The Pickwick Papers and Unfucking My Program

"I kept a happiness diary, after the discovery by Professor Sonia Lyubomirsky that collating one's daily blessings resulted in Pickwickian good cheer." --Hannah Betts, The Pursuit of Happiness is Driving Me to Despair; The Daily Telegraph (London, UK); Apr. 3, 2009.

I subscribe to this awesome listserv called Wordsmith.org and every week they send me new words that relate to a common theme.  It was actually an ex-boyfriend who signed me up for this thing, and it's been his lasting legacy--among a few less flattering things--that every morning I find a new little jumble of letters in my inbox that get me that much closer to connecting the reality in my head to the one outside of it.  Thanks, David.

So this weeks' theme has been "people who have more than one word coined after them" and this morning's offering was "Pickwickian," which is from the Dicken's novel, The Pickwick Papers, and means 1.)marked by generosity, naivete, or innocence, or 2.)not intended to be taken in a literal sense.  At the end of the entry was the quote I've included above.  This happens a lot to me with the "words in context" quotes from this listserv-- I feel like they were written especially for me in my current state of mind.  Kind of like how I've heard there's a Greek method for telling one's fortune by looking at the grounds at the bottom of one's daily cup of coffee.  (I like the idea of a daily symbol, both profound and prosaic, in humble places if you know where to look).

That particular quote hit me like a vandal's brick to the head because this last couple of months I've been moving steadily shovelful by shovelful into a hole of my own making.  One more day alone, one more day, one more day.  I don't look up, I am monstrously obsessed with meeting or exceeding deadlines, I am ruthless about letting no balls drop.  Somehow I think that if I do all of this, it will keep me from falling, but recently I realized that it's exactly that kind of robotic proficiency that's going to be the end of me.  

Getting it all done is ultimately going to fuck me over completely.  This is a hard thing to realize.  I can't emphasize this enough, and if you know me, you may already know how true this is: in times of distress, I create and execute to-do lists with something close to crackhead mania, and I do it at the expense of sleep and food.

This morning, I need to stop.  I need to slow down.  I'm actually taking a "mental health day" from work, which I used to think was a hilarious concept, like, if your job is that bad, nut up and quit.  Or, alternately, if mental health is any excuse not to go to work, then what makes you think a day is going to be adequate to address the problem?  Shouldn't it be a "mental health week," or better, month?  And then I realized it's exactly that mentality that's gotten me where I am right now-- sleeping till 1 in the afternoon because I'm that far behind, battling a sore throat, and looking about ten years older than I actually am.

Pants used to come home during flight school and quote some instructor of his who used to yell at his students that they needed to "unfuck their program" when they fell behind in studying or performing.  It's one of my favorite aviation community (or maybe military-wide?) phrases, along with "get all your shit in one sock."  It's kind of ruthless, yes, like the emotional version of when men in old movies used to shake or slap a hysterical woman in the misguided hopes of calming her down, getting her to snap out of it.  

I'm applying the same logic to myself this morning, but a little more kindly.  New strategy: I need to unfuck my program by following this quote's advice and making a daily list of the things that aren't going wrong, the things that don't immediately need action, the things that are just unmitigated good and have somehow landed on my doorstep.

Here's a recent list, in no particular order:

1.) Mom, Ruth, and Leela all gave me flowers in one week because they knew I needed them.

2.) I got something published recently.  This has been a huge goal, and I need to stop and look at it a little more and remember to be grateful and excited.

3.) The other wives have said nice things to me through email.

4.) Courtney hugged me.

5.) I had two great dreams this morning; one about getting into a writing conference and the other about seeing Pants in a port city and the visit going really well.

6.) My brother's text message and solid advice.

7.) My Granddad is doing so much better.  If this were in any kind of order, this one would go first.

8.) I found a gorgeous, blue-striped, silk halter dress at Banana Republic that makes me feel like the subject of a French impressionist painting.  It was on sale.

9.) I saw the Korean movie "Old Boy" this week and it said things about loneliness and forgiveness to me that felt so important that I'm buying the DVD.

10.) I'll fly out to see Pants very soon, and then we'll start in on months five, six, and seven of cruise, which may feel hopelessly long right now, but might start to feel different soon.

11.) My video project is DONE.

12.) My work week is DONE.

13.) I no longer live in a house where people sell drugs across the street and shoot at each other!  Yay!  Big one!

I'm actually feeling like I could go on with the list, which probably proves that this quote is right-- the simple act of listing the good things has an irresistibly, Pollyanna-esque way of making the world seem less dark.  So with that in mind, I'm making a cup of hot tea and going back to bed to read.