Brain Rain
Posted on June 26, 2008 - Filed Under self reflect
We love that it is raining. Our dear little lake has gotten so dry that I found fishermen GRABBING fish from the middle of the lake a week back, and who knows what else they were terrorizing or disturbing while out there. As rain comes down, with the daily snaps of local lightning, we take time to unplug our systems from all electrical outlets and occupy ourselves with something else until the worst of it passes. Sometimes I wish I could be unplugged.
Gary and I always joke that when we are good at something, like fixing little computer bugs, making the printer behave, or always finding a sale on something we want to buy, THAT is one of our super-powers. Honestly, although I can admit that I am good at having my mind rattle incessantly about a million-and-one things, I can hardly brag that it is a super-power. I keep wondering, in what deranged way, I got this ability, and why I should count my blessings. As I watch the rain fall on the back deck, splintering puddles and dripping from rails, I see my own mental downpour. I can relate to all those raindrops, plummeting through the air all at once, with the way that my mind drops ideas on the deck that is my brain. No wonder my dreams are so bizarre.
So one of the things that’s been a downpour is what to do with myself. I busted ass to get my MA, in Mental Health, no less. I have been working multiple jobs (all I love) for over 5 years now, and I agonize as to how to split myself up among them all. I can’t stand the thought of someone else controlling my time again – telling me when to take a break, or when they are unwilling to allow me to do so. My consulting work has slowed down since the economy has readjusted, the web design work that is hardly mine, has been bustling, requiring my sales-woman tact to help nervous businesses get where they need to be online. Counseling has gone no where – although opportunities exist, I just don’t want to pay for space. Teaching, my passion, continues, but without the tender raise that was promised when my master’s degree was in place. What to do, so that I have less to do and enjoy life more?
Then there follows the disappointment in myself, the beliefs that there are expectations of me, the belief that I need to make everyone else happy first, the expectation to use my degree for SOMETHING, the request by students to “come see me” and I am practice-less. The knowledge that I have the skills to earn $75,000/year or more, but not wanting to commit to something that holds me hostage in time, energy, creativity. Perhaps this is just life. Maybe my brain is just raining today….. waiting for the clouds to clear – or maybe my brains took up residence in Oregon.