MILES TO GO BEFORE I SLEEP

This is going to be one of those reflective posts, I think.  I guess there isn't a whole lot to do when you're sick but think about stuff.  Television gets boring quickly, playing video games gets tiring and one can only sleep for so long.  Hubby has been home the same days I have been, so I really haven't had much time alone at all.  But because I'm sick, he's been sleeping in the other room, so I've had some time to myself late at night.

Sometimes I just feel stagnant.  I feel that I have made some good progress on making my life better overall if I look at the big picture.  But sometimes when I look at the details, it feels as though I've taken a few steps back and I haven't come as far along as I'd hoped.  And I feel in many ways I'm running out of time.  It reminds me of something I read in an Alice in Wonderland story about having to run as fast as you can to stay in the same place, but if you wanted to get anywhere, you'd have to run twice as fast.  Sometimes I feel that is what my life feels like.  Things that people take for granted on being able to do aren't always the easiest for me to do.  Being somewhat organized, mindful, attentive, curbing one's impulses, remembering things, putting things away are all things I struggle with on a daily basis that can wreak havoc into other parts of my life. 

I'll give you an example.  When I was growing up, I used to like drinking the small bottles of Coca Cola.  They tasted better out of the glass bottles.  We would save the bottles and return them for a bit of a refund.  It wasn't ever much, as I remember.  Anyhow, one thing my mother harped on me about constantly was to quit leaving the empty bottles around the house, but instead to rinse them out and put them in the case to go back to the store for a refund.  For some reason, I could NEVER remember to do this.  It's not that I purposely avoided the task.  It wasn't a major task in the first place.  I just constantly forgot, until I had to be reminded.  Then of course I felt bad because I should have remembered in the first place.  My mind is always going 200 miles a minute, so the thought of putting the Coke bottles where I should just wasn't one of the plethora of thoughts that ran through my head.  My mother was convinced and probably still is to this day that I did not pick up my bottles on purpose, because I just figured she'd do it.  The thing is that I just never thought about it.  And if I did think about it for a moment, I might actually pick up the bottle and take it into the kitchen and then get sidetracked on something else, so the bottle never got rinsed and didn't make it into the case where it needed to go.  That gave the appearance that I was just trying to 'half-ass' my way through this particular chore.  That was never my intention, though.  I would simply get distracted by something else and then the Coke bottle would be forgotten.  This was a constant battle.  My mother thought for sure I did it to be mean or inconsiderate or that I just didn't care.  I hated for her to get mad at me, so I always tried to do everything I could to avoid it, so it wouldn't make sense that I would purposely not do something just to upset her.  I had too many things on my mind and I just couldn't remember all of them, especially if it was something mundane like that.

Now I'm older and I realize my tendencies to behave in that way and how it does tend to send messages to other people that I might be inconsiderate of their feelings, so I try my best not to do things like that.  But many times, I still tend to blurt out the wrong thing or something at an inappropriate time, just because I didn't think first.  Sometimes I still leave a bottle or a glass somewhere else in the house.  Sometimes I seem to ignore what people say or not to listen to them.  Many times I still interrupt people or try to finish their sentences for them.  I still take things a bit too personally and I still give in to impulse decisions that are not wise.  Sometimes the impulse decisions that I make could have long term ramifications that could be really bad.  Occasionally I've managed to squeak out of scenarios like that or to make things right before anything gets out of hand.  Other times I'm not so lucky.  Then I'm faced with a decision where either way I choose is not something good.  Generally it's a decision of whether I come clean to a family member (who already has a bad opinion of me) about something I did they won't be happy with, or I keep my mouth shut and they still could possibly find out that I did it, and I could be in even more trouble.  Sometimes there's plan C, where I work feverishly to fix it so that when they either find out or I have to tell them, then at least I will have fixed it or know how to fix it by then.

Coming clean was usually always the obvious best choice.  It's more difficult now only because I don't want to be a disappointment, and I pretty much have been all my life.  I've worked hard to change a lot of aspects of my life, and while I feel overall I'm better, I'm still not perfect by any means.  But to this person, they will see only the mistake, they will see only in their minds that I confessed because I knew I had to, not because I was sorry for what I did.  They will tie it into my past and compare it to things I've done in the past and using all of that, they will come to their conclusion that I am no different than I ever was.  I am the same disappointment I've always been and that nothing at all has changed within me.  And because I've been such a disappointment to them, the possibility is there that they will even make sure I get into as much trouble as possible regarding what I did, because I have never completely learned my lesson. 

All this from an impulsive decision.  And this isn't even going into how disappointed in myself I am about all of this.  How can I expect anyone to see that I've changed if I still fall on my face and make some of the same stupid rash decisions that I've made in the past and I know I shouldn't do? 

At times like this I feel I've lost ground.  I feel like I took my eye off the prize or glanced somewhere else long enough to trip myself up while I was running to stay in place.  Now I have to make up what I lost, plus still gain more ground if I'm ever to get where I'm going.  Yet, I'm so tired and it makes me tired at times even thinking about it.  Like now, for instance.  Since I can't resolve all of this tonight, I guess I'm going to sleep instead.