This Sloth is Disappointed in Me

Sloths are so judgmental.

This sloth is, of course, also correct.  My task for the month is to write without distraction for two hours a day (or night or morning).  Completing this task has presented more challenges than I anticipated.  

I woke up early one morning, determined to "knock it out" in the pre-dawn hours.  It didn't take me long to discover that I'm not actually awake in the pre-dawn hours.  I didn't even make it out of bed before I realized my writing was likely to sound a bit alien at that hour.  "Mmf ungh eurgh" is cute (probably), but doesn't create any real "narrative urgency" -- except for the urgency to go back to sleep.  Which I did.

Ok, so I reset and blocked out time in the evening, but it turns out that my evenings are a bit of a cacophony.  The dog moans and paces and begs for walks (by laying his head on the keyboard). The Monkey bounces around and crawls in my lap and tells me a million random things.  Though I'm a little more coherent at 7 p.m. than 4 a.m., keeping everyone occupied so I can write is a stutter-stop process.

The point, I suppose, is that it is a process, and I'm slogging through it.  My brain and body are throwing stupid excuses at me about why I can't focus on writing (latest in the series?  I have ankle cramps!  Seriously, who even gets ankle cramps?).  I'm frustrated, for sure, but I haven't quit yet.  

The lesson in this cautionary tale of alien lingo and ankle cramps is simply perseverance.  The point is to not give up, but to keep moving forward no matter how unrelenting the silly obstacles.  The goal is to overcome the challenges.

Eventually, maybe even the sloth won't be quite so disappointed.

Quick Post: Contact High

There is almost nothing better than listening to someone describe the thing about which they are most passionate.  I had the very good fortune to be a part of such a conversation tonight and it left me feeling absolutely elated -- like I've just basked in the sunlight on a perfect day.

Do not underestimate the power of passion, friends.  

Rating Scale

It's Spring Break week around here. Since the Monkey and I don't have any travel plans, he's spending part of his days hanging with the peeps at the school's extended care program.  They're deeply into the Just Dance video games for the Wii, and tonight I found out that he's developed a rating system for the songs on Michael Jackson The Experience: 

Crotch grabs.

In his words... "Billy Jean is a pretty good, but the background dancers -- which I like to be -- have to grab their crotches a lot.  I won't do Dirty Diana ever (that song is just horrible).  Beat It is great, but there's a lot of crotch grabbing in it.  Oh!  But my favorite song is Smooth Criminal.  It has a major crotch-grab in it, but it's totally worth it because that song is awesome."

Hey, at least the kid's got standards!

The Honest Mistake

The Monkey came into my room a little before 2:30 a.m.  I don’t remember him opening the door.  By the time I was conscious, he was standing over my bed talking in a rush...

“I had to come and tell you.  I’m so sorry.  I woke up at 2:02 a.m., but I thought it was 6:02 a.m. and I thought my friend was texting me , so I sent him a text to say that I couldn’t get online, but then I realized it was 2:02 a.m. and not 6:02 a.m., and I’m in so much trouble and I’m really, really sorry!”

It took me a minute to process, and by this time he was crying.  I checked the clock (2:27 a.m.) and then replayed the conversation back.  You got the time wrong (yes).  And you sent him a text message (yes!).  Are you sure you actually sent it and didn’t just dream it (yes).  You only sent one, right (yes). 

He was curled up next to me in bed in a little ball, face down in the mattress sobbing.

I was, thankfully, remarkably coherent for that hour of the morning.  I calmed him down with lots of hugs and kisses and told him that everything would be alright.  We decided that he could apologize to his friend at school and I’d send a note to the parents to explain what happened.  We also decided that texting should probably only happen when it’s really daylight outside, no matter what time you think it is. 

The Monkey and I have invented a “mistake script” that helps us when we realize we’ve done something wrong.  It’s a simple three-step process that pretty much covers the bases:  1) Admit that you did something wrong; 2) Apologize, if you’ve hurt someone else; 3) Decide what you’ll do differently next time.  The unspoken fourth rule of the mistake script, and arguably the most difficult part, is then to let it go.  Once you’ve done those things, there’s no reason to hang on to the guilt of that mistake anymore.

We went through the three parts of the script in the middle of the night, and then we went back to bed.

