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Time is not really my specialty. When I was much younger, there was a highly climbable hill next to my school bus stop. I spent one morning quite contentedly climbing up the hill and down the hill while waiting for the bus to get there. After only a few minutes of this, I was somewhat stunned to have my mother come in frantic search of me, having been called by the school to inform her of my unexcused absence. Many years later, I have now had a school call me to report the absence of a child I saw safely off in the morning. (They’re fine, no worries) While this has taught me what her feelings were that day, (Mom, I am so very, very sorry) nothing has come along so far to teach me the difference between ten minutes and four hours. In my defense, time cheats. I have picked up a book to read for ten minutes before bed only to have the sun come up before the ten minutes is over. I have also spent five grueling hours on homework only to look at the traitor clock and discover that it has only tracked fifteen minutes of my suffering.

This little reflection comes to me because I finally decided after two weeks (nearly two months according to that calendar thing) of missing my blog, that it was time to decide whether to get back into the swing of things or abandon the blog altogether. In the goal-setting world, I’m pretty certain that the only thing harder than starting a new goal is restarting a dropped goal. The only thing harder than restarting a dropped goal is restarting a dropped goal that was semi-public.

I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve made the resolution to put my bed away first thing every morning. I can’t ask any of you to give me the number, because you don’t know. Only one person sees me cycle from “Putting my bed away first thing is absolutely going to change my entire life!!” to “I think I’m too tired to put my bed away properly. I’ll just fold it up and shove it out of the way for now” and back again. If your mental image is going to all sorts of weird places, I should clarify. I’ve been sleeping on a futon mattress (The Japanese on-the-floor type, not the thing that fails at being a bed and a couch at the same time) for some span of time that’s probably more than one year and less than ten. I love it so much that sometimes when I’m putting it away I hug it. I can’t help myself.

On the flip side, something people know I had as a goal turns really quickly into “I have now failed and shall live forever as a hermit.” This is where something deep and inspirational goes. I do not know how to build a proper yurt, and I cannot find any free caves or mountaintops to live on and dispense wisdom. I barely know how to hunt and cook my own food in a store and a pantry, let alone “out yonder”, so I guess I have no reasonable choice but to try again! Maybe some day I will abandon the blog, but if I do, it will be because I thought about it and decided it was time. Not because I was too scared to make another attempt where people can see me.

I am still typing 7 spaces at the beginning of every paragraph, but I do at least now have a menu of sorts. I skipped last week because everything in the Lane household has gone pear-shaped. I learned today that the most likely origin of the phrase, “gone pear-shaped” was in the Royal Air Force, and it was used to describe a poorly executed aerial loop. It’s also what happens when I attempt to draw a perfect circle. On the ground. With a pencil. I do not ever expect to attempt to draw anything in the air with a plane. Events this past week have led me to ponder on where things go from pear-shaped. My much-beloved readers, everything in the Lane household has now gone banana-shaped.

How many Lanes with the flu does it take to load a single dishwasher? All of them! Did I imply fully loaded? I’m sorry, I meant to the point of, “good enough, that’s enough dishes for dinner, just start the thing.” This is turning out to be one of those weeks where being vertical is a major achievement, and wasn’t supervising the medicine schedules of a very sick household one of the labors of Hercules?

Having a set goal to post every Tuesday has had an upside and a downside. The upside is, I can’t make myself put my posts off indefinitely on the grounds that I really should learn how to fix the layout and formatting first. The downside is, I don’t put my posts off on the grounds that I really should learn how to fix the layout and formatting first. I’ve had an offer of assistance, but I have a hard time taking it because a decade ago, I could jump into a piece of software and learn the ins and outs all by myself and come away feeling pretty smart. It’s incredibly hard to accept that I am no longer computer savvy when I WAS. There are just so many options in everything now that my brain takes one look at it and makes that sound a mosquito hitting a bug zapper makes. However, it’s pretty ridiculous to have been posting for a month feeling guilty every time I log on and realize it’s virtually unnavigable. So one of my goals now is to spend some solid time looking around and learning how to set up menus and everything else, and to accept help if I can’t work it out when I really give it a solid try.

