sometimes i am just not that impressed with the me that i am. sometimes i just bug me. i often wish the me that i admire would grace us with her presence a little more often. steven loves it when she comes to visit. we all do really...there's less need to beg for clean underwear, the bathroom counters are devoid of hair and clutter, disconnection notices are kept to a minimum, and there's cooking and baking going on that would make that obnoxious ramsey guy look like an amateur. things are good.
but like any well mannered houseguest who doesn't want to outstay her welcome, she never seems to stay very long. she doesn't seem to realize she's the best friend you didn't know you missed as much as you do; she's the fun one, the one who brings gifts and treats and lets the kids stay up late. she's a breath of fresh air and we all wish she would just hurry up and move in already! personally i think she finds us all a little too needy and is glad to be out of here at the first possible sign of escape. we do tend to keep her hopping.
don't get me wrong, and please, please, pleeease don't do the "aaawwwww, poor sharon" thing. this is not a self-esteem thing. i do like me, and at the risk of sounding totally full of myself, i know i have lots of good qualities - a sense of humor, i'm friendly, i hear i'm nice...and what about the accent? no, this is more of a fed-up, why do i have to make life tougher than it needs to be thing. i always seem to think that "things" are going to take longer, be harder and scarier, or require way more effort than i have the stamina for. ok...case in point...and this is going to seem so, so shallow, but bear with...we have lived the past year without the universal remote for our cable and television. the old one was dropped one too many times and finally died. for almost a year we have griped and complained about the inconvenience of having to actually get up and manually change the channel, or adjust the volume...or heaven forbid, get up to turn them on and off. we've put up with using a crappy little $5 remote from walmart that was always needing to be reset, and i seemed to be the only one who remember the numbers. you couldn't pull up the guide and therefore had to skip through all the channels catching glimpses and sounds bites that got real annoying real quick. ON DEMAND was just an ellusive dream. (now you can say "poor thing"). and can i give you a difinitive reason as to why we didn't just go and get another one? no, not really...none that would make you say, "aaaah! good reason. you have a point." just one of the scenarios going in my head has something about me driving an hour to the cable store and them asking me how the remote got broken and me having to admit that we'd dropped it one too many times and them telling me that it was our fault and we'd have to pay 50 bucks for a new one and then me asking for a supervisor and spending the next 45 minutes arguing the injustices of legalized grand larceny, and i just couldn't be bothered with the fight. which given the content of my last post seems a little ironic don't you think?
but yesterday, my day off, i decided i was heading that way anyway and in the words of nike, i was just gonna do it. so 15 minutes later, remote in hand, i was standing in the cable store telling a very nice lady that our remote didn't work. she took it, tossed it in a box, handed me a new one (with a manual!!!), suggested i have a nice day and in less that 90 seconds i was on my way. easy breezy, if not a little anti-climactic.
i felt a little stupid and really annoyed that i had made something so simple seem so complicated. it seems to be a pattern with me this fear and over thinking mixed with a hint of apathy and resignation that renders me feeling ineffective. but in all hosesty it has been my blessed experience that nothing is usually anywhere near as bad as i have built it up to be. in fact the opposite is true...life is so much better after it's all said and done. after yesterdays experience a the light bulb finally went on brighter than the floodlights at friday nights game. i've come to a clearer understanding that if i make a concerted effort to just DO whatever it is that needs doing instead of thinking it to death...or if i give the proper attention to the things that really do need to be thought through, instead of shoving them to the back of my mind where they can nag and torment me because i'm afraid of what needs to be done, then life, and the many wonderful things it's made up of, would be a whole lot simpler. and we'd all be whole lot happier. if i just repaint the banister then i wouldn't be burdened with offering excuses for it when someone drops by. an in reality, i could probably have a tasty dinner served in the time it takes to go and get pizzas. if i would spend 15 minutes folding a load of laundry instead of an hour thinking about how much i hate doing laundry...just think of all the extra time i'd have to hang out with the real me. who knows, maybe she'd be more inclined to stick around if she knows she isn't going to have to do everything herself.
