Overextended. Again.

I don't know how life gets so crazy. I always try to maintain a reasonable amount of activities and responsabilies so that I can keep up with everything, but I always manage to take on more than I can do. I overextend myself. I was venting to my sister Megan the other day and she said "You are a Crowe. We always do that."

I remember just before I moved to Sacramento: I lived with the Paces and I had a calendar posted on the shelf by my door ennumerating the different places I needed to be and things I needed to have done by such and such a date. It was a weekly calendar (My own style, patterned after the old missionary planners.) and I had goals written along the side. For weeks my goal was to un-overextend myself. Then I moved to Sacramento. I didn't have a job. I wasn't in school. I didn't have local friends yet (they didn't know I had moved back). After I got a job at Prestige I was busy and worn out. But I was only busy.

I am busy still, but more than busy and worn out. I'm not quite sure what I am, but my mind is often numb. Sometimes my soul feels like it has been rubbed against a cheese grater. Other times it is just a dull pain in my chest. I feel tired inside and out. It hasn't seeped into my bones, I'm not exhausted, but I wouldn't mind sleeping for 100 years.

How did I get here again?

I have work, of course. I'm the Lead Customer Service so I need to be there a lot and even when I'm working as fast as I can and trying to stay focused and be efficient I need at least two more of me to stay on top of things. It can really wear you out to know that you have three days work ahead of you when you come in tomorrow and that you aren't likely to make a dent in it over the next few days because your busy working on other things. When the custsomers are mean the cheese grater thing starts happening.

I have school. I finally registered for GIS. I have been waiting to learn ARCMAP since I got home from the mission in 2003. I have to take six units instead of the three that I was planning on in order to get Financial Aid (no Financial Aid means no GIS, so there is no question there: I need to add a class).

I have my calling. I'm Releif Society Secretary and I want to be a better support to my RS President. She does so much. I am amazed at her; she is an example of a dedicated Visiting Teacher. I want to have all the information she needs available for whenever she asks. I want to do what she asks me and not fall through.

I'm the Geography Club President. I really wanted to be president because I have a lot of ideas for it. I want to make a binder that has all the club information in one place so when new officers are elected they have a guide and resource so they don't have to start from scratch every two years. I want to have more informal day trips and local activities. I want to have more cool Geography Gear available. I want to go to all of the conferences and hang out with my geography friends.

I have family and I want to have them in my life and be a part of theirs. I want to go to family dinners and Family Game Nights. I want to write the ones who are far away (and call them too). I want to check my email regularly!

I have a boyfriend who I love and want to spend time and have new experiences with. There is more to be said here, but it is just for me.

Those are just the things I have included in my life right now, I also want to do some other things: I want to volunteer at the Sacramento Tree Foundation. I want to volunteer at a library again. I want to learn how to play the guitar and the piano. I want to have fish in my aquarium again (if they are there I will spend time and money pampering them). I want to read Ayn Rand and Herman Hess. I want to paint my nightstand blue. I need to write. I need to write a lot: journals, stories, research papers, letters. . .

I know I can't do everything right now, but I already have other things that I want to do that I decided I could wait on: like getting my degree in library and information science, like learning to ride horses, like playing the flute in an orchestra, like sewing the skirts and other cute things that are floating around in my head, like having a garden.

I think that maybe one of the reasons Heavenly Father gave me certain physical trials was to slow me down and force me to pay attention to what my body and mind can and cannot handle. Otherwise I would never stop to let myself rest.