Well, I tried.

A few weeks ago I mentioned on Facebook that I was going to do a blog post entitled "Well, I tried."  How appropriate is that title since it is now significantly later than I anticipated and the post has not yet (until now anyway) appeared.  So I guess that would be my first "well, I tried" item on the list.  The recent days have simply not had enough hours in them.  Though I am pretty sure if I had more hours to spend, somehow the stuff to do would also expand proportionately - if not exponentially. 

I originally thought of doing this post on a day when I decided that if my current role in a play requires me to be at least a decade younger than what my birth certificate says, I should do all I can to appear that way.  So I dug out my anti-wrinkle eye cream and slathered it on before heading off to work.  Less than two miles down the road, I found myself wiping tears from my cheeks -and hardly able to see the road... not because of the beauty of the Christmas music playing in the car, nor from some deep heartache or even because I had to go to work. If only!  Nope.  It was then that I realized that eye cream was going on 4 years old! ooops.  Well, I tried - to look younger and vibrant and wrinkle free. What I got was the look of a doll head carved out of an apple and left to dry and shrivel.

Next I volunteered to bring beverages to the gathering of the Bible study group.  I grabbed a gallon of cider and several 2 litre bottles of assorted sodas.  I was just so excited at the sale price, I guess. I found myself leaving the group with almost all full bottles of soda.  I had thought that with all the running I've been doing lately, I could at LEAST manage drinks without incident.  Well, I tried.  I just forgot that we are about the only ones in the group who drink the evil stuff. 

Then there was the evening I tried to go see a friend in her play.  I had had this on my calendar for weeks.  So the evening arrives and I think I even showered!  I headed in to enjoy the show, only to find the building empty and one other person wandering around scratching his head as to why there wasn't more activity for a show that was to be starting in 10 minutes.  A quick call home to have someone recheck the facebook page revealed that the show had been moved to 2:00 so as not to conflict with the only real important thing in town (said with tongue inserted very firmly into cheek): Penn State football.  I ended up heading across town to catch a performance of Dracula - but that's another story. 

My next attempt at Well, I tried was to help a friend and her family.  They had lost their beloved Mom/Grammy and I decided I would take some food over.  With my schedule having its usual overbooked status, I called Olive Garden and ordered a pan of lasagne and a salad.  I tried not to bat an (still wrinkled) eye at the price tag of over $50  ..not to mention the fact that the pan of lasagne supposedly containing service for 6-8 would barely crank out 3 servings of the way MY family eats lasagne, but the real kicker came in the lasagne being overbaked.  I really did try - this one wasn't my fault.

I don't believe the next episode was my fault either.  I was called to the high school to help with grief counseling for the girls' basketball team who had lost their coach.  I sincerely wanted to help.  I've known the majority of those girls since they stepped their little  sneaker and patent leather mary jane bedecked feet into their kindergarten classrooms many years ago.  Some of them were my peer mediators.  Some of them were my drama students.  Some of them were in my office for help with friend problems, family problems or school problems over the years.  But over the course of the two days when they were hurting and I longed to help them, I might as well have been Medusah.  My words were met with glares - but if a high school teacher stepped into the room and said exactly the same thing, they hung onto their every word.  It didn't help when one student told me they only came to school because they were told there would be Grief Counselors available! um, hello?  Though cognitively I knew it wasn't personal it certainly didn't feel anything but.  Well, I tried. 

Next came the first night of rehearsal "off book". It's been awhile since I've sweated the off book phase from the stage.  Usually I've been in the audience seats as director..dreading the time when all actors must put the script down! And fighting against my natural urges to let them pick them up for yet another day....or week.  Because I am afraid I may just one day go ahead and gouge my eyes out with an ice pick after all!  So I am onstage - with one of my former drama students mind you....and I'm stepping on people's lines....and dropping my lines...and missing entrances.  And feeling progressively more horrible with every flub up.  But the reason the entrances are being missed is because I'm having too darn much fun backstage with fellow actors!  Now doesn't THAT make sense!  I'm miserable because I'm having fun?  Well, I tried.

Tonight we were heading out to the Straight No Chaser show.  I decided to "feel pretty" and spritzed a bit of Beautiful cologne to make myself enticing, intoxicating, less stinky.  As I sit here, 5 1/2 hours later, my eyes are still burning and watering and I have a headache.  No, I'm not THAT sentimental!  A bit of quick math revealed that the bottle is 6 years old.  I wonder if I have learned my lesson about old cosmetics?  I'll let you know next week when I put on my opening night make up....

Without going into detail about the countless  other attempts at catching up on dishes, laundry, decluttering (more accurately, driving a backhoe through the piles), paperwork or any other chore du jour - I have come to the realization that we are, at any given point always at least giving things our best try. And sometimes we hit the jackpot and it works. But more often, I think that being able to honestly say, "Well, I tried" is equally as noble and successful.