May the force be with you?

I'm just back from moms' night out. Our group does this once a month, and while I try to go as often as I can, it usually ends up being that I miss it more than I make it there. I dragged my feet about it all weekend long and didn't end up actually making a decision until it was 15 minutes past the start time and I found myself dropping off an unconscious Jacob at home with Zach and then pulling out of the driveway in the general direction of a mexican restaurant I know existed out there someplace. I want to want to go, I guess is how I should put it. I force myself to go every once in a while to maintain the part of me that is not totally anti-social...not that I am anti-social in general, I just don't do as well in a big group like that. Yet I want to remain part of the group.

But it was nice arriving there. Everyone seemed happy and surprised to see me, and it was a warming feeling. The first half of the evening, when the margaritas where magically appearing at the table one after another, I had a great time. There were nine of us, so two or three conversations were going at once and I could drift in and out of any of them at will. I was happy being there with these women I adore.

At some point it changed. I changed. My buzz wore off, or all those loner thoughts started drifting into my head. The jokes weren't that funny to me anymore...and there was only one joke going at a time by then. Everyone was drunk enough that one of our voices could be heard by all at the long table, so there was no need for multiple conversations. If a subject got uncomfortable for me, there was no other end of the table to escape to, no other topic to turn to blur out the other voices.

There was the breastfeeding conversation and how a certain one year old's persistent demands were getting to be too much. There was no place for me in that conversation. I'm not feeling offended, but anything I could have said would have been a conversation killer. If I were to laugh and confess that a year was a hardly a dent into the nursing relationship I endured, there'd be nowhere to go with that because everyone would realize I'm the same as the mom they were cringing over. But why does that make me so lame? I know that the mother to my right nursed both of her children for over two years. She was having a good time and laughing though, what makes her so cool, and leaves me feeling 'square'?

Things in my head started to get really bad when the topic turned to the sniper shootings four years back, September 11th, and all the other masacres since. Here's something about me: I don't watch the news, I run screaming from the room if the news is on. I don't want to hear about it. The bad stuff already happened, I feel awful about the people who suffered, but there's nothing I can do about it. I try to repress things like that, things reported in the news, because if I don't, then I become crippled by fear and living a normal life becomes a real challenge to me. I probably just should have left. But I couldn't. I kept thinking the upswing would happen any minute and then it would be fun, everyone would pack it up to leave and I could end the night feeling like a part of the group. Like a socially functioning adult.

I needed the topic to turn good again like you need the lights on after a scary movie. I didn't want it to end on a bad note because I wanted this pushing myself to go out and be part of something to be reinforced. And I didn't want to be the first one to leave. But I was, and now I'm home, back here at the computer.

After I posted those pictures on Thursday, I realized Jacob and I were both coming down with something. We spent the whole weekend at home, being sick. It was like the one weekend Zach was actually home so there should have been plently of time to get everything pending done. But it's the beginning of the week again and I'm back to making excuses that there is never enough time to do everything. What the hell? Is it that I spend so much time putting off things that have to get done, that the actual procrastinating is what's eating my time? When I say that there's never enough time, is that really just code for, 'I don't wanna'? And what am I saying? I'll wake up tomorrow with a too-full plate of things to be done and wish I'd bit my tongue just now about all this. I guess it just all comes at me in uneven amounts. Once I get used to a high-level of activity and bustling about doing errands, I'll have a day where things slow down and I completely forget what it felt like to be so busy I could hardly breathe. Part of the problem has got to be that I'm the kind of person who needs the pressure of a deadline, that kind of thing. I don't have enough reserves of self-discipline to keep me going when there's any kind of leeway.

Well, admitting it is the first step. I'm just going to have to really work on pushing myself to do the thing I should be doing in any given moment, rather than what might feel good. That includes going to bed when I don't want to. Wouldn't that also be considered setting a good example for Jacob? Duh. So I made myself go out tonight, and even though I want to categorize it as a waste of time, at least it got me out of this house and away from the computer. I'm going to make it be my starting point on this quest for self-discipline. I'm still confused about tonight though. If I wanted so badly to let go of my uptight self and enjoy being where I was, what was stopping me? Why can't I loosen up?