Springtime Frustrations

The past few weeks have been pretty frustrating for me. I feel like I am in the midst of experiencing a real set-back in many areas of my life. For some reason, right around the time I got back from vacation, a bunch of shit hit the fan one day after another and I'm simply not dealing with any of the repercussions very well. For example:

Work:

Right before I went on vacation I was pretty burnt out on life. Apparently this was reflected in my work. Last week not less than three memos and orders came back across my desk needing corrections. This does not make me happy. I take a lot of pride in producing high quality work on behalf of my judges, so having work come back with corrections is a big deal to me because I should have caught those mistakes before submitting my work. My judges didn't reprimand me, probably because they know this is not typical for my work product, but the experience left me feeling sloppy and useless.

Networking:

For a long time I thought I was good at this. I'd chat people up, ask intelligent questions, then politely ask to stay in touch. Then recently I've had opportunities to briefly meet some professionals in Anchorage and in those situations I've made a lot of mistakes or just failed to communicate well. I'm really worried about getting a reputation for cornering people and asking them stupid questions or just generally being annoying to people I might work with one day. What is wrong with me? Has a year in Alaska turned me into a hopelessly unsocial person? Yikes!

Home:

Things are pretty good at home, but we're hunting for a new apartment and unsure of what route to take. We can either get a really comfortable place, possibly our own house, and save a little every month toward buying or we can get a smaller place, maybe another apartment in a building or a condo, and save more every month toward buying a house. Both ideas are tempting and both have negatives. The real frustration is the "no pets" rule most landlords in Anchorage have. Pet owners really have a tough time finding a place to live that isn't an over-priced shit hole. We'll just have to keep looking throughout the summer and hope to find a good deal.

Fitness:

This is a huge problem for me right now. My vacation led to a lot of eating and drinking and then when I got home I made a few fatal errors such as the Nutella downfall a few weeks ago. Last time I weighed myself I gained about 2 pounds since about a month ago. Not a huge amount gained, but I've been trying to lose weight for a year and have in fact gained a total of 6 pounds since last May. Now my clothes aren't fitting very well anymore and I just feel so big! I don't know how this can happen considering the frequency with which I exercise and the thought and effort I put into choosing and preparing my meals. This, along with other symptoms, has led to me believe I might have a hormonal imbalance or a related condition.

So I've made a doctor's appointment for Tuesday, actually hoping my practitioner finds something wrong. At least that would explain my difficulty maintaining my weight, being prone to depression, and my erratic cycle, among other things. If nothing comes up, then I just don't know what to do. Some people are prone to being heavier, yes, but everyone has the ability to maintain a healthy, attractive weight. Even if I'm meant to be on the "thick" side that's OK, but I shouldn't have so much body fat and my body should actually react to my weight loss efforts instead of being resistant to the point of seeing negative results.

Languages:

Last summer I studied French and German almost daily and I made time to read every day. As of this week I'm doing well if I read French for more than 20 minutes in a single week! I also haven't been going to conversation practices and I'm finding myself forgetting my vocabulary and any ability to speak French smoothly that I may have once had. This is devastating to me! I have GOT to make more time for this and take it more seriously. This is an area of my life that really is just because it's something I love- it's something just for me and something that helps me to be more social. Instead of letting work, errands and life exhaust me to the point that I skip language study everyday or every week, I need to make it a priority because it's good for me and makes me happy.

Friendships:

Similar to studying languages and reading, friendship is something you have to make time for. It takes time and effort. I have a handful of good friends and a lot of casual friends. In this way I'm very lucky as there's usually someone to chat with or send an email to just to see how life is going. As for the closer friendships though, I'm not doing such a good job. I don't let people get close to me very often and, as a result, they don't know how to read me very well and I don't always trust them like I should trust my friends. What's more, I don't always communicate my frustrations very well. Maybe it's fear of losing one of my very few actual close friends, so I keep things to myself until I just can't anymore. So I've been keeping people at a distance lately, just focusing on Leigh and Juneau Cat, and not really trying to build relationships as much. I don't know what to do about this because trust and friendship are not something you can just put on your "To Do" list. These are things that require a lifetime of experience to learn and negative past experiences can go a long way to effect future attempts at building relationships.

So yeah, I need to do better. I need to prioritize and be patient and diligent. In some ways I need to put myself first and in other ways I need to be better about focusing on other people in my life. Being a grown-up is so complicated!