Holding Pattern

I realized late last night that I've been acting like I'm in a holding pattern - that I've been mentally "holding my breath."  I can't completely explain it, but I've been holding back, holding off, restraining myself.  I've been unwilling to do what I normally do, pursuing what I normally pursue.  I've been delaying, postponing, deferring, thinking "someday," and "eventually."

I've been trying to figure out the source and I've come up with quite a few.  First, there's my stupid injury.  Nearly two weeks ago I stepped on a child's block on the stairs, lost my footing and ended up falling.  I banged down a few steps before coming to a stop with that block lodged firmly in the small of my back.  For nearly two weeks now, my tailbone and back have been in pain.  Sitting hurts, laying down hurts, sneezing hurts, running hurts.  It's been pretty annoying and so I haven't run much.

Secondly, there's a new game for my iPhone/iPad that I've been quite addicted to called Grabatron.  You pilot an alien spaceship that has a giant grabbing claw on the bottom.  You pick up cars, tanks, rocks, sheep, mobile homes, etc. And then you throw them.  It's violent, it's cartoonish and it's actually quite fun.  You control the ship by simply starting with your phone held flat and then tipping it in the direction you want to go, tapping the screen to engage or release the claw.  The gameplay is fun and it gets intense when you have to make sudden moves to dodge gun fire from farmers, police or commandos and rockets from soliders, tanks, helicopters and missile launchers.  It has a 1950's feel to it, but it's a bit anachronistic when the sleek and deadly helicopters come after you.  So I've been playing that instead of reading.

Third, I've not been sleeping well.  So I end up staying up at night playing on my phone and then I sleep in and don't get up and do my morning exercise or listen to the podcast.  And then at night, all I want to do is watch TV, not really read Google Reader or post in my blog.

Fourth, I've been totally cheating on my diet.  Every time I've turned around, there's been goodies in the house - leftovers from baked gifts Lori's made for teachers, birthday parties, fourth of July, etc., etc., etc.  I've been unable to avoid all the amazing goodies and I have absolutely no willpower.  The way to keep me on my diet is to keep tasty treats away from me, the way to make me break my diet is to put tasty treats within reach.  Sadly, that's it.  So lately I've also gotten back in the habit of eating handful after handful of cereal right from the box.  It's a really bad habit.

There's been a lot of uncertainty at work.  There's a weird power thing going on above me between my former and again current boss and my most recent boss.  I feel like I'm caught in the middle and my current role means I have a responsibility to both of them (regardless of the org chart structure) and I succeed when I help both of them succeed, so it's kind of this weird dynamic.  I don't want to overstate my own role, but it's slightly undefined and so there's a lot of potential there to shine and that'll be the easiest when they are both comfortable with what I'm doing, but they don't have the exact same goals, so it's tricky to navigate.  Making it more confusing, part of my role is a role that's very slowly being vacated by someone who's leaving the company, but doing it very, very slowly.  His family's next chapter is elsewhere, but it's been a bit of a journey for them to determine exactly where, and then he's had to navigate finding a new job and buying a house and all the preparations for them to move.  So I'm slowly moving into his role, slowly exiting another role (complicated by stuff I can't talk about here) while keeping a few other roles, while he guides and coaches me from the sideline all while we're redesigning things as a result of the re-org we took the opportunity to do to align with his departure.

And this one is weird, but I think Ben's autism is also causing me to kind of be "stuck" - from the very few traumatic/painful experiences I've had to endure, you figure they have an end.  Whether it's a financial hardship, or even an injury or loss - you know there will be grief, a feeling out of the ordinary, but that at some point, things will change - that there will be a new normal, or you'll eventually pay off the financial problem or something.  But Ben's been diagnosed as "PDD-NOS" and the last part of that is "Not Otherwise Specified" which means that at some point we can expect a different diagnosis probably.  But I don't know when, so I feel like it's something I should be waiting for.

There's also all the stuff I want to do, ideas that float around in my head, unformed - like things in the yard and house to eventually do when we eventually have the money.  And then two other things I'm working on but not yet ready to talk about.  All this weighs on me.

And then there's the heat... that's making me sluggish and also makes it hard to sleep.

And email.  Both my work and home email boxes are overflowing.  It's bad.

I've also felt on the edge of irritability, that I'm bombarded by constant noise and demands and don't have a moment to myself to think.  Part of this is my own fault, like right now, trying to type this close to dinner time in the kitchen.  (It feels a bit selfish, too.)

But I've got to break out of it.  This post is helpful, but I think some good sleep will really help.  As will returning to my to do list and being productive and getting stuff done.  Also, writing down the other stuff, getting it out of my head, that will help as well.

So, as soon I'm done with this post, I'm firing up Remember the Milk and Evernote and getting to work.  This slump will end.  Already today I logged all my food in Lose It! and pared down my list in RTM to a reasonable list of things that are potentials to get to tonight.  And in the near future, it'll be time to weed my inbox.  And the yard.

Onward!