Open letter to my depletion.

Dear My Depletion,

Did you happen to know that I lost my agenda when we got back from Idaho? --by "agenda", I mean my actual, physical calendar, but now that you mention it, the word could refer to the figurative thing as well.

This past week was crowded: with dinners and breakfasts and lunches, LMS trainings, focus group meeting, writing group, date nights and family Harry Potter, shopping and movies. All of these appointments and their various delights I kept in the agenda of my brain, because the actual calendar was gone. Often, My Depletion, the calendar and its busy agenda are harbinger, the very symbol of you. This week, however, you hummed in the background of all these events and reminded me:

you are not writing

summer is almost over

you are not writing

something is so very wrong with you

I literally hate your song, My Depletion. But I have not been able to come up with a substitute.

I have notes on slips of paper, that say things like "Monday: house stuff! film." or "T: write 500 words." And who knows? Maybe Monday or Tuesday--maybe Monday and Tuesday--will be the days I hop out of bed and take Bruiser for a walk when the morning is still cool, and say pish to the internet, whip out my sewing machine or catalog my film clips or even write 500 words! I can see, theoretically, that this is possible. Saying so, maybe, makes it more likely to be so.

But nothing like this will occur unless--it must be said, My Depletion--you stop humming that goddamned song. It is getting on my last nerve.

Sincerely,

htms

I've had enough of this nonsense, already.

. . . which is merely to report that there are problems--some problems--with my online courses. I am not, however, freaking out. It's a part of my new personal non-freakout policy. At this late date, and at this advanced age, it has finally occurred to me that my freaking out upsets people who care about me, and, moreover, people that I care about. So I'm quitting. Cold turkey.

I have not freaked out upon the following occasions, when:

1. I realized that the wrong section of my composition course was associated with WebCT, which meant that the e-mail I had just sent to all my students would make no sense to them.
2. one of the speakers in our living room stopped emitting sound.
3. probably some other stressful occasions I can't exactly remember right now.

Part of the problem is, apparently, I've been a big enough freaker-outer in the past that I can no longer utter even the tiniest little shriek without my offspring swarming all over it, telling me to calm down. "I'm calm," I say, in a calm voice. "No, you're starting to stress," they rejoin, which of course makes me want to Freak. Out.

No more, I say. Life's too short. I am going to practice the breathing and the counting to ten and the "life's too short" speech. Then I am going to lie down, possibly cry a little, or shriek into my pillow. Then breathe and count some more.