4 am, again

It's 4 am. I'm thinking about my life. I've done some amazing things. Maybe because I'm on a health kick, I've been reevaluating where I am in life. I'm 52, childless, and a government worker. And I'm also 52, an author with two books, a lawyer who enjoys helping people as a deputy public defender and a creative who has a loving husband and a dog, both of whom she loves to distraction. 

Why am I up? I can't sleep. I'm downstairs because Chewbacca has nighttime howling issues. Is it sundowners, impacted by his old age? He still looks like a puppy but is over a hundred in dog years. I try not to get irritated with him even though he's impacting my sleep. Seriously impacting it.

This is life. Life at fifty. Life in the year of 2024. Post Covid, and hopefully post Trump presidency forever. I bring up Covid because it taught me to put better boundaries with work. It taught me I could put my books into the world. It taught me to love being at home. It taught me to value myself and it taught me to be who I am. There's a power in owning who you are. There's only one you. One me.

I gotta get some sleep but before I do. Just remember that life is short, precious and beautiful. It's flipping beautiful.

What is going on?

 It's 7:15 am. The sun is shining through the blinds. Slats of light break through the window. I wonder if the birds are chirping. 

I feel at peace. I had a nice day off yesterday and decompressed and disconnected from work. 

Writing is my love. I know this now. I like being a public defender. I enjoy working with the clients, and helping them, but it's no longer how I define myself.

The art of narrative live storytelling is what I am interested in right now. I'm working on a piece which I'll perform without notes for a podcast I'll be on. It's challenging. To do it live without notes is terrifying so I'm glad it's recorded. 

But ultimately, I hope to get to the point where I can perform truthfully and organically without notes. I'm working the ideas out in my mind for a one woman show. It has to be something new. Yet also a mix of something old. Something borrowed. And always something blue. (Blue meaning sad, not blue meaning risqué.)

So that's what's going on. I'm still going to be doing my podcast, although less often. And I'm working on a YA novel. But this idea of a one woman show is something that is calling me. And I will answer the call.

The latter

 I'm feeling quite contrary. Wanting to just try something different. To give my art my all. And take a chance.

But I'm a pragmatic person, truly I am. Idealistic in thought but practical in action. Perhaps that will be my undoing? 

I wasn't always this way you see. I used to just jump. From job to job. Place to place. Then I found a suburban existence. I got almost everything I yearned for as a kid. Nice house. Comfort. Love. A reliable paycheck. Almost I say, because still, there is something missing, just outta reach. 

I wonder if my dad was here, what he would say. Would he say, just be happy with what you got? Or would he say, go for your dream. Dreams are all we got to keep us going... 

I think the latter. 

The Beatles

I am listening to the Beatles while I drink my coffee before leaving for work. We saw a tribute band called The Fab 4 the other day and I danced the whole way through the concert. I sang along until I got hoarse. 

I've always been a John Lennon kind of gal. My twin sister loves Paul McCartney. I remember playing John's best of solo CD until it was wore out when I was in college at UCR. John's voice has always gotten me. It's soothing. It's inspiring.  His vocal cracks and wryness can make one weep, 

The Beatles song "I'm So Tired" has always been one of my favorites. It was written by John during a period of insomnia.  It especially resonates with me today. 

"I'm so tired, my mind is on the blink."

I am up, but so exhausted. Chewie had me up at 3 am coughing. I came downstairs and slept fitfully on the futon, wondering what the point of life is. 

Is it this rat race? The hamster wheel? Spinning. Going nowhere fast. Or is it about creating something that will last the ages? About making something that will resonate? About loving and living and listening to some fucking music that makes you tap your feet and smile? Maybe it's all about writing my ass off. Until the pen drops from sheer fatigue. Maybe that's it. 

Hell yeah it is.

The Fourth of July

Hey baby

It's the Fourth of July

As X sang

Go outside

Watch the sky

But it's too hot 

The heat stifling me 

The sun baking me

Instead I sit inside

Not doing what I should do

No writing 

Watching West Wing reruns

Like I said it's too hot

I go to bed at seven 

After drinking Benadryl 

Am I depressed?

I used to love watching lights 

Shoot into the sky

Nope I'm just older

And want to sleep

On the Fourth of July

The towel

I am at the pool writing this. I need to get all of this crap out of my head. I tossed and turned all night. I was sad. Then mad, and then sad again. Hence, the sleeplessness. Yesterday was not a good day at work. I'm frustrated with the system I work within and its participants.

By the participants, I don't mean the clients I have as a deputy public defender. I mean the system itself and those who serve within it.

I'm keeping it vague because I have to. I'm not here to call anyone out. I am here to say this system is broke and it needs fixing. This adversarial carceral system is messed up. It reminds me daily that I don't use the word justice system for a reason. 

All of this is just sitting in my head. My thoughts twirled all night. Why do things work like this? Do they have to? There has to be a way to change all of this. Isn't there? 

Perhaps, just perhaps, I have been doing this work far too long. I'm sour. My face is puckered daily by frustration. I want to do more to make a difference and can't. I am stymied. Stagnant. 

I remind myself, it is not about me. I've always known this. I work within a machine and my clients suffer within it. But then I think, right before I dive into the pool, when do you throw in the towel?

Laps

I'm in at my community pool doing laps, well really I just finished and I'm in the jacuzzi writing this. Swimming is such a zen activity for me. It always makes me wonder, is life just at its core about putting ourselves in the water and swimming, one stroke at a time? I think so.

I remember my swim coach in high school, Nora. Our pool was always freezing. It was never heated and if we'd dare to complain, she'd glare at us. We would do hundreds of laps during practice. She'd blow her whistle. Come on! Faster! I'd come home starving and would fight my sisters for the last pork chop.

My favorite was always the team relays where I either swam backstroke or freestyle. I was on the junior varsity team and was better at sprinting than at long distance. I loved the fifty meter and the one hundred. I always lost my breath in the longer distances. 

When I think back to high school, swimming kept me on track during my freshman and sophomore year. When I quit the team, school started to go downhill and by senior year, well, as you know by now, that year was a disaster.

Yet, still, those years of competitive swimming taught me a lesson I  use in my life to this day. That lesson is that it's all about putting yourself out there and getting somewhere, even if it's only to the other side of the pool.