Many the Miles

Tonight’s theme “Many the Miles” by Sara Bareilles.




When I was a kid my grandfather told me that either you do something with passion or you do it with purpose. If you enjoyed it, you should do it with passion, if not, do it with purpose. Seemed simple, little did I know how truly complex balancing that would truly be to replicate. To this day I’m not sure how he did what he did. He lived this way, with passion or purpose. All things he had done were done with one or the other, and sometimes both. I have yet to find the hours in the day.

I’m much like my father in the respect that I don’t really know how to do sort of do something. If I’m going to do it, I do it all the way, 150% spare no energy or time. The difficult part is, there are so many things I enjoy that to accomplish them all with passion is…well it’s exhausting, and I don’t have enough time in the day to do that.

There are some things I do with purpose, like laundry. It’s not that laundry is hard it’s just horribly boring. I just can’t seem to find excitement in folding t-shirts. Laundry is done 99% with little to no effort and yet it’s likely the singular housework chore I dislike the most. This is one of those things I do with purpose. I do it, get it done and move to the next thing as quickly as possible.

When it comes to my garden I work with intense passion. I love my garden; it’s fulfilling, invigorating and exciting to me to create the groundwork for life. Each flower placed with care and consideration, balanced against those nearby it to ensure it will receive everything it will need to flourish. The right ingredients are added to the soil to provide optimal growth and a bountiful season for each tiny plant. It thrills me, to the very core of my being to work in the garden. This trait I was given by my Grandfather. He took great pride in his gardening. He tended to his crops and gardens with diligent love and care. He tended to them as he tended to his family, with much careful consideration and every drop of energy he could give. The joy of watching something spring from a tiny seed and blossom into a beautiful life of flower and greenery is breathtaking. Did I mention I was passionate about my gardens?

My family is of course another passion of mine, but if you’ve read anything else I’ve written that’s pretty clear.

The difficulty I’m finding is balancing all the things I’m passionate about. I love my job and I give every bit of vim and verve I have to it while I am there. I thrill at seeing a dog come in and then a few hours leaving looking not only like a different dog, but a truly happy dog, excited as their owner about the way they feel and look. That just thrills me to no end. It makes me rather giddy at times to see a dog that came in desperately needing a grooming and leaving looking as if a magic wand was swept over them to make them quite literally gorgeous. I love those difficult jobs the most.

Now I realize this sounds sick, because it seems like the more effort, time consumption and physical labor something requires the more I enjoy it. It’s true though. I never really thought about it in those terms but laid out that is entirely the thing. The part I have difficulty with is learning how to do all the things in a single day that I have such passion for, and still have some semblance of sleep or life outside of working in some form or another.

I had a discussion with Matt tonight and he said that even when I’m “not working” I’m working. I disagreed, because when we’re relaxing playing video games I’m not working. He disagreed. “You’re running the guild, interviewing new members, handling issues, problems and complaints. In the time you’re not doing that you’re planning events, helping people and working on strategy. That sounds an awful lot like work to me.” I sighed. He was right, but I don’t know how to …well how not to do that.

How do you simply relax by just…relaxing? I can sit on the couch for a while and yet while I’m doing that if it’s all I’m doing my mind is running through all the things I could be doing, or should be doing and I feel guilty for not doing them. If I am doing them and only paying some attention rather then doing them with purpose or passion I feel guilty as well. The problem is I’m running out of hours for all this passion and purpose.

Matt laughs at me every time we see a commercial for the Army. You know the one, “We do more things before breakfast than most people do all day.” He always tells me that’s my commercial. “Anj the one woman Army.” I argue that I don’t usually eat breakfast until later in the day, so it’d really be lunch. He gives me that point, and then counters with, “You still do more things before sunrise than most do in a day Anj.” I haven’t come up with an argument for that one yet.

I woke up at 3 am. It’s 5:45 am now, and I’ve done a load of dishes, folded two loads of laundry, cleaned the bathroom, and started washing the kitchen floor when I realized that my little female Pug likes to bark at the steam mop, which would wake Matt so I set that aside. I figured since I had the spare time I’d decorate the house for Valentine’s Day, ironed the Valentine ’s Day door curtain and hung that and the rest of the decorations. There weren’t any other quiet sort of cleaning things I could really do so I figured I’d ponder this in type and toss it out onto the Internet as if it would somehow solve and or fix my problem. Sunrise comes late these days so I have until 7 am before I get to watch it come up.

How do people just do the things they are passionate about and accomplish them and all the purpose driven things in one day? I don’t get it. There must be a way, but it just seems like there aren’t enough hours. I’ve rolled this around in my brain before and Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” always comes to mind.

“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

It always seems like there are miles in front of me and the day has just begun, and yet there seem to be nearly as many before I pass out at night. I’m not sure how to balance it all, or how to fit it all into a 24 hour period, there just doesn’t seem to be enough time to properly care for the things that need care, let alone to drive through the things that need to get done but are rather…well less enjoyable. (like laundry) I don’t know if I’ll ever figure it out. Maybe everyone faces this same dilemma, they just don’t vocalize it. Maybe they don’t and I’m just stranger than I thought. (Is that even possible?)

I have no solutions, and have no great and thundering solution, though I didn’t really expect too, this has been something rolling about my brain for decades now. In either case the next load of laundry is calling from the buzzing dryer, and I need to tend to it.

How far do I have to go to get all this done in a single day?? Many the miles….no time like the present to start running them down I suppose.