Surrender the Green

Chili is simmering on the stove. The makings for a meat loaf are out and ready to be assembled and put in the oven on "delay bake." And a small pan of ham-and-bean soup is just finishing up for my lunch. I'm all domestic all the time today. I have to be. I've been a little ... difficult to live with recently.

Focus can be a dangerous thing. Hyperfocus, my laser-intensity, take-no-prisoners talent, can be deadly to relationships. I know. I've always been able to concentrate on a single task to the exclusion of all else. When the kids lived here, when they were my responsibility 24-7, I had to be aware of a hundred tiny things all at once so I used my superpower only during times of great stress, or great selfishness. But my flair for targeting the singular, my inability to multitask easily, is proving to be a bigger liability than a strength lately. I'm so intent on my mission that I can't seem to make room for anything - or anyone - else.

And I can't tell him why.

That's the part that kills me. If I could talk to the Big Lug, explain everything, it would make him stop looking at me as if I were a stranger, or worse, as an opponent. My oversimplified version - that I have projected our finances into the future and found our retirement plans inadequate - just isn't cutting it. I've invested and allocated our paychecks down to almost nothing twice this month, and I become positively maniacal if he colors outside the lines I've drawn. And since my bookings are way down for the this time of the year - tutoring and extra classes aren't usually weighed above food and shelter - I'm more than a little concerned for the short-term outcome of this quest.

So, in a perfectly logical turn of events, I'm walking away from all things money. I am not a Master of the Universe investment guru. I'm barely a stay-in-the-budget, don't-fall-deeper-into-the-red novice. I need to admit defeat, or at least a yield.

It's time to spotlight the Big Lug, to fix on things closer to home; time to quit the Dorothy routine, staring at the far horizon so much that I can't see what's in front of me. I want to shift focus, to explore what I have again, on what I can fix up, on what I can give away, on what I can sell. Not treasure hunting, but treasure salvaging. No more CNBC at 6am. No more fretting over bailouts and stimulus packages. No more ... well, okay, the jewelry is for me as much as anything, but no more schedules and quotas and straining to make everything fit my narrow plan. I have about as good a start as I'm going to get. I think I'll let it ride for awhile and have some real fun.

Because contrary to all appearances, I do remember what - and who - my real treasure is.