I was thinking things through in the shower today, (sometimes, I swear, it’s the only truly quiet moments I get in the day) mostly thinking about how frustrated I was about the degree and type of my progress since starting this blog. I’ve accomplished things, and I’m proud of those things, but there have been days that I didn’t do anything that could have been marked off a checklist. Sometimes I’ve had the physical strength, but like a car without a battery, there wasn’t enough mental strength to spark that perfectly functional engine into running. Or I may not have the physical strength to get to my to-do list, but I keep putting off my mental tasks until I can check off the physical because I had told myself the up and about should happen first. Today, stuck in a loop of “Well, I did some good things, but…” I suddenly had the thought, “So much for what you can’t do, how much time have you spent thinking about what you can do?”

This probably seems like an abrupt leap when it’s typed out like this, but I love sayings. I love words, and the things that end up sayings have a real knack for sticking in the ol’ braincase. There’s a saying that Mercedes Lackey adapted and used in one of her books that says, “You shouldn’t attempt to teach a goat to sing. It will waste your time, hurt your ears, and annoy the goat.” I love that one, especially since the next line is equally good. “I can tell you without fear of contradiction that the goat is getting annoyed.” On the other hand, things like, “Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right” get under my skin so much. There’s truth there, and there’s no question that for many people they’re inspiring and I think that’s fantastic. The fact is, though, “can’t” sometimes applies. Rather than trying to teach my kids or myself never to say the word “can’t”, I’ve been trying to say instead that “can’t” should never be the end of the sentence. It should whenever possible be followed with, “but I can…”

I realized in my little quiet moment today that despite starting this blog with the intent to show how flexible and forgiving growth can really be, even with people who don’t feel like they’d know “normal” if it came up and stole their grilled cheese, (I like butchering sayings, too.) I have persistently and repeatedly measured my own little goat successes by how well I’m learning to sing. And yes. This goat is getting annoyed. I really want to take that parallel further and make some inspirational statement on how my other goal for the week is to focus on using my strengths to get things done instead of dragging myself around by my weaknesses, but, “So I will now proceed to eat everything I see and headbutt anyone who gets in my way!” Doesn’t seem to strike the right note somehow.

I think I set the wrong goals for this week. I set useless goals like:

1. Learn more about how to use a blog thing.
2. Figure out what approach I’m going to take when turning my real goals and efforts into blog posts.
3. Get in the habit of accomplishing something every single day.
4. Don’t yell at the ambient people meanwhile.

I now realize my goal for this week should have been to learn how to make it so the tab button makes an indent instead of sending my cursor to reside somewhere in the aether so I spend half of my time recounting my spaces. (Was that the 7th space? That’s the right number for imitating what I thought tab buttons do, right?) Unfortunately, I went with the first goal list, so that is what I’ll be going with today.

(1, 2… 6, 7 spaces!) As I’ve been planning in my mind what I’m going to post about, I realized that having such a long list of ways I am going to become completely awesome makes it a little hard to write a coherent post. I could have a paragraph for each area, but that would be even longer and more rambling than usual, and I don’t want anyone to have to call off work Wednesday to make time to read the thing. I decided to focus first on getting things clean and organized because it’s just barely possible that it may be easier to remember to exercise, eat healthier, and wear the clothes that make me feel good instead of “laundry day” clothes if, y’know, it could no longer be perpetually laundry day and my exercise routine didn’t involve finding my yoga mat before actually using the thing. Which is a really pretty blue. … Or purple. … Teal? We haven’t seen each other in a while, I’m not really certain.

For coming off a rough stretch, I think I’ve done fairly ok. I have at least touched on all of my goals, the local fauna has been lulled into a belief that I am a patient human, (minus the occasional “Shut up please, dog”) and there are rooms of my house I would invite people into on purpose. I did yesterday repeat my tendency to work as hard as I can until I can’t and then collapse into a fried potato the next day. Steak fries, in case anyone’s curious. I’m a bit too substantial to be a shoestring potat. To respond to that, I made a mental list of small to moderate tasks to help me respect the tired without losing motivation or progress, and I have another thought that I’ll probably develop more before I really post about it. Quick side note. I looked up “potat” to be certain it was allowed to be used outside of cute corgis and found an alternate definition. A name meaning: “Heavenly creature descended from the stars”. (Which, let’s be honest, that’s probably still a corgi) Thank you, random Florida denizen for that suggestion. “Descending from the stars” is a much more poetic state than, “collapsed into an unholy amalgamation of person and recliner”.

