Seems like over the last many years, Christmas comes without me really experiencing it, and then it’s over, and I think about how long it’ll be before it comes again.
I forget to listen to Christmas music. I work and work and work and work, and then suddenly there’s Christmas, and I wasn’t paying attention, and then suddenly it’s over, and it’s another year before it comes again.
I thought I was doing better this year because I started having the Christmas spirit even before Thanksgiving. I was all into it, and then I don’t know what happened… It just started being like every other year. I stopped listening to the Christmas music, for the most part, without really thinking about it, or if I did keep listening to it, I didn’t have the Christmas spirit, it was just… music.
And I know part of it is probably my choice to spend Christmas alone, which I felt was a decent choice to think and what not, but as often happens, the time that I set aside to think and ponder and work on things… gets wasted.
That’s what my Christmas was like, for the most part. I wasted it… 😕 well, at least I didn’t use the time is effectively as I could. I didn’t do with the time what I felt like was best for me to do with the time. 😕
There are a couple of reasons why, and I guess I’ll explain that as I go back over the day.
The night was cold. I think it got down to 16°, and so I turned the car on a handful of times to warm it up a bit to be comfortably warm.
I drove up to my little park in the pleasant Grove/ American fork area for part of the morning. Then I thought it would be neat to attend the Christmas mass at the Catholic Church, So I tried to make myself look as presentable as I could, and I went over to the Saint Francis Catholic church in Orem for the 10:00 a.m. mass.
It was a great experience. It’s only the second time that I’ve been to Catholic church in my life, I think (to attend services, I mean), and though certainly very different from my own church and how the services are run, it was beautiful, and I enjoyed being there and the spirit that I felt as I left.
It’s once again a reminder to me of just how much we have in common, so much more in common, than we have different. Obviously a fellow Christian is going to be quite close, so maybe it’s not that big of an evidence in the broader spectrum, but it’s still an evidence to me.
After that, my plan was to find a beautiful place to start working on my non-profit stuff, putting my ideas in note form and making progress on that. right off the bat I struggled to find a place. Being winter time, the places that I generally go are all closed, the roads blocked off. And it’s also extremely cold up in the mountains, so it’s not like getting out and hiking to a place was going to be very effective, because my hands would be freezing while trying to take notes on my phone. And my butt would be cold from whatever I was sitting on, most likely snow or freezing rock.
But right off the bat I struggled to find a place. Being winter time, the places that I generally go are all closed, the roads blocked off. And it’s also extremely cold up in the mountains, so it’s not like getting out and hiking to a place was going to be very effective, because my hands would be freezing while trying to take notes on my phone. And my butt would be cold from whatever I was sitting on, most likely snow or freezing rock.
So I was trying to find a place that was beautiful and not next to the roaring sound of cars, but a place that I could park.
But I failed in every attempt.
I drove all over, but… I couldn’t find anywhere.
Even one of my super out of the way places that I pretty much never saw people at ever 10 or 15 years ago, way back in the mountains behind timpanogos and whatnot… The road was blocked off for the winter, and skiers were coming down it… 😞
Right now I’m missing Arkansas.
I forgot how hard it is to find places to get away in Utah during the winter time. I mean, I remembered a little bit before I came out here, knowing that some of the places would be closed, but I forgot just How far I’d have to go to try and find somewhere where I felt like my soul could breathe and not be in the claustrophobic rush of cars and buildings and concrete, and noise….noise… noise.
So as often happens when I’m looking for my place to be, I waste lots of my time just trying to find the place.
After failing to find a place up in the mountains behind midway like I was hoping, I stopped off at the far East end of deer Creek reservoir to look out over the lake with the beautiful view of the east slopes of Mount timpanogos. It was a pretty view, but it was distracting a bit because there was so much trash everywhere.
The water was probably a few feet down from its peak, and in the rocks and on the frozen muddy lake bed, there were tires and bottles and… just trash everywhere. So I spent a little time gathering up the trash and making a little pile in the parking lot–three tires, large ones, and a whole bunch of other kinds of trash. There wasn’t a trash can around, so I just left it all in a big pile.
After that, I kept looking for a place without finding one. There were a couple of great little picture spots , but they were right next to the super loud highway, so I stopped to take some pictures, but it wasn’t the place I wanted to be to be thinking and what not.
I finally gave up trying to find a great place and just chose a dirt parking lot with a… an ok view just below the deer Creek reservoir dam.
I spent time trying to think. I realized that the documents that I’ve been using were actually on my computer at home and not saved to my Google drive, so I didn’t have any of that. And as seems to happen pretty much every time I try and do anything like this, my brain just doesn’t work. It’s actually starting to be a bit distressing. I’m wondering if this is the new normal, where abstract thinking, and coming up with ideas… Just doesn’t happen.
I have these things that I’m excited about, and then it’s like there’s a wall in my brain, or a fog that’s so thick that I can’t find anything. I’m used to having my brain just click into place and rapid fire off idea after idea after idea, and connection after connection after connection, and it just doesn’t do it. The ideas that I’m used to being able to grab and place in context or in organized fashion just… They don’t come. It’s like I’m stuck inside this brain that doesn’t work anymore.
It’s been like that for years…
I had hoped that maybe it was because of chronic stress… or diet or gut problems, but it doesn’t seem to matter What I do or what I change: It’s always the same. My brain just doesn’t work anymore. I feel nearly useless at accomplishing the things that I want to accomplish. It’s like I can’t be a leader or an innovator anymore because my brain just doesn’t have what it takes for those kinds of responsibilities and actions.
Even as I sit and write this, after getting plenty of sleep last night, my brain is nothing but a fog.
That’s pretty discouraging. That’s one of the reasons why I haven’t gotten much of anything done on this non-profit stuff because every time I sit down to try and work through stuff, my brain just doesn’t work. I try and think about it, and all these ideas that should be popping into my head about how to do this and what to do there and how to organize this and what to do there, etc etc, I’ll have like two ideas, and I have to pry them out with the claw end of a hammer because my brain can’t grab the things that are supposed to be there.
😞
I’m actually worried now. Is it just age? My dad’s brain seems to still work rapid fire with ideas and whatnot. Sure he forgets things all the time, but when he’s excited about something, his brain seems to just rattle stuff off like it used to. I think?
I’m half his age.
What’s wrong with me?
So this happens pretty much every time I sit down and try and work on it, and it’s gotten to the point that there’s an anxiety and a lack of desire to even try working on it because I’m just going to fail every time. My brain just isn’t going to work. I’m going to try and try and try, and I’m going to make almost zero progress.
😞
Right on cue, after a brief and pathetic battle to try and make progress, I just gave up and ended up spending the entire rest of the day watching YouTube videos. Granted, many of them were instructive, but still, it just feels like a completely wasted day, and I was getting discouraged and starting to feel a little down on myself for wasting time… precious time.
😕
My brother invited me to Christmas dinner with him, but I just… wasn’t in a good place by that point.
I’m really tired of failing in my efforts to move forward on the things that I’ve wanted to do. It’s like I’m stuck, stuck in this life that I hate, my brain won’t let me do what I actually want to do.
What’s wrong with this stupid brain. 😞
So I feel like I’ve wasted nearly all of the day and a half that I had set aside to work on these things. I have literally two bullet points of progress in a day and a half. 😞
I shouldn’t have come to Utah. I should have just stayed home.
Lift the World 