...and now, back to our regularly scheduled monotony
Finally, I'm back home. It was a long week as indicated by my inability to answer a simple question posed by an airline representative.
"What was in your luggage?"
"Clothes," I say.
No kidding, thinks Rep. "Yes, but what kind? Even saying 'a green shirt' would help locate your bag if the tag fell off."
"Hmmm, slacks? Yeah, some khaki slacks?" I reply. Why can't I think of what I wore this week. What did I wear yesterday? "Honest to God I can't remember what I wore yesterday. It's been a long week."
"I bet."
Honestly, it was. My luggage is supposedly arriving by 9pm tonight. Doesn't it seem weird that there are people who drive other people their luggage? It's their job. Airlines need to pay people to do that...seems strange and wasteful and an exercise in inefficiency but whatever.
So on my way home I was listening to the radio, flipping through the stations. You know how occasionally you'll do that and two stations are playing the same song? What are the odds? You think that maybe you hit the same preset twice and double-check. No, two stations really are playing the same song. The same two stations who bad-mouth each other and claim to be so different. This happened TWICE on the way home--once with a pair of country stations and once with a pair of rock-ish ones. I know radio stations beat the poo out of songs, but to play them at the same time?!
This is just a representation of how I've been feeling the last few days. Don't get me wrong, I really am still grateful that I don't have any negative, crazy drama in my life right now. Things just seem a little monotonous. I started thinking more about how there aren't a whole lot of huge moments in people's lives (as in, it's the little things...). I mean, people have days where they say "I got the job!" or "I'm having a baby!" or "I bought a house!" But most of them are just regular ol' days. Again, don't get me wrong...there are plenty of times when you yearn for regular ol' days.
Think back over, say, the last 10 years (let's make it big). So that's 1996-now. Can you think of big things that marked each of those years? And, if not, why? I know I can't. I don't feel like I've had a lot of milestones lately. But you don't have to have milestones. Can't you create them? That's what I'm thinking. I need to make the effort to have years (months, weeks...) that I can look back on and say "that's when I..." I need to break up the monotony. Any ideas?
For the record, I can think of big things for the following years: 1997, 1998, 2001, 2004, 2005, 2006 (one of the years is for a bad thing, one for a mixed thing, and three of them are kind of stretching it).
"What was in your luggage?"
"Clothes," I say.
No kidding, thinks Rep. "Yes, but what kind? Even saying 'a green shirt' would help locate your bag if the tag fell off."
"Hmmm, slacks? Yeah, some khaki slacks?" I reply. Why can't I think of what I wore this week. What did I wear yesterday? "Honest to God I can't remember what I wore yesterday. It's been a long week."
"I bet."
Honestly, it was. My luggage is supposedly arriving by 9pm tonight. Doesn't it seem weird that there are people who drive other people their luggage? It's their job. Airlines need to pay people to do that...seems strange and wasteful and an exercise in inefficiency but whatever.
So on my way home I was listening to the radio, flipping through the stations. You know how occasionally you'll do that and two stations are playing the same song? What are the odds? You think that maybe you hit the same preset twice and double-check. No, two stations really are playing the same song. The same two stations who bad-mouth each other and claim to be so different. This happened TWICE on the way home--once with a pair of country stations and once with a pair of rock-ish ones. I know radio stations beat the poo out of songs, but to play them at the same time?!
This is just a representation of how I've been feeling the last few days. Don't get me wrong, I really am still grateful that I don't have any negative, crazy drama in my life right now. Things just seem a little monotonous. I started thinking more about how there aren't a whole lot of huge moments in people's lives (as in, it's the little things...). I mean, people have days where they say "I got the job!" or "I'm having a baby!" or "I bought a house!" But most of them are just regular ol' days. Again, don't get me wrong...there are plenty of times when you yearn for regular ol' days.
Think back over, say, the last 10 years (let's make it big). So that's 1996-now. Can you think of big things that marked each of those years? And, if not, why? I know I can't. I don't feel like I've had a lot of milestones lately. But you don't have to have milestones. Can't you create them? That's what I'm thinking. I need to make the effort to have years (months, weeks...) that I can look back on and say "that's when I..." I need to break up the monotony. Any ideas?
For the record, I can think of big things for the following years: 1997, 1998, 2001, 2004, 2005, 2006 (one of the years is for a bad thing, one for a mixed thing, and three of them are kind of stretching it).
Comments
"negative, crazy drama?" Now you're talking about the morning routine, regularly scheduled.
As for your nostalgic backward glances, I know what you mean and have this to say about the passage of time:
"Eventlessness has no posts to drape duration on." That's why a routine time should seem interminable, but is not.
*John Steinbeck*
PS Tigger says you are a cute redhead
I had a milestone last night. I saw the baby physically move my belly. It was too cool. The 'firsts' in a pregnancy soon become monotonous, and I'm sure I'll be hating all the movement here in a few months, but for now it's too cool.
That's what I mean by small milestones. Think of all the steps you've taken in the past 30 years, and how unimportant this is to you on a daily basis. Then think about how cool it was for your parents watching your first ones, knowing it would be the only first! It will take your breath away.
The mind is a strange thing. We remember things that we can't believe we remember, and often times those memories are sparked by a scent, or song, or just a feeling of deja vu. And then you wonder why that particular memory is stuck in your brain.
But I know what you mean about breaking up the monotony. I tend to want/need something to look forward to, instead of just enjoying the here and now. It's a fault I fight on a daily basis. You're not alone in that regard.
Hmmm, milestone years: 1998, 1999, 2000 (really good and really bad), 2001 (mostly really bad), 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006. Not many of the years above would have been milestones without some effort on my part.
However, it all comes back to Sex and the City. The episode where Carrie's shoes get stolen because of those people's stupid house rule. She tells Charlotte that after graduation, all celebrations/gifts are for engagements, marriages, babies. Nothing for the single girl...and birthdays don't count because everyone has them.
So, seriously, people. I've graduated. Twice (not counting high school). I've switched jobs, slowly climbing the ladder and making career decisions to make me happier. I'm hoping to buy a house by the end of the year. I can't make someone love me and propose to me and marry me and help with the birth of children (whose milestones become my own). Any ideas on things that a person CAN make happen to spice life up a bit? (Something to do while I'm passing the time allegedly NOT looking for a man because that's when he will come into my life.)
And, creechman, who am I to argue with Tigger?
Take a vacation on your own to somewhere (yes, alone) you've always wanted to visit. I did that in 1998, to Montana, and I drove there. It was great and I'll always remember it.
Buy a house. You don't need anything but $$$ to do that. Then you can register at Home Depot for people to buy you housewarming gifts!
Research your family history. Where did you come from?
Learn a new language, or fine-tune one you kind-of know already. Then take that trip I mentioned and try out your language skills in-situ, as it were.
Learn how to quilt and/or knit.
Volunteer to be a baby-rocker at your local hospital. You'd be surprised how many babies don't get the kind of physcial touch they need early on, and there are plenty of hospitals in Houston to choose from.
I'll try to think of a few more to help spice things up.
I like to occasionally disagree just to throw her off. ;)
There's one named creechman that lives in Clear Lake. He thinks he throws me with his commentary, but that's an illusion.