Bored?

“Only boring people get bored.” My 4-th grade teacher had a proverb or one-liner for any circumstance. “Find something interesting to do, and do it. Make your own fun.” When my brother and I complained of boredom, my mom’s approach would always be, “I have some chores you can do, if you can’t figure out anything else.”

But now, I’m bored. Dan’s at sea and I’m lonely and sickish and the drugs make me sleepy and I don’t do solo well. Lunch of cheese and tofu-turkey sandwiches, dinner of reheated leftovers or ramen noodles. I’m not even motivated to make myself a pot of coffee. I’m working from home and I’ve done all the easy jobs and I don’t have the energy to tackle the hard ones. Spent most of yesterday dozing on and off.

“You can tell a lot about a person, by what he does when he has nothing to do.” I think that’s the grownup version of my 4-th grade teacher’s line. Dan and I have programmed our cellphones to count down to 9/9/09. 103 days left! For a long time, my mental line was, OMG, can’t wait, can’t wait, not soon enough. Now its, OMG, it’s coming up too soon and I’m not ready! When I was 17, the beginning of my freshman year in college, my life stretched before me, wide and green and forever, all the possibilities were open. It was wonderful and rather scary. Now at 54, I have that feeling again. What do I want my future to look like? What will I do with the gift of freedom? I doubt that I'll be "bored" when we take off for the Bahamas by sailboat!