The Monkey’s honesty is a thing of beauty.  He spent twenty long minutes in bed last night agonizing over his mistake before finally getting up to come and tell me.  He’s not even reached his first decade and he’s already realizing that honesty is the better path.  He was still feeling guilty this morning, but those feelings quickly abated as his friend rushed up to greet him at school.

Parenting is difficult and it’s easy to feel like I’m getting it all wrong sometimes.  I’m hyper-aware of every minute I’ve been impatient…every time I’ve snapped when I should have listened…every lesson lost or moment missed.  I worry that I’m not strict enough, not regulated enough, not present enough.  I worry that my own shortcomings as a human being are going to do irreparable damage to this amazing little life I’m trying so hard to nurture.

And then, in a moment of complete honesty, I realize that no matter how many mistakes I feel like I make, maybe everything is going to be ok.

Risk Taker

At lunch on Saturday, Cheryl pointed out (twice!) that I’m a risk taker.  I nearly argued the point, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that she’s right.  With full knowledge of the risks, I dated a 45-year old, never-married guy who lived two thousand miles away (and we made it work for a year and a half).  Even realizing that the housing bubble was at its peak, I bought a house in a great neighborhood that’s crazy expensive for a single-income family (and I’ve made it work for four years now).    I embarked on grad school while working full time and parenting full time (and I won awards for my performance in the program).

Of course, I haven’t jumped on every opportunity that’s flitted across my radar.  I’ve agonized over what to do when I could see the reward even though I wasn’t comfortable with the risk.  In those moments of struggle, I feel like a coward clinging to my safe decisions.  In retrospect, maybe those risks were just ones I simply wasn’t meant to take.  And despite my extensive deliberation with myself, maybe I knew I wasn’t meant to take them.

I’m working on a homework assignment for a writing class I’m taking from Joshua Fields Millburn.  We’re submitting answers to 29 questions that span the gamut from the poignant (Why do you write?) to the absurd (Would you rather ride on a train, dance in the rain, or feel no pain?).  One of the questions I struggled with today is “Why did you sign up for this class?”  The truth is that I don’t quite know.  (How’s that for crazy?)  I gave a few hundred dollars to an author I’d barely read for a class with no syllabus and very few details on content except that he would teach us to “write better.” 

On the surface, that sounds like a pretty boneheaded risk.

But the thing is?  I know it’s the right decision, even if I can’t quite quantify why I know.  When I saw the announcement for the class, I didn’t hesitate.  I confirmed my availability (and the cash) and signed up for it on the spot.  Making the decision to take the class was instinctive and effortless…just like the decision to buy my house, to give it a try with a guy across the country, or to add the work of grad school to an already-full life. 

So maybe it’s not that I’m “not a risk taker.”  Maybe, in fact, I’m actually a fairly skilled risk taker with a strong instinct for what is and is not a good risk.  And the definition of “good risk”, by the way, doesn’t have to mean that every detail works out forever.  Relationships change.  Houses need repair.  School is exhausting.  But it’s all worth it.  Had I not listened to my gut, had I passed on these risks, I never would have understood the depth of their rewards.

I believe that every risk comes with a lesson – an opportunity to learn something.   Whether the writing class actually makes me “write better” remains to be seen, but I know I’ll get something useful from it.  I know I’ll ultimately be very glad that I took the risk.

In Defense of the Feminine

Yesterday brought some much-needed girl-time with Cheryl.  I always look forward to our outings because, no matter how long it’s been since we’ve seen each other, we take the conversation to the good stuff almost immediately.  We talk to each other the way I talk on this page – openly and from the heart.  We have twin spirits and similar struggles, which gives us the ability to be honest and unguarded with each other.  I would call the experience “restorative,” but that’s too pale a word for the intense feeling of healing and wholeness that always seems to cling to me after our visits.

For a long time, I was afraid to have deep friendships with other women.  My early experiences with female friendship were not particularly healthy and left me seriously gun-shy about engaging with other women.  I generally preferred to hang out with guys.  Guys are relatively easy to be with.  They’re complex in their own way, of course, but there’s a face-value quality to men that I’ve always appreciated.   Granted, male-female friendships are subject to their own potential perils (When Harry Met Sally was right – the sex can totally get in the way), but I was always more comfortable with that threat than the risk of some ridiculous drama ruining the relationship.

