Spinning Plates

I’ve had two different people say to me today that they hadn’t heard much from me in a while. In both cases, it’s very true. And I don’t really like that.

The different facets of life seem like a lot in recent weeks.

• Work – my actual day job. This is not only the actual work, but also the people involved in it. Clients, bosses, staff. By and large, I love them, but some days, just one situation with just one of them can be a full-time job in itself, and more.
• Social media – which is work, but exists largely outside my daily responsibilities.
• Tae kwon do – which I guess I don’t talk about much, but I’d just curl up in the corner and live there, if I could. I haven’t progressed nearly as fast as I’d originally hoped, and I think I could be a lot better than I am. Part of it is time.
• Home – where I need those moments where I feel like I belong, when the dishwasher’s been run at least once in the last week and I have clean socks and I can flop onto the couch, stare out the window and exhale.
• Friends – and this depends on which friends you’re talking about, because I’m improving but still not very good at getting friends from different parts of my life together, and so even if I’m caught up on one front, I’m probably not with another.
• Family – some are five minutes away, some are thousands of miles away. Are they feeling neglected? Probably.
• Money – numbers don’t come easily to me.
• Cooking – neither does this.
• Exercise – running and lifting and yoga and all of the things that I know how to do, I know how good I feel when I do, but are so easily wedged out by other things.

And while all of this is real, I also realize that comparatively, it’s paltry. It’s a cakewalk. Because I’m just ME. I’ve got one job, I’ve got a manageable little condo, I haven’t got a husband, I haven’t got kids, I haven’t even got any pets. And yet still I can’t keep it all in a balance that I’m satisfied with. So what can I do about it?

• I can realize that I’m just like everybody else. Which is sort of comforting.
• I can realize that everybody else is just like me. Which makes me more patient and forgiving.
• I can procrastinate less and do even more. Which feels good.
• I could probably realize that I might be a bit of a perfectionist. Which might let me let go of a few things.

But what else can I do? What else do YOU do?

Tonight, I’m dealing with one of those rapid-onset “but I went to bed FINE” sick days that knocked me sideways as soon as I opened my eyes in the morning. So now I get my comforter. And more trying again tomorrow.