Suck it, little voices!

I was awake for a couple of hours in the middle of the night, something that was a regular habit curse throughout most of Terrible 2009 but which I've mostly kicked this year.  Anyway, in that awake-time in the middle of the night, my mind got up to its old tricks of making lists of all the things I haven't done, all the commitments I've made on which I'm potentially falling short, cranking out its Grinchy kill-joy anxiety.  Eww, so don't want that.  I tried to shake it off, by turning on the bedside light (causing Joe a minor heart-attack) and reading for a while, but I think I still have a belly full of failure this morning.

It doesn't help matters (or actually, it probably really does!) that I keep signing myself up for stuff, creating rules that then I have to keep.  Such as:

- freecycling one thing for every day in June.  So far I'm keeping up, and I'm glad about that, but I made up that commitment and can't imagine not keeping it, so I better keep scouring the cabinets and nooks and crannies.  The garage, of course, is a freaking gold-mine of stuff to pass on to others, but I dread going out there a little.  Which means I really need to do it.

- practicing 5 days a week and producing 800 words of writing a day for 21 days, something I just signed on to at 6am yesterday.  Yes, I know that's a really good target for me since it represents some stretch, but it did come up in the middle of the night as another source of pressure, albeit self-imposed.  I meant to go to class last night but then got hit with a wave of homesickness so powerful at about 4:30 that I needed to head home, be with my kid and dog for those hours, see my house and garden by light of day.  So I definitely spent insomniac time plotting out when I was going to practice, and kind of kicking myself for not practicing enough.

- blogging for ElephantJournal.com, which is supposedly a weekly or so commitment, but which is also stressing me out a bit now since I'm having some difficulty with their general tone and discerning what is for my blog, what is suitable for theirs.  And resisting the changes I'd have to make for my stuff to work over there.  For example, the piece I wrote about my oiled-pelican fueled misery (What Are We Doing?), I think I'd have to re-title "Hot! Oil! Wrestling!" in order to get any click-throughs.  Which is not terrible, but also not my favorite.

- taking the bus to work twice a week.  Also something I really, really want to do, but hard to incorporate when there are errands and yoga, etc., to fold into the mix.

- not driving one day of every weekend.  This means riding bikes to the Fairfax Festival on Saturday (for which I will miss yoga, boo, but all in the interest of friendship and companionship, oh and it's our anniversary that day and it's what Joe really wants to do, so I'm more than game).

What I'm reminding myself of this morning as I write this is that all of the above are things I WANT to do, things that matter to me, things with the potential to produce the shifts in my life that are ultimately the entire goal of this year.  In keeping those commitments, I know I am creating the groundwork for something major and delicious.  And every commitment I keep makes me stronger, makes me able to take on the next challenge with more courage and certainty of a successful outcome.

But sometimes I just feel tired.  Which is to be expected when I've spent the hours of 2 - 4am engaged in a pitched battle against my own resolve, all those nasty little defeatist voices having their say.  Enough, I say to you silly little bastard voices.  I'm on this and you can't stop me.

Making a great life is a lot of work.  But honestly, it's the only work that matters.

[And that's 700 words so Suck It, little voices!!]