Despite my fear, I’ve thankfully developed a few incredible female friendships over the years, and the older I get, the more I appreciate these women.  I’m grateful that they understand those things about me that are uniquely female.  They don’t balk at my complexity or my need to talk things out.  They know how to strike a balance between talking and listening.  They’re able to empathize with me from a place of knowledge and experience.  And I am able to do all of these things for them as well.  These relationships are an amplification of the “common thread” idea I talked about previously.

Cheryl and I spent some time discussing a story out of Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Committed:  A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage.  As part of her travels, Gilbert spends some time in a Hmong village in Vietnam talking to the local women about marriage.  She was nervous about her own nuptials and decided to interview women on the topic.  Her findings in this village were particularly fascinating to me (in her words):

Watching the Hmong women interact with each other, I got to wondering whether the evolution of the ever smaller and ever more nuclear Western family has put a particular strain on modern marriages. In Hmong society, for instance, men and women don’t spend all that much time together. Yes, you have a spouse. Yes, you have sex with that spouse. Yes, your fortunes are tied together. Yes, there might very well be love. But aside from that, men’s and women’s lives are quite firmly separated into divided realms of their gender-specific tasks. Men work and socialize with other men; women work and socialize with other women. […]

If you are a Hmong woman, then, you don’t necessarily expect your husband to be your best friend, your most intimate confidant, your emotional advisor, your intellectual equal, your comfort in times of sorrow. Hmong women, instead, get a lot of that emotional nourishment and support from other women – from sisters, aunties, mothers, grandmothers. A Hmong woman has many voices in her life, many opinions and emotional buttresses surrounding her at all times. Kinship is to be found within arm’s reach in any direction, and many female hands make light work, or at least lighter work, of the serious burdens of living.

Of course, it is unlikely that Westernized society will transition back to neatly-stacked gender roles, nor is that required.  I don’t think the point is necessarily the amount of time that men and women spend together so much as it is the expectations of the partnership.  The lesson Cheryl and I discussed is that just as it “takes a village to raise a child,” perhaps it also takes a village to make a person.  We need all of our relationships – male and female – to deal with our complexity, to reinforce us when we’re weak, to celebrate our achievements, and to shoulder our burdens.  No one person – particularly not one’s life-partner – should have to fill all of those needs alone.  It’s far too much to expect.  Perhaps others know this instinctively.  I, as always, seem to only understand through the slow accumulation of thoughtful experience (and lots of conversation/writing).

And so, as I considered this revelation and the conversation with Cheryl that solidified it, I’m realizing anew a profound sense of gratitude.  I’m grateful to have friends, both male and female, who willingly lend their unique perspectives to my life.  I’m grateful to have people with whom I can be fully myself.  And I’m absolutely grateful that I have forged healthy connections with other women.  My life is made much, much richer for it.

Day Off

After the third hour of our conference call yesterday, my boss looked at me and said “You didn’t want to be here tomorrow, did you?  I don’t think I do either.”  Less than an hour later, she sent a note to our Deputy to tell him we’d both be out and that the world was unlikely to stop spinning, but here’s our cell phone numbers just in case.  And just like that, a three-day weekend was unexpectedly born. 

Theoretically, the extra time should mean I'd have more time to relax.  I love the idea of relaxing.  I read the Facebook status updates of others that talk about sinking into the couch and watching TV or having a movie-fest.  Isn't that a great thought?  It sounds so comfy. 

But for whatever reason, I just can't put it into practice.  There’s always a to-do list in my head.  I can’t seem to sit for more than an hour or two at home without feeling like I ought to be up doing something (in truth, probably several somethings).  The only time I seem to manage that “sink in and relax” thing effectively is when I go away somewhere – preferably somewhere that I’m not in charge of doing anything but relaxing.

So how did I spend my day off?  I read a little and wrote a little.  I cleaned (all the things!).  I mowed (lots of) grass.  I spent some time with the Monkey at a crazy chaotic school fundraiser.  I had a glass of wine (and excellent conversation) with a friend.  There’s a load of laundry whirling away downstairs and I’m reveling in the fact that I can pretty much do with the rest of my weekend as I please.

