Today in 3rd grade I was teaching a lesson in writing on making goals. One of the things my new school does to help promote attendance is to talk about 3 things that keep you coming to school, goals that you have. Your bucket list, basically.

My students wrote very touching things, “saving up money for a car,” or “getting to live in a house.”

I see you, little people.

I was also talking to them about bigger picture things, like travelling the world. I told them how traveling to Mexico City was something I had wanted to do my whole life, and how last summer I got to actually go do it. I have this picture of the Azteca Shaman and I after she cleansed me on my desk in my classroom. I told all of the children-1/3 of which are Native-that the shaman cleansed me and it was an amazing experience. There was a cool interaction with a white boy in class that didn’t know what cleansing with sage meant, and the Native boy next to him saying, “yeah, I know all about that.” This same Native boy is one of the students that has found and is reading some of the books I have carefully curated in my classroom to represent my students, and it makes me happy that he sees himself in the room a little.

I shared my three new bucket list items before I had them do their independent writing:

1. I got to move back to Montana, which was a really huge bucket list item and it makes me cry just telling you, because I wanted it so badly for so long I said. But now, my Montana bucket list is teaching at the Yaak School and living in the Yaak again when I retire, even if just for a few years…something that is totally actually possible. I showed them the Yaak on the pull down scholastic map, and showed them where Mexico City was. Kids love big maps-this opened up a huge discussion.

2. Running a Mile with no sweat, no problem. Because if you can easily run a mile, it’s just a slippery slope to train for a half marathon. And that sounds amazing and completely insane at the same time. But having coached Girls On the Run, I know it’s all just practice.

3. Finishing my damn house.

MY HOUSE. OHMYGOD.

The bathroom is giving me more trouble than anything on the house has, and I’m quite certain nothing on this house will be any harder than the bathroom is.

Oh sisters and brothers.

I didn’t need to spend any time researching (even though I still did, natch) symbology about bathrooms and the psyche to know that bathrooms represent our most deep, intimate, sexual, biological, naked, ugly, burdened, toxic, hidden, scary, buried emotions.

Fuck you, Lucy.

signed, Me.

She knows exactly what is she is up to, and she is doing it on purpose. She is just a stand in for God, for my higher self, for what I need to learn in this life so I don’t carry it to my next one or death…whatever it is that happens when this one is over. I have no qualms about being mad at Lucy right now, because she knows I love her and it doesn’t matter.

UGH the work. The interior emotional work and the exterior exhausting prospect of showering in a trailer and dealing with the damn trailer again (and dealing with emptying its tanks, which is the only thing that is hard, really, about the trailer) And yet, I do actually HAVE a trailer so I should shut up, I know. #firstworldproblems

I know.

She knows exactly what she is doing, and it pisses me off.

I feel like we are fighting each other, like an endless battle of tug of war in that bathroom.

It is just not going to move forward until I go through whatever it is I’m supposed to go through. It is just going to keep getting harder until I face and uncover and tear up and dissect whatever shit is lying beneath MY surface. And this makes me weepy and so exhausted that I just want to hide in my bed and drink beer and eat crunchy things and watch Netflix.

So today, I couldn’t face it. I could barely face it all weekend. I had a friendship from Oregon end bluntly and unexpectedly and due to nothing I could prevent and nothing I did on Saturday and it GUTTED me. It hurt so much it left me stunned, and I’m just not going to try to figure it out anymore.

It set the tone for the last few days and I’m having trouble bouncing back from it. I stayed at school until 7 pm and then got beer and went home. I threw the ball for my dog and the fence neighbor dog, and I just ignored the plywood and tools piled up. I ate chips for dinner.

I could have spent 3 hours today being frustrated and doing demo and rebuilding, but it would have really done very little to progress the project forward. I need about 8 hours to do that.

So, I chose to just shaft it all today. I let it be a day free from expectations. I didn’t even work out, and I don’t care. I just wanted to have nothing to do and to sit on my floor and let my animals maul me.

I don’t know if that is what Lucy’s ulterior motive is or not. I don’t know if she’s just trying to help me learn balance. I am the only one putting parameters on myself and the house project. All the deadlines are self-imposed.

Every minute in that bathroom makes me actually angry. I feel mad in there, and I get really worked up. There is a lot of psychology going on, and I don’t want to work on it, obviously. But I don’t think the bathroom is going to get finished until I figure out a way past this. It’s like the “going on a bear hunt” story, and how you can’t go around it, can’t go over it, can’t go under it…gotta go through it.

My astrologer told me this year (February) that this year was the last year in a cycle of learning to let things I don’t need go. This year is learning to accept myself and my ability TO BE. Yes. Just learning how to BE is a big bullet point for me this year. If you know me in person you know how hard that is for me in practice. I spent a lot of time over the last three days just crying in denial. All day today I just wanted to go home and cry and bury myself in my pillow.

I may spend significant amounts of time procrastinating these life lessons with my dog. We can hide from the hard shit pretty well. But it won’t get us any closer to having a bathtub again.