Ghosts in The Attic

It’s a new month. The possibilities are endless of what I could excitedly commit myself to accomplishing that I may or may not follow through with. Every month to me is like a New Year’s resolution list in which I choose lofty goals to achieve and then I promptly don’t when met with the slightest resistance or I just don’t f e e l like it… I could give up and concede that I am just not good at following through, but I still have hope that maybe something will stick.

On this month’s agenda is finishing the EVA foam pieces of my ren faire costume.

I have bought enough stuff for at least four costumes so I really should follow through with this one. Plus I also immediately went out and bought a hundred dollars worth of supplies after watching one YouTube video so clearly I know what I’m doing.

Next is continuing to journal, if not for any other reason than to force myself to do something consistently.

I want to make an effort to get up early. It’s 3am as I write this so I’m not doing great there.

I’m going to help my daughter keep a food journal. I think visualizing what it is we consume in a day is the best medicine for making more conscious food choices. Heaven knows I have battled food addiction my whole life. Maybe if I had the skills and self awareness of what I was doing I would have made better choices early on.

I’m going to put in as much concerted effort to make a schedule and stick with it. I have work I could be doing, I have homework I could be doing, and it’s got to be a priority.

I’m going to take some time to look into how to use Procreate and design my second tattoo. First tattoo was a success and I am proud to say I designed it and the artist knocked it out of the park. This will be a two piece series so I will need to get started.

The biggest hindrance to my success is me and my concept of time. It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost 2 months since my program ended in Spain.

A year ago today I was in Curaçao.

3 years ago today I experienced what it’s like to have no power, water, and be a victim of a natural disaster as we settled into the new normal of life after Ian.

5 years ago today I was getting engaged at Disney. I think peak covid photos masks gives it more flair.

7 years ago today I was dining with strangers and new friends on a whirlwind trip to Maine with a girl I barely knew.

On the outside this is a life well fucking lived. The life I dreamt of. Adventure after adventure lived to the fullest. And yet, I feel that these moments are absolutely the most fleeting things and I’m left with these massive gaps of time where life is moving and I’m stationary, frozen, waiting for the next adventure to come out of my cocoon. I don’t know how to live life between the adventures and when you look at it in that way, it feel like so much time is wasted waiting for something good to happen. Like Click, I kept fast forwarding to the good parts failing to realize that the mundane can be great.

I think we spend so much time waiting that we forget to be present. Waiting to get off work, waiting for the weekend, waiting for the next holiday, vacation, outing. Before we know it much of our life has been spent with days we wanted to get past as quickly as possible.

So I think the biggest objective this month is to choose presence. Being bored, being satisfied with excitement and stillness, not waiting for the next big thing but looking for joy and fulfillment in all days. I don’t need to wait for a big event to initiate doing things, I can do little things that over time add up to big things instead of putting my everything into just a few days, maybe I won’t feel spread so thin.