I chickened out. And I’ve been afraid to even admit it, so I stayed away from this blog all week.

The truth is, my life is so up and down — such a freaky roller-coaster ride — that sometimes I get consumed with pure survival issues. Putting food on the table, keeping the lights on. That kind of thing.

It’s been that kind of week. The good news is, it’s over, and things will be MUCH better next week.

But that’s an excuse, and that’s the truth. I let my stress give me a free pass from starting my program this week. I made that choice.

And if I keep making those choices, I’m not going to reinvent anything.

So, I’m taking this weekend to get myself straightened out. I’m going to clean the house as much as possible — scrubbing, Pine-Sol, bleach in the sinks kind of cleaning. Physical labor as meditation. And while I’m doing that, I’m going to seriously question my priorities.

Is this something I really, really, really want to do? Or am I doing it because I think I should?

Is my motivation pure?

Is my approach sound? Maybe I do need to rethink that whole “everything at once” approach.

How Lakshmi Plans To Reinvent Herself and Her Life

Having made plain my intent to drive myself batty (or battier) by tackling every major self-improvement project on my list at once all in the name of reinvention, I shall now lay the foundation of my future public humiliation by announcing to one and all exactly how much my life currently sucks, and what I intend to do about it.

Warning: this is going to be one long mother of a post.

Analysis, or Where I Am Presently

Using the categories I wrote about here as a guide, I developed a somewhat comprehensive snapshot of what my life is currently like. I’m warning you, it ain’t pretty … But it is what it is, and if I want to make it better, I have to accept where I am now as the sum result of my prior efforts, such as they were.

So in the interest of being brave and acknowledging my reality as it currently stands, here it is, laid out in glorious and sordidly categorized (if meticulously alphabetized, thank you WordPress) detail: my life, as I know it.

Divine Image

My body has always been a source of constant disappointment to me. I’ve struggled all my life with its build and “type.” Tall, neither model thin nor obese, curvy but not “big-boned” — it was like nature was mocking me with potential destined to remain unrealized.

Then, my health problems developed, which led to complications, which led to more weight gain. Suddenly I was obese for the first time in my life at the age of — well, somewhere in my 30s, we’ll say.

This one’s the easiest to catalog because it’s right there, all the time, staring me in the mirror. Also, I’m proud to say that I’ve finally started becoming more body-conscious (in the good, positive sense, meaning I’m aware of what’s going on inside me). So, the state of the Divine Image is thus:

• Fifty-eight pounds over the outer edge of my healthy weight zone (which is 138-165, if you’re wondering — do the math and you’ll realize I weigh 223)
• Hypertension
• Chronic headaches (perhaps related to hypertension)
• Chronic back pain and occasional sciatica, related to compressed and ruptured disks and an untreated case of scoliosis in childhood
• Thinning hair
• Somewhat dull and less than smoothly-textured skin; also some age spots on forehead and cheek
• Weak nails that almost always end up split and torn
• Endometriosis
• Complete devolution of fashion and style into elastic-waisted yoga pants and tees with slip-on athletic mules

Eros n’ Aphrodite

What sex life?

I was married. But my husband experienced an identity crisis of the most absolute kind, about which I am really reluctant to say more, at least just yet. So, we broke up, on friendly terms. Even prior to the breakup, he and I never really clicked sexually - - which I now see was directly related to this eventual crisis, but at the time, of course, I knew only that I was supremely unhappy and really felt guilty about complaining, as he was, in every other way, a superior person.

I married for all the “right” reasons, I thought. I cared about him immensely, he was a terrific man, we meshed well, we had similar tastes and belief systems … after a lifetime of grand passions that flamed out spectacularly leaving me a weeping, slightly psychotic mess, I thought “Finally! A grown-up relationship.” In retrospect, I think, I went too far and picked someone who was never going to be able to mess me up like that — because he was incapable of it, not because of his character, but because of this identity issue. He was the supreme “safe bet.”

So — the current state of my love/sex life:

• Nonexistent
• Not actively seeking at the moment, as I think I’ve far too much work to do on myself first
• But for the first time, considering deeply what I really want in this kind of relationship

Goddess’s Work Is Never Done

Are you feeling better about yourself yet? Hey, I don’t mind. If my only function right now is to make others feel better about their own lives, s’OK by me.

OK, work. I’m a writer by profession, although I’ve done other things in my life. I do have a job writing for a particular website which doesn’t pay very well at all, although it pays consistently. But I’m horribly conflicted about it — I ought to be grateful and just do the work, but it’s a very demanding position, with a lot of “stuff” to know, implement, and monitor (with many of the guidelines and standards being somewhat contradictory). I have found it overwhelming almost from the beginning. So, I resist it mightily, which just adds to the anxiety.

My freelance work isn’t going well at all. I want many more assignments than I’m getting currently, and better paying ones. And my novel — well, it’s not getting written nearly as quickly as I’d like. So:

• Time- and attention-deprived
• Overwhelmed and out of control with the website gig
• Not enough freelancing work

Interpantheon Relations

After I moved here, to be near my parents (who died recently and left me this falling-down shack on the lake, bless them), I tried very hard to make some friends to replace the ones I’d left in my old city. That was ten years back. I think I’ve made maybe two friends since, and one of those turned out to be a psychotic drug addict.

