Not Another Pop Quiz!

Learning, learning, learning. Life is the ultimate professor. Every day it seems that life presents a new problem. And often they are the dreaded story problems! No, not grade school algebra, but real-life story problems. Lately life has decided to teach me more about endurance.

I have a friend in real life who will not quit anything! She will stand in place and just take it until the task is completed. On one level I admire her, on a separate level I think she is nuts! Its the old hold 'em, fold 'em thing. She will stick to the most unpleasant job because she does not want to be labeled a quitter. I feel that knowing when to say thank you and walk away is a sign of wisdom. Its the line 'don't go where you're not wanted' expanded to 'don't stay where you aren't wanted'. These seem to me to be easy life issues. Look inside, think and decide which way to go. I have rarely regretted stepping away when it was time to do so.

Right now I am staying put. I'm trying to learn what life wants to teach me about being steadfast. This morning I heard my knee pop with every step as I dragged the trash out to the curb. I don't need this right now, thank you very much! I need to be ten, or twenty years younger now! I need to be tough. I need to wake up ready to take on the world.

People have called me strong. I don't know about that. All I know right now is that when the child in me cries out "I don't think I can do this anymore", the adult says "yes, you can, and yes you will". I'm getting good at developing my own work-arounds. Shedding a lot of the nonsense has felt good. My priorities are different now, better. What rises to the top of the worry list is no longer silly stuff. My sense of clarity and purpose has never been sharper.

So, the endurance lesson goes on. I wonder if there will be a gold star on my paper at the end.

And The Winner Is: Time

Time is about the strangest thing there is. It changes pace, its warps and bends, it can be heavy, it can fly, it can be wasted, or it can be the only thing that matters. Its measurable and ethereal. Time can run out, it can be on our side, or it can be the enemy. This weekend was a perfect example of how time can be the greatest trickster ever!

On Friday night time moved at the speed of light for me. The 30's swing bash at Gatsby's was really nice. What great music! Of course I had a slight wardrobe panic. For an insane moment I thought about going shopping. Thankfully, I reconsidered, and just went to enjoy the event. And enjoy it I did, until it was time to race home, change clothes, and go the next party!

Then, in what seemed like the blink of an eye, the the party at the Jazz Cat was in full swing! Three hours just flew by. It was such fun. We had a lot of new visitors to the club. And of course, our Infomaniacs! It took me about two hours to realize that I was hogging the mic, it seemed like 15 minutes. (Feel free to boot me out of there if you want to sing). It wasn't until my fingers started to ache that I realized how long we had been there!

Saturday dawned in RL. (Time spent sleeping is the oddest of all, no sense of it passing. Just close your eyes, and when you open them again, poof, hours have gone by. Hours spent with insomnia cannot be described without using words like glacial or molasses). I had a meeting in SL at one pm. It had been three weeks since the previous meeting, and I had not done my homework! Where did that time go? So then, I had to spend a few torturous minutes begging forgiveness and promising to do better.

Saturday evening is lost to memory. A topic for another post. I think I actually logged off for a while. If anyone knows what I did, please remind me. LOL!

Sunday I did some RL yard work. Which is of course synonymous with eternity. Then back to SL for another meeting! (Meetings are better in SL. Its not necessary to govern your expression at all times). And before I knew it, it was dinner time!

A friend suggested that some quiet time might be just the thing. We fantasized about it for a while. No notices, no IMs, no chats, no nothing. Of course we might have set busy for a while, but my goodness, what might be missed? We could have logged off, but then we would miss even more. Its like being a small child unwilling to run home for lunch, something might happen while you are gone.

Time will win in the end. And that's fine with me as long as I can spend time with you, here in SL.

HJ

An adage worth remembering: Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.