I did not relax today.  I’ve barely had a minute of down time since I got up this morning, but I have thoroughly loved my day off.

Getting Out of Situational Depression

I saw a particularly beautiful sunrise the other morning.  It was pink and cloud-streaked.  Intellectually, I knew it was beautiful.  Emotionally, it made me feel exactly as numb as I’d felt before I noticed it.

Situational depression (also known as “adjustment disorder”) occurs when a person is has trouble coping with, or adjusting to, a particular source of stress (a major life change, loss, event, etc.)  It’s typically short in duration (six months or less) and has many of the same symptoms of long-term depression (sleeping issues, eating issues, stomach upset, malaise, feelings of hopelessness).  It can happen to anyone, but the good news is that it usually resolves when the source of the stress is removed or the person adjusts to the loss.  (More on the illness here.)

I’ve been in a tar-pit of sadness for the last month or so, finally working through the emotions of a lost relationship, the end of grad school, and failing connections with friends.  Yoga is partly to blame; it’s been gradually wringing out every emotion I’ve buried in my muscles, bringing it all to the surface.  Though I believe I’m on the road to something better, my world has been very gray, of late.

Little by little, I’m fighting my way out.  When, clarity cuts through the fog, I can remember that I’ve done this before.  I’ve pushed through my moments of collapse, wondering what will become of my life.  I’ve been to the bottom of my own emptiness and managed to get back.  It’s more intense this time, but I’ve been here before and I know I’ll eventually step out on the other side.

I don’t believe there’s a shortcut for getting out of situational depression.  It takes time and work.  I do, however, tend to gravitate to a few techniques that help me get a little perspective when I’m stuck.

Cry.  I cry pretty easily anyway, but situational depression always seems to crank it up a notch (or 30).  I’ve found that trying not to cry just ensures that I’ll cry harder later, so I might as well get it done.  Deep breath.  Find a tissue.  Let it happen.

Sleep.  Sleep is my emotional hidey-hole.  I turn up the noisemaker and drown out whatever yucky thoughts I’ve got swirling.  The dreams will wake me up after a few hours, but at least I’m getting some rest.
 

Write.  Writing is a great stand-in if I can’t or don’t want to talk it out.  The computer is totally non-judgmental and will happily “listen” to everything I blather (even the really embarrassing stuff).  More importantly, I think there’s an opportunity in seeing the feelings on the screen.  It’s easier to call “bullshit” when you’re literally looking at it.

Eat a Carb.  I’ve done pretty well with cleaning up my eating over the last couple of months, but in the last week – as the depression has reached a new low – I’ve cut myself a little slack.  A piece of chocolate is likely to do more good than harm right now as my brain scrambles to figure out how to make enough serotonin to keep me functioning.
 

Walk the Dog.  Getting out of the house and doing something nice for an animal helps.  It also makes the animal less needy – which also helps.  (This tactic works similarly well for children.)

Listen for the Argument.  In the middle of the hopelessness, I sometimes find that there’s this “other” voice offering an opposing viewpoint.  It’s the voice that says “hey, do you really believe that?”  This voice is the authentic, unchanging me.  It’s the mentally-healthy-me that will be there when the depression fades.  Listening for that voice (even when I can’t quite hear it) helps to remind me that I’m still there beneath the fog.

Reach Out.  Making connections helps to keep everything right side up.  I tend to turn into Hermit-Girl when I’m feeling awful.  There’s something to be said for doing the solo-work of getting through it, but I have to strike a balance with some people-time.

Get help.  So far, I’m managing with these techniques and a few supplements (magnesium, 5-HTP).  If it keeps up for too long, though, I’ll call in the big guns.  Stubborn as I am, I have too many responsibilities to let this get me down for too long.  If a professional is what I need, so be it.

Of course, the only real way out of situational depression is to go through it.  The ‘cure’ for adjustment disorder is to adjust…and that takes time.  And while “this too shall pass” feels like an empty aphorism, I know that it’s true – just a matter of when.

