The Wagon's About 25 Miles Away by Now

Oh dear. As those of you who are regular readers know, I have not posted in quite some time (since last Thursday to be exact, which is - I am literally just now realizing - nearly a week). Ouch.

A few reasons for breaking my own promise and eschewing the difficult but not impossible task I had set for myself which required a high level of self-discipline: our internet was down Friday, which was the same day we headed out of town. We were at my father's house without internet later that day, and on Saturday - I just forgot. Sunday we were back at my Dad's; Monday were were in transit and the internet was still not working when we got home. And since then, um... I have no very good excuse.

My indirect laser surgery (for the left eye) has been moved up to Monday, June 23, and so I've been feeling INSANELY anxious and stressed out trying to figure out if I can still do the workshop I was supposed to present at a conference on the 24th, as well as make it to Atlanta for the (very expensive) ASCA 2008 annual conference my parents helped pay for. Add to that two papers due very soon and a right eye that still has old glasses, and you've got one stressed out person who has also been watching a little 2 year old a lot lately because her husband has multiple deadlines as well and there is just not enough time in the day.

Ugh.

I was hoping to do some catch-up posting in an effort to at least honor the intention of blogging every day for a full year, but I can't decide if that's just too little too late... or some form of cheating or shirking away from the harsh, ugly truth of my failure.

One of the lessons I am seeking to learn lately has several layers, but is all interconnected to present roughly the same opportunity for growth:

1. Learn to say no.
2. Learn to let things go... not everything has to be done immediately.
3. Learn to relax more or to handle stress in such a way that it does not derail life for extended periods of time.
4. Accept failure - it's ok to get a B in a class or to not do every single thing that comes along that might put another feather in my cap (this is a very, very hard one for me right now).

So... to that end, I will embrace this failure, apologize to those of you to whom I feel I made, if nothing else, an indirect promise to write for every day, and move on.

Maybe one of these days I'll master the art of being in the now and not sweating the small stuff (it helps if you can even identify what is the small stuff). In the meantime, I'll try to post some observations from the days missed and stay on the metaphorical wagon in the weeks to come.