As if I didn't pay enough for parking already

I have decided to pay more. That's right folks. I am going to shell out an extra $65 (PER MONTH) to park my car at my office. Cause doesn't everyone want to drive 2 miles to work in traffic and then pay a fortune to park the car? I know I do.

I have decided to switch my monthly parking from parking across the street from my office to parking directly under my office. There are some perks to this, but whether or not they equal $65, did I mention that is $65 per month, is in question. My name has come up on the waitlist, and I have decided to take it.

I had previously rationalized why monthly parking made sense. I would only save $20 if I took public transportation (cause naturally I would have to take a lot of cabs). This new expense I have not figured out how to rationalize. I am now paying an extra $85 PER MONTH more than I would be if I took public transportation based upon my previous calculation. Now, it could be that the calculation changes in the winter cause I would take even more cabs. Not sure.

Anyway, this is really a safety issue - or so I am telling myself. On the days when I work late, I don't feel safe walking all the way to my car in the parking garage across the street. It's just too big and I have to walk too far. Granted I never got mugged or anything last year, but it just made me uncomfortable to walk to my car after 7. Sometimes if I knew I was working late, I would move the car into the building cause I can get a pass to park in the building for free after 4:30. But that's a pain to move the car, it takes 20 minutes total to move the car.

Another perk is that I never have to go outside if I don't want to. I can go from the parking garage at home to the one at work, to the one at target and back home and then to Trader Joe's and to the regular grocery store without ever setting foot outside. I only have to go outside to go to AA meetings and that's only a couple of times a week. I don't have to wear boots, I don't have to wear socks, I don't even have to wear a coat in the dead of winter.

AND, I save time. We all know how I am about time. Everything not billable is "lost time" in my mind. I have been programmed that way and programmed to think of everything in 6 minute increments. I am losing time here writing this, 6 minutes at a time. By parking in the building that saves me 20 minutes per day. That's 20 minutes to post, 20 minutes to read blogs, or extra hours of billable time. Have I rationalized this yet?

And by the way, in the winter, I get to watch the sunrise from my office. So things can't be that bad, right?

Trust

Slowly, one by one, there are fewer and fewer people I can trust.

What giving up looks like

I don't know what giving up looks like. I'm trying to figure it out actually. Whether I have already given up, or whether I am still trying to. Don't panic or anything, that's not what I mean.

It's just that my life didn't turn out the way that I had planned and so I don't know what to do with it. Except give up on every single thing I thought I wanted. But how. And then what?

Suddenly seeming like a long way home

I set out this afternoon, leaving work early, to make the drive home to Michigan. It's not that far, but it's not that close either - 4 hours, almost exactly. I usually don't mind the drive; it goes by quickly and is usually relatively uneventful. For some resson, this time, I found myself not excited about making the trip. I'm excited to be in Michigan, to see my nephew, my brother. It just seems that as time goes by, I find myself feeling farther and farther away and less and less connected to the place that I'm from. It makes me feel like I don't have a home, because where I live doesn't feel like home either. From where I am sitting, it seems like a long way home.

I guess it is the perfect time to post

I am at work and waiting around for the partner to bring documents back to me and while there are some things I could be working on, well, as you can see, I'm basically not. I don't know why I don't seem to post regularly. I just don't feel like it. All I really have to talk about is my mood, and that's so uninteresting that I can't even really tell you how uninteresting it is. So I am going to once again talk about it.

This whole transitioning back to working thing has really thrown my mood for a loop. So much for being even most of the time. I've been all over the place for a week and a half now. Even, on the ceiling, somewhere between the ceiling and even, but closer to the ceiling, on the ceiling, half way to ceiling. Or should I say the walling. When I was little I thought the ceiling was actually called the walling. I don't know why. Anyway, it was great fun to say "lift me up to the walling!" and my dad would lift me up so I could touch the ceiling. I've been somewhere between even and the walling for days now.

So we tweaked the meds I'm on a little to try to get me even again. And today is the first day that I have felt perfectly in the middle. But you don't want to know what I took last night to accomplish this.

Guess what I got to do today?

Actually, I am not going to tell you. I am going to spare you the details because if I told you, you might never come back and read this blog again. You can guess if you want to, but I still probably won't tell you.

All I am going to say is that it involved bleach and a toothbrush.

I know I haven't been posting that regularly, so I'll be back later...

If I could have just one day

If I could have just one day where I didn't have to think about the fact that I had breast cancer, what a relief it would be. I would settle for just one day. To remember what that feels like - what it was like before. There is before and after - and it will never be what it was. The time when I didn't regret everything. What I would give not to regret everything. One day where I didn't have to live under a shroud of fear and anxiety. I wanted to feel empowered by it, by the fact that I am a survivor, but I don't, not anymore. I used to wear a bracelet that said I was a survivor but I stopped wearing it because I got tired of answering questions about the thing that I would give anything to just forget. It's hard to feel empowered by having survived something that may very well be the thing that kills you, and way before your time. It is hard to live, hard to plan, hard to be optimistic about the future. I am not, on most days. Most days I just wish for something I can't have. I don't know how to live with this anymore. I never did really figure it out, as hard as I thought I tried to.

It's breast cancer awareness month. It's in my face, all day at work, all over the place. Every where I go, a constant reminder.

My friend Nina posted asking people what they would want if they could have just one thing. She got it exactly right. Time.