D.I.R.A. (Do It Right Away)

Like many people, I'm a chronic procrastinator.

I keep meaning to change my ways, but well, maybe later, eh?

The trouble with that is that I keep making problems for myself.

Here are a couple of recent examples:

1. Back in the spring, I had a money order made up to include with my application to put a driveway in on my land. I postponed submitting the application and I have since misplaced (i.e. lost) the money order. It's for $300. Enough to make a typical south shore person conform to the laws around driveways. Enough to hurt. (Except the bank was able to reissue it, phew).
2. A week or so ago, I received a new credit card to replace one that is about to expire. I thought, I'll activate that later – and now I can't find it. 

Apart from these acute examples, there is also the chronic condition of my home, my car and my finances to contend with. Drifts of things tend to mount up and deteriorate into chaotic messes.

I'm getting better with my finances. It's taken me a while and there have been some bumps along the way, but I am sticking with YNAB and it is now rare for me to go for more than 2 or 3 weeks without taking stock of all of my income and expenses. When I'm having a really good week, I track almost everything on the spot, using my phone. This hasn't really helped me make better decisions about my spending yet, but I'm hopeful that as I continue to get the hang of it, I'll start being happier with the ways I choose to spend my money.

And losing that credit card has motivated me to reconsider the number of credit cards I have. They are just making work for me to track and reconcile them. It's not worth it for a few lousy points toward whatever.

I'm going to try to adopt the acronym, D.I.R.A. (Do It Right Away) as a simple way to remind myself to take care of things (especially little things) immediately, instead of letting them mold and fester. Another possible acronym is R.A.P. (Right Away, Please). I would use A.S.A.P., but As Soon As Possible is too open to interpretation. Except when my clients use it, ASAP just means "when you want to", which in terms of me taking care of little things is basically never – or only when I'm forced to.

I've also thought up an expanded version of the DIRA acronym:

D – Documented: there is no point putting thing in a safe place if one doesn't know where that safe place is. So from now on whenever I put something "somewhere safe", I'm going to send myself an email with an easily searchable subject line, like "Where is my Passport?"
I – Intentional: think about the right place for something and put it there. (In other words, stop dropping things carelessly on the passenger seat of my car and later tipping them carelessly onto the floor of the back seat because I want to give someone a lift. Upon arriving home from my mailbox, each piece of paper needs to be dealt with – sorted into recycling, acted upon and/or filed.
R – Resolute: be consistent. Do It Right Away. Every Time.
A – Accepting: I know that this is going to be challenging for me. If it came naturally, I'd have been doing it all along. I will need to jolly myself along, with lots of humour and affection. And get gently back on the wagon each time I fall off.

With present moment consciousness, anytime I see a piece of paper (or anything else) that I haven't dealt with promptly, I always have the option to DIRA. Even if it has been kicking around for months or years, right away can be right now.

Permissions #1: The Driveway Application

(No doubt the first in a long series of posts about seeking permission to do things on my land...)

I submitted my driveway application today.

I had been going to submit it way back in March when I was going through the process of buying my land.

The application needs to be accompanied by a $300 refundable fee. You submit the application, they tell you what you need to do in terms of culvert size and (re)location (if the placement you desire is not okay with them), and after you put the driveway in, they come to see if you have complied and if you have, they give you your $300 back.

(Something in me finds it very funny to think that $300 is the price of compliance around here. Well, now we know.)

Anyway, I got the money order made up in March - and then, I couldn't decide where I wanted the driveway to be. I hemmed and hawed, waiting for all that snow to melt. In the end, I accepted that I had no idea what I was doing and needed more time. I postponed doing the application, waiting until I had a better sense of what I wanted to do.

At some point between then and now, I lost the money order. 

Damn, I do stuff like that all the time. 

I live in chaos - usually busy, often tired, often rushing, and chronically resistant about putting things away (or indeed putting things anywhere other than where they land when they arrive in my life, which is why my car is always such a mess).

So many pieces of (necessary administrative) paper end up buried, misplaced and/or completely lost. 

The last time I saw that first money order, it was in my wallet. I thought I cleaned it out onto my desk in early May, but it seems more likely that I would have taken it out before I went away on a trip in April. Who knows? I have conducted a fairly extensive search, but it has never been seen again.

It definitely didn't help that I lived in three different places in April, in addition to traveling for 10-days. Plus, I burned a number of boxes of papers earlier this summer, clearing out a lot of useless things – but perhaps accidentally, a few very useful things?

Fortunately, the bank is able to put a caution on the money order and retrieve the funds. And all my carelessness cost me was an extra $7.50 to have another money order issued.

Once I got the replacement money order today, I went (almost) straight to the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal with my application and submitted it.

This is me trying to turn over a new leaf – the Do It Right Away leaf.

But more about that later, I think.

For now, I'm just happy to report that I am one step further ahead with my project.

My friends and I cut down more trees on
my land last week. Here is a photo of the
clearing where I think I'm going to put
my Tiny Home.

Driving In Stakes

There's a frequently used expression that was on my mind the other day: Pulling up stakes. 

It's what people do when they give up on a place where they've been for a good while, for one or for many reasons, tear up their roots and start over somewhere else.

I've pulled up stakes more than a few times in my life.

But it occurs to me that I'm doing the opposite now.

This week, I staked my property so that when I submit my application at the Department of Transportation, and they come to inspect the site, they will know where I want my driveway to meet the road.

