Cranky McSpanky

Crap. I am cranky this week. Can't seem to shake it, even after a couple of 10-hour nights of sleep. I'm tired. Tired of having papers over my head. Tired of being in my car, tired of having my life spread out over a 30-mile radius, tired of not being able to play ultimate and having to either sit and watch, or stay home alone. Tired of my room looking like someone only comes there to fling clothes around the room. Tired of my walls being bare, and tired of not having the energy or the decorating ability to do anything about it. Tired of not knowing how to change the things I'm cranky about. Tired of, at the age of 30, still occasionally wishing my mother would fly in and make sure I ate well every day. Tired of it being week 8 (perhaps I should not be surprised... maybe it's just week 7 syndrome showing up a week late). Tired of being hard on myself. Frankly, despite the fact that it is part of my job to remind people all day long that change is a long, slow process, I am secretly upset that I have not found a button to make it go fast just for me. Luckily, I have a therapist of my own who reminds me of the same thing, and having her remind me to chill out and enjoy the ride makes her worth every penny.

Anyhow, when I am cranky, I cry a lot and, to be honest, really want the rest of the world to join my pity party. Usually I can help get out of it by doing something to remember the world doesn't revolve around me, but then this morning I remembered that I had forgotten to go visit my hospice patient yesterday, which means that not only did I miss a chance to remember that whole not-the-center-of-the-world thing, but now I also feel like a big, mean, self-absorbed jerk too, for forgetting about a sweet little 95-year-old lady in a nursing home. Not really helping.

This is about the point in the quarter where I get really hard on myself, and start thinking that everyone would be better off if they didn't have to deal with me, because clearly I make everyone's lives more difficult when they have to "handle" me. So last week, when a friend pointed out this little streak I have, of thinking that I have to fix myself before anyone should have to deal with me, what was my first reaction? Crap, I thought, I'm too much of a perfectionist - I better fix that before I let anybody get anywhere near me, so I'm not too much to handle. I suppose the irony of that reaction would be much funnier to me if it weren't so true.

So, anyhow, in the spirit of trying to go easy on myself for five minutes, I'm dredging up another Anne Lamott quote. Maybe I've posted it before, but I need it again today.

"[My therapist] reminded me of something I'd told her once, about the five rules of the world.... The first rule is that you must not have anything wrong with you, or different. The second rule is that if you do have something wrong with you, you must get over it as soon as possible. The third rule is that if you can't get over it, you must pretend that you have. The fourth one is that if you can't even pretend that you have, you shouldn't show up. You should stay home because it's hard for everyone else to have you around. And the fifth rule is that if you are going to insist on showing up, you should at least have the decency to feel ashamed. So we decided that the most subversive, revolutionary thing I could do was show up for my life and not be ashamed."