After pouring through a stack of books I bought from Barnes and Noble tonight, I finally decided to stop reading and instead, write. It has been quite awhile since I’ve written on Aelki and in some ways, I think it’s been good for me.
It wasn’t a “writer’s hiatus” as such. Life simply started happening and my normal evenings that were mostly the Time to Write have become cooking, cleaning, laughing, playing the piano again, organizing, catching up on sleep and determining goals. And slowly, I am feeling the need to write again.
My morning didn’t start so well. I woke up and shot the alarm clock an unorthodox glance, closed my eyes, and then bolted out of bed. It was 8:15 (which is when I like to pull into the parking lot). I called John and bluntly informed him that I had overslept and I would try to be in around 9 o’clock.
It was only until halfway through the day that Jerica told me she and John had laughed when I called in.
“We thought you could have come up with a better excuse,” she said.
Oddly enough, Daniel says that he remembers me crawling out of bed around 6 am to turn the air conditioning off and wondered why I got back into bed. I remember none of this. Perhaps this oversleeping is a symptom of the absolutely incredible change that occurred on Monday.
The IT Guy (as he will be affectionally called henceforth) started on Monday. And only someone who works at the Bank knows how much that means to me. He’s taking all of the network responsibilities, phone issues, email server, facilities concerns and such off of my plate and is going to be able to do it really efficiently. It has been nearly impossible to run network related tasks 100% efficiently while balancing the rest of my job. And since I am annoyed when I am unable to do things The Right Way, I am feeling quite energized at the thought that someone else will take over and run things. Plus, he seems like he knows what he is doing and has creative ideas on how to make things even better. Also, he has a cool truck and a motorcycle. Somehow that doesn’t fit – I mean, an IT Guy is supposed to own stock in pocket protectors and computer screen cleaning cloths, right?
Another incredibly large load to be lifted from my shoulders is another addition to our Operations team. My dear friend Crystal is joining us, tomorrow, as the Operations Specialist. Again, I am almost beside myself with joy at the thought that I will no longer be dealing with non-post, reviewing nsf-reports, and balancing general ledgers.
This will leave me with all of HR, payroll and our business online banking client set up and maintenance. I’m eager to find the things that I’ve overlooked and focus on doing a 110% in my “catch-up” and in my daily operations. One of the books I bought tonight was on business and how to make your day run efficiently. During the first chapter, I couldn’t help but smirk as I read that a sign of being overwhelmed is when your email inbox hasn’t been cleared in ages, your actual inbox is higher than 2 inches and the stacks of paperwork (which are in a certain order, by the way) on top of the desk have been placed in every possibly conceived way. Ah, yes. Familiar. Here’s to easier times of breathing during the day and a great team to share the load!
It’s almost midnight here and I am sitting in my office, listening to the soundtrack to Big Fish. The Journey Home is my favorite piece. In a most serene way, it seems to echo my feelings about finally feeling assurance and peace in a certain place in your life. Perhaps I’m feeling this way about many areas. Work is obviously a large part of it, but during my time away I have also come to grips with a few other and often times more important areas.
I believe it is because I have ached to find balance lately and after falling flat on my face several times, I am starting to see the picture that’s been before me all along. If I believe that my ultimate goal in life is to love the Lord, walk in His ways and cleave unto Him (and I do) – then I must find a balanced way of living my life so that I am able to bring Him more glory.
Shannon Ethridge once wrote that the key to living could be summed up with a life of balance and integrity. Balance in these areas: spiritual, emotional, mental and physical.
Through the intense New Beginnings classes with Pastor Jeff, my own Bible reading, and long talks and prayers with Daniel, I have felt my walk with the Lord deepening. It hasn’t been easy! And to be quite frank, the closer I feel to the Lord, the more I see in my life that looks so unappealing and rank in the view of the Almighty. It has been with a heavy heart that I have parted with things dear to my flesh in search of a greater peace with my Father.
And emotionally, I am perhaps gaining some bit of ground. Since becoming Mrs. Bergey, I have had to learn quite a bit about being selfless and giving. Perhaps I can pin part of the difficulty on being an only child and not really having experience with sharing your time with someone always. But there was also a large amount of selfishness that I hadn’t planned on encountering. Thankfully, I have married a most wonderful man who has tenderly walked with me even through the icky times and also said his own apologizes quite lovingly when the time was right. We are truly learning that marriage means Two for the Road – no matter where it may lead.
Mentally, I have had this fresh desire (which has almost frightened me immensely because I thought I was done with school for good and this hunger for knowledge is slightly unnerving) to learn, learn, learn. There have been a few really funny moments when I just sit and grill Daniel with questions about this and that, pricking his brain to find out new ideas and concepts. It’s quite fascinating to be married to someone who grew up on encyclopedias too! Our trip to Barnes and Noble tonight was a mirror of my mental thirst lately. I have been spending large amounts of my time studying particular topics for no real reason but just to learn. Oddly enough, I have studied the following topics in depth: scientology (run!), hypoglycemia, the kings of England, Natalee Holloway, Scott Peterson and tax law.
And lastly, my struggle with hypoglycemia has been a hard battle lately. It has become so bad in the past few weeks that we had to take some drastic measures. And although I’m not completely 100% there, I am quite encouraged at the road that lies ahead. We are attempting to eat free-range meat, cage-free eggs, and organic fruit. The less preservatives I have, the better. Also, my habit of skipping breakfast has had to be broken and I’m now getting much more protein in my diet. I haven’t had as many headaches, dizzy moments (although today was a bad day for dizziness), or almost-fainting-spells since we decided to make the Change. Well, there was that one weekend where we chose to whole-heartedly embrace polyphasic sleeping. Only to see it fail miserably. Eight hours of sleep is actually best for your body. Fancy that. Now we enjoy mocking those who would dare try such a thing.