The last two days have been complete days of suck. Every time I try to accomplish one thing, something else arrives to lay waste to those plans. And once I get life back on an even keel, I get bumped right back off. Its frustrating to the highest degree. After a while today (Saturday), I remembered — when life gives you lemons, order Chinese takeout. Or something like that.

This hasn’t been a new phenomenon for me.  Lately all my weekends have been like this. It is directly attributed to my current work schedule which is four days on, and three days off. Or in more appropriate terms – Monday through Thursday. Each of the days is ten hours, which for me – with a nearly hour long drive both ways – makes my days clock in at nearly twelve total hours. By Thursday, I am completely wiped out. This past Friday, I slept through the latter part of the afternoon and the early part of the evening….at my keyboard. That’s not something I do often. Thankfully, this schedule ends at the end of the month, and I can return to something that I remotely remember as a routine.

We all do our best to try and live lives as wrapped in magick and wonder as we possibly can. But what happens when the mundane world comes back and brushes you off the plate with a chin-high fastball? Where and how can one cope with that? Well, in baseball, you have two choices: you can charge the mound and start a fight, or you can brush yourself off, get back up to the plate, and smack the next pitch over the fence. It really depends on your perspective.

This year, I have seen my share of high and tight pitches from life. In March, during my time at East Coast Gathering, I found out that my father had passed away earlier in the week. My mother had passed six months prior after a lengthy illness. I just did not expect my father to pass that quickly behind her. From that point on, I have been struggling to regain my balance. Work has flooded me with more and more data requests, as my College’s President moves us into a data-centric environment. The shift to these longer hours during the summer months has left me wondering where my focus should be or should not be. In short, its like I have had a brush-back pitch thrown at my head every time I come up to bat.

So, what to do about it? Step one was a realization that it may be time to move closer to work. That will put me even further north from a lot of the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. However, given the fact that I rarely travel below the northern edge of I-635 (the loop as it is sometimes known), this may not be a bad thing. Plus, I am beginning to realize that I can actually afford a place with some land, which I would dearly love. So there’s plenty of discussion to be had there, as well as some house hunting. Interestingly enough, I have found a monolithic dome on 5 acres of land…its an interesting thought to say the least.

Step two has been a bit more of an interesting thing. I am semi-organized. I have a calendar system that I use to put things in…and then I rarely consult it. This means that I need to integrate my tools a bit more into my daily routines. To that end, I am starting to use my iPad and iPhone a little more than I used to. Strange for a Pagan to be leaning more towards technology to get things organized, bit its there. I am also learning a bit more about over-extending myself on things as well. Its a harsh lesson to learn, but its definitely one that I am going through.

The last step will be the easiest by far. Providing time for me to be focused on who I am. My meditations, getting back to my walks, continuing my daily morning and evening greetings and farewells for the sun, maintaining the food and water for the birds and the squirrels in the backyard, and doing my daily journal entries. I have already discovered the best times for these all to take place, and have made calendar entries to block off these time frames. But with all that comes the most difficult part of this — staying on track. I know that there are going to be times that I don’t make this work properly. I just need to not beat myself up over those moments – and get back up again. I need to set my focus, and wacth the pitch to the bat, and swing for the fences….