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Thank you all for all the hugs and good advice. It's always good to have like-minded people around; it helps me feel like I'm not standing alone in shallow water with a great big wave heading dead at me....



...like that.

There are so many things I want and need to do to finally build the life I want to have; I'm overwhelmed, a little, but I'm also excited. I wish there were more hours in the day; I wish I didn't have to do silly things like sleep and work and...well, okay, work isn't silly. Right now, though, it's more time-consuming than usual; I've been moved to our downtown facility and switched to the evening shift for a couple of weeks, since Frack is on vacation. So I leave here at noon and I get home around 10:30, and by the time I get the kitters fed and wind down sufficiently, it's time to go to sleep so I can start the whole process over. I'm spoiled by living five minutes from the office.

This, however: not the point.

I am trying to visualize what my ideal day would look like: what I would do, what I wouldn't have to do; where I'd be living, what my living space would look like, things like that. It's an ongoing task, but I'm learning a lot about what really matters to me. I'm also learning that for a long time now, I've been pushing those things off to the side in favor of what I "should" be doing--or, even worse, avoiding the "really-oughtta" tasks--the laundry, the dishes, whatever--and then not doing the things I enjoy as some sort of "punishment" for my frivolousness.

If I learn nothing else from this time of inner turmoil, I have learned the most important lesson already: I am easily my own worst enemy, critic, saboteur and censor. I am far harder on myself, in almost every realm, than anyone else could possibly be....and if I want to have anything even close to the life I'm visualizing, I have to stop beating up on myself.

More later; it's way past bedtime. But again, thank you to all for the encouragement.