Bullseye (I felt my compassion returning)

Happy Easter weekend.

All week I've been wanting – desperately desiring – to document the actions of (and my reactions to) my three-year-old house guest. All week I've refrained, because ... well, for lots of reasons. Mainly, it's because I know she's only a little kid, and she's stressing out even more than I am right now. Also, that she lacks the emotional experience and skills to deal with her feelings in a constructive and positive way, and that I should therefore cut her some slack.

In addition, I don't like to reveal to my adoring public just how easy it is to get a rise out of me, sometimes. Equanimity? Bah! All it takes is a new purple stain on my best down pillow, or the entire new crop of tiny green Meyer lemons plucked from my precious baby trees, or a forbidden cup of carrot juice sneaked into my bed (where it spilled and dried, leaving an enormous orange stain), or a stolen packet of sticky red Emergen-C powder sprinkled liberally all over the damp and humid bathroom ...

Any one of these or a thousand other small disasters might have been enough to make my brain explode. Added together, and combined with near-constant whining and screaming (primarily at bedtime) ... ugh. I can't talk about it. Except to say that I think it really must be different when it's your own kid, or at least a kid you love (like my nieces and nephews and a few other friends' kids), and when you're in your own home with a stable routine and the ability to arrange your world (or at least your bedroom) in a way that allows and encourages safe exploration without sacrificing beauty, tranquillity or the ability to get a decent half night's sleep every couple of nights or so.

I'm really tired right now.

But I'm getting over being pissed off. The other night we were trying to watch a movie, with the kid stretched out next to us – supposedly "falling asleep" but in reality whining, talking, and kicking her feet against the arm of the couch. It had been a long day already and all I wanted was a half hour or so of peace before I went to bed ... but it wasn't gonna happen. I was finally just about at the point where I was ready to abandon the movie and go hide out in my room, when I heard her say, "I miss daddy."

Somehow when she said that, I suddenly started feeling a little more kindly toward her. I don't totally understand everything that's going on with her daddy, but I do know him well enough to know that she's very likely in for a lifetime of disappointments wherever he's concerned.

Anyway. Ever since I saw her from that perspective it's been easier to bring myself back to the way I want to be in this kind of situation: calm, kind, understanding, firm. She isn't trying to make my life difficult. She's just a very young human whose entire world has been thrown into disarray over the last few weeks, and she's expressing her upsetness. It isn't about me. What is about me is the anger I feel when she does something I don't like. So I'm trying to look at that, and figure out what it's really about.

I really am too tired to write about this right now, but I will come back to it. Also, I have a small but painful sore or zit or something right between my eyebrows – that's the bullseye mentioned in the title. It's making me feel like I can't concentrate on anything but that spot.

About the article – I was right, a hundred bucks is not enough. The interview did take about an hour but getting my notes transcribed and shaped up into something printable was more like two and a half hours. So if you count travel time, that's a total of about four hours' work, or $25 per hour. That might seem great to someone who still gets a thrill out of seeing their name in print, but I got over that part years ago (actually, I'm probably using a pseudonym for this one). Possibly in this case my standards for myself were too high; it's just an extended blurb, really, not Great Art. I still think I could get it down to between two and three hours, once I'm back in practice. If nothing else, it's still a hundred bucks I didn't have before, and a lot of the people they have lined up to talk to are actually kind of interesting. Plus, I'd enjoy shaking my work routine up a little right now.

And finally, I realized today that I still have time before Easter to make an embarrassing confession: I've totally abandoned my Lent/spring training thing and am back to my same old habit of sleeping and dreaming as much as I can. Well, not exactly – I'm still getting up a little earlier than I really have to, which I never used to do. In that sense, I guess I have made a change. But not a very big one.

I'm still going to call the experiment a success, though. I learned some things that I think are worth knowing. First, I confirmed my belief that I really do feel much better when I have enough quality sleep and dream time, so that's something I need to make more of a priority. In fact, I've decided to get a new bed now (the new stains on my current bed are also a bit of a factor here).

Also, I've realized that even though there's always the same amount of time in every day, getting up earlier really does make me feel like I have more time – a lot more time! How does that work? Something I will continue to investigate throughout this holiday weekend and beyond.