I'm Doing This

I feel like I should get a medal for surviving the past two months. October was hell, always is. I was out of town every weekend and I don't think I made it to the grocery store all month. I barely had time to think, much less exercise or read a book.

And then I got this crazy whim on November 2 and decided to do NaNoWriMo. Now I've won it two years in a row. That also means I spent all of November cramming 2000 words of original work into my available spare time every single day. I finished a few days early, and I'm happy with what I got for a first draft.

But now that's over. It's December. FREEDOM!!!

Which is to say, I want to go forward and focus on living intentionally. I know I can't do absolutely everything I want to, but I can map out my lifestyle in a way that moves me closer to achieving goals. Here are the things I want to focus on:

Exercise/athletic:
Goal: I want to be strong and flexible. I want to feel good about making progress in this area.
1) I want to get back into the regular habit of running, 3-4 days a week. My dogs need the exercise and I need the fitness.
2) I want to improve my core strength through targeted exercises. Again, I can take a few minutes 3-4 days a week and do Pilates exercises.

Intellectual/creative:
Goal: I want to nurture a mind that is quick and inventive. I want to engage the people around me and challenge them to think.
1) I want to read a book a month. I love reading and have a beautiful library, so it's just a matter of making time.
2) I want to actually publish my writing. I have a fourth draft almost ready to go and I'm working hard on making a second draft out of my latest effort. I can't do everything all the time, so I want to spend an hour on this, 3-4 days a week.

Home/Cooking:
Goal: I want to maintain a clean home in which Brent and I are comfortable living and entertaining on our budget.
1) Take one day a week completely away from the barn to clean, do laundry, and make the house a home.
2) Explore new recipes in the kitchen. Brent thrives on variety and I do like cooking, so try to make one new  or expanded meal a week, whether that's a whole new recipe or means putting in the extra effort for side dishes and salads.

That's a start, at least. I'm trying to keep my goals manageable and see how things go for a couple of months. I'm excited for this phase of life and looking forward to seeing what I can accomplish.

Writing On

In something of a spur-of-the-moment decision, I ended up doing NaNoWriMo again this year. Last year, I started writing on November first and wrote 100k words in four months. I have a somewhat-polished 4th draft out with an editor now from that experience.

I quit writing over the spring and summer. My life was out of control. Work was beyond stressful, haunting me awake and asleep. My beloved horse had health problems that forced him into retirement and I quit my job. I thought about writing again, but I don't always write well from a place of turmoil and angst.

I'd been kicking around a plot idea and playing with some characters, but I was missing some critical elements and I didn't want to start something without those in place.

And then I had a dream. It tied all the pieces together. I started writing on November 2nd this year and I'm on track to finish the 50k a solid week early. I write 2-3 thousand words a day, sometimes more on the weekends. Last year was hard--by the time I hit my daily word count, I felt like I had no words left.

Not so this round. My pacing is much more solid, my plot more developed. I'm writing a thousand words an hour on average and I'm just hitting my stride. I find that the more I write, the more I want to write. I'm not just writing a story. Now I'm writing blogs, emails, and anything else I can think of. The words are flowing and the well hasn't run dry. Not yet.

I'll finish NaNo, but that's not the goal this year. I want to have another 70-80k second draft done by 12/31/13. Just watch me.

Doing Hard Things

I'm bad at emotions. To anyone who knows me, that's not really a surprise. I am a doer and fixer and worker, but when it comes to processing all that touchy-feely-weird crap, I really have no idea what to do. Most of the time, that's ok. I tend to only invest emotions into situations I care deeply about, and those are few and far between.

The past year and a half has been an exercise in processing emotions for me.

After a horrific trip to California last year, I realized I need to start all over in order to be the person I want to be. I had to address basic character deficiencies and learn to be strong enough to take the life I wanted. It was a humbling and wrenching experience, but I am thankful for it. I've come out stronger than I was before and happier with who I am as a person.

I'm finding myself in another difficult situation.

I've made the best decisions I can with the information I have at hand. I am confident that the decisions are in the best interests of everyone involved. I know that people I greatly respect and admire look down on me for those decisions.

And so again, I am dealing with those pesky emotions. I don't have a long road trip through Nevada to just sit and think things through, so I am forcing myself to use the time I have to directly address the issue. In order to move forward as a healthy, functioning adult, I have to determine why I feel this way and what I can do to change it or otherwise live with it.

I refuse to be emotionally crippled through the actions of people I cannot control. Instead, I am working backwards through the different threads of emotion and sorting out the tangle into something manageable. It doesn't come naturally to me and it isn't a pleasant process. I have to say things that I know are completely irrational, but accept them because they express an emotion that I'd rather not feel. I have to say "I blame X for this," even when I rationally know that it isn't X's fault.

I can't lie and say it's fun. Character building is the pits, no two ways about it. I will say that I know that once I'm through to the other side, I will again be a happier and stronger person, that much closer to the person that I want to be.

Thinking Ahead

My dad is an entrepreneur whom I respect greatly. I've spent most of my life working for small businesses run by intelligent, motivated people. My stint in a larger corporation was interesting, but not exactly inspiring.

I've always said that as much as I respect the entrepreneur ethic and lifestyle, I didn't want to join them. It's too much work, too much commitment, too much responsibility. I said I'd rather just toe the corporate line and take my check home than be so consumed by my work.

Problem: I am my father's daughter. I am strong, independent, and highly motivated. I am energized by things that challenge me. I am frustrated by the limitations of the system that is already in place. I want to try and do better. Maybe I'll succeed. Maybe I'll fail. I won't know until I find out.

It's scary to stand at the edge and look into the void beyond the material safety of paid labor. It's also exciting. It's time to get the pieces in place to strike out on my own.