Oddity

As hard as I’ve tried to “fit in” over the course of my life, I’ve often stood out.  At almost six feet tall, it’s difficult for me to disappear in a crowd, even when I try.  Despite my small-town roots (and I scored a 60 on the “How Thick is Your Bubble” quiz, so my small-town-ness has been proven – by science), I’ve always loved language and have been accused on more than one occasion of using “too many big words.”  I’m no longer allowed to play games at my office Christmas party because I won too many times over the years.  In a world where introversion is fast-becoming the new black, I’m the extrovert everyone stares at like a zoo exhibit.

Uniqueness is supposed to be a good thing, right?

Twice in the last week I’ve gotten feedback on my “uniqueness” (ahem).  The first was from a coworker who was marveling over my sudden, exuberant celebration of Pi Day (I brought in five pies, obviously.  They were all round.  I could have made square pies if I’d planned ahead.  Maybe next year?).  I was arranging pies on the table and he looked at me quizzically and said “You’re kind of a freak, you know that, right?  You’re completely geeky, but you’re really socially well-adjusted.  It’s seriously weird.”

Today’s feedback was a bit more serious.  A friend of mine is in law school (and working full time) and has been far too busy to keep up our regular levels of communication.  He said he just hasn’t had the mental bandwidth to really talk with me lately.  “You’re thoughtful and you challenge me.  It’s work keeping up with you.  It’s well worth the effort, but it’s work.”

Weird.  Challenging.  Freak.  You’d think that after almost 42 years of oddity, I’d be used to it by now, but I'm not.  I think I’m still holding on to this utopian idea that I’ll find a niche where I fit in.  I’m hoping that I’ll find a partner that won’t be exhausted by the way my brain works.  I’m still clutching the belief that there’s some welcome space in the melee for a socially-adept freak like me.  Maybe I should just let go of these notions and accept that I might never fit.

Uniqueness is supposed to be a good thing, right?

Living With Less...Containment

I went to the Container Store today to return a “cord keeper” I bought a few weeks ago.  The Monkey’s desktop in the basement is a soul-crushing mess of wires and I thought I’d use the keeper to deal with them.  In the end, I decided that it was unnecessary.  The computer is now old enough that I can probably just deal with the corded chaos until the time comes to upgrade his system (to a laptop – cord free).

I had some time today and decided I’d take it back (three cheers for being proactive!).  Also, since the Monkey wasn’t with me, I thought I’d have a leisurely poke around the store...maybe find a thing or two I missed when we were there before and pressed for time.

The Container Store is kind of my Mecca.  It’s shiny in there.  The whole store is filled with neatly stacked boxes and attractive storage whatnots.  They have pretty little glass jars just begging to be filled with some treasure.  The displays of organized closets make me drool.  I’ve (half) joked that I shouldn’t be allowed in there unsupervised (or with my credit card in hand).  Every fiber of my OCDelightful being vibrates when I walk in the door.  I want to take it all home with me!

Today was different.  I only poked around for a minute or so before I gave up and got in line to make the return.  It turned out to be a fairly joyless poke.  I thought maybe I might find something else I “needed,” but I realized that now that I’ve shed so much of my stuff, I really don’t have much to organize.  I don’t need as many clever containment objects because there’s not much left to contain.

I can’t decide whether I’m happy or sad about this.  On the one hand, it’s incredibly liberating to not be saddled with stuff to organize.  On the other hand, I really like to organize!  On the other (other) hand, maybe now I’ll have space (literally) to discover something else that I really like to do.  On the other (other, other) hand, I’m now feeling a bit unanchored.

Like the story of the frog on slow-boil, the weight of needless things kind of crept up on me.  I carried them around for so long, they seemed more like fixtures than superfluity.  I slowly grew accustomed to the stuff.  The weight became familiar.  It felt normal.  Now that I’m suddenly in its absence, I feel like I’m drifting.

This transition is uncomfortable, but I recognize the opportunity.  I have a moment – this moment – to exercise careful intention about what I do next.  The default, I fear, would be to find some other anchor…something to replace the weight of the things I’ve shed.  The better choice – the more intentional choice – would be to grow accustomed to the feeling of lightness…to learn to live with fewer tethers…to find out what happens when I fly.

I took a big breath as I walked out the door of the Container Store today.  I knew, on some level, that I won’t be back there anytime soon.  The parting was a touch bittersweet, but the fact remains:  I simply don’t need my life to be contained anymore.