The last several months have been a really introspective time for me. I\u2019ve had cause to think about a lot of things in my life and ponder what I should do about them. Some of the stuff is personal enough that it doesn\u2019t belong here, but I have a feeling it might be good for me to talk about some of ones that I can. If I\u2019ve learned anything from Amy, it\u2019s that writing can be a really therapeutic thing. Honestly, I don\u2019t do enough of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Anyway, one of the more mundane things to come out of this is that I\u2019m finally getting the yard under control. Dad gave me his old riding mower last year, and I finally replaced the hard-to-push walk-behind mower with one that\u2019s better suited for all the slopes and bumps in my yard. I\u2019ve now managed to mow the entire yard something like three times consecutively before it turned into a total jungle. Now, if I can ever manage to get some landscapers out here to help me get a jump start on the edging and the flower beds, it might actually start to look kind of nice out there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On a more serious note, I\u2019ve thought a lot lately about what seems to be kind of an artifact of my personality. It\u2019s really hard for me to partially concentrate on things. A better way to put it is that I have a hard time dividing my attention. It shows up most prominently in my hobbies and (unfortunately) with friends. As a matter of fact, it\u2019s probably pretty likely that there are friends out there reading this that are nodding their heads right about now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t mean to be neglectful. When I look back, the logical part of my brain says that all I really need to do is just drop a line and say \u201cHi\u201d every once in a while. The problem is that kind of thing doesn\u2019t occur to me. I get wrapped up in\u2026 whatever “it” happens to be at any particular time, and I just don\u2019t think about saying “Hi”. Then something<\/em> will happen (maybe a visit, maybe a crisis that demands attention), and suddenly one of my long-neglected friends will get more attention than he\/she ever wanted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I often wonder if that behavior comes off as insincere. I hope it doesn\u2019t, because it\u2019s not. I have to imagine that it looks like I\u2019m just pretending to pay attention after so long away. It\u2019s not that way, though. Like so many things in my life, I feel fake somehow if I don\u2019t devote complete attention to whoever I\u2019m focused on at the moment. The behavior is completely sincere, but it has to feel a bit strange when that attention moves on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I often wonder what it\u2019s like to be able to maintain casual contact with all one\u2019s friends all the time. It seems to come much more easily to other people. I\u2019m sure I could get better at it with some effort, but I just haven\u2019t managed it so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, I don\u2019t know exactly where I was going with that. Maybe nowhere. Maybe this is my way of trying to let some friends know that I haven\u2019t forgotten about them. In truth, though, it\u2019s probably mostly just a way to put these thoughts out where I can see them. Sometimes putting words to things helps me at least get a better grip on them, even if I can\u2019t figure out how to fix them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The last several months have been a really introspective time for me. I\u2019ve had cause to think about a lot of things in my life and ponder what I should do about them. Some of the stuff is personal enough that it doesn\u2019t belong here, but I have a feeling it might be good for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,3],"class_list":["post-190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-deep-thoughts","tag-life-eventsnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=190"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1847,"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions\/1847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}