Iceberg Dead Ahead...

Warning, I've only had one cup of coffee and very little sleep... this ought to be interesting and full of typos and grammatical errors. I apologize in advance.

Okay, well, warnings out of the way... here goes.

Lately I've been having problems sleeping. My head is just so full of crap that it will not shut down. It feels like a damn Motel 6 up there. And, just like the real Motel 6, not all of the characters staying are innocent. I've got so much I'm trying to do with school, clinic, and my writings. Stuff just keeps piling up and my poor brain keeps trying to figure out how to knock it down. I'm a master of destruction. You need a room demolished, call me and I'll seriously be done before lunch... but I hope you don't want to re-use any of the items.

So, I'm staring at the huge to-do list, I shrug my shoulders, and I dig in at the easiest place to start. Homework. I've gotten several weeks worth done already, but I still need to work on my large projects. That will be completed later after I use my boyfriend's scanner. Then I just need to find a case study.... ugh.

So, I set that aside and grab the next thing. So on and so forth. Meanwhile, the fates keep piling more on. My phone keeps turning itself on and off... not good when I use it for an alarm. My car has all sorts of problems that I don't even want to think about. A base model from a manufacturer is apparently a bad buy if you have to do lots of traveling in it. Poor car, it's not its fault. I'd breakdown too after all that abuse. Unfortunately, I do not have the time or the money to work on those issues... so I sweep them under the metaphysical rug for later.

Clinical instructor thinks I'm ready for something harder, so now I have extra projects for my clinic site. No, I'm not kidding... quit laughing. It's not bad, just something else that needs to be done and I'm excited she thought me worthy. At least I'm hoping it's because she thought me worthy.... would kind of suck if it was a test in disguise... Did I mention I have trust issues?  So that's whirling around in my brain and then she loved my clinical notebook so much, she thinks I should publish one and market it to the textbook publishers.... not a bad idea... -shakes head- no, no time right now.

Then there's the really fun, ongoing issue... the one I can't quite wrap my brain around because it's not up to me. (don't you hate that!)  I know how it must have felt to stand on the Titanic thinking it would never sink and then see those icy waters looming in closer... -sigh- Okay, perhaps that's a bit dramatic, but it feels that way so I'm sticking to it. I'll tell you how it felt. It felt like a disappointment, a let down. Leaving out the whole "OMG, I'm gonna die" part, that's how it felt anyway. It's like those days you wake up feeling good and go to bed thinking that was not how you expected the day to turn out. This is the basis of my most recent string of nightmares and my body's coping mechanism of insomnia. Can't have nightmares if you can't sleep right? LOL

Let me start by explaining the nightmare... well, no, nevermind. I'll keep that to myself for now. I look crazy enough. Let me start by explaining my issues.

I've been burned so many times in the past by relationships. And not the fun up in flames kind of burning, but the tied to a post, doused with gasoline, and lit on fire while the crowd cheered kind of burning. Especially my last serious relationship. I was actually engaged once, big mistake, but there it was. Living in the thought of having what I thought I wanted. Wrong groom though... he was too busy doing the rest of the town... and I do mean DOING. Not fun to call off your wedding, still thinking you can maybe work it out or were wrong and then find out the girl on the side is pregnant. Yeah, guess I was right all along. Not a fun feeling.

Okay, so I carry the scar of feeling like I wasn't good enough to get the so-called Happily Ever After or HEA. And I don't expect the fairy tale idea of HEA either. I write fiction, I don't live it. And actually my characters get realistic HEAs anyway. They still have problems, fights.... there I go rambling again. Back on track here: I don't expect an unrealistic HEA. I just want someone to share my life with who loves me with all my craziness and baggage. I want that promise that they won't leave or, at least, don't want to leave. Do you understand where I'm going with this?? And I want MARRIAGE, maybe even a couple kids...

And I love my boyfriend madly. I really do, but it's been almost 5 years of dating now and not even talk of marriage. He actually cringes when you say the "m" word. He just wants to live together, dating forever. It might work for some people, but for me... it leaves me feeling... unworthy. I know that's not how he means it and if he could come up with a good argument against marriage, I'd feel better. Hell, I'll probably stick around anyway... I love the bull-headed moron, what can I say? And in all other aspects, I feel worthy with him. But not wanting to do the commitment of marriage just feels like being shortchanged. Like calling a race before you actually finish it... not that I think it's a race. Gah, this is coming out wrong, but you get the idea. In plain English, I feel like he doesn't want to get married because he wants open options. (so not happening) I'm sure that's not the actual reason, but that's how I FEEL about it.

And, dumbass me, I gave him a deadline for figuring it all out and now I'm regretting it. I had a valid reason though. There are not a lot of jobs in this area and certainly not any great ones. If I don't have something to tie me down here, I want to be free to take other jobs. I need to know what to do with my future. If you haven't figured it out, I don't like the unknown or not having a plan. Hell, I gave him the deadline and then mapped out three plans. One involving living a fake lesbian relationship with my best friend and lots of animals for the rest of our natural lives... LOL... that's another fun story.

So, add in the explanation for the insomnia.

I'm standing on the bow of that big ship steaming through the waters. I can see all the icebergs ahead, but I can't steer the damn ship. No, that's not my dream, that's my feeling. So I just stand there watching them get closer and hope I can plow through them. The nightmares themselves always involve my man finding someone else. Finding I've been replaced while I was busy trying to plow through those damn icebergs or he's decided he can't handle me.... etc. I am left alone realizing what a good thing I actually had. Basically, I realize I should have never gone to the damn docks to begin with, let alone gotten on the ship. (at least this part is making sense) The hard part in life is figuring out which adventures are worthwhile and which are better left alone. The only drawback... you never know when those damn icebergs are going to get in the way. I'm pretty sure if we did, the death toll for the Titanic would have been pretty minimal.

So do I turn the ship around and take back my deadline, playing my whole hand... do I wait to see if I can get around the icebergs... do I just say fuck it and move on.... ???

Who knows. For now I do know I'm dropping anchor and waiting for more information.

As far as writing, all this mental exhaustion of trying to play out scenarios... what I wouldn't give for a WORKING crystal ball... has taken the steam out of it. I can still write, but just not in the hours long bursts I'm used to. I can usually get ten pages before something that happens to my characters has me questioning something in my own life.

Maybe that's why I write. And I know you're wondering why an author would jot all this down for random people to read at will. It's a simple two-fold reasoning system with a disclaimer. I love disclaimers, don't you.
1. I needed to write it down to help make sense of it.
2. I wanted people to see that writer's have lives too. We have normal, crazy, problem-filled lives. It isn't all fun fun fun. We're real people who play in a world of fiction.

The disclaimer: eh, well, I forgot. Mental instability I guess... this ship is a little full I guess.

Anchors Down,
Jennifer