STUCK.....

It is a long dreary weekend here in Portland. The afterweek of Aspen, a bit of a reality check. Work, home stuf, friends with good intentions, friends with issues, patients. Too much to do and no motivation. I have not even been to the gym since my return. No reason. My personal to take the Ambien when i go to bed at a reasonable hour, and then succumbing to the inevitable need at 200 or 300 and feeling drowsy until almost noon..... the weather doesn't help.

THis overcast grey stuff... the reason I consider leaving Portland every year.... with my over all gray mood, it doesn't help.

My immediate deadlines have been met...now I have a few more looming, but they will wait a few days, so this weekend has been highly unproductive. I have forced myself into a strict routine.... Fridays clean, laundry, Saturday lawn and yard clean up, Sunday sheets and towels.... but I am distracted.... and highly unmotivated.... Tomorrow.... Monday.... and then Tuesday is the day of reckoning in my life.... September 1. The Day I reconstruct my life. September being my birthday month, I have for years taken Sept the time to reflect back, plan ahead. I am sure it has to do with my 19 some years in school...The school year and my birthday coinciding to create a new beginning. WOW.... not sure I can really reflect on that this year.

I had the opportunity to drive from the California border to Portland late last week....helping a friend.....weird.... 1981 was the first time I made that trip..... talk about life changing....I remember stopping at the Rogue River Rest Stop....Abbey jumping out of the truck over me through the window ...running to the river and just lying down. This was the dog that hated the water.... but it was so hot and it had seemed like we had been on the road forever.....Up I-5.... learning we cannot pump our own gas, the stench that was Albany...( wow that has changed)..... and then the route Ivy gave us to Beaverton..... into downtown then up 26 to Cornell.... now i giggle.....I made the trip again not quite a year later, my honeymoon.... staying at Wolf creek Inn, drinks at Spring Green, two heavily intoxicated, in love fools in a beat up Volkswagen traveling back to Tahoe.... the very journey I had made to Oregon in 81. Now..... 28 years later..... that life is gone. But I need to turn a corner. The drive looks the same...oh the trees are bigger, places are better marked and Mapquest makes life all that much easier to get around. but the feelings, the memories..... knowing i am once again standing on the edge of a life change.

It has become painfully aware it is time for me to move forward..... I have a dear man in my life. We are moving slow... well slow for us, slow for 50 something year old, slow because of where we are ..... others will say 'that was fast'.... but we are dating.... exclusively, spending a great deal of time together, but I am not in love. Not sure I can ever be in love again. He knows that.... not sure he is OK with it, but for now he is understanding...and not in love with me either....

but more than that. I need to clean the closets, put away the firetrucks, change SOME of the pictures....find the new me..... and make it work with the old me.

I also need to accept the new professional me. Time to start settling into the new role of the Senior therapist who just advises and doesn't have to do. That is hard..... I hate that..... I am trying hard to learn to not be critical, not judge....accept things..... maybe it is time to reread THE NEW EARTH....maybe I have achieved my life moment when I can embrace those beliefs.

ahhhhh...September.......