I climb into bed at 12:30 am and lie there awake, tossing and turning, unable to sleep. I look at the clock, it is 1:30 am, 2:15 am, 3:00 am, 4:30 am….I get up at 6:00, this is not good! That is how I spent several nights in a row a couple weeks ago. Every night, tossing and turning, the mind churning away. Then I realized the problem, I am a Libra.
I can hear many of you going huh? You are wondering how an astrological sign can create sleep deprivation. I am a Libra, the sign is the scales of justice. We like peace, fairness, everything in balance. When the scales tip out of balance, or when a Libra personality thinks they may tip out of balance it is disturbing.
The part of the Libra personality that others often find very frustrating is that we are indecisive. We want to weight all the options, keep everything in balance, and certainly don’t want to upset anyone else in the process. When in a relationship the decision making process is easier because we can use the deferral method.
Anyone who has associated for long with a Libra will here “whatever you want,” “either one is okay,” “What do you like?” “It’s up to you,” “I don’t care,” and so on. Making a decision is so difficult we defer it to someone else. This method works great as long as you have someone to defer to, but if you don’t the decision making process can be agonizing.
That is what happened to me. For the first time in my life I had to make decisions and in the process spend money…two things I am not good at. Part of the problem is that I was making several decisions all in the same time frame and my mind went into a panic mode. In the overall picture these were not major life-altering decisions, but in my Libra mind they had to be carefully weighed, checked, and then weighed again. Heaven forbid something should go wrong. And of course it did.
My cell phone was 2-1/2 years old and the battery wasn’t lasting. I needed to replace the phone. The question is which one to get? For two weeks or more I analyzed them online, made lists, double checked features, and compared price. I asked friends what they carried, I agonized over the decision, but finally I made a selection. I go online to my cell phone carrier, make the selection, attempt to place the order, and the phone is not available and they don’t know when it will be available. Back to the drawing board to make another selection, which I did and now have my new phone, but the decision making process was not easy. To top it off I was also in the process of deciding to shut off my land-line phone and go to using only a cell phone.
So I had two decisions regarding phones causing my scales to wobble and tilt, and if that wasn’t enough I threw in another decision. I had spent 1-2 months contemplating a trade-in of the car that had been my husband’s for a new car, something bigger. The thought of trading his car that he had customized was hard, trying to decide whether I wanted to buy or lease, pick a color, pick the vehicle itself, and more were upsetting the harmonious flow through my brain.
Car buying was something I didn’t do. My husband was a Ford retiree, there is no negotiating, tell them what you want, get a value for your trade-in, and close the deal. The process was not difficult, very simple actually. But the mind rolls, should I have traded his car, did I get a fair trade-in value, did I make a good decision on my new vehicle, did I make the right choice in upgrading to 12,000 miles per year, or should I have left it at 10,000. It was four days from when I stopped and looked at vehicles to when I picked mine up; four days of agonizing over and justifying my decision.
After several nights with no sleep I finally realized what the problem was. I wasn’t used to making these decisions. I had always left them to my husband, but now with him gone I had to handle these things myself. Once I realized that my mind was playing tricks on me and keeping me awake needlessly over decisions that were reasonable to make I was able to once again resume normal sleep.
Why did the realization of the problem allow me to sleep? Because they were good, well-thought out decisions. They are choices that are good for me, no one else. When I realized I was lying awake trying to analyze my own decisions I was able to re-balance the scale, stop it from tipping and upsetting my sleep patterns, and resume a normal routine.
Will I ever get out of balance again? Of course. I am a Libra. We are notoriously indecisive and while I may have balanced a couple small decisions in the large scale of things it is logical to realize that things will come up in which the scale is tilted. Just keep in mind that if you ask me to make a decision you may hear “I don’t care” or “whatever you want” rather than a true answer. That is how I keep my scale in balance.
Murphy’s Law #8: It has been a crazy couple of weeks at work. Friday was like a triple Monday. Throughout the week things had come up that took priority and pushed other things back. I ended the week feeling burned out and more buried then when the week began.
