I get really unhappy, sometimes.

Some of it is generic run-of-the-mill existential angst: having recently lost most of my purpose in life, I'm sort of drifting until some of my purposes come back or until something new and shiny catches my eye.

some of it is this terrible catch-22 I find myself in: the pull between social time and alone time that I've always had trouble balancing.

I love my friends, every single one of them. I don't see many of them nearly enough. And for an introvert, I have a lot of friends; for whatever reason I seem to be attracted to whatever is shiny in other people and pester them until they let me stick around. And then I have my relationship with Chris; we see each other once or twice a week and talk between bouts of work all day long.

But between my friends and my relationship, I am a frayed rope of nervous exhaustion by the time the few hours on a Saturday night that I have to myself roll around. People in general take a lot out of me, some more than others. Chris, in particular, is a very energy-intensive person for me to be around. It's simply his nature to be passionate about everything and anything, which is attractive and crazymaking for me at the same time.

So I spend a lot of time around people. But the problem with that is that I need to recharge. I need time alone at work when i'm not talking to anyone, when it's just me and the work and the hum of the HVAC system. I need time alone at home, where there are cats and I can recharge on the blessed silence. I need time alone outdoors, where there is wind to drink and water to splash in and leaves and bark and grass to fondle. I need time alone to be the rule rather than the exception. Unlike pretty much everyone else I know, I do not crave the company of other people. My family used to joke that I was going to be a hermit when i grew up and that's what I still want to be, every day.

And I can't explain it, but I feel sometimes like being in a relationship is cutting me off from everything I want to do--exercise 6-7 days a week, write my novel and all the poems I have stuck in my head but refuse to make an appearance on paper, read my way through the local library, meditate, pick my religious practice up again, spend a week in a Buddhist monastery, finish reconfiguring my servers, and everything else I want to do but have no energy for at the moment. I want to be doing things and yet here I sit, trying to juggle one little life with not all that many extracurriculars and completely failing to make any headway.

It took Memorial Day, for instance, for me to finish a project that I've been working on for two months--weeding and barking the back beds. (Boy, does it look good, now.) It took me three weeks to change two light bulbs, because I never had the ten minutes to go look for the light bulbs that were the right wattage, fetch a chair, and change the lightbulbs. I've put things off, I've canceled things, I just don't have TIME for everything and the necessary things sometimes fall by the wayside.

So here is my new guideline for my life:

I come first.

I come first with myself, in my life. Second come the things that keep me fed, clothed, with a roof over my head and the necessities of life. Third come the cats and their needs, whether for affection, medical attention, or regular feeding times. Fourth comes my art, my passion, whatever turns me on and makes me tick.

Fifth comes other people and their needs. A distant fifth.

So I'm going to do some new things, to make this work for me. I'm going to come up with a schedule for myself, and on it will be a night for Chris, gaming, scrapbooking with Laura, and any other regular commitments. Then i'll schedule in time for myself. And then I'll have one or two nights a week where I can get together with other people, or have another night with Chris, or whatever.

I'm going to practice being logged off for most of the day. I can take care of email and read BBSes in about an hour at night, I've found. I am going to try not to make the Internet the center of my existence any more.

It's almost summer. This is the good season for me, the productive season, when the light is long and I am free of the cold that slows me down during the winter. I have so many plans, so many wants, and I am itching to get to them.

This feels like a good change. A positive start to something.

Speaking of, I now have plans for the two projects i'm going to be doing this summer--painting the stairwell and redecorating the office.

For the stairwell, I have colors picked out, mental lists of things I need to do/get (which will soon be real lists), and a plan. I'm going to wash the stairwell down one day, and the next I will paint it. The third day I will paint the trim and stencil some stuff--I have a willow leaf design that i'm going to run up by the bannister and possibly along the moulding on the other side, and some butterfly and dragonfly sponges that I'm going to use somewhere--possibly the uprights of the stairs, probably as a design where the vertical wall comes down.

What I'm going to do my office eventually (my home office, not the space that my company provides--I don't think they'd like it if I painted their space):

I'm going to paint the walls a light denim blue (think the color of your favorite blue jeans), which will be a light blue background with a darker blue wash over it. I'm going to paint the mouldings plum and the major woodwork (doors, windowsills) white. Probably paint the inner decorative parts of the doors plum. Or I may stencil them with something. Haven't decided yet.

I'm going to keep the ceiling white and a light-colored rug on the floor. I'll get a new futon cover, hopefully in a lightish color. (and a NEW FUTON MATTRESS.)

And on the walls will go fantasy art of various sorts, by local artists if I can manage it. I want my office to be a reflection of how and why I work--a vibrant, imaginative place with lots of pretty pictures to look at.

The pictures I've started on getting--I got some Amy Brown prints that I bought frames for last night, and I have my eye on a print that I saw at a vendor's stall at the Market last week. an 8x10 print is surprisingly a substantial presence in the right frame, and I'm happy with the ones I got last night. There are a few more I want, but I'm in good shape with those.

I need to figure out someplace to put books in there. But, really, I'm happy with this idea. And happy with the idea of my summer, now.

A few pictures from Memorial Day weekend:

A Juniper in the sun is a happy Juniper.
cosmos and concrete.
pretty purple azaleas.
EXTREME IRIS CLOSEUP.
Me, in an odd position and having the sun in my eyes.

[this is an On Display collabaration. Topic: Moving in/moving on.]

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