Dispatches From Hellpeckersville- At Loose Ends

I honestly don’t know what to do with myself. It’s bad enough that I’ve never had any driving ambition to actually be or accomplish anything “big.” Now that I have time on my hands I find myself both overwhelmed by some of the responsibilities I have, and at a loss for how to best use the time I’ve recently regained. I really should be cleaning and clearing out the house, and that’s happening in fits and starts, but did I mention overwhelming? Oh, on many levels.

I’m trying to take a step back, assess what’s important to me, what matters. Especially what I do online. Does it matter? I want to believe that it does. I want to think that the time I put into certain things counts for something. The  Snowden supporters facebook group I took on tests that belief more often than I would like. I think it’s important, I don’t want to walk away, but it is disheartening as hell to see the fan boy posts outnumber the privacy activist posts–to see the number of “likes” pile up on the 25th repost of the Snowden statue vs any given post on domestic spying or trying to restore our forth amendment rights. Or how many people join simply due to their rabid hate of government or Obama, misunderstanding core issues, what has been done, and what needs to be done. It’s frustrating as all hell, Edger threatened to walk away more than once, but now that he’s gone–well, I don’t think I can.

I’m trying to spend more time on art. I’ve done a few pieces I’m happy with. My well has run dry for the moment, so I am working with various media to color in other people’s work. I think it’s good. I’m learning new techniques, how to blend alcohol markers, how to use several different mediums on one piece, stuff like that. Until it fires up a spark of inspiration the color itself makes me happy, and it’s something I can do with a clipboard propped her in front of me while that group keeps me tethered to this computer. Although, I have to admit that I’ve been (and this may be somewhat irrational) spending every spare dollar I get trying to amass some quality supplies for that time down the road when there will be no spare dollars.

I’ve been cajoling the kids to spend time with me. Just get their butts off their computers and do something, anything else. Come color with me, I’ll let you use the good stuff. Let’s play a game, I have some good ones…but they don’t suffer this same yearning for time and meaning as I do. They have other interests now, the allure of that is too strong to set aside for one of mom’s whims. Time feels short for me, it stretches out endlessly before them, and may the Deity grant that be so. I will not browbeat them, but I will continue to invite.

This is about as close as I get to an existential crisis–which for me has always just boiled down to anything that makes one seek meaning or purpose. I don’t find my life completely bereft of either of those two things, I just feel like it’s inventory time. That’s a healthy thing, I think.