I may be dating myself, but back in the 1970’s there were cute cartoon images, often portrayed by a little chubby couple, and quotes of “Love is…” I was thinking of them the other day and it got me to wondering, what if we applied that formula to happiness? What makes a person happy?
A couple years ago my husband and I were in a restaurant that was quite busy and we had to wait for our table. I was looking around the restaurant and I mentioned to him that he and I looked very out of place. The reason being we were the only two people in the entire restaurant, both the dining and bar areas, who were not on our phones. We were talking to each other instead! That is sad….people are losing the human connection.
Ahhh you say, isn’t that the same thing as a resolution? Well, sort of, but it is a mind game for motivation. Which do you want to do? Which makes you feel that success is possible? You can only pick one of the following:
If you have been a reader for a while you know that my husband, Ron, passed away December 7, 2015 and since that time I have been adjusting to living on my own. In reflecting on myself now, plans for the future and introspection of the past I have learned a few things.
Although I never paid attention to our finances and had no interest in knowing about them, I am perfectly capable of paying bills, applying for mortgage modifications, listing property for sale, and making decisions on financial assets. I’m not blindly doing what Ron told me to do as he was dying. I’m evaluating my own circumstances and making a decision that I feel comfortable with. My goal for the future is to learn how the stock market and investments work, to understand how to diversify and what everything means so I can make informed choices. Hopefully I will get a grasp on this within the next decade. I’m really walking in uncharted territory here.
What I have discovered is that it wasn’t the cooking I disliked, it was that Ron always had a criticism of some sort and tended to hover, questioning why I did things the way I did, telling me I should do things differently than I did. Nothing was ever quite good enough, there was always a “why didn’t you…” Basically, he thought I should cook just like him. After a while I tired of the negativity and simply walked away and left it to him. He cooked, I cleaned up, and it worked.
One couple and their four children arrived late for my wedding and followed my father and me down the aisle during the processional.
I am generally an on time person to slightly early person depending on what it is I am doing. I work extremely close to home and generally arrive on-the-dot for that. Other activities such as meetings I tend to arrive about 10 minutes in advance. When did I develop this habit? When I was a child. In grade school I was at the building on the playground long before the bell rang to go in. In Junior High (middle school) I was generally at the school about 15-30 minutes in advance, by high school I was there about an hour in advance, hanging with a group of other early arrivals. We had authorization to enter the library through the librarians door prior to it officially being opened. When I went back to college as an adult I was at the school at least 30 minutes prior to the start of class. By arriving at work 10 minutes prior to my work day it was once commented on how early I was. No, not early, on time!
The first time was when we had plans to go to dinner and were meeting at my house. I gave them a time of 6:45 pm, which would allow me to leave work at 6:00, get home and do the normal “arrive home” things of bringing in the mail, putting away my lunch containers, then change my clothes, touch up make-up, etc. So how did this go? When I was approaching my driveway at 6:15 their car was also signaling to turn into my drive. They were 30 minutes early! The greeting was even funnier. They exited their vehicle and said “are you late?” and I responded “No, you’re early.”
So, now that I am over the hill and rolling down it toward 60 I need to keep a positive focus and concentrate on fully utilizing the young gene. My hair can turn gray…there are people that purposely put grey in their hair for accent. I can gradually switch over to glasses if needed, after all young people wear fun and trendy glasses all the time. I will regain mobility after my ankle fusion and should be back to normal by late next spring. Most importantly, I refuse to grow old. Old is a state of mind, and my mind is not going there.
Now on the other side of the coin, we all know people we have made the effort to maintain contact with and yet the responses are not forthcoming or we get excuses of “I was going to write/call/respond but have been busy.” I can understand that from time to time, but when the lack of response become repetitive you have to wonder where you fall on their list of friendship priorities. Somewhere you have to draw the line and decide you are moving on and if they want to be a part of your life they will notice your disappearance and seek you out. If they don’t you haven’t lost anything. 
--- LIFE IS A MELTING POT --- Grace Grogan...Writer, Photographer 