The Quirks of Works

Into every working life some quirks must fall. And let’s face it, no job is perfect.  First, I love my career as a writer.  I still get the biggest thrill – I mean butterflies in the stomach thrill – when I say that I am a writer.  And I love my job.  It is very enjoyable with just the right amount of challenge to make sure I don’t get bored. But there are a few quirks.

Like we can’t talk. Conversations with our coworkers are greatly unappreciated, even if it is about work.

Now I am a very talkative person.   If you are close to me, I am talking to you.  I remember always getting in trouble for talking in homeroom during high school.  And the teacher would move me to a different seat…except that did not work because i talked to everyone.  I talked to them if they were doing something interesting, wearing something interesting  or if i thought they had something interesting to say.  And if they didn’t, I did.

So when a co worker mentioned that it was a thing that we don’t talk at our desks, I was in sheer horror.  How can you learn about your new position if you can’t talk to people? How can one even exist like that? Ninety percent of what you learn (or what I learn) is from communicating and asking questions. And the irony that I am on a team that writes training materials – much of which are group and brainstorming activities- and we are not allowed to brainstorm, is not lost.  Take a minute to let that sink in.

So, I must go down this road alone, with my co workers right beside me.  I did notice the break room and rest room are full of chatty people, so there is hope. On the bright side it is great for editing or having to concentrate…because it is so quiet.  It is like what I imagine it’s like to work in a library.  Complete with hearing the faint sounds of whispers every now and then.

The other quirk is our style guide. This is used to make sure all writers go by the same standards so there is consistency in the way things are written for a company.  Most are based loosely on AP or Chicago style. Not us.  We are based on….well, I am not exactly sure.  Pronouns are not used.  At all.  Do you know how hard it is to write training material, or anything really, without the use of pronouns?  Things get rather wordy.  They say you often want what you can’t have.  Well, I want pronouns.  I think they may be my favorite parts of speech (Only fellow writers or grammar people get that last statement).

Another variation from the normal…are our rules when it comes to a bulleted list.  Most of the time the first word is capitalized, and there is a period at the end if it is a full sentence. Nope.  Neither one of those.

Do you know what writing is without punctuation?  Anarchy.  Pure and total anarchy.

I can barely breath thinking about all those poor words, stranded on the page, just sitting there in black and white.

All in all, I have a wonderful life, an amazing career and a great job.  But there are still some quirks.  Which makes for good writing. I can hear you laughing.

 

 

The Peace of the House

I done been through too much hell and high water to come there and let you come up in my adult life where I’m supposed to be at peace and give me all sorts of hell. There’s only two places on earth that you’re gonna have peace: the grave and your house. If you can’t walk up in your house and you ain’t got no peace, then something’s wrong.   – Medea, Tyler Perry’s Medea Goes to jail

When I first saw a clip from that Tyler Perry movie, it was like big light bulb went off. If you can’t walk up in your own house and have peace, then there is something wrong.

I have never understood why people let others make their house a place of unpeace and unhappiness. But you must also have peace within yourself and that is hard to do, even impossible, if you don’t have peace in your home. We have all encountered people who will put up with just about anything to hear someone say they love them.  We’ve all known people who seem to have a never ending stream of unrest in their life and are always miserable because they won’t let go of those who are making them miserable. And their life will continue that way until they take purposeful steps to have peace.

How do you get it? I think it is a process really, or at least it was for me. First, I let go of those who were causing unrest in my life.  Anyone who upset calm waters had to go.  But even more than that, because sometimes I can be dense, I had to realize that there was a reason when someone did not return to my life. Bad things happen when we try to force it – love, friendships, jobs, and careers, whatever.  And there is a reason why sometimes people just fade away. It’s usually because that person no longer serves you – that’s the nice way to say it.

In real life, it means that your mentality no longer matches theirs, or your values no longer align and staying with them can cause you harm. This is a lesson I have learned the hard way. It doesn’t mean they are a bad person either, or maybe they are and you just haven’t seen it yet. I have an ex-boyfriend who is a great guy, aside from the fact that he is completely crazy and very unstable (thus why he is an ex).  We kept in touch for a few years, but then just faded out of each other’s lives. I decided to keep it that way because, while he is not a bad person,  I do not want that unstable element in my life.

When another friend came to visit me recently, she said she could tell that I was at peace because she could feel it in my home. I had not thought about it before then, but she was right. I am at peace. And that permeates through every part of my life, especially my home.

My wonderful happy little home, stuffed with love and furniture, cats and aloe plants. A place where I go to rest and be protected from the world, a sacred space for those I love most. I have long said, that which gives you peace will make you happy. You cannot have one without the other. And indeed it is true.

Riding with My Dad

First of all, my father is the most adorable older gentleman that ever existed, and my parents are the cutest couple in the world, still holding hands and talking care of each other.

