Self-awareness

I don’t have time to flesh it out fully now, but it has just occurred to me that I have different levels of self-awareness. (Forgive me is this is stunningly obvious to everyone else.)

Today is taken up by a coven party that will require me to leave home by about 11:30 and I have no idea when I’ll be back. Various foods and crafts are required and have been planned and prepared; this sort of thing stresses me out disproportionately and I have no idea why.

Further preparation is required before participating in circle; as a result, my time is not really my own after about 10. The preparation of food and self and the 45-minute travel are part of every ritual day.

I have noticed as I prepare that I am almost always incredibly irritable in the few hours before I have to start - this has always struck me as incredibly inappropriate at worse; at best, ill-timed. WTF, self?

The phone rang a few minutes ago and I let it go to voice mail since I was eating a bowl of cereal (a time-sensitive occupation). I did check to see who it was and it’s someone I’m going to see later today so I have to believe there’s a good reason for the call but MAN am I annoyed. And I think I’ve figured it out.

I know I need my down-time every day; especially I hate having each moment after waking be scheduled and I will stay up far too late to have a period of free time before I go to sleep. This I know and I’ve even articulated it to some degree at various times, but I just finally put it all together with the ritual-day crankiness. This is the small bit of unplanned time I have before I have (chosen) to be accountable to others; before I become the social me that I try to keep as authentic as possible but can’t help but mitigate to facilitate the comfort of those I care about. This is my time to “waste” however I want to and it is - I don’t know if it’s absolutely necessary but it seems to be extremely helpful in maintaining my sanity.

This is also the time when I wonder if I could ever possibly parent if being disturbed at the wrong time makes me such a grouch. But I know that when I’m around kids my agenda becomes theirs and my natural rhythm adjusts to accommodate theirs better. I suppose I’d just carve out my pieces of time differently.

Okay, well! More words than I’d planned, but there it is, FWIW.

(I'll explain the prolonged absence when I have more time.)