The first-driven stake, photographed along
with my beloved 6-pound hammer, the first of several hand tools
purchased so I can do work on my land.

After driving the stakes, it was time to give the areas
around them a little haircut, to make them easier to see.

This is a funny feeling. It is a feeling I haven't had for a very long time, the feeling of belonging to a place.

I felt it when I was a kid, essentially because I didn't know any better; I didn't know the upheavals that were to come. I thought the shag carpeting and bean bag chairs were mine and would be there for me always.

(An Aside about Bean Bag Chairs)

It's a funny thing about bean bag chairs. They are very lovable. When my sister and I were little we had one each – a red one and a beige one (to go with the orange, brown and beige shag area rugs with the large geometric shapes on them). As an adult, I bought an acid green bean bag chair for my studio. When I told my nieces that I was moving away from Toronto and wouldn't be able to see them as often anymore, my younger niece, who was about five-years-old at the time, immediately asked, "Can we have your bean bag chair?" I believe she requested it because it was something cozy and cuddly that she associated with me. So of course I gave it to them. 

I'm thinking it might be soon time to buy another bean bag chair. Or two. 

Back to belonging

So, yes, I feel like this land is now something to which I belong. Messy and chaotic after years of being left to its own devices, it is very beautiful to me.

When I first bought my land, I hesitated to alter it. I didn't want to cut any trees. I knew I was going to have to cut trees if I wanted to put my tiny home on the land and live there, but I didn't want to. I actually considered hiring a crane and getting my tiny home lowered into a tiny clearing. Now that my friends and I have cut off most of the trees necessary to put in the driveway and my tiny home, I feel differently about it. I can see how selective cutting is enhancing the beauty of the land for me. How letting in more light will give opportunities to trees that have spent their entire lives in shadow. How the brush piles will rot and give themselves back to the land, nourish their brothers and sisters.

And I see how this piece of land is something I can boss and cuddle and manage and love.

I didn't want to do this with a child. (I have many, many reasons for deciding not to have children. Someday, when I'm feeling brave enough, I'll write a blog post about that.) And while my cat is very available to love and cuddle, he is not available to boss or manage. He is a cat, after all, and they don't much like being told what to do. Being in charge of a child didn't appeal to me, but being in charge of this piece of land really does.

If I'm totally honest, I'm experiencing a bit of possessive, control-freak euphoria. It's all mine. I get to do whatever I want there. My decisions. My consequences. My life. My roots. My home.

Mine. Mine. Mine.

I feel very, very lucky. And maybe just a wee bit drunk on power.

See the purple asters like a smoke upon the hills.
In the spring I saw mayflowers on my land;
this fall there are asters. Both flowers are
potent reminders of my Nana,
who was a passionate devotee of
Nova Scotian landscapes, plants and birds.

Menopause and Misery

Back in February, I wrote a blog post about Menopause and Euphoria. 

Today, it is time to write about the other side of the peri-menopausal coin.

The Dark Side.

Yes, this is the part of the menopausal experience that gets all of the bad press. And I understand why.

I once worked in an office in which about 75% of the employees were women going through menopause. I have never been exposed to so much random screaming and crying. Seriously, there were so many damn feelings around the place that it was often difficult to get any work done. Responses to every little thing were over-the-top, melodramatic. And as for the BIG problems – well, there was more than one all-out, cataclysmic meltdown during my time there. At the time, in my late twenties and early thirties, I rolled my eyes and sighed a lot.

Now I have a much deeper understanding.

Wow, but the feelings that come with these hormonal ebbs and flows are big. They are inarguable, irrational and often very, very unpleasant.

The voices in one's head say terrible things like "Why do I even bother to keep on living?" "Nobody loves me." "Everyone is taking me for granted/trying to screw me over."

The voices are loud and insistent. And they make me want to do terrible things: send out vicious emails, fire clients, tell people exactly what I think of them, weep all everybody, complain, wail, bemoan, etc., etc., etc.

I cannot imagine having to hold down a 9–5 job while this is going on.  I also can't imagine trying to have an intimate relationship. I am grateful that I don't have children. I can only imagine the damage I might do.

A few days a month, the best thing I can do is keep myself to myself. Try not to post on social media (unless it's something innocuous like a picture of the beach), try not to hit the Send button on any email that is not strictly routine (As requested, please see attached file. Best regards, Alex), decline invitations to social events and hang out alone repeating to myself:

"This is not real. This is a mental state caused by fluctuating hormones. It will pass. Ride it out."

An innocuous photo of the beach.
Posted on social media with the inoffensive comment: "Low tide:"
When in doubt, try to stay rooted in reality. If reality seems entirely
awful, go back to bed for a couple of days, or until you seem to
have regained your sense of perspective.

As hard as I've tried to avoid taking action when I am in a state of emotional distress, I have definitely slipped a few times and done some dumb things this summer, damaged some relationships, hurt myself and others.

I'm hoping that I'll keep learning and that I will get better at surfing these waves of feelings.

I'm prescribing myself another winter of jigsaw puzzles and rest.

And reminding myself of a few basic tenets:

If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.

There is a time and a place for everything.

Count to ten before responding to something upsetting (which translates to waiting AT LEAST 24-hours before sending any email with emotional content – or even with emotional undertones)

To abstain from action is well – except to acquire merit. (Rudyard Kipling, Kim)