An open letter

Dear World:

I know you're busy and all, but I'd like to ask a favor. Please, just for a moment, would you be able to stop spinning?

You see, it seems to me that I lost about 3 and a half weeks somewhere along the way, and I've never quite recovered. And so while you keep spinning, little ole' me stays perpetually about that far behind.

And I know I'm not the only one. 'Overwhelm' is one of the great hidden diseases plaguing our society. It creates tension and stress and general not-niceness. I've gotta say, (on behalf of all of us living here on your surface thusly plagued), that "feeling behind" - particularly irretriveably so - sucks giant hairy donkey balls, to coin a phrase.

As if it's not enough for you to have the gall to keep the sun rising and setting each day, you also seem to think it's fun to keep throwing curve balls at me:

Mysterious vicious insect bites.
Continuing visa problems.
Broken head gasket & radiator in the car.
No electricity.
Woman stealing my fennel.
A leak in my irrigation system.
No wood yet for winter.
An italian man who won't stop calling me.
Wild Boar rampage in the garden.
Dead WeedWhacker.
Shattered car window.
Hatchling fly infestation in the house.
A chance at true love, perfect and unexpected ... but complicated.
V.C.E.R.: Very Crappy Exchange Rate.
Mysterious & Unfixable phone problems.
Friends too far away to give me a hug.
A sink that won't stop leaking.
Broken computer AND printer.
A dying cat that I just can't help.

As if the curve balls weren't enough, there are still all the regular pitches that just keep coming:

That pesky 40-hour a week job that mysteriously has always sucked up between 60 and 80, even from this distance.
Except that at *this* distance, that's an invisible reality to the powers that be.
14 *@&%#$ tenses of verbs that I feel I'll never master.
The uncomfortable feeling of constantly counting on the kindness of strangers.
Interesting opportunities I don't quite know what to do with.
The perennial question of what's next.
Stacks of receipts, business cards, bills to be paid/filed/reimbursed.
Exercise that my body is begging to do before it becomes complete jello.
Neighbors who don't understand that I actually have to work for a living.
3 1/2 solid weeks of guests visiting.
Hours of time that vanish in great chunks into the void labeled: "deal with the airlines on the telephone."

Ya know what, World? Methinks I'm getting a little tired of being your catcher's mitt. But I'm also thinkin' ... maybe we're co-dependent here? I mean, I do keep doing it. You throw the curves; I catch and juggle the best I can, which - if I may say so myself, is pretty damn well. And maybe that's why you keep throwing. When I decide to stop catching, does the game change?

But it seems to me that rather than waiting for you to stop spinning and pitching, I might be well-served to just re-evaluate my priorities. Maybe it's not the constant catching that's killing me as much as the fact that I feel like I haven't had a chance to really hit one out of the park in a while. Maybe it's time for me to decide what I will stop catching, so I have time to step up to the plate and start swinging.

And then again ... maybe, just maybe, me running to catch whatever you're throwing at me puts me on the path I'm supposed to be on.

Hmmmmm, now there's a thought.

Serendipity. Synchronicity. Sovereignty.
Things that are supposed to happen, the timing of them, and the power to make choices.

And a little bit of decespugliatore. (weed whacker)

Okay, I'll give... Maybe it all does make a little bit of sense.

(Deep breath. Batter Up!)

But if you could just stop the spinning for a few weeks, that would work too.

Love, she-who-is-dizzy-from-the-spinning, but is on deck anyway, ready to take a swing.