Closing Time

Sometimes Twitter can be like therapy. Only Twitter doesn’t know that it’s counseling me. So it’s a weird relationship between me and the little bluebird of tweets. And sometimes between me and the Fail Whale.

Anyway. I was scanning my Twitter feed this morning and came across a tweet about a blog post on Peppermint’s blog. After I finished reading the post I looked over at her sidebar and noticed a link to Plant Your Story. I’ll be honest. I have hit a wall. I haven’t scrapped in forever. I open iPhoto 20 times a day and just shake my head and walk away. I open Photoshop and leave it open. I open Bridge and hope that a kit will inspire me. They don’t.

But I love stories and so, out of hope I clicked the link. Writing, words, feelings. It’s my thing. Scrapbooking was born out of that, I think. I started browsing the blog and stopped cold when I read this post. And immediately the line from “Closing Time” by Semisonic formed in my head.

And clarity came like the first rays of the sun over the horizon. This is a transition, and I am not dealing with it.

So many transitions right now. And all of them are on my ignore list. Secretly, I hope that avoidance will make them go away.

That by not acknowleding the sign in our front yard I can pretend that the house will magically sell in my sleep and I’ll wake up in a new place with all the stress behind me.

By ignoring the fact that my oldest is standing on the brink of becoming a teenager maybe she’ll stay a kid.

If I deny that my middle is now one year from entering double digits maybe she’ll keep needing me.

If I pretend that my youngest isn’t getting more independent by the minute maybe he’ll just stay a baby.

If I squeeze my eyes shut really, really hard maybe I won’t be ending my 34th trip around the sun next month.

If I plug my ears maybe we won’t have to talk about all of the things that I am avoiding.

If I take Photoshop off of my dock maybe I can go on pretending that I just don’t have time to scrap.

But the reality is that I am on the brink of several New Beginnings. And because life is like that they are all arriving at the same time. And they all take my breath away, leaving me on the brink of tears, and wishing that I could freeze time right. Now. Opening that yearning that I could stand here and drink in these moments without the dryer buzzing, or the dinner timer going off, or the crash of a bottle of nail polish on the bathroom floor bringing me back to the reality that life goes on, time passes, and Every New Beginning is some other Beginning’s End.

 My hope is that by acknowledging the reality of my life right now that this creative block will pass. That I can look at my pictures with something besides sadness, longing, and feelings of being overwhelmed. That somehow, by getting these feelings out there I will be able to embrace the endings and look forward to the new beginnings that are just over the horizon and quickly approaching.

Here’s to transition. I feel better already.