Too Many Dang Bites

Q:  How do you eat an elephant?
A:  One bite at a time.
Q:  Who in the world wants to eat an elephant?

I don't think anyone WANTS to eat an elephant, at least metaphorically speaking.  But the thing is, we tend to have a lot of elephants to deal with in our lives when we don't keep it simple.

As I write that, I wonder if there is such a thing as "simple" when it comes to the human experience.

Simple is defined as "easily done."  (I actually went to look it up.)  When I think about simple, I tend to think of it as something without many layers.  However it seems to me that many layers could still be simple if they are "easily done."  I also tend to think that something isn't "simple" if I am feeling overwhelmed like I have been lately.  When I think of simple I think of not having to deal with all of the stuff I need to deal with.

So maybe I just have the wrong word.

Interesting how words are.  We rely on them for so much, and yet there are times words can be woefully inadequate, even if used properly and at other times we just don't have the word that truly suits a situation so we interact differently with it than we might if we knew the "right" one.

I almost feel like I have more than one elephant to deal with.  And I don't know where the heck to start.  "At the beginning" I hear in my head.  How funny.  Where the heck is that?  I tend to think it is the fact that I have heard that so many times, it is a conditioned response.  There may be some truth to it in there somewhere, but I think meanings get lost when the words are casually treated.  Ever notice how there is a gloss to many of the "feel good" sayings?  They sound good.  But if you were in the middle of the trial or thing they refer to, it takes on a whole different feel - and isn't always so helpful then.  At least, that is the case - in my experience.

I have used the elephant metaphor many times.  It really does sound good.  But right now I really can see how it is an incomplete one.  I have so many things I am looking at, so many things I am doing, so many people I am reaching out to, so many different things, and even though it might have still been a lot before all of this, it feels like so much more now.  And which one is the "right," first one?  I wouldn't feel so much pressure if it wasn't for the fact that I am big trouble financially.

I don't want to drop any balls.  Yes.  I guess I am now mixing my metaphors.

There is so much going on, and I am scared.  I am scared of what people will think of me if I do drop one.  I am scared of what they will think of me acting so scattered.  I am scared of what the effects of not being able to be "professional" will be.  There are occasionally some unrealistic expectations even when one is seemingly healthy.

When I was undergoing chemo I didn't do much because I didn't want anyone to expect anything of me because odds were I wouldn't be able to meet the expectation.  Now that I am no longer undergoing it, I still don't want anyone to expect anything because I feel so wobbly.  I feel so disorganized.  My right brain is seriously challenged to help me do what the left brain would usually help with.

Even before this, I was very right brain dominant. I guess you could almost say that is a good thing.  If I had been dominantly left brained and lost that ability, it may have felt a lot worse to me.  But what seemingly little I may have had over there was something that I really need to depend on to be able to function in a way that makes me money, and pays my bills, and prepares my taxes and paperwork, and...

When we think that we know how things should be, we create standards.  And at this moment in time, there are many standards that I feel quasi pressured to meet.  I am in some ways afraid that if I don't, I won't succeed.  I suspect I could be wrong.  And I am really hoping I am.

It is like learning things all over again.  The speech therapist I spoke with basically told me as much. It brought me to tears.  When you know you were once capable of something, and then you're not, and you have to go back to the ground level and start over, it's like wtf?  I was already somewhere else. You're making me go back there again?  I don't remember how I learned anything before.  I don't even know how I got to where I did, and now you are telling me I have to do it all over again, and even worse, do it in the presence of a world and people who expect me to be in the vicinity of where I once was?  And not only that, I feel like I keep confronting the same stumbling blocks over and over again.  You really gotta be freaking kidding me.

It occurs to me that to begin again means that maybe I will find a new way to do it.  But that doesn't really help too much when I see the mess that is my life at the moment.  The mess that is my life that I have to add more to as I continue to move forward and try to get back to some semblance of me.  If I am lucky, maybe it will be an enhanced version.

In the meantime, I am just gonna have to keep trying to balance the fact that I am here, there, and everywhere minute to minute.  No wonder I get so tired.

Interestingly, I am not sure that has anything to do with the elephant.