I am at the screaming point.

The past three years have been like trying to fix a jigsaw puzzle.  Although the pieces don’t fit.  I have cobbled them together.  Forced them into place, taped them down.  But it is not comfortable, there are rough edges, rising up from the picture, breaking its consistency, distorting the image.  There are gaps, misshapen corners.  It feels clumsy, disjointed.

This past weekend I had a cold.   A full on whole body ache with associated gunk.  I felt tired. My skin ached.  My head was full of fog and I made stupid mistakes, like not cooking enough pies for the people eating the meal.  I thought about once every half hour that I would go and lie down, and then someone would need somthing, or I would remember something I had to do, or find a job I had been meaning to get round to.  And I have ended the weekend feeling tight and tired and out of sorts.

I have in my mind an image of myself.  In this image I am calm and serene, I maintain my sense of humour, I rise early and unflustered to craft my novel or poetry, I snatch moments in the day to record insights and inspirations,  I am precise and clear, focused and fearless.  I have given up all material concerns to devote myself to the joy of creation. I play often and ignore convention to create the artist’s life with passion and joy.

This isn’t true.

I care too much.  I am weighed down by responsibility for others (and still learning how to allow them to be responsible for themselves).  I am frustrated, with an overdeveloped need to help. I am soft around the edges, fuzzy and formless, where I want to be solid, focused, contained.

I want to say that I have come to a place of peace, that I understand the mystery of the universe, that I can surrender and flow…

This would be poetic, but untrue.

What I know is that I have to take a shower and gather up the things I need to go to work (where IT failures mean I still cannot access a computer to do the job I need to do…)

I have to focus on the small things.  The crunch of morning toast, the coldness of the steering wheel as I drive, a bird feeding in the shrubs or the feel of rain as I walk from the car to the office.  Somewhere in the petty routines I will remember.   That it doesn’t matter all that much.  That I am allowed to be crazy and chaotic and sad and that on top of all the other madness of life I don’t have to add the burden of perfection.