Morning Pages February 19

Self Involved Syndrome (otherwise known as Facebook):

I admit I screw around on it way more than is healthy. I see what my friends are doing. I play mob wars. I look at peoples' photos and see everyone's beautiful children. I don't think there is anything wrong with this. When Matt told me about SIS I said, "What the hell else was anyone going to do during this horrible shit-fuck winter?" I mean really? If we could just be outside, in nice weather, like 45 degrees, with sun and no wind, our days would be a lot different.

Which brings me to the main idea. . . this whole winter has seriously been the most difficult few months I think I have ever lived. I think many people feel this way. Peoples' jobs are wavering. People are frantic about money. The cold in Minnesota has been worse than ever, longer than ever, and shows no sign of letting up. Random people of all ages are dropping dead here and there. It's kind of alarming. The week of my dad's death in Olivia, February 1997, 2 other people died within 3 days of my dad. In a town that small, it was actually really eerie and disturbing. This same thing happened about 2 weeks ago; the winter has not been good. I don't really know what to think about all this unpleasantness, other than maybe it's a test of everyone's faith and sanity. My obliviousness toward money has always gotten me through financially wary times, I kind of make a point not to buy into everyone's constant blathering about the sky falling and just try to live my life. The kids help; they live their lives each day without a care in the world, and watching them and being with them calms me (most days). I hopefully can teach them to care about money, politics, kindness, and responsibility a little at a time, but for right now, they don't need to know about unemployment, crime, a bad economy, and pessimism. The coldness has definitely bothered me; I am actually grateful some nights to get to go to work simply for a place to go to be able to leave the house and breathe outside air. I think the anticipation of watching 24 and Lost each week also helps, an event to look forward to is actually a wonderful thing when you're stuck inside and getting tired of Baby Einstein and documentaries about whales.

The baby, too, is an event to look forward to. Little kicking machine some days. A new member of the family. I try to focus on the positive, the good things, and pretty much ignore the negative. I know this is not mature. I can barely even bring myself to pick up a newspaper because there is nothing joyful in them anymore. The metro state section seriously makes me shudder in horror every time I see it. I don't want to know about all the child abuse, wife abuse, cheating the elderly out their retirements, and assaults on the disabled that happen. I DON'T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT IT. Part of me wants to someday get out there, get involved in social services just to be able to try to fix things or help in some way to make the system better and to help other people any way I can, but if it will make me bitter, disgruntled, and jaded, maybe I'm better off just enjoying my own life in my own bubble, with happiness and Pitfall and Frogger and my beautiful, innocent babies.