Long week

Tuesday I had breakfast at Fraiche in Palo Alto, then went walking in downtown Los Altos to enjoy the fall colors, then headed for Santana Row and Valley Fair to do some looking around. For some reason, I have in mind that I need new outerwear and shoes, which if you know me at all is a completely preposterous assertion.

A lot of stuff has happened this week, mostly stuff I’d rather not publicly discuss yet – my health and my family are fine, so no panic there – but it’s been a grueling week in a lot of ways and I pulled a couple of really stupid moves that have added complication to my life. And yet, just like it feels sooooo good when you stop banging your head on the brick wall? I feel tired, depleted, exhausted – but I’m OK. I just have this quiet, diminished sort of feeling, like I need to sit down in a big leather chair with a cup of coffee and read something absorbing and just chill myself out for a while. Fortunately, circumstances are such that I can do a little bit of that right now – it’s not great, but it’s adequate for the moment.

The thing is, I caught sight of my reflection in the window on the light rail home last night, and it was a bit surprising, because I didn’t recognize myself for a bit. The same thing happened to me several years ago on another coast, about the time that I really ramped up and started what would eventually be my MVP year at my first job. Now, I’m not sure what it means, other than I’m just getting older and accustomed to the lack of hair.

Many years ago, as I was leaving the East, I said that there comes a time in everyone’s life when you have to stop trying to be the person you were and let yourself be the person you have become. I don’t think I really grasped at the time that it’s not just a one-off incident. Obviously, I’ve accepted that a lot of things I originally wanted are not going to come to pass – and don’t think for a minute that I’m not a little bit salty that a certain jug-eared beanpole from Chicago has MY CAREER PATH that I plotted out in high school and I don’t even get a story credit – but now I think that what I have to do is summon up my inner Doris Day* and say “OK, I’m done fighting it, just go along with the universe and quit trying to swim upstream for a while.”

This is not an easy thing to do, especially for an enneagram-6. You’d think that “Screw it, let go” would be the easiest thing in the world, because how hard is it not to do something? But trying to not think about the future and make sure everything is secured and the path is known, for me, is exactly like trying to hold my breath. I can do it for a little while, but eventually I turn blue and there’s gasping and shrieking.

I don’t think there’s really a point to this, but I haven’t posted since Monday and I just thought it bore writing down somewhere…

* I know what you’re thinking, dear sister, and you can keep your “It’s Raining Men” cracks to yourself.