Angela Allen's Wicked Blog

The harried pace that my life has been for many, MANY months is slowing down. It’s odd to have a few minutes to call my own per day — that aren’t taken up with business tasks, second job work tasks and domestic affairs.

I’m still doing the Census thing in addition to my “real” work,  but it’s tapering off, finally. Its been a great change of pace from my (usually) solitary work style. Changing my location before starting the new phase helped curb the Census mania. The current crew is much smaller, so there are fewer people to manage (20 instead of 200) and much of the work is in the rural parts of the state.

WickedWriter is gearing up lately, some great new clients have appeared in addition to my favorite long term clients — but even that boost in business seems manageable now. There are lots of inquiries lately, but I’ve only accepted a couple new folks that seemed to be a good fit. I’m getting back on a regular schedule so I don’t feel the obligation to work all night and then get up at the crack of dawn and start all over again. Money stretches further and the bills are much smaller.

My personal responsibilities are lighter, so my need to push hard all the time is starting to reduce to a manageable level. I actually have “down time” occasionally – and I sometimes watch a movie without trying to get something done WHILE watching. (That’s nice.)

Life has changed course dramatically (doesn’t it always have a habit of doing that?!), but I have to believe that all things happen for a reason.

The next couple of months should be interesting. The planning phase for my next adventure has begun and should be complete by October. Planning consists mainly of boiling down my life to core essentials and extracting everything that’s not in that category. But, planning is also mental — getting my head in the right place to take the next steps.

I did this once before and was almost there when my life exploded with people and activities and possibilities and responsibilities and love and all forms and varieties of external forces. Suddenly my simple life became less sitting still and more perpetual motion. I liked it, loved it even — but the time has come for yet another new beginning.

It’s easier to find my direction when not riding a roller-coaster. I’ve always adored roller coasters; I’ve always been an adrenaline-junkie. It’s exciting and fun and terrifying and a real rush — but it’s not really the best way to read a map or plot a course. It makes achieving goals more difficult.

As I make headway on the new plans, I’ll share — but for now, I’m plodding along looking for a sense of serenity and placing one foot carefully in front of the other. For now I’m securing what I need to take the next steps. For now, I’m ok.

I’m taking an inventory of my life. I’ve been a simplicity advocate for many years, and yet my own life has been extraordinarily complex. I see now that those complications are of my own making. I see that I have made a habit of continually making choices that inhibit simplicity.

In the same way (a few years back) I realized that I took on other people’s problems to keep from looking too closely at my own life. Family, friends… even clients. I called it “helping” others — but it was actually avoiding me.

That has changed. I still help people, but I make sure that I’m doing it for them and not for myself. I really think on that before acting. That’s new.

So, I guess I’ve become a woman of “a certain age” and things are becoming clearer.

Perhaps the complications in my life are a similar avoidance. I called it other things. I justified, I even enjoyed the complications — held tightly to them and wouldn’t have changed them for anything. The complications taught me huge lessons and showed me a great amount of joy. It was easy to get lost.

I would like to say that I came to this epiphany on my own — that I’m THAT enlightened or THAT mature. The fact is, someone else had to shake up my life for me to remember my long-term goals and the importance of simplicity. My own priorities will now play a much larger role as I learn how to pare down and un-knot my life to date. I have to get things straight in my own mind before I’m sure about the direction. It’s like my life map is all wadded up. I know the route is there, it’s just obscured by wrinkles (how ironic) creases and folds. I’ll iron it out.

On the bright side, I’ve learned many lessons of late. Lessons about love and patience and being the best person I can be. I’ve learned to compromise when I wanted to control. To speak calmly when I want to scream. To think before I talk or act. I’ve learned to consider others before myself – even people who aren’t my own offspring. I’ve given this lip-service before — even practiced it intermittently — but I never made it a lifestyle before. Now, I have. I guess that is a success.

It’s a calmer existence. I think it may eventually become an enjoyable one. But for now, it’s a challenge. For now, it’s overwhelming. For now — I need to take the time required to focus on the second half of my life and spend less time evaluating the first half.

Paring down to the essentials will be a tremendous effort. Determining what is past and what is future will envelop my present for awhile. I’m trying to concentrate on the journey, to learn to enjoy THIS path, but it’s difficult.

I have to remember what my father told me recently — “People who WANT to write, write. Everyone else makes excuses.” That upset me at first — I felt that he didn’t understand my situation, my “complicated life” and that he was minimizing the importance of how I had chosen to spend my time, my resources, my energies. Now I have to wonder…

I suppose people who WANT to travel, do it — instead of just putting it off and adding things to their lives that inhibit the realization of the goal. I made choices that filled my life to the brim — and left no room for anything else. And I did it with a smile. I loved it. So…

Do I really want to write? Do I really want to travel? Do I want them both enough to do them, regardless of the cost, the isolation, and the difficulties I’ll have to face to accomplish them? Or is it time to admit that this isn’t really what I want … is it time to change the goals?

I don’t think so… but…

The next few weeks (or months) will be a time of soul-searching and self-discovery. I’d like to say I’m really looking forward to it, but in truth, I think I’d prefer a nap. But I know that this time will be pivotal for me and that weighs on me.

I’m cocooning right now, and yet, I’m not excited about emerging in a different form on the other side. I will be. But for now, I’m just exhausted, sad and overwhelmed. It’s a monumental undertaking and, for better or worse, I can’t put it off any longer.