Recently, I started reaching out to old friends from college who I’d fallen out of touch with. But I really wish I had someone here, close by, a friend like the ones I used to have — the kind to whom I could confide anything, and who’d confide anything to me; the kind who’d keep me up til 4 in the morning with wild conversations and fabulous adventures. OK, I could skip the four AM adventures now that I have a child but — still. You get the point.

My Pantheon’s current status:

• Out of town friends have fallen out of contact, and we’re not as close as we used to be (with two exceptions)
• No local friends of the depth of closeness that I crave
• Beginning to rekindle old friendships albeit long-distance

Managing The Offerings

Money. Ick. I am horribly, horribly broke. I have mountains of debt. I should be filing for bankruptcy but my records are so scattered that I fear the consequences of letting court officials into them. Nothing illegal mind you — just … see, I have never been educated about money. Not in my childhood — I was just told “no” a lot and that was it — and not really as a young adult. I had to learn the hard way, and I keep struggling with it.

When I lost the last day job and couldn’t find a replacement for it immediately, things got really tight. Then the marriage fell apart, the Ex lost his job, and the second of my parents died (also broke). Not their fault, at all, and I’m not blaming my parents for my financial failings at all. But it’s a long struggle that began before I was born, and I learned what was modeled to me, which wasn’t very healthy or constructive.

The State of the Offerings:

• Over $40,000 in debt (including car, student loan, and credit cards, many of which I can’t afford to pay in any given month)
  
• Barely making ends meet with necessities (which I define as “car payment, rent, utilities, internet — which is a necessity since that’s how I do my one steady job — and food”)
• Very low credit scores

This, above all, is my biggest need. I must get the Offerings under control.

Omniscience and The Art of the Divine

Gosh, when you’re struggling for money to feed your child, indulging in hobbies and intellectual pursuits seems awfully … wanton, doesn’t it? Flip? Shallow and even, if you’re built that way (and I’m still trying to convince myself I’m not) sinful?

I do have some guilt about this, I guess.

But god(dess), there are so many things I want to learn, to know. Not just for indulgent self-interest but for my work, for my writing, for … well, OK, for self-interest, too. I never really had the opportunity growing up for a classical education, and while I did attend a liberal arts college, I was so enthralled with the theatrical offerings I didn’t really take advantage of it. College, I believe, is often wasted on the young.

My intellectual failings as a goddess:

• Well-read but in a shallow way — by which I mean, I read a lot but I don’t think I read it deeply enough for it to “stick”, nor do I read critically
  
• Not fluent in any second language

Artistically, I fare little better:

• I love to paint, but I’m undisciplined about it
• I’m trying to teach myself violin but don’t practice enough
• I harbor secret fantasies of being this amazing poet but feel this one’s out of my reach. Then again, I’ve never taken a class or tried to improve consciously

The Temple

The house … ah, the house. Well, given the lack of funds, I ought to be highly grateful — and I am — that I’ve inherited a place to stay that’s located on the edge of a lake. However, it’s not in the best neighborhood, and it’s a bit — OK, a lot — ramshackle. The Ex calls it “Appalachia” in a derogatory sense, and I have to admit it does have something of the backwoods about it. The walls are too thin, it being a 30-year-old modular creation, and — I don’t know, I just feel WAY too close to everything “out there” inside.

The biggest problem about the house right now, though, isn’t its condition structurally. It’s the condition internally. This goes back, I’m sure, to the global nuclear meltdown that was my life in the past 14 months. I just did not feel like cleaning. I stopped caring — no, not true. I didn’t stop caring. I stopped doing anything about caring.

And now that I feel like doing both — caring and doing something about it — it’s really hard to manage it all. The time constraints are one thing; the parenting demands another; the work obligations overwhelming; and even so I find myself from time to time sitting on my uncomfortable couch staring at a TV screen and not caring about what I’m watching. Not even knowing what I’m watching, half the time.

So, the current state of the Temple is this:

• Disorganized
• Cluttered
• In serious need of a good and thorough cleaning, plus more regular maintenance

The World

Were the World to ask me, “Lakshmi, what have you done for me lately?” I would be required to respond, “Ummm … gimme a minute …”

It isn’t that I don’t want to make the World a better place. Ideally, I’d like to feel confident that my life on this planet does that — my mere existence, I mean. Not that I wouldn’t be concerned about others — far from it. Instead, I mean that ideally, everything I did or said or thought would by its nature improve things.

Lofty goals, I know. I think I’m really talking here about just being the kind of person who makes others feel good about themselves, who doesn’t go out of her way to take on volunteer projects so much as she just … helps people. In short — world-betterment as a way of life, not a project.

I have to admit, though, when I contemplate living life like that, I start to sense my own limitations as a human being. I feel so utterly adrift in every other way — how can I possibly be of value to anyone else? Perhaps I do need to focus on myself a bit at first.

So, I have a vision — but not a plan — for this area of my life. Plans will have to wait. The current state of me-in-The-World:

• On hold.