of the traditional job market while at home caring for Drue. In 2005, I was divorced and for the first time in a long time had to think about things like affordable health insurance. By 2006, 55 to 60 hour work weeks were the norm, not the exception and I was fully entrenched and moving forward quickly in the career path I began back in 1994 when I left school and left in 1999 when Drue was born. In 2007, I left that job after 2 years and jumped quickly into another. My intentions on leaving my job in 2007 was to take a few months off and figure out what I really wanted to do. However, I was promised the opportunity to build a system and manage the team that would support that system ongoing, which was the next logical step in my career. Unfortunately, that promised opportunity never came to fruition. This was no one’s fault; but the reality is that I worked for more than two years at a job I did not enjoy for a myriad of reasons. Ultimately, I think the issue back in 2004 was that I wanted a paycheck and re-entered the workforce in the same career I left back in 1999 without taking full accounting of my growth, interests and passions developed during the five years I was out of the traditional job market.

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Of mice and bears... the story of adopting one Kodiak B-Bear is up on lifeinflux: http://www.lifeinflux.com/2009/10/07/of-mice-and-bears/