Refocus

too personally. Always have and probably always will. But, to take work things at all personally is just, plain stupid. I have to let go of those dramas because the fact of the matter is that I've lived them all before. Here is my focus:

1) Finish my masters degree. This is a project that I started in March of 2004 and will be completed in June of 2007. I've allowed, and am going to continue to allow my job to delay my going on to my Ph.D. for a year. During that year I will create at least one significant piece of work: collection of poems or short stories, or a novel, or a research paper. Instead of completing my applications for the four programs I've chosen in the fall of 2006, I will complete them in the fall of 2007.

2) Expand my social life. Work and school keep me very isolated. There simply is no time for a social life, and yet I must make the time to meet with non-work/non-school-related people at least once a week. Chorus rehearsals help, but they're too big and frenetic for my purposes.

3) Reconnect with my family. For the first time in more than fifteen years we will all be under the same roof at Christmas. Much drama, and none of it mine, has kept us from getting together and has required me to pick and choose where I'd spend my holidays. Finally, this year, everyone has matured enough so that we can all get together at my sister's house. My oldest nephew won't be there -- or at least he's not expected -- but my sister and my mother will be and I'm looking forward to it.

4) Fix my house. I had committed to redoing the kitchen floor and replacing the appliances over Thanksgiving. If that's going to happen I need to start making plans now. My friend K. has agreed to help -- and by help I mean probably do most of it. I've lived here almost four years and I've painted and changed a light fixture.

5) Write. I'm getting a degree in writing, and the only things I write are this blog and papers for class. I'm giving myself some slack on personal writing for now because I have to give time priority to the job and school. That doesn't mean I have to give it less emotional priority. This week we are reading Thoreau in class. I've stumbled across a phrase that I've found inspiring and I'm working it tinto a poem. The poem is frustrating and humbling, but I think when I'm finished it will be competent. I also have a short story rattling around in my head and I need to make some progress on that before it shrivels and dies.

6) The Chorus. I love singing with the chorus. Musically it's not as challenging as I might be able to handle, but given the other demands on my time and attention, it is the right level of distraction. Every concert I'm part of I think is the best one yet. I have some memorization to do.

7) Work. It pays the bills and provides enough challenge so that my eight hours a day are not completely boring. But when I leave work it has to stay at work.