Random Friday Morning Wherewithals

I thought I was handling my stress pretty well lately, sort of keeping it together in the face of all the chaos around me — which is exactly the situation I know I nearly never cope with well.
We know our limitations, right? Why do you think I’ve avoided doing total-home-organizing for so long? Whew.
So, earlier this week, I go into the office to chat to the two bosses, Le Cheeses That Be, and one, K, had just returned from holidays and asked how I was doing. I said I was going insane, but thought I was doing a good job of keeping it together and putting on The Fake for the faces around me.
And then my other boss, C, HOWLS with laughter. That’s when I found out I’ve been fooling exactly no one. C had another opportunity to howl with laughter at me when a friend of hers popped ’round the office and inquired as to how I’ve been doing. “The short answer is “fine”,” I told her. [insert mad howling/mocking laughter here, which still makes me smirk]
I’ve been trying to avoid my “new” friends because they don’t know this is just an endless six months of chaos and that I offer a hell of a lot more than the neurotic mess I’ve slipped into lately, but now I’ve begun getting stupid and making plans.
Which means my head needs to get in the game in a hurry. But, whatever.
As a result of finding out my facade of being Mentally Together is a visible sham to all around me, I’ve got three-day weekends this weekend and next. I’m going to END this organizing. It’s going to be DONE by the end of these two weeks. This weekend? I paint the living room.
Mental note, when I do this shit again in 10 years, I’m taking the fuckin’ month off, ‘cos this work-all-weekend-for-six-weeks thing doesn’t do well for me. ๐Ÿ˜›
But less than two weeks, baby. Deadline’s on! It’s funny that I’m so consciously aware that August 24th is the two-year anniversary of when I gave my notice and said my life was more important than working in a job I hated out of some fucked sense of obligation just because I was “raised” that way. I want it done before that day, even if it’s just some symbolic accomplishment for myself.
You know, I find it interesting that the wall colour I’m painting this weekend will be fire red. I’ve had red in the hall for more than a year now, and it gets a lot of reaction from visitors. It’s bold as hell, but works.
I’ve never been asked for the paintmaker or shade’s name like I have for this red — Canadian Tire’s Debbie Travis Line’s “Moulin Rouge”. But doing it in the main living room area? Kinda ballsy, and there’s a deep, deep mother-related issue regarding the colour, too. Very long story, from the year before her death, and it’s a big thing for me, I guess. Going this way this weekend will be, in a small but real way, the first time I really go my own way with decorating my place — it’s something my mother would never do, and in fact something we fought over. Hence the issues.
I sort of thought, the older I’d get the more I’d move away from these Mommy Issues, but I think it’s the opposite. The older I get, the more I realize how much more significant those issues were than I ever felt able to acknowledge before now. And now I’m strong, older, wiser, and I’m able to own who I was then versus who I am now. Everything is relevant; it’s just not permanent. Accepting the past doesn’t mean miring in it.
Ahh, well. I’ll have plenty of time to enter that headspace tonight and tomorrow and Sunday. Sigh. Too much time hearing the echoes of my cavernous mind these days, far too much time.
And yet I look forward to it. Oh, you strange dichotomies, you fucketh with me all too well.
Happy Friday, people. Welcome to mine. ๐Ÿ™‚