The Babes and the Wolf

Busy. Busy. Busy.

I haven’t gotten a lot of my official Goals done over the past two weeks, but I have accomplished a lot. Three of the six tasks on my To Do List got done. Not entirely too bad. Additionally, I found, viewed, applied, and signed for an apartment; did a fuckton of research on NJ housing laws; negotiated my lease; vetted and set an enrollment appointment with a daycare center; replaced The Twins’ social security cards; and applied for and scheduled interviews for two transfer positions. I think that deserves a pat on the back, even if I am a little behind on my creative goals.

I’d love to have the kind of life where I can traipse around with my head in the clouds. I’d love to be able to sit around all day writing and commenting on social media. I know a few people like that: want to go to Paris? Ask an elderly gentleman friend to take you. Need new furniture? Oh, yeah, the slave will buy it. Want to go back to school? Boyfriend will pay all of the bills. I envy them, sometimes more than others, other times not at all. Would I trade-in for it? Nah. I worked my way through undergrad – all the while fighting an uphill battle against two chronic illnesses, chemotherapy, corticosteroids, sometimes paralysis, depression, anxiety. I have walked out of the outpatient infusion clinic, stomach churning, veins coursing with intentional poisons and hopped a cab across town so I wouldn’t miss the first day of my Evolutionary Genetics course. I have labored away my nights behind a cash register in the BOH of a hotel restaurant / room service booth, only a day after one of my many hospital discharges, counting money that I couldn’t feel between my deadened finger tips, as a grain-of-rice-sized lesion in my brainstem cut off the life giving nerve connections between my brain and my hands. I have commuted three-plus hours per day to and from a soul crushing job, starved for sleep, to keep the roof over my beloved childrens’ heads, the food in their stomachs – then labored late into the night to finish work for my classes so that, very soon, I would be able to give them something better. And all the while, I have toiled unassumingly for everything that I have. Not that others haven’t. Not that I begrudge my friends their beautiful vacations or think that their lives are in any way completely uncomplicated or perfect (I don’t and they definitely aren’t). But I am damn proud of what I have done – what I continue to do.

A year ago tomorrow, I maneuvered my way into the first job in ten years that I actually enjoy. And this past week, I made a number of massive and uncertain leaps in the direction of my eventual end game. I think that’s pretty damn praise worthy. Now its time to get back to work.