Progress Report

My apartment is not clean, but it is cleaner than it was Friday. On Friday, it was cleaner than it had been Thursday. I think that's a smarter way to go. It's like how the gyms get packed every January– all those people, resolving to make a change. But they can change overnight, and then, after a couple weeks, they miss a workout. Then another. Then they figure, I failed, might as well give up.

I'm fucking tired of giving up. So I'm not going to burn myself out, but I'm not going to allow myself to quit. For once. But if I can just get a little farther each day, I'll be a little closer to my goal. So I picked up the front room, cleaned off the bathroom floor, and folded most of my clothes. No one room is clean, but I'm getting there.

I emailed the director of the play I'm in and told him I wasn't going to play guitar in the show. It's not giving up– I didn't want to do it in the first place. But, he asked me, and I seem to have this belief that the more you say you can do, the more successful you are. That's how I got into so much trouble at work, I now realize– every day I wanted to take on more and more, in an effort to somehow prove something. As a result, I overwhelmed myself.

Work, too, is getting better. In rare form, my mother actually offered me some useful input: she pointed out that I should feel perfectly comfortable with lower productivity than my colleagues. Management clearly recognizes that I have some skills which my co-workers lack; I should feel confident in saying to management, "I didn't close as many cases as the others, because I was busy doing all those other things I do." Keep my desk caught up, then just focus on doing what I'm good at. If they ask why my numbers are lower, that's my answer.

I'm terrible at the piano. I never learned how to read music, I never got technically proficient, and I'm awful with music history. Occasionally, I'll really make an effort to learn a song (particularly if it's one of my own; yes, I'm so bad at piano I cannot play song which I myself have written). When I make that effort, something strange can happen- suddenly, my fingers will just start playing the song. My brain takes no part in the action- I can actually look down and see these fingers playing, but they sure aren't mine. They just... play. If I get pushed out of that zone, I can't replicate it. I can't just sit down and start playing the song again.

That's my goal. It's against my nature to be clean, to be productive, to just do what I'm good at and not to try and fool people into believing I can do something else. But if I just start doing it, whether I like it or not, if I just stop trying to force things, I really believe I can get into a zone. I really do think that I can get to a point where, after I finish my dinner, my body will eventually just go over to the kitchen, clean the dishes, put everything away, and pick up the kitchen, without checking with me to see if that's what I want to do. I will just get into this routine at work where I do my fucking job when I come in, and by the afternoon I have a clean desk and I can focus on doing all those things that only I can do.

When I wake up tomorrow morning, my apartment is still going to be dirty, my job is still going to suck, and my guitar will be in its case in the closet. I have to tell myself that's okay- I'll just need to keep on it tomorrow, and hopefully Tuesday, my apartment will be a little cleaner, my work will be a little better, and control of my life will be a little closer.