home

i'm home.

not knowing that i'd be involved in the ren fest this year, i inadvertantly scheduled this as a vacation day for myself. right now i'm thanking whoever is listening that i did, because i was exhausted. last night, driving home, it felt like i was drunk--hazy vision, wandering eyes. at one point on the highway i had to swerve around someone who braked suddenly in front of me. then dinner with a host of people, and then home, more tired than before i ate. en route, the flash of gray ending in striped tail in my headlights: a raccoon, at seventy miles per hour. the image is frozen in my mind, scampering out of light.

this morning i cleaned my house some--mainly the little duties that i've put off since prior to festival. my grand plan is to smudge, as well. however after complaining loudly about the upstairs closet for the third time to townhome management, the maintenance guys showed up unexpectedly this morning to fix it. huh? a phone call would have been appreciated. they weren't sure if they'd be back yet today or tomorrow morning. so i moved everything out of the closet and hung up all dan's clothes, stacked games, etc.

i listened over and over to the shakespeare's love child cd that was my Big Purchase yesterday for myself--my reward for the last weeks of stress and sleep deprivation, in addition to my little dragonfly mug. love it.

i think about being home and i'm happy to be here, but annoyed and frustrated and overwhelmed. there is so much to do, both in myself, in my relationship with dan, in general upkeep. in the same way that my kitchen floor needed to be mopped, i am feeling neglected. i have allowed myself to slide--not eating right, not taking the time to walk or take my blood pressure--those are the main things. but secondary is all this little stuff, like ironing a few shirts that have hung on my door for over a month now, or giving myself a good pedicure.

i complete the things that appear most pressing to me at the moment, the things that are visible and require change--the floors, the cat box, the closet. i complete these and then i think, i should clean myself, too. i glance out the window and see the bird feeder, and that takes precedence over me actually applying energy to replenishing my own stores.

i always think that i will have time tomorrow. tomorrow i can devote to myself. tomorrow i can paint my toes. tomorrow i can relax in the tub, tomorrow i can start doing yoga again.

i think back to when i was a kid and shopping for a birthday present for someone, and my mother telling me to pick out something that i would like to receive, that by doing so i would be picking out something that my friend would also like to receive.

i realized last night in talking to dan last night at length about self worth that i do the same thing when i'm picking out words, subconciously, to say to others. i say things that i would like to hear, or that i have heard, or that i think will soften an imagined blow. i say these things because i do not put myself first in my own life.

why? why would i do that? i come home to roost in the home that is walls and roof, but i do not come home to roost in the home that is flesh and bone. i stray from this home. i wander in and out. the doors are always open, the windows wide. in summer this allows breeze to blow, but in winter the snow and cold permeate and i am left with damp corners and chapped lips.

why is is that i can take better care of my linoleum than i can my own feet? what is it that is worth more than my own path of joy and sorrow? what is it that is worth more than taking the time to peer inward and shut the windows, and be warm and safe in and of myself?

perhaps it is that in taking on the view of earth, i have come to understand that my life is over quickly. it is made up of moments. the flooring will be here after i am gone. the sky will still be blue and the birds will still come to an empty feeder, to see if it has been filled.

if i am at peace with that ideal, then it becomes suddenly about the rest of the world, and i lose track of the immediate home in which my soul is sheltered, and i make the world around me more worthy of time than me.

in the same breath i can see that if i honor my own spirit and the housing in which it takes cover, then i can better serve the world and people around me. if i do not find worth in myself, how am i to discover it in others?

in finding this view and recognizing it--that i am in the house of air and earth, on which i live inside a house of wood and drywall and wiring, in which i am living inside a house of cells and marrow, and that i am worth honoring--suddenly i feel as though have truly come home.