too much
There’s too much on my plate to even make sense of it. I’m handling things well, as long as I keep my event horizon to about 4 hours. When I don’t, I get the overwhelmies with a side of bone-crushing loneliness. Just saying.
I’m looking for big strong friends with power tools to come over to the house on Saturday and help me clean out the garage. That shelf that fell last summer still hasn’t been fixed and the all the lumber, doors and boxed stuff is still stacked in the back of the garage. And by “stacked” I mean gathered loosely into a pile leaving barely enough room in a two car garage for one car. If I park carefully. And there’s not too much recycling.
Because even though I have learned to do a lot of stuff by myself in the last four years I still can’t pick-up a 4×8 piece of 3/4 inch plywood by myself. Nor can I use a circular saw to make shelves. I might be able to use a drill and bolts to put it up but I’ll never be able to lift all the stuff up there.
Of course, that’s only one of about 50 projects around the house that are reaching critical stage. I’m getting fed up with the half-painted rooms from unfinished projects dating from before the separation. Not a single window screen on the main floor is intact. And I’ve discovered that sparrows have nested in my bedroom window frame somehow.
In the old days, if there had been big projects like the garage or painting, the four or five families from church that we hung out with would come over and help. Like an old fashioned barn raising we put second stories on houses, painted, tiled, re-roofed and razed and raised garages. There was almost like a library of power tools and people who knew how to use them and would help out for an hour or a day (given enough notice.)
I lost those friends in the divorce and now, four years later, I feel like a loser because I haven’t re-established that portion of my support circle.
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A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…
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Happy Mother’s Day! 2007
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A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…
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Happy Mother’s Day! 2007
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A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…
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Happy Mother’s Day! 2007
May 13th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Good luck. My parents are still trying to clean out their basement/garage. But it’s not likely they can do it at their age. Would I ask my friends for help? It’s every woman for herself, I think.
May 14th, 2008 at 4:32 am
Make a list of things that must be done. Start with the most pressing. Focus attention on only one item at a time and don’t start the next until the last is finished. This works for me all the time.
Unfortunately, establishing new friends is difficult and requires time, effort, and trust. Those things are difficult when you have other things to focus on. Trusting people a lot of the time is even more difficult.
May 14th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
You don’t have any other friends from your church who can help you? I’m normally horrible about asking for help, but it’s one of the things I’ve been working on.
May 14th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
I hear you on the friend front. This extrovert has felt low and lonely in the lowest and loneliest of all cities - LaL.A.-land. It’s hard to find friends; my network is back East. It is so hard to establish circles sometimes!
May 15th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
My grandsponsor says that when you get overwhelmed, “Take it one whelm at a time.”
Heh.