About comebacks...

I’ll be back soon. In the meantime, I’m polishing up my skills, dusting off my eyes and ears, detoxing the cobwebs in my brain.

I ran into this restaurant in the Village the other day, a stone’s throw from the Stonewall Inn. The night before, I had watched “Can you ever forgive me?” and recognized it immediately. The green sign put a smile on my face—I became a part of the movie set, that movie’s story. This is part of my new beginning: letting life in ways that only I can appreciate. It’s been too long—not feeling, not listening, not seeing, not telling the stories I want to tell.

What I am, what I am not.

Usually the only hour I have to myself is early in the morning after I send my daughter to school. I wake up at 6.15 am every day, try to wake her up, make breakfast, try to wake her up again, get her clothes ready, try to wake her up some more, until it’s 7.15 and she is walking out the door still rubbing her eyes. After I wave goodbye to her from the window, I turn on the news and have my breakfast. That’s my hour. You see, I’m not a selfish person. The rest of my day is dedicated mostly to my job, my coworkers, work friends, meetings, lunches, a few parent-teacher conferences, and last minute grocery shopping. I work late hours, not because I have to, but because I want to. My team and I care about the work we produce and try not to settle with mediocre.

I miss having dinner with the family during the week but make it home in time to put my daughter to bed after which I spend some time with my husband, maybe call my mother or mother-in-law to check in and collapse, exhausted, on my bed. Even though I drift off to sleep even before my head hits the pillow, I still try to read a few pages, whatever I can, so that my brain will continue to learn while I rest.

Weekends are filled with birthday parties, weddings, gatherings with friends and family, maybe a movie or a museum visit or a concert. (I admit, sometimes even the weekend is work.)

You see I’m not a selfish person; but a mother, a wife, a daughter, a granddaughter, a daughter-in-law, a sister, a professional, a friend, a volunteer, a teacher, a motivator, a coach, organizer of birthday parties and reunions, planner of vacations and office parties. I’m happy when people around me are happy.

I’m not a vandal. I’m not a plunderer. I’m not an extremist. I don’t belong to any political parties or any other social movement. I have been going to Taksim since June 1st to protest the current Turkish government and its policies, but I have never broken anything, written on anything, never carried a weapon or even littered. I shouted my slogans, chatted with a few friends, took some pictures, applauded performances and breathed in tear gas. I hoped last night’s speech would change something. I stayed up until 3 in the morning even though I had to get up at 6.15 again this morning. Unfortunately the speech once again pointed its dirty finger at me and told me I’m everything that I am not.

So I will continue to protest and go to Taksim until the government changes its tune, because you see, I’m not a selfish person.

Back on the Horse

Life whips you into shape. Whenever you find yourself flowing in the wind, with the wind, in a gleeful canter, life says "whoa." It unleashes all the stress, the sorrow, other people's pains and deadlines, theirs wants and needs, complexes and imperfections on you. Whatever it thinks you can bear, you should bear. For freedom is not earned or given. You just take it and own it. You settle into it and never look back. And if you find yourself looking, distracted from just being, that's when you stumble, that's when you might fall. And it's hard, really hard, to get back on the horse.

So beware, be careful. When you are in fact in a gleeful canter, don't look back or down or around. At one point, you might simply not wish to get back on the horse. And that would be the end of a beautiful life you could have had.

Must Feed the Beast

I finally figured out why I haven't been writing, why I've been procrastinating about everything so much.

I haven't been reading. Other than flipping through a very occasional magazine in Turkish, the only thing I've read in the past six months is a booklet on how to buy an oriental carpet.

I'm on vacation in NYC. Today is the first jet-lagged morning and I was able to spend it with yesterday's Sunday New York Times. Pure heaven.

I will finish this post and make a list of what I want to get at Strand later today.

I realize I have to feed the beast.

Without thought-provoking articles written by others, or dialogue's imagined for my entertainment, monologues in which I learn new ways of expressing myself and analyzing others, without the printed word, I seem to lack the inspiration I need to write, to function, to produce. I need to feed the beast and I can't think of a better place to do this in than in NYC, on vacation, for a week.

Procrastination II

Zen Habiter Leo Babauta says "Do less. Get more done." It doesn't work that way with me. The less I have on my plate, the more I procrastinate. Case in point is the book I'm translating. I promised the publisher I would deliver the book on February 15th, 2009.

