Speed bump

I've hit a speed bump. I have six different draft posts that I have yet to publish. I've been really down on myself for not being able to execute this little project of mine to the level of perfection and timeliness I was hoping for when I started. In the beginning I thought, "It will be fun. I'll do something different every month. I'll blog about it and I'll encounter a little self discovery along the way."

I have made a few discoveries:

• Life doesn't slow down for me while I try to figure it all out.
• There are always bigger things going on in the world than whatever it is that I'm stressed out about.
• I don't have all the answers.
• I've found myself praying for wisdom a lot lately.

I am disappointed in the amount of struggle I've had with accomplishing and writing about my New Things the past few weeks. I've had a few distracting circumstances, but my expectations of myself are high and I don't like it when I come in under the bar.

I wrote this last night:

I feel like I've barely been able to come up for air since the beginning of April. Life has been coming at me nonstop and I've struggled to have time to do anything more than the tasks that have to get done that day, let alone pursue any of my own interests.

In this, I've discovered my tendency to pile too much on my plate. More than that, I think I put too much emphasis on each of the individual things I'm responsible for in life and that just adds to the stress. I don't think I probably have more going on than anyone else; everyone is busy and stress is all relative. However there is only so much I can do in my 24 hours a day, regardless of how much I try to cram into it.

An acute episode of chest pain put me in the ER at the beginning of this week. I have some inflammation that the doctor said has been magnified by stress. Based on this and my existing (albeit minor) heart condition, I've decided to not go through with next week's race, what I'd planned for my May New Thing.

One tiny part of me is relieved since I don't feel very prepared for it. The other, much larger part of me is extremely disappointed in myself and wishes that I had the gumption to tell myself to suck it up and do it anyway. Truth be told, I've been so busy over the past few weeks I hadn't even gotten a chance to register for the race yet. Double loser.

Triple loser- I did my April New Thing on April 1st and I have yet to finish my post on it.

Quadruple loser- if I don't run the race next week, I'll have to come up with a new New Thing for May and I don't know yet what that would be. Sigh. Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I'll be moving on. I'll be checking back in after I've finished giving myself a pep talk. Hopefully I'll come back jazzed and less loser-y.

I am a little more jazzed today and possibly slightly less loser-y.

Even though I'm struggling, I do really want my New Things to mean something. This project has morphed into a different kind of quest for me. I could do something small and trivial every month- visit a new museum, try my hand/ foot/ whatever at badminton (don't know what that even entails, but I'm sure it's a lovely sport). But in the grand scheme of things, what am I learning from the experience? That's my refined quest- finding deeper meaning in every New Thing that I do, whatever it may be. So, I'll keep plugging along and fill you in along the way.