*grunt*

Okay, so I'm not quite as over the time-difference as I thought I was. I've been laying down to sleep at around 11 PM, but I haven't been actually falling asleep until sometime around 3 or 4 AM, as best I can tell. And that's even with a sleeping pill in me. *sigh* Oh well.

At least I've been getting to help the folks out a lot. In the double-storms that hit the area in December and in January, they lost a goodly number of old alders, and one whoppin' hemlock. My dad, with the generally fantastic health that he is possessed of (*koff koff*) has been doing bits and pieces, here and there, over the past few weeks (other than to cut the hemlock up immediately, because it blocked the driveway directly).

Well, my muddah's been as happy as a clam, because I also know how to use the chainsaw, so I've been merrily buzzing away at all of the other logs that have been lying around, awaiting attention. I think today alone I cut about 150 board-feet? (let's see, 6 fallen trees, average 20' long?) The nice thing is, most of this wood is going to a set of neighbors who use only wood for fuel.

That, and it substitutes nicely for not having a gym to get to, until I get back to Ann Arbor... heh. Nothing quite like throwing logs around to work the whole upper torso.

I will get to a full detailing of the HK trip once I get back to A2, because then I'll have time to actually get everything coherent. That and I've got plenty of pictures to post.

Symbols, breaking them, and remaking them

When I was in the stalls of the jade market in Hong Kong, I bought myself a simple jade ring. I'd wanted a ring that had been carved, but they didn't have any at all in my size. I'd originally bought it as a small souvenir for myself (almost everything else I'd picked up for friends, as I have plenty of photos), but after I started wearing it, a day or two after I bought it, it started meaning more to me.

I sized it for, and wore it on, my right ring-finger. It became a counterpoint to the ring that I'm no longer wearing on my left ring-finger (which I still haven't decided what to do with yet). It was a little large, but it stayed, and I found myself playing with it in much the same way that I'd played with my engagement/wedding ring when I first received that one.

However, after a few days, I realized that it's meaning for me had deepened significantly beyond that of just a trinket souvenir. By wearing it on the opposite hand, I made a symbol of it, of a new beginning, of a promise to myself, that I would be a new person, with new goals, and new behaviors, that were to be significantly different from the person who believed in the symbolism of my wedding ring. It was a symbol, just for me, and just about me. Nothing less, nothing more.

You will notice that I use the past tense. Yes, today, as I was walking out of the garage with assorted implements of destruction, I realized that I was still wearing the new ring. I walked past my dad, and then backed up, took the ring off, and asked him to put it in the bathroom, next to my sink. He said sure, and then turned. He proceeded to drop the ring on the concrete floor, breaking it into at least four pieces (or at least those are all I've found).

Yes, I was incredibly angry at my father right then, but I stilled it, there was no point at lashing out at him, because I know he's clumsy, he always has been. I should've taken better care of the thing myself. Instead, I went down the drive with the tools of destruction, and focused my frustration and anger on hapless logs. Worked nicely, too.

Because I realized something. I want the ring remade. I will take the pieces to a jeweller tomorrow, or maybe when I get back to Ann Arbor, and have the fragments embedded into metal. I'll have to work on the design some before I commission it, but my folks will pay for it--they've already agreed.

And while I was working, I also realized that now the symbol of the ring has become something even more accurate. As I have been, in many different ways, broken over the past few months, the past few years, I too am being remade, by myself, with the help of others. I will not be the same person as before, but someone different, who is rebuilt, with some obvious repair seams here and there. No longer any point in being angry with my father for his clumsiness, or with myself for having made the mistake in the first place, but instead I can look forward to a newer, deeper meaning in what originally had been a trinket purchased on a whim.

A new mode of life.

I admit that my sleeplessness the past few nights has been more than just jet-lag induced incapability of getting rest. My brain hasn't been able to shut off at night, no matter how exhausted I might be, physically. Many of the things that have run through my mind have not been terribly pleasant, as they have mostly focused on the last few things that I have yet before me to do, to finish the process of the divorce.

However, there are other things that have come up, that have led me in different and more positive directions, although some of them have merely been cataloging past decisions in my life. Almost as if my residing in my folks' home, even sleeping in the same bed that I had as a child, has driven me to review myself from childhood through until now.

As I am working actively on trying to become someone who lives their life differently from the way I have in the past, perhaps even on a daily basis. And I have reached a decision. Too often do I look back at some part of my life, at some point, or at some person, and sigh wistfully, saying "I should've done something other than what I did." No more. I regret too much, I feel that I've missed too many chances, too many opportunities, I haven't challenged myself in ways that maybe, I should have.

So from hereforth, I will live without regrets, taking action on the choices that interest me most, instead of demurring for some reason. I am not saying that I aim to be a type-A, arrogant prick who lives only for himself--certain basic principles in my life are too deeply rooted for that--but I intend to make as much of life as I can, when the opportunity is available. If I make mistakes, then I make them, as I'm finding that the mistake made is easier to accept and deal with than the chance missed.

That said, I'm either going to drive myself crazy or to exhaustion, or I'll succeed. I'll let you know as I go.