I need a week or so away from the Internet.  Or, specifically, from blogs.

So, if you have a blog, I don’t hate you, I haven’t unsubscribed, you are still 100 degrees of awesome.  I just have some stuff I have to do.

[Write something about how I need to reorganize my entire house and bills and life because I cannot see straight due to the clutter that has accumulated over the past fifteen months.  Husband, beware, I'm going to purchase refill tape for my label maker, file folders and more whiteboards tomorrow and thus life with your crazy super organized wife will resume shortly.]

Anyway, I’ll be back here and at your places in about a week or so.

I will still be on twitter and Facebook because, my God, there’s no need to get crazy and turn into the unibomber.

[Reminder to the uninitiated: Yes, I know, Muslim bloggers should not use the word "bomb" on their blogs.  Even when trying to be funny.  But me?  I like to thumb my nose at the establishment. Bring on the body scans!]

In the meantime, let me tell you about how this weekend, my mom gave me my childhood in a box.  You know, kindergarten certificates and newspaper clippings, etc.  It was a strange thing because, well, I just thought she’d want to keep that stuff forever and ever because she loves me so much.

But, apparently, she, too, is sick of the clutter.  The clutter of my childhood.  Sob.  She didn’t say it, but I swear as she handed me the box, I heard her voice boom “My job here is done” in my head.

Anyway, in this box was a paper written by a psychologist who had the joyful task of evaluating me for gifted classes when I was twelve years old.  I had not, until this weekend, actually seen the written results of this evaluation, but had only heard them.

Mostly in the context of, “You are way too smart to be getting crappy grades like this.”

Now, please, I’m not going to get annoying and share the actual results with you because most of you already know I’m very smart.  Haha.  No, but, really, I am.  And I actually have documentation, now.

However,  I do want to share the following excerpt with you, my dear, non-judgey friends:

“Faiqa appeared to be highly motivated to do well.  On occasion her anxiety about doing well probably had somewhat of a negative effect on her performance.”

You know what?  That information?  Would have been NICE TO KNOW twenty two years ago.  Correction, twenty two years, three thousand self help books, three majors, one husband and two kids ago.

Because that’s what it took to get me to realize that it is not the gold stars and head pats that matter, but that life’s real joy resides in the things you actually do in life and how you feel while you are doing them.  We do things because they feel right and good and honest.

Gold stars are for gunners, not winners.  In the end, a gold star doesn’t make laying your head down at night any easier or fill one’s heart up with a sense of completeness.  A gold star just tells you that someone else thinks you’re doing a good job.  You have to think you’re doing a good job, in the end, that’s what matters.

Life lesson:  A good job is the one you enjoy.  Gold star optional.

Still, yeah, it would have been awesome to know that when I was twelve.

I absolutely don’t want anything to be different, of course.

I’m just saying that some of those self help books were a real pain to read.

And it would be nice to get that money back because I have a lot of label maker refill tape to buy.

See you in a week.  Or so.