Come what may.

Bittersweet

As time goes by, I feel like I'm beginning to understand phrases that used to just be words strung together.

"My cup is full" sums up how I feel about life right now.

It's not that life is all roses--it's that I can see progress on things that I have worked on. My writing is coming along well. I'm growing and changing as a person.

My cup is equal parts full of heartbreak and joy. Instead of rail against the heartbreak, I'm learning to embrace both with gratitude. The heartbreak teaches me just how dear the joy really is.

Grind It Out

I'm working on polishing up the latest draft of my attempt at writing a full-blown book. I don't think of myself as an anxious person, but this thing is driving me batty. I've gotten some decent feedback on it the few times I've sent it out to be read, but I do long stretches of editing in between.

Just me and the text.

I'm constantly looking for errors, tweaking for improvements, criticizing my every weakness.

The only thing that makes me feel more incompetent than critiquing myself is the horrifying process of waiting for feedback from someone else.

It's like overachiever hell. 

Community

Sometimes I really hate Idaho. The blistering hot summers, the nasty cold winters, the complete lack of precipitation, the raging fires and corresponding smoke in the summers. Couple that with the fact that it's the most remote capital city in the 48 states and toss in the part about being young...

It translates to me watching most of my friends move through the transitional phase of life by moving out of mine. I have roots here--my family lives here. Brent's family lives here. What we lack in mobility we make up in stability. I have a safety net for emotional, financial, or physical needs.

I guess it always amuses me when I hear the trendy leaders of the day harp on "community" over and over. The people who talk about it most understand it the least. Community isn't something you just make. It's something that's woven together, year after year, generation by generation. You don't just get a group of people together and say "Voila! Community!"

Instead, it's built around those roots that hold me down. I realize I may never live outside of this valley of irritating temperature extremes and piss poor air quality. I know my friends have cool adventures in new places and never come back. I also know that the level of stability I have here is something a transient lifestyle will never accommodate.

I hate being hot all the time in the summer and cold all the time in the winter, but I'm surrounded by a group of people that faces the same challenges beside me. Our shared struggles build bonds that electronic communication and world travelling can never touch.

Friends

I've been working through the nature of friendship lately. I know that I'm a very loyal person who tends to hold on to friends for a very long time. That said, I have high expectations of them and do not keep around those I don't think are worth the time.

I have a lot of friends in my horse life. It's easy to be friends there--our common experience is so great that very little incentive is needed to call someone a friend. My circle is populated with people with an understanding of the difficulties we face, the creatures we care for, and that crazy passion that drives us. It's easy to be friends because our lives are so similar.

But what about the rest of them? Although I find it harder and harder to make friends with people in the "normal world", I still have some. I do treasure them. I've come to realize that the hallmark of friendship, whether horsey or not, is caring for one another. Laughing together and crying together. Caring even when you don't always understand the nuances of what they're going through. Being willing to set aside yourself and listen and care about another soul flitting through the same moment in time.

An emphasis on the last. A friend shares their life with you and open yours to them. We care, even when we don't understand.

Abandon that, and the friendship is gone.

Influence

I'm a shy introvert at heart. I don't like asking for things for myself and I don't like speaking up in public. I've been working hard to become stronger in those areas because I reject the mindset that woman are wilting heroines straight out of Victorian literature.

I was raised in a social subset that tried to teach that women were subservient objects, only good for reproducing and cooking, not thinking or talking or (heaven forbid!) learning and working. I'm forever thankful that my reactionary mother revolted against those notions and that my dad supported her, because it made it that much easier for me to break the mold.

Now I set as role models women who are educated, hard working, assertive, and confident. They know what they want and go after it, regardless of set backs. I've started to learn that what looks like confidence is really more the strength to push through their insecurities.

Throughout this process, I've been reading. This article and this article, talking about how women consent and assent without standing up for themselves are what I've come across recently. I think these women are addressing timely and pertinent issues, especially as they relate to the culture I come out of. (I can go on and on about Victoriana vs a realistic model for women, but that's another post for another day).

Regardless. It inspired me. I may never be famous or influential on a regional or national scene, but I can wield what influence I have in my own sphere. Instead of thinking my gender is some sort of tragic accident that keeps me from having opinions or value to my culture, I can step forward with Eowyn and say, "I am no man."

It's not a flaw. It's a strength.

I'm working on polishing up a manuscript I hope to submit to be published. It features a strong female character finding her way in life. I want her to be the first of a lineup of heroines that I write. They can be different--shy, outgoing, happy, melancholy, brave, fearful, but throughout, I want them to be women to respect. Women who set a standard for what we can become.

Women like those who surround and inspire me on a daily basis.

A New Avenue

I'm at this very odd juncture in life wherein nothing is going the way it's supposed to. Thanks to my past couple years of solid character building, I am not blaming myself and I am able to roll with the punches.

I'm trying to understand why I am where I'm at. I'm trying to learn what I need to know from this season of life. It's not the most fun thing ever.

I'm learning that life is fragile.

That plans go up in smoke.

That ideas are dangerous.

And that love is worth every minute.

The things I planned on and wanted haven't and won't materialize. I thought I would be more upset about it, but I've learned to rest in the uncertainty. Instead of beating my head against a closed door, I'm looking for the next option. I'm content to wait for it to come to me, as long as I feel I have done due diligence in making myself open to new ideas.

Where is my summer going? I don't know. I don't ride every day any more. I'm no longer a barn manager. My beloved horse is on a vacation that I think he may never come back from.

But I'm a licensed groom at the racetrack. I'm exploring friendships that I let slide before. I'm giving myself permission to step back and see what happens.

It's not what I planned on, not what I expected, certainly not what I wanted. But you know what? It's ok.