Letting Go

The last year has brought a flurry of changes into my life, one after another. Just as I get (partially) used to one, another one tumbles into view, knocking me down again.

I don’t like change. It requires me to get used to an entirely new way of thinking and living, and once I get into a groove, I don’t want to do it a different way. I like the way that I do things, or I wouldn’t do them that way. I have a routine because it works for me.

Just to give you a quick overview of a few of the things that happened during my totally sucky last year:

My last little chickie went off to college 300 miles away and I, despite my denials to the contrary, fell headlong into empty nest syndrome.

The town where I lived topped the list of high foreclosures (read Living on Nothing but Food Stamps if you’d like a look at the way things have been going there the last couple of years, and how those living high suddenly hit rock bottom when the housing bubble burst) and that meant some (almost all) of my freelance graphics/advertising work was suddenly history. At one point, I was averaging $2000 each month with this, and now it’s one (long-distance) client and a steady $100, and that’s because I’ve had a business relationship with them for more than 10 years. And because I dropped my price.

I lost 50% of my online income because of the ‘restructuring’ of the commissions I earn from some of my artwork (and we all know what that word means, right? It means you’re fucked, while the company doing the restructuring comes out way ahead).

I moved back home (from Florida to Missouri, and I’m currently freezing my arse off, thanks very much) to take care of an elderly aunt who died three months after I got here, and the house that was supposed to have been transferred into my name never was, and I was left without a home and had to move again.

Apparently half of my family (and I have a huge family) doesn’t believe that you can make a living working solely from home and has run around telling the other half many unflattering things about my character. And the fact that the poor economy has made my earnings tank reinforces their belief that I am a liar. This puts me into a bad mood and makes me (on occasion) behave badly.

I quit smoking (okay, this one wasn’t done to me, I did it to myself, but it’s still a big change and therefore it counts. I smoked at least a half a pack a day for the past 30 years. Plus, I’m the one writing this, so I can put things like this wherever I want *sticks out tongue*)

After a lovely round of symptoms that made me and some doctors believe that my MS was rearing its lovely head again, my latest tests have proven otherwise. I got the news yesterday, in the middle of a snowstorm, so I couldn’t even go and get a lovely bottle of wine to drown my sorrows in. It’s early menopause. Yes, children, at 45 I have insomnia, hot flashes, tingling in my hands and feet, occasional rapid heartbeat, and I’m bitchy and/or weepy all the time. And since they don’t believe in letting you have artificial hormones anymore, this is what they tell you: Suffer. You, and everyone around you must suffer. Yeah, because I’m so good at that. *rolls eyes*

There are more, but I’m making myself depressed. Those are the biggies, anyway. My mood has been like an inflatable boat in heavy seas: up and down and up and down and up and down. Enough, already. I’m gonna be sick, and very soon.

Then I got a sharp slap from my son, in the form of something he wrote:

As far as the universe is concerned, we are, individually, and even as a whole planet, a speck of a speck of a speck, ad infinitum … What you take from this is up to you. You can despair, or you can rejoice. The world doesn’t care about you. Your petty troubles are just that. Petty. There’s no reason to get all worked up about everything. Or anything, even. You just get the one life, so enjoy it while it lasts. Be nice to people. Make friends. Have fun. Love somebody. Love everybody. And be happy.

That’s my boy (I’m smiling when I say that). Reading that was a ‘wake up!’ moment for me, and made me realize that I’m faced with two choices:

• Worry, complain, and basically bore the shit out of everyone, including myself.

• See things differently.

I have a horror of being bored and of boring others. It’s like a little hell on earth, isn’t it? Stuck in the same room with some boring git you can’t get away from. And the fact that I was the boring git actually brought tears to my eyes (but come to think of it, that’s not hard to do anymore, is it?). My gawd, I was turning into (NAME REDACTED IN CASE ONE OF MY NUMEROUS RELATIVES READS THIS AND GETS THE JUNGLE DRUMS THUMPING, AGAIN)!

There is always something you can do. That is my firm belief, even though I had forgotten it for a while. So what I’m going to do is make myself feel better.

I could write a list here of the wonderful things in my life, and it would go on for pages and pages, but I won’t (remember, I’m trying to stop being the boring git). I’ll just think of them, instead (I’m smiling, again), and I’ll tell you a few things that I’m doing:

I’m listening to more music. Music feeds the soul. Let me just share with you the immortal words of Anthony Kiedis.

Give it away give it away give it away give it away
now
Give it away give it away give it away give it away
now
Give it away give it away give it away give it away
now
I can’t tell if I’m a kingpin or a pauper

Greedy little people in a sea of distress

Keep your more to receive your less

Unimpressed by material excess

Love is free love me say hell yes

Oh, just let Anthony say it, ’cause he does it so much better:

I’m going back to volunteering once a week. I used to volunteer for CROW, but that’s in Florida. If I can’t find an animal hospital or something similar, I’m going to volunteer at the library. They’ll let me put books away or something, I’m sure.

I’m giving away a t-shirt or something else with a lovely design on it every week for the rest of the year. You can sign up for the t-shirt drawing by clicking on that link, or by going here: Queen Vintage. I like knowing that someone who’s been impacted by the economic downturn, just as I have, can have something they want even if they can’t afford it. Also, if I don’t use my own designs, I’m using the designs or photography of my friends, which gives me another way to give someone something. Double whammy. I’m charging this one off to advertising, but really it’s because it makes me feel good. I want to make my life more enjoyable, and I’m a firm believer that if you have a full life and you try to keep everything all to yourself, your life will get very small. But if you give something away, the world gets bigger and better, and so do you.

That’s a partial list, and it’s working for me so far. What do you do when life acts like a monkey in the zoo? (Somebody asked me what this meant, and I thought it really clear. What do monkeys do in the zoo? They throw shit at you, of course. Have you people never been to the zoo? If you go, I have some advice: don’t stand too close to the monkeys.)

Leave some comments, or somethin’.

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