This week has been a little hectic and looking back on it, I can barely remember what I did each day...I sat out to get so much done this week, both at home and a work. However, most of my plans fell through mainly because I'm beginning to have trouble w/managing the time I spend working, trying to have a healthy relationship and making time for myself.
While things at the office are moving at a steady pace--I've gotten into a comfort zone, finding myself at ease with my co-workers and feel that by the end of the day, I've accomplished the things that I sat out to do that day--my home life, my personal time, is lacking. Alas, I feel like I'm loosing myself; In 24 hours, there doesn't seem to be enough time in the day to just, well, BE.
This isn't the first time I've ever felt like this. Got this same feeling when I was in school, I believe it was my 2nd senior year at UTC. If I wasn't in class, in the computer lab working on a project or a paper or in a study session somewhere on campus, I was at a meeting or getting ready to go to a meeting or attending some event that I had promised I'd come to. I'd get home late, eat late, do some homework, pray and try to get some sleep (if I was lucky enough). And I promise it seemed as if the moment my head hit the pillow and I drifted to sleep, gee it was time to get up and do it all over again...
I never imagined that I'd be back in that same place again. I'm not half as busy as I used to be since undergrad is now apart of my past. But somehow, especially after acquiring a relationship, I'm finding myself stretched out with little, if not any, time to do the things that keep me centered. If I start writing in my journal, the phone rings or I get a text or I'm reminded that I really need to leave so I won't be late to work. When I'm not a work, I'm with my boyfriend trying to be the best girlfriend in the world. In my mind, we're spending quality time together, still getting to know each other, still trying to figure each other out and trying not to drive each other completely crazy. I'm fully aware that relationships aren't a piece of cake and that open communication and compromise are key factors in their success. However, I think my problem lies in my ability to say no to him. Perhaps I've gotten so engrossed in attempting to be extra-available, extra-attentive and extra-aware of this other person in my life, that I've neglected my own needs as a singular individual. I'm squeezing in time to have conversations with Gator, with Ms. Foxx (my best friend in high school who has re-emerged in my life at the perfect time it seems b/c I missed her) and MBR/C, squeezing in time to sit quietly and enjoy solitude, just squeezing time...For so long, I've been a "self" fulling person. Being single does that to you. Now that there is someone, I guess I just don't know how to act. I've resolved to do better! I MUST make time for me and in the upcoming weeks, I'm certainly going to concentrate on doing so....nothing beats an effort but to try.
On Bliss, Ignorance is: Definition of Family... MG and I had a quick conversation about the definintion of family yesterday as I was heading out for a date with My Guy.
It's kind of funny that we talked about this because I had just written about the same topic in my journal a few nights ago. One of my uncles, my mother's brother Aubrey, died early Sunday morning while I was visitng Memphis last weekend and as I was thinking about that, somehow my thoughts segued into what family is, its function, its definition, what it means. According to sociology and anthropology, the family has the primary function of reproducing — biologically, socially, or in both ways. Thus, one's experience of one's family shifts over time. From the perspective of children, the family functions as a family of orientation: the family serves to locate children socially, and plays a major role in their enculturation (if that's a word) and socialization. From the point of view of the parents, the family serves as a family of procreation with the goal of producing, enculturating and socializing children. Carson McCullers said that family is "The we of me." Given the circumstances, we sometimes feel that our families will be "the end of me" but family in the purest form are the people who share goals and values, have long-term commitments to one another, and usually (but not always) reside under one roof. Now whether a person's family resembles that of the traditional nuclear family is actually non-consequential to this conversation, but it is important to recognize that a family can also be seen as a group of people sharing common ancestry, lineage. But our family can also be those who share no blood relation, the friends that have stuck it out thru thick and thin no matter what the case, those who MG says "have your back." As I sat letting my words flow easily from my pen to the page, I came to define family like this: Family is so much more than a mama, a daddy, a sister and a brother. It's so much more than those you share a blood line with, a last name or, if you're lucky, the holidays. Family is also a history book, one that you can't always open and read at your leizure. It's locked up unless you have a key--the ability to ask questions. You want to know why Uncle Junior has a glass eye. You got to ask. Wonder why Cousin Bertha disappeared for 3 years then came back with new name and identity. You got to ask. Want your ghetto burgers to be just as good as MeMaws. You got to ask. Want to know if Aunt Jackie was really married to a pimp. You got to ask. What I'm getting at here is that family isn't just the people who help form it, but it's the knowledge, the history, even the secrets to the "me" in the "we" and vice versa. Family is what we fall back on (not forgetting the Lord) when everyone else forsakes us. It's where, I think, we first start to search for our individual places in this crazy ass world.