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Their last trip to see me was one of the best visits we have ever had.  My parents adore my boyfriend, and they get along very well.  We laughed, ate, talked a lot and just were together as a family.

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And then something happened was delightful and a little surprising.

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Sometimes it is hard to imagine our parents as they were when they were younger, before we existed, when they were single and maybe even a little wild.  I have always known my father to be quite…well, fatherly.  But I have seen pictures of how handsome he was when younger (and he is still handsome just older).  I know when he was younger he had either a Maserati or Karmann Ghia (I am not a car person and get  them confused). So I do know that he has an appreciation for cars. And as a professional engineer, he has worked on many of them over the years, tinkering with this or that. And he watches the History Channel programs on planes and engines and such.

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We were just going up the store to pick up a few things, when my father strolls out of the house, with his slick sun glasses on, announcing that he is ready to go…in the convertible.  It is my boyfriends car, and it really is a wonderful, speedy, sporty thing.  But Dad, requesting the convertible? With a big grin on his face, he slipped into the passenger side and off we went, zipping through the neighborhood, classical music blasting on the stereo (his favorite)

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When I said it was a beautiful day, my father happily corrected me and said that it was a beautiful day to be out in a convertible.  It was a wonderful drive and made me wish the store was actually further away.

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So it is now that whenever we can, Dad will go for trips and rides in the convertible, smiling big, maybe remembering times gone by. It truly is the simple things in life, like a ride with the top down on a pretty day, with your dad. I will forever hold that sweet memory in my heart.

The In of the Move

We all have those big life events that get us excited, make us think, plan for our future, make plans, put away the past, look forward or just remind us of how great life can be.  This weekend, it is that fact that my boyfriend and I have moved in together.  Huge step in the relationship and life in general.  The idea of sharing my space with another has been, well, scary.  But not so much with this wonderful human being.

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And as with most life events, there is much work to be done.  As a woman who has been on her own for twenty (yes 20) years,  It has been about 11 years since I cleaned out my closets, cabinets and drawers.  Yes, there have been Mini-cleanings” where I didn’t want to pack things for a move, but a serious, if-you-haven’t-used-it-in-X-years cleaning out?  Not so much…

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It is said that going through your old unused things is cathartic, and I have to agree.  You see items that have been buried away, deep in boxes, and the emotions and memories along with them.  And something else happened too. I realized, over the past 4-5 years, just how ragged my life had been. The proof was right there in front of me, in the ragged way clothes had just been thrown on hangers, un-straight (yes that is a word in my dictionary), disheveled and worn.  Things had holes in them that I just shrugged off, prized dresses and such wrinkled and jammed up.

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It has only been in the past year that life has been settled and good enough to breath again. Before that it was rushing from one crisis to the next as I took care of family, pets and myself.  And as my boyfriend separated the sets of good sheets and towels from the worn, torn, and ragged sets, I was reminded of just how torn and ragged I had become after those years as well.

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Taking care of all others and not having anything left for myself. When that happens you simply settle for what is the closest, easiest thing.  You work hard for others, and afterward the energy left is barely enough to get the basics for yourself.  You are running on empty – fumes and prayers. And that is what I did.  Wrapped up in tattered hopes and dreams, having left pieces of me; of my heart, mind, body and soul, along the path I had traveled.

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It is amazing to me, how some things only become apparent when they are literally staring you in the face. Making sure I was surrounded by pretty seemed irrelevant when taking care of so many. Taking care of myself, taking time for small little things that made me smile was so far away.  It was more along the lines of put my head down, nose to the grindstone and do what needs to be done.  There was no time or energy for pretty.

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And now my closet has what is whole and good.  Sheets are whole and good, so are the towels.  My boyfriend reminds me every day that I should be surrounded by pretty every day.  What a beautiful thing to say.  And so it goes.

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After a year of rebuilding it is now that I find myself whole again.  And when you are whole, you can truly get rid of that which is tattered and worn, because that is no longer who you are.  You have evolved further than your past can take you.  And you must shed the skin of your old self because it is too tight and small.  I never knew, never thought that moving in with someone would teach me these things. What a wonderful discovery.

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The other part of moving in together is figuring out how the furniture will blend.  I have a full 4 bedroom house!  Well, three bedrooms and a huge office.  We have to figure out which dining room table, breakfast table, desks (I have 3) and chairs stay and which leave.  And as we went through the kitchen, I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to compromise – as never before have I ever allowed someone else in “My kitchen.”  Like mother like daughter…

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And it seems symbolic of making a life with another, as it is a gentle weaving of thoughts and styles, meshed together to make one beautiful life.  Letting go of old fears, to make room for new hopes. For me it is exciting to have a partner, not just someone taking up space, or using for as much as they can get. This is a person with whom to build.  And all those fears are outdated, just like the worn out clothes and towels.

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And so it goes, the weaving in and out of life, the building, piece by piece, as we sort though what is to be kept and what to let go. And the load is lighter.