Dirty Little Secret

I've spent the better part of my adolescent and now adult life attempting to hide a lot of things about myself. I think of them as my own personal array of secrets - they help me feel that I'm not oversharing, that there are still things about me that are just mine. Obviously airing them on a public blog (I'm still sure that my grandmother's about the only one reading my sparse entries. But still. Blogs are technically public) defeats the purpose of having secrets, but I'm ready to release one to the world. Despite my outward and vocal abhorrence of so many feminine stereotypes (scrapbooking, calligraphy, flower arranging, etc.) I secretly adore Martha Stewart and her magazine. There. I said it. It started innocently enough - Valentine's Day is a holiday I've always trumpeted, most significantly in my single days when I'd be damned if anyone, let alone Hallmark and Cupid, would make me regret my life sans-man. Martha's magazine always has a great, color-appropriate magazine which I'd purchase. Only once a year. This can't hurt. Man, how much more amazing would my life be if I had time to make individual doilies for my friends? She's just so...crafty and cool and thoughtful and... Okay, recycle the magazine, no one saw me, all remains as it was before.

While I am still not an avid Martha watcher (I have a job. As a teacher. Seriously? Daytime TV will never exist for me) and subscribe only to Vogue and the NYTimes on a regular basis, the internet has given me free, daily access to Martha and all of the ways she holistically, earnestly lives better than I ever hope to be able to. I give you Whole Living (http://www.wholeliving.com/)

Every day, Martha and her team send me a daily challenge. Because what am I? An emotional cutter. My life is pressed to the gills as it is, to the point where I have regular check ins with my administration about how I can possibly squeeze one more drop of efficiency from my time at work. At the end of the day, I run home, flop on the couch and am asleep as soon as my head hits the armrest, only to have my alarm go off at 5AM and the cycle repeats. So what do I need? A daily challenge to remind me how much better I could be living if oooooooonly I were strong enough, smart enough, Martha-enough. I love them.

Today's, however, had a totally different, super-close-to-home message. There's a 14-day challenge set up to help you find a better way to balance your life. And this word - life - haunted me all day. Here I am, 29 years old, living in the most amazing place with a great job and a husband. (Sure, he doesn't live here, but the energy my single friends put into running after a Possible Husband just looks exhausting. That's energy I must have still in my stores!) But do I have a life? Really? That's not clear yet. I have a huge list of things that I want to do - birthday cards to send, friends to call, closets to update, gym sessions to log - it's quite literally an endless list. Yet night after night, week after week I resume the wake-work-sleep-repeat cycle. And it's kinda making me miserable.

So here's my semi-public accepting of Martha and her challenge. Tomorrow begins Day One and I keep a time journal. Let's see if I'm really spending my time as effectively as I think I am.

To Martha and a real, adult life.