God gave us mothers for a reason.
I won't pretend my mother and I have always gotten along. We haven't. I was not a pleasant teenager (was anyone?) and my mother and I have had our share of fights, arguments, and misunderstandings. We're much, much too similar, and that more than anything else makes things difficult for us to get along on. I swear, I think we've had disagreements where we both agreed on something, but were too busy arguing about it to realize that. It's a wonder, really, that the rest of the family didn't simply knock our heads together sometimes.
But after spending most of Wednesday and all day yesterday feeling sorry for myself and running in place, metaphorically speaking, I got up today not entirely sure how to proceed. I had this rather misguided idea that I'd be able to just jump into the next spot in life without any real effort on my part. Obviously, this is silly, which I would have realized if I'd thought about it at all rationally, but I didn't.
So, although I'd gone to bed with all sorts of thoughts about how I was going to get up and be all MOTIVATED and PRODUCTIVE today, I basically woke up wishing that someone else would make my decision for me, and then spending all morning in bed. So much for productivity.
And then my mother called. She didn't pull any punches, either. She told me exactly what I needed to hear (which, trust me, was not what I wanted to hear), gave me a list of things that have to be done by tomorrow afternoon, and gave me the consequences for not doing them.
Granted, there is a large part of me that wants to sit and wallow, or spin wheels, because that's easier than making a decision. That part of me is pointing out that it's only been a week, that a week one direction or the other won't matter, that I have every right to take my time for this.
And the rest of me realizes that the minute I start making a habit of that kind of procrastination, I'm setting myself up for failure.
So I'm going to stop using 'research' as an excuse, and start making some phone calls. The more I look at it, the more it seems that one door is being forcibly closed on me, and the another is being made more clear. Frustratingly, it's not necessarily the one I thought I really wanted, but maybe the timing just isn't right.
Off to the phones.
I won't pretend my mother and I have always gotten along. We haven't. I was not a pleasant teenager (was anyone?) and my mother and I have had our share of fights, arguments, and misunderstandings. We're much, much too similar, and that more than anything else makes things difficult for us to get along on. I swear, I think we've had disagreements where we both agreed on something, but were too busy arguing about it to realize that. It's a wonder, really, that the rest of the family didn't simply knock our heads together sometimes.
But after spending most of Wednesday and all day yesterday feeling sorry for myself and running in place, metaphorically speaking, I got up today not entirely sure how to proceed. I had this rather misguided idea that I'd be able to just jump into the next spot in life without any real effort on my part. Obviously, this is silly, which I would have realized if I'd thought about it at all rationally, but I didn't.
So, although I'd gone to bed with all sorts of thoughts about how I was going to get up and be all MOTIVATED and PRODUCTIVE today, I basically woke up wishing that someone else would make my decision for me, and then spending all morning in bed. So much for productivity.
And then my mother called. She didn't pull any punches, either. She told me exactly what I needed to hear (which, trust me, was not what I wanted to hear), gave me a list of things that have to be done by tomorrow afternoon, and gave me the consequences for not doing them.
Granted, there is a large part of me that wants to sit and wallow, or spin wheels, because that's easier than making a decision. That part of me is pointing out that it's only been a week, that a week one direction or the other won't matter, that I have every right to take my time for this.
And the rest of me realizes that the minute I start making a habit of that kind of procrastination, I'm setting myself up for failure.
So I'm going to stop using 'research' as an excuse, and start making some phone calls. The more I look at it, the more it seems that one door is being forcibly closed on me, and the another is being made more clear. Frustratingly, it's not necessarily the one I thought I really wanted, but maybe the timing just isn't right.
Off to the phones.
"We give thanks to you, O God, we give thanks, for your Name is near; men tell of your wonderful deeds. You say, 'I choose the appointed time; it is I who judge uprightly. When the earth and all its people quake, it is I who hold its pillars firm.'" Psalm 75:1-3
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