Processing

More often than not of late, I tend to wake up in the middle of the night or the early morning with a multitude of thoughts racing through my mind competing for first place. When this occurs, try as I might, I usually cannot get back to sleep, even if I'm completely exhausted. I've utilized all the tricks I've heard of over the years to calm my mind so that I can drift off:

Getting up and writing the thoughts down

Counting backwards from 100

Reciting the ABCs in reverse (something, I might add, that, although terribly difficult to do when one is totally inebriated, ain't so hard when one is desperate to get back to sleep!)

Focusing on my toes and imaging a feeling of calm, peacefulness spreading up my body to my mind

Plus one or two I've thought of myself, namely, taking a mental tour of houses I used to live in.

As I said, lately, nothing is working. So, I get up (in the complete and total dark, I might add; way too early to walk Lucy) and putter around doing this and that until it's a respectable enough hour to get on with my morning routine. Of course, usually by noon, I'm tired, grouchy, cranky, irritable (and if I could think of four more, I'd have a team of dwarves!)

This morning, as I lay there attempting to get back to sleep after Mr. B left the house and I was dwelling on a few things for the umpteenth time, I got to thinking about how I organize data on my computer; the way I create file folders in My Documents for everything under the sun and ditto within my email program.

After something is written or received and if it is worth saving, it is filed into an appropriate folder where it sits waiting for me to either come back and use it again at some point or completely forget it's there. If I'm not exactly sure where to put it or I want to look at it again sooner rather than later, it either goes on my Desk Top (if a document) or into an email folder labeled "Save" (so that I can "Follow Up Later"); eventually, it'll either get processed and filed somewhere or deleted and sent to Trash. Every once in awhile, I remember to execute the command, "Empty Trash". This is the ultimate in removing something from the computer; up to then, even though it had been deleted and was in the trash, it could still be retrieved (and, yes, for all you computer geeks out there, things can also be recovered even if the trash has been emptied, but, play along with me here).

So, the light bulb went off this morning and I thought to myself, "From now on, this is how you're going to process these nagging, pestering, irritating on-going thoughts that play over and over in your mind: Follow Up Later, Delete and Empty Trash."

Such as (a few examples):

Follow Up Later

The Carpet Situation With KB

Determine Items For A Yard Sale

Arrange a Meeting with a Real Estate Agent

Delete

I Don't Understand Why Someone Is Being So Distant, Especially Now

I Still Have $2 On A $50 Rebate Card But No Store Will Accept It

Empty Trash

Everyone In This Neighborhood Are Stupid Idiots; I Can't Believe How They Acted Last Night At The HOA Meeting

Gloop (you gotta be in the know for this one, folks)

Along with these three mantras, here are a few more that I'm going to strive to live by, because, for God's sake, I'm freaking tired of worrying ALL OF THE TIME; life really is too damn short:

1. No Crisis Before Its Time

2. Have A Good Time All Of The Time/Enjoy Yourself because...

...it is later than you think.

Mrs. B