Yeah.

I'm still working on it.

Actually I'm thinking about working on it. This morning, I had every intention of taking my place in front of the computer by 9:30 am the latest. I made it there at 10 am. Not bad. It's 10:26 am now. I still haven't made it into the folder that is home to the document I'm translating. Oh well. Design and home decor blogs are just so much more interesting. Target's web site is not bad either. In a little while, I might get up to get some tea. Maybe read the paper that was just delivered to my desk. If only I can make it until lunchtime. I might have more energy in the afternoon.

If only I had said no.

I need to learn to say no.

Waiting for Laundry

It is 1:03 in the morning. I've been desparate to go to sleep since eleven. First I had to make sure I handwrote the husband's invoices which have to get sent out tomorrow morning so that we can get paid. The husband is in Kazakhstan getting paid to babysit a couple of designers and such at an advertising agency. He promises to come home every two weeks to see us. I told him I might be able to put up with this until I'm done with school in June but that's that. After June 20th, the only plane I'll be boarding will not go to Kazakhstan but somewhere with sandy beaches and turquoise waters.

After the invoices, I had to do laundry. In fact, I'm waiting for my third load to finish up so I can hang it on the drying rack in my bedroom and hope the smell of fabric softener won't tickle my allergies. I have had a hell of a weekend with not even a minute to waste on Facebook and I'm quite content with what I've accomplished. Yes, nevertheless.

You see, so much has happened since my post-hospital days of doom and procrastination. In short: the husband quit his job (because we didn't want to move to Dubai and they were going to make us) and started his own business (because he was already working a full shift on freelance work and making me crazy hogging the home office). I got frustrated at school (though I'm thinking about going back for another year) and started looking for a full-time corporate job. After interviewing at a single company, a drug manufacturer, I decided I can't do 9-to-5 ever again. Somebody's looking out for me up there because out of the blue I get two magazine jobs, both of which I can do freelance and mostly from the comfort of my own (or that of a shopping mall.)

My first project is a 40-page supplement for a shopping magazine. I'm editing and producing a KIDS version which involves a lot of shopping for cute clothes and accessories, styling photo shoots and writing snappy copy. Apparently this little supplement might in fact be a free-standing magazine by September, fingers crossed.

The other magazine relationship is with a company that shares my daughter's first name. And they publish the Turkish version of one of the magazines I had the "pleasure" of working with while in New York. I will be developing custom publishing opportunities for them and once again, hopefully rarely set foot in their offices.

That's a quick update for you. It suddenly got very quiet around here. It's 1:20 am. The washing machine is silent which is my cue to say goodbye, at least for now.

Procrastination

One of Maya's friends is at our place for a sleepover. It's already 5:09 pm so I need to start thinking about dinner and start setting up the ingredients for the cookies I promised them we'd make. In the meantime, the translation I'm working on is on the verge of being overdue (considering the book is almost 300 pages long and I'm still on page 45 with a deadline of February 15th) and I'm terribly hooked on Tetris Friends on Facebook. Can you spell procrastination? I can. I pronounce it really well too.

Recently I was reading author Gwendolen Gross' blog about writing and came across an assigment she suggested to fellow writers. She suggested making a list of things I never want to write about and things I need to write about.

So I said:

The assignment is too easy.
I never procrastinate making lists.
In fact, my love affair with lists alone is the reason why my fridge is never fully stocked, my IKEA shopping not completed, my light fixtures are still not hung, my laundry is sitting next to my bed (over which I have to leap every morning) and the birthday cards I bought in January are neatly tucked away in a closet along with the pretty journals and the overflown photo boxes. Making lists relaxes me and once relaxed, I no longer worry about finishing what I've started. Or start anything for that matter. It's been over a month since I stopped writing at midlifecrisisat33.blogspot.com (since I turned 34 on September 11) and I'm thinking my next blog might just be on lists.

Aha, so that's why I'm having a hard time posting. After all, the new blog is not at all about lists. In fact, I think it's more about freeing me from my lists than anything else.

Nevertheless, this blog post is every bit the procrastination tool as the tea I'm about to make and the cigarette I'm about to smoke. (GASP!) Toxic Parents shall wait...