Waffling

In which I find myself stuck between action and inaction...

I find myself waffling about nearly everything. Undecisive until the last minute or not choosing so the choice is made for me. More existing than choosing to act. What’s the metaphorical equivalent of being heated up and slightly crispy at my edges? Too much more and I start to fall apart, even when tried to lift with care.

Sigh.

There’s work. Well, work location. Do I keep up my 7 mile no-highways-required commute to an office where only one other person works on related tasks or do I move to the farther office where my manager and most of the team is? Do I accept that I won’t have many work friends in the building but can still keep in touch with those elsewhere via Teams and similar? Is it only the stark change from my last workplace - where it felt like a family reunion with 40 people in a beach house, one week in and everyone no longer feeling the need to be overly nice (”Do you need to use the bathroom to take a shower now or can I pop in real quick?” turned to “Really? A shower? At 3 pm?!? Get your towel and your behind out of there. You can wait.”)?

There’s movement and eating. Yes, more veggies and fewer sugar binges is better and I need to move more to get to those 150 minutes a week for cardiac health and lift weights as muscle loss is looming as menopause approaches. But do I keep the goal to get back the weight I was at before the pandemic? Well, back to where I was before my Crohn’s diagnosis. Do I give in to eating my feelings on the worst days, knowing it could lead me to wanting to do so more and more often, as has been the pattern of my past? Or do I swing the other direction entirely, go plant-based whenever meals are up to me and exercise daily?

There’s journaling. I’ve been recording my 10 images a day since late August but the responses to prompts and free-writing when I have time and need to clear my head have all but stopped. Do I break open my soul to keep doing it or do I stay closed, the lid heavy to lift right now with the government shutdown and my MIL’s health being up and down? How important are these things to look at outside of therapy? Do they need to be recorded for all time?

There’s being a Girl Scout leader. I started in December of 2019, convinced by a neighbor that it really wasn’t that much work and so rewarding. Now, though, I am worn out. The girls lead the meetings now with some guidance from us. Do I step back from keeping track of it all, who is teaching which badges and lessons? Do I stop worrying about future events and fundraising status and always staying in the right adult to child ratio? Do I let someone else be the one holding things together? Do I even serve in the co-lead role next year?

There’s books. Do I stick with the fluffy romance or try to get into a new fantasy series, all those names to remember? Do I try suspense and mystery again, sometimes just right for my mood? Do I read to learn more about how people work, how that star got to their place in the limelight or how that author approaches a new novel? Do I read the same things as Lizzy so we can talk about her books? Do I push the books aside to catch up on podcasts?

There’s crafts. Does knitting still make me happy? Would cross stich or embroidery be better? Do I go through an online illustration class? Do I use crafts to keep my hands busy? Do I do it to feel like I’ve accomplished something? Do I do it to make people happy, like I did with the cross stitches for my former coworkers (the weird family-like ones)? Do I make myself do it a bit every day, taking me away from the watching of stupid online videos and little games with hexes and gems and fake traffic jams?

There’s blogging. Do I want to keep blogging? Do I want to move back to Substack because, well, what platform doesn’t host horrible people and organizations? Do I stay here in the land where no one will read my words unless I direct them here? Do I care either way? Didn’t I set this up to share my stories, even if no one reads them for years? Was I lying to myself?

Yeah, I really don’t know. There’s no big list of things to focus on, to strive for as I am in this land of waffles. Maybe that’s enough, long as I pay attention that I don’t burn.