The delicate balance of aloneness

This morning I woke up and spent a little time considering the sermon from church yesterday. I was in a pretty decent state of mind. I was trying to get my head straightened-out so I could have a productive day. Then my wife walked into our bedroom, "Can I ask you a question?"

I always feel a bit of trepidation when she asks that. I know it means there's some emotional payload coming. She gets up hours before I do and by the time I'm starting my day she has a list of items to talk to me about, things she wants to get done, and so on. We've had a few good arguments over it all. She's tried to wait a bit, but she has horrible timing. For a while she tried just hunting me down when I was in the shower. Then she tried sending me emotion-laden text messages while I was at work. Then she'd try to dump things on me as soon as I got home. Of course, by the time I am feeling balanced out in the evening she's too tired to talk and falls asleep. Our clocks couldn't be more out of sync if we tried.

Sure enough, she asked this morning, why I am "always" so hard on my oldest son? Apparently he had his feelings hurt when I told him to go out last night, put the lawnmower in the shed, pick up his two bicycles, put them away, and then close the door on the shed. Of course they had all been sitting out for days...in the rain.

As soon as the question was asked the mental walls flew up. The delicate balance of healthy mindset was gone. My train of thought was not only derailed, but the bridge was blown out from underneath it.

Suddenly I was no longer trying to have a good day that avoided moral pitfalls and was truly productive. Now I was worrying over how bad of a father I am. Is my son sitting there thinking his father hates him? Does my wife think that I'm driving him away from us? What about the other kids? Are they feeling the same way?

My morning shower is usually a refuge for me. I slowly come to terms with what the day is going to bring and try to get a bead on how I'm going to go about handling the list of things I have to do. I lost that too. I just stood there wondering if anything I do is worthwhile.

By the time I made it to work the day was destroyed. I spent lunch with my son and daughter trying to express to them that I love them by just spending time with them. It never feels like it's enough.

I was so close to having a good day. I almost had the morning just perfect. I had almost the perfect amount of solitude. Then it all got blown up. I can't even express how frustrated I am.

My workload

That guy looks like me, except his office appears to have more natural light than mine. :-(

I'm stuck again. I have a pile of work to do and just can't seem to break through to productivity again. Why why why? Well, the title of the blog is...

1. Sleep. Yeah, it hasn't been so good lately. Not because I can't sleep but because I just haven't slept much lately. I could if I'd just give up and crash, but when I'm stressed I need a few hours before I go to sleep to "process". When I'm really stressed I feel like I need all night. 
2. I have no idea what to do next. This is a real pain. The next action should be the right next action and it's all really vague at the moment. 
3. Seriously, that picture looks like me. I have a backlog of work that would make your eyes bleed if you could see it. There are so many things that are undone in my personal and professional life right now that it's kind of frightening. 
4. It's not like I haven't been doing anything, it's more that I haven't been doing a lot of things that are useful in the long-term.

#2 is probably the one on my mind the most right now. I've had some real breakthroughs in my work lately, but they only have gotten me so far. The next step has to be taken and I just don't have that great of an idea of what to do next. 

Now that I think about it, probably the right answer is to get all the information in front of me and just look at it to let my mind start analyzing it in that mysterious way that it does. I think I'll pull everything out and start tacking it to my white board so I can see relationships and flow. Maybe that will give me some idea of how to move forward...I hope. 

Afraid to Start

I'm stuck. I hate being stuck. Every once in a while this happens, but it's been happening a lot more lately...as in, for a decade now. I get started on a project. I get it rolling and people start to rely on me. Then what happens? I get stuck. I procrastinate. I can't start. I won't start. I spend all of my time trying to figure out how to do the job perfectly without ever actually doing anything directly related to the job.

I have strategies to combat this, but they all sound hollow when the time comes. I stare at my computer screen or the stack of papers on my desk. I want to do the right thing, but I can't. I just keep staring.

The guilt starts to build up in me, then the frustration, finally I just shrug and accept it. Another day lost. Another day I can never get back spent fighting myself.

All I can think of is to go into the office tomorrow, shove everything to the side, and go back to my old morning routine. What choice do I have? Stay in the same stinking place forever until everyone knows that I'm messed up?

I want to go curl up in a corner. Only problem is, I'd be right there with me.

Why don't I want to work on this stuff? I think a lot of it is how mundane it all sounds. I'm facing a bunch of customer-service items, not anything truly challenging. What's there to research? What's there to occupy my mind and keep me engaged. It just seems like a horrible shade of gray. If it were black or white I would be fine with it, but the gray just goes on forever.

There has to be something of interest to do with it all. I just can't for the life of me figure out what it is. Guess I'll surf the web for a bit in search of enlightenment. Maybe the answer is out there....yeah, like it's been there for the last ten years and I haven't found it yet?