My About Page Is a Lie…

…not completely, and certainly not intentionally. The truth is I’ve been doing nothing but going to work. I work for a Catholic church, so the part about Catholicism is certainly still true. But studying languages? Exercising? Writing books? Playing the accordion? No, no, no, and no.

Those who have known for me a long time are probably a little shocked. I’ve always done these things, plus extras such as taking classes here or there towards another degree that feels more and more like a wraith dancing along the horizon.

But here’s the thing. You try getting hit by a semitruck and see if your life just reverts back to normal. It does not. I thought that it would. I thought that I would just rest for a while and then spring back into everything. I expressed this disappointment to the chiropractor I’ve been seeing: The insurance money paid for a new car and part of the new accordion. Why can’t the allotted medical funds fix my back, too? He restated the obvious, that it would take longer than a few weeks to heal, and I would need to find time in my busy schedule to go for treatments more than once a week.

I’ve had an untenable schedule, too. My husband told me not to keep my freelancing work, and I didn’t listen. I kept the books I promised to edit; I kept tutoring. I worked seven days a week, twelve+ hours a day on weekdays. While my weekend work shifts weren’t quite as long, and I often enjoyed taking my computer out to my shed and blasting my music as loud as I wanted to, I was still working, taking time out only to go to the once-a-week chiropractic appointment and to Mass.

The freelancing is now done, and I’ve promised not to take any more work. I don’t know if my husband believes me or not. He’s known me longer than almost anyone (my parents being obvious exceptions); he knows I’m a tenacious workaholic. I really mean not to take more work, though*. Does that mean I will now have the energy to follow all my pursuits once more?

[*I owe a book critique to a friend, and I plan to do that for him. But that is not for pay and doesn’t count. So, he can just go ahead and email me when he’s got something for me to read.]

I honestly don’t know. The exhaustion is partly caused by low-grade chronic pain. My life has gone through a huge restructuring, and I don’t know what the future holds. My nihilistic side keeps whispering taunts in my ears: you were never going to be a good musician or truly speak Spanish, anyway. Your books will never be the visions you thought they were. They are riddled with errors and bad writing and…. I hate that defeatist voice. To be fair, this voice has never managed to stop me from continuing and practicing and learning new material, new songs, etc. But it’s still always there to assure me that I’m a giant screwup that was never meant to be.

I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean for this post to be so dark. In fact, I meant the next post I wrote to be about the baile I went to a couple weeks ago. That was great fun. I loved listening to one of my favorite bands live — there were four bands total, and they were all good, but I was there to see Los Huracanes, el grupo con tres acordeonistas. The music was very good, but I’m going to be honest, the concert simply exhausted me further. We left before it was over, at close to 2 AM. My pain was not low-grade that night; it was pulsing and awful because I’d try to do a workout with five-pound weights. Yes, that’s how far I’ve fallen. I can no longer lift even five-pound weights.

The pain and exhaustion also reminded me that I didn’t belong there; it wasn’t my culture. That is always the case, but normally I’m so excited by the music that I don’t care. This time, I was engulfed by a curious sadness watching the couples kicking up dust as they spun and danced. It was a baile, and my husband and I weren’t dancing because, let’s be honest, we didn’t grow up dancing as these people had. I had done a little dancing in my youth, including couple-dancing, but my husband had not. And that was not to mention I wouldn’t have wanted to dance due to pain.

I don’t want to leave this post on a down note. I’m not sure that my life is going poorly, per se. It’s like I said — a great restructuring has occurred, and I don’t know what I’m going to do, what I will pursue as far as writing, classes, hobbies, and even blogging. Blogging is a stress-reliever for me; it always has been. For that reason alone, I won’t give it up yet. I’ll try to be more positive, or at least more reflective and philosophical in the future. Where has my sense of humor gone? Um, actually, it’s still very much there and ready to erupt at the most inappropriate moments…alas, some things never change.

I want to add an image below of my favorite singer. I’ve posted videos of his songs before, but I love this image. I would love to find it on a poster or vinyl album cover that could be hung on the wall in my shed-office for inspiration. I haven’t found one, sadly. Still, it’s a positive note to end with. I like how deadpan his expression is, but that he’s still giving me a thumbs-up. Well, I know, he’s not giving me personally a thumbs-up, but that’s the power of music. It touches the heart in a personal way.