I'm delivering the report on Monday, so I do need to do it this weekend. I would have loved to have done it sooner, but I'm trying to get people to give me quotes and it's been much more difficult to find people willing to make a sale than one would expect.

It really is pretty insane, the way they work. I am glad that I said yes to this arrangement because it has reminded me that I am good at what I do and gotten me back into the working sort of mindset - although I am still taking longer to structure information both for myself and others. It's weird how you forget to do stuff. It sounds like that may be happening to you a bit also, getting back into the swing of things after a long hiatus?

I do need to limit my hours, though. I don't want to add more hours. They are not paying me enough. I do not want a full time job there. I don't care if they want to terminate the contract because I set limits. I want to find clients who pay more. This is okay for now, but if it ends tomorrow, I will find something else. I just have to keep reminding myself of that.

And, yeah, I am feeling just kind of stressed about other stuff I'm involved in. I have like a dozen charities/groups/community projects I do stuff for, it's crazy. On top of that, I have some really time consuming hobbies and activities I participate in. I am not sure how I find four hours to blow online most nights.

I'm also wondering if there is any such thing as mild bipolar, where you are functional enough during highs and lows but there's something that's not quite normal. I am not sleeping anymore. I guess it is good I have a doctor's appointment next month.

I really don't know what your boss wants, but 95% of the time, you can't go wrong with brief. Stuff like knowing that Joe Schmoe and I share an interest in paddle sports or that a VP from GE just replaced their CEO who came from Google.

For the meeting I had yesterday, I had three sheets of paper, not even full. It was still too many words for the CEO! And then I have my friend, who wants to know every single detail... That's why it's going to take me so long to do this report this weekend...

You may wind up playing a much larger role in this meeting than anyone realizes. You have all this backstory in your head.

You sound so on the right track about just not letting your mother's inability to communicate and plan bother you. That's *her* problem. If she wanted to see you, she could suggest a specific time and place, not just randomly babble at you.

My boyfriend's mother is similarly vague, btw. My tendency with stuff like that is to fill in the gap and say 'Okay, here is what we are doing.' My boyfriend has been kind of reluctant with that approach, but I think he is seeing the benefits. It's SO MUCH less annoying to deal with her if I've set it up so that we are doing something I kind of want to do AND I've there are boundaries already in place ahead of time. I know that if I have to spend four hours straight in the same room with her, I am going to be upset. I plan activities that allow me breathing room. I have a hard time with boundaries in the moment, so maybe this is my boundary retainer.

And I get really annoyed with vague plans, so it takes away some of the annoyance. I do this with my mother too, only I can't take more than two consecutive hours with her.

There can sometimes be some resistance. I find that if I ignore it and make it clear that the plan is X, she often just complies because she really does want to see her son. And X is something that I think *she* will enjoy, also. I am not just deciding that I want to go to the mall at 6:00 AM or something. I think this sounds sort of mean the way I am describing it, but it isn't. It's just a coping mechanism for someone I have trouble dealing with.

I am not sure if your mother is like mine, but I found it was kind of an a-ha moment when I realized that martyrdom is another form of narcissism. It really is weird how you live with something for so long that you just get kind of used to it- and then you find out it has a name!

It does sound like you don't have a lot of bandwidth to find an alternative at the moment either. I hope you can carve out some time for doing something that energizes you.