Murphy is still biting

This is a rant! I am not sure if I am pre-menstrual or menopausal, our English summer is taking place during this very week, and I have not seen a bloody bit of it, collecting overtime at work instead, and my bodybuilding competition is getting closer and I am in panic because I just can't focus on it. I had another week during which I didn't train. Great!

Well Mr Murphy claims that everything that can go wrong will go wrong, for me it is more: Pile on her shoulders as much as you can! Maybe it's Murphy's brother biting me.

I have set myself all those challenges, because my environment at home and work was calm and comforting for such sort of thing, and hence I organised my life accordingly. It seemed to be good timing to push the envelope a bit more and to find out where my limits are. Well, I learned that for sure: They are here and now!

See, everything was sorted and discussed at home, work was wonderfully boring and then, all of a sudden home and work changed drastically. I feel that I should be three people: A full time entertainment enthusiast, a full time business woman with a drive for a career and the will to work overtime for it, and the Rika who wants to write blogs, do photo shoots and bodybuilding competitions.

Does it always HAVE to be like that? Really? This is going on my nerves.

I had occasions like this twice before in my life. I had just braced myself to build something of my own, wanted to become a business woman in my own little company, even had visited courses on bloody boring accountancy - and then we moved to England. The second time round I wanted to become an artist/inventor/craftswoman and make that a business - and I got offered the BT-job that initially scared the hell out of me, so the idea died.

Although I am hoping that I can make the one or the other of my recent activities a business, the whole thing was meant to be a self improvement exercise. I wanted to learn some skills and gain a bit of confidence and most of all, for a change I wanted to practice patience and determination. For a change I wanted to be able to stick with something and not give up like the two times before.

It is so easy to say: 'Oh I moved', 'I got a job', ... and hence I give up. Nope, not this time!

Mr Murphy's brother is testing me big time, though. It could not just be the case that my husband would discover a new life  coming June, when the bodybuilding competition is over, so that I could discover it together with him? No, apparently not, it had to happen last fall, just when I had to pull things together.

Apparently it had to happen last fall as well, that new tasks were offered to me at work. I could have said no, but they were interesting and it is nice to be asked. Others have to beg on her knees for good jobs... Those tasks have now reached a culmination point ... two month before the competition. Hmmm?!?!

See, each of these people needed to live my life are in me, and I love every single one of them, just not at the same time.

So, somebody please tell me : This determination thing - where should I focus it on? I feel like burning the candle from both ends at the moment. If I drop one... would I still be determined? Or do I have to pull through all of them to fulfil my initial challenge of self improvement... ah crumbs... let's hope it's just the hormones talking!

On that note:
Have a wonderful weekend!

A Columnist

I started reading a book. Nothing unusual, one might think, but for me it is as I have not been reading in a long time: Too much other stuff to do - like writing.

So I thought: Then at least read a book about writing! I had started others of this kind before, but they reminded me of school and off they went into the rear end of the book shelf. This one is different. Although On Writing Well is written by a writer who is a teacher as well. He writes about other writers who do everything the opposite way he does, and is acknowledging those approaches as valid as his own. And that made me think about what kind of writer I might be.

A lot of the things he suggests I am already doing, although not confidently enough. So I feel in good company while learning my skill. But that does not explain what type of writer I am. And then, Monday morning, sorting my little chores for the day, mind floating, it occurred to me that 'I am a columnist'.

Yes, I know, I even have written a book with my columns in it. That is not what I mean. I am a columnist in my lifestyle as well. I always visualised my life as a scene from a sci-fi adventure movie. There is a huge opening in the ground, bottomless, and for some reason hot and glowing... it seems that I have a vivid imagination, I probably should attempt writing a novel. However! My task in life is to get to the other side of this nothingness.

I have observed people building little bits of land right to the cliff edge where they are standing. They do that by learning things which seem sensible at the time. They look for the bit of the cliff edge that suits them best and by staying with the subject and specialising they are building a solid bridge to the other side.

That's not me!

I have been looking for the right part of the cliff several times and my choices turned out to be very crumbly. Then I found an interest and pursued it for a while, building a column in the middle of the vastness. And on I went building column by column, some of them are a bit short, others a bit high. Some I was made building, and they seem to be a bit crumbly, too. Meanwhile I was walking up and down that cliff not getting anywhere, still hoping to find the perfect spot for a bridge. The bridge builders already were far ahead.

And now, in the last phase of my life, I realise that some of the columns stand rather densely, they are starting to become part of a whole. I can jump from one to the next, and from where I am standing I even can see the solid  and the crumbly ones. I have options to choose from, while some bridge builders have hit crumbly ground and have to go back. Jumping is still a bigger risk than going steadily, but it is more fun, too!

So no wonder then, that I have become a columnist.