I started this blog for two main purposes. I wanted to blog to support the changes I’m trying to make, and I hoped that there might be someone who would read this blog and relate to some of the things I’m now learning, and maybe feel a little more hopeful about who they are and who they’re trying to be. I decided that part of both of those purposes is making the commitment to post every Tuesday, whether or not I was certain I had something amazing to post. Though, admittedly, I had hoped that having that deadline in mind would somehow magically make me more productive, which… I’m still waiting for someone to wave that particular wand.

I have done some things this week, but most of it is in the realm of things that will help someday. Not really the sort of thing that lends itself easily to witty, entertaining, (but enlightening!) blog posts. I did a fair bit of research into the various whys and hows of blogging, which revealed to me that I did this wrong and may have to move the blog in the future once I have everything set up to do it “right”. Still, I think I needed to start writing while I had the courage, so I can’t regret having done this whole thing backward. One can always quietly study when one feels like a coward. Publishing posts while scaredy-cat mode is engaged is much harder. A friend of mine who cares about me and misunderstood my vision for this blog tried to make sure I was tempering my expectations so I wouldn’t get hurt. Where my expectations of fame and fortune were nonexistent, I took those concerns to instead mean I couldn’t make a difference to anyone. That loss of conviction combined with the slow week has really made it difficult to plan what to write today.

I called my sister to talk about her life and instead ended up talking to her about my blog worries. I told her here it was, Tuesday, (Again. Those lil buggers keep coming!) and I had no ideas and was just trying to find the courage to keep my commitment. She said, “well, why don’t you write what you just told me?” Initially, I dug my heels in at that. Hard. “I can’t do that!! I did that last week! I can’t have two weeks in a row of, ‘things were hard, but I’m still doing the thing!” When I heard myself say that, it revealed a whole pattern in my head. I can’t be the only one who’s stuck in the mindset that one bad period of time can be forgiven, but admitting to two or more in close succession is nigh unforgivable.

Have you ever while in a position of financial distress read those articles about how to save money and improve your budget? It seems like 9 out of 10 of them boil down to, “Just stop being so wasteful with the hundreds of thousands you obviously already have, and you’ll be fine!” It often feels to me like many organizational-type blogs are written the same way. “Just spend the first 11 hours of your free time tossing out the things you know at first glance you never want to see again. After a quick 15 minute break to eat and refresh yourself, take the next 16 hours of your day to make some decisions about the items you were uncertain of in your first pass. Another 4 hours should be sufficient to tidy up afterward before bed.” This blog is intended for those of us who don’t make a house a year, have 31.25 spare hours in every day, or we just feel like we lack some sort of skill that appears otherwise universal. Even in a blog that I intended to be vulnerable and open, (I even put a pen name on it to make it less scary), it’s almost paralyzing to be open about struggling. Twice. But life doesn’t always respect the fact that we already did the optimism in the face of challenges thing.

The thing that I believe IS universal is that it’s not the times we drop the ball twice in a row (or three times, or four) that determine who we are and where we will go. It’s the getting back up. It’s the not quitting, or the unquitting after we have quit. (what? I stand by my word choice.) Those starts and restarts make a real difference in our lives and the lives around us. Some of those lives around us are people who will still love us after two or more bad weeks/months/years and want very much to be there and support us. But we won’t be able to see that if we hold ourselves and them to these arbitrary limits of how human we’re allowed to be.

