taking the reins and letting go

The hard part of my life at this stage is coping with knowing there simply isn't enough time in the day to do everything I want to do. There's certainly time enough to do what I must do, like put in 9-1/2 hours at work plus an hour an a half driving there and back, and sleeping. And eating, of course.

But that long list of things I want to do -- such trivial things, a lot of them, like reading blogs and endless other writings online (not to mention my endless email listserves which, though I keep deleting them hopelessly, now stand at 114), baking, watching movies; and the less trivial, such as spending time with my daughter and husband, working on the copywriting course I've paid for (still haven't finished lesson 1), getting to the gym ... and posting to this blog -- just never goes away, never gets smaller, and keeps rattling my intention to be relaxed and just let life flow.

So I've decided to make a concerted effort to get to work early enough to leave at a decent hour that will allow me to have a proper evening. It means I need to get up earlier (about 6:30) and leave the house by 7:30, just as my daughter is getting up. I tried it yesterday and getting to work before 8:15 felt very good. For the first time, I actually left the office while it was still light out.

This week was intense but great, as I spent three days at a very valuable course to learn FrameMaker, the program techwriters use instead of Word. It turned out to be semi-private, with just one other woman, who didn't ask nearly as many questions as I did. The pacing was excellent, with lots of built-in breaks to let the brain rest, and by the end I felt like I'd "magically" acquired a new skill that simply didn't exist 3 days earlier. I've had a chance to practice with it back in the office yesterday, and it really felt amazing to suddenly feel so familiar with this very sophisticated application. It's very complicated, but brilliant. Like suddenly owning a microwave when you never had one before, and having the power to thaw or cook food quicker than was ever possible ... except not as simple to use as a microwave.

During the work week, I spend almost no time with my daughter, and leave most of the parenting to Mr. Squarepeg, who doesn't have that many hours with her, but it's nice to know that whatever's needed is covered. On the weekends, she needs more mommy time, and she usually still doesn't get much, because mommy needs that time too. So when she asked me if I would do the Raanana Marathon's 3-km fun run with her, I initially refused, and then agreed and got Mr. S to do it with us too. She's really not into the community marathon thing, but she saw it as a cool and sneaky way to get out of going to school today and I went along with it; we all need the exercise. The 3K took us all of half an hour to walk-run (the real marathon is 10K) and she whined or dawdled much of the time, but at least we were doing something together. Afterward, we all went grocery shopping and then had a little adventure trying to drive home through streets blocked off for the marathon.

Later, we went shopping to find a Purim costume for her. Purim is this coming week, and the kids have Thursday and Friday off school, with the Purim party and everyone coming in costumes on Wednesday. She had decided she wanted to be a vampire, but soon dropped that idea and ended up being sold on a furry pink hat and big pink sunglasses instead. She's now satisfied that she looks sufficiently cute for the occasion.

As for me, I never get involved with Purim and costumes, but this time I've gotten into the spirit of the anti-squarepeg because of my company's party, to be held at a Tel Aviv club Thursday night. Today I found a great whip to go with my costume -- technically, I don't think Morticia Addams needed one, but it's a cool dominatrix look.

And then we went to the beach at about 5:30 to see the sun set over the Mediterranean, one of my favorite things, which I really missed during my two years in Toronto, and met mr. s's best friend and his wife and twin 7-year-olds for dinner. We walked around the new marina area till we found a restaurant with a table big enough for 4 adults and 3 kids, and it was a pleasant evening, but much colder once the sun had gone down. My jeans jacket wasn't warm enough.

Strangely, it was the first social occasion I'd had in a very long time. Before I started working, I did make lame efforts to socialize (which never developed into anything), but now that the job takes so much time, it's just magnified my ineptitude. I'm just not motivated to spend time with people. It's true I've always been a bit of an introvert and a loner, but having absolutely no social life at all is kind of bizarre, isn't it? I keep wondering if this will change as I evolve or if this is just my nature and it's always going to be this way for me.