Once upon a time, there was a bar of soap. The soap was called, “It’s only freaking Tuesday” with text underneath that read, “smells like slowly dying.” Illness has reigned supreme in our home for about three weeks. When I decided to make this blog, I committed to my own self in my own head where no one would have known if I skipped it, to post every Tuesday. Naturally, when I made my introductory post, I just KNEW that by the following Tuesday, we’d be all healthy and more productive than the world (at least our world) had ever seen. All the bad habits of a lifetime would be rewritten, my readers (who at this point have known me all of that lifetime of less-than-productive habits… Hi, guys! I love you!) would be awed and inspired, and I’d be well on my way to achieving all of my dreams. What a blog this would be!
Somehow, I have arrived at this magical date still sick and having not yet learned to navigate the wonders and complications of blogging and formatting. Far from wowing the world with my achievments, I’m sitting here in my chair surrounded by tissues and VapoRub, wondering why it is that the very same buttons I used on my last post are doing different things on this one. It was very tempting to skip my post altogether today. My promises were to myself, my audience still comprised of those who are already disposed to like me, what was there to lose? When I thought it over two or ten times, I wondered if moments like these might be the real places change is determined. Not in the places you’re all fired up and have dozens of ideas you just know everyone will love, but in the days you’re run down and miserable and the only thing you really know in the core of your being is that you could never have survived illness in the days no one had invented lavender stuffed sloths that you can microwave and put on your sore spots.
I still don’t know how to navigate this place or put my posts where they can be seen, but I’m keeping my commitment to myself that no one knew about before now. Even though it kinda smells like slowly dying and it’s somehow already freaking Tuesday.

Hi! As far as this blog is concerned, I’m Avi Lane. I’m 40 years old, and like everyone in this world, I’ve had various struggles and delights, failures and victories. When I’ve looked at the big picture of what my life looks like to me, however, I’ve seen one thread running through all the good and the bad, the times I’m happy with myself and the times I kinda think I suck. I feel like I have a lot of invisible strengths, but that my failures are all of the public variety. I have a lot that I really love about myself, it’s just not the sort of stuff that can be displayed to show how magnificently accomplished I am.

You know, people say all the time, “You can go to the gym, (clean the house, cook the food, manage the budget) you just don’t choose to. Everyone has the ability to do this thing, it’s just a matter of priorities.” The implication being, of course, that if your priorities are not ‘this thing’, that you’re failing at life and you’ve chosen poorly. The thing that gets forgotten there is that even if everyone can do anything (which also isn’t quite true) no one can do everything. I used to get so angry when people said that type of thing, because sometimes the things I had to give up to meet someone else’s priorities weren’t worth giving up to me. The beginning of everything changing for me is when I started realizing that that’s actually fine. It’s not a failure to choose invisible things like being more patient over more obvious things like a spotless house. It’s not a failure to need your house immaculate, either. It’s only a failure to give up.

Yeah, a lot of times I’m really embarrassed that everyone around me has things they’re obviously successful at, and I’m over here in the corner going, “Um… I love people! That’s a thing, right?” Sometimes that shame is paralyzing and I stop progressing for a time because I just can’t get over how much “less than” I feel like I look. Sometimes the time and effort I could have used to improve really was wasted in things that don’t matter. But in most cases, when I really sit down and talk to myself about the strengths I have and the strengths I don’t have yet, I wouldn’t trade them. I wouldn’t trade the relationship I have with my kids for a cleaner house. I wouldn’t trade really caring deep down for people for a smaller waistline.

I am not at all saying that people with clean houses have bad relationships with their kids or that the size of one’s heart and the size of one’s waistline have any kind of connection whatsoever. Just that it’s as ok to prioritize changes inside of yourself as it is to prioritize changes outside of yourself. It’s still success and it’s still growth.

Down to the point of this blog: There’s so many things “everyone” knows how to do by 40 that I just am not good at. Yet. Growth is fortunately not a zero-sum game. While we do have to choose which areas are most important, we also get to keep going every time we’ve mastered one thing, and choose another most important thing to master. I’m ready to tackle some of those obvious things and have some visible successes, and I have started this blog on the off chance that maybe not “everyone” is on top of all the things “all” adults know how to manage. Maybe I might learn something along the way that could help someone else. So! Here I am, in the middle of my life getting a new start on learning how to do all the adult things, and I’d like to share that process with you.