Flaws

Recently, I posted about romance and reality. Reality isn't always as pretty or clean-shaven or over-the-top emotional as a Meg Ryan movie, but it is honest. And honesty and romance have been irrevocably intertwined in my head. As I was doing some "field research" for the romance post (aka asking deep questions and sharing my thesis with my dear friends via skype) I found myself tearing up and getting the wobbly voice when I said, "I've just been lied to so much in my life by so many people . . . " A Facebook post my friend put up recently struck me as the simplest way I can state how profoundly important honesty is to me: The truth may hurt for a little while but a lie hurts forever.

I've, of course, written about honesty before. A couple of times at least. I value honesty in all the relationships I have, from the friend who tells me, "Umm, no, you can't put your hair clip like that. Only a good friend would say that to you though," to the sibling that says, "You're difficult but that's part of YOU." And I try to give as good as I get. To me, trust comes from saying what you mean, and then following up your words with actions.

I am lucky that I have some good examples of people I know finding ways to thread honesty, accountability and romance together, like my friends who, instead of traditional wedding vows, had a conversational set of promises they made to one another (in front of us). I also, in my research of what people promise each other, was sent this fabulous example of how honesty can meet humor, fun, and romance. (These vows are heartfelt, to be sure, and so true - not IF you get sick or IF you get angry but WHEN -  and genuinely loving. And let's be clear, I wish I could have zombies at any party or wedding celebration I might plan in the future.)

What strikes me is that honesty, like terror and charity, begins at home. For me, perhaps honesty trumps flashy shows of romance because there was such issue with it in my home. I come from a family that struggles with honesty - with one another, and with themselves. In my house this didn't always mean outright lying, but often just a lack of the whole story being conveyed about any number of things or willful ignoring of the skeletons in the closet . . . this is, after all, how it happens that I have a sister I didn't grow up with.  (In point of fact, I didn't know she existed until I was 21 and she was almost 30.) This is how people I lived with for years and love and share blood with ignored the obvious problems while deftly stepping over that lump in the rug barely concealing what they swept under it. Their stories aren't mine to tell, so I won't talk about what I see when I tentatively lift the rug up, but the important realization for me is that I don't just crave honesty. I worry over it.

I make it a deep and daily concern to check in with myself and try to take stock of my ability to be honest with others and myself because, I think, deep down, I am afraid that if I relax on that priority, I will find proverbial rugs and more than proverbial lumps swept under them. I live in a hardwood floor apartment for a reason, and I don't own any rugs other than bathmats, so, this would be alarming.

For me, honesty is, in huge part, about knowing one's self. It's hard to "speak from the heart" if you can't hear your own inner voice, and it's impossible to react and communicate honestly if you don't know how you feel. And for me, an important piece of that is trying, whenever possible, to trace backwards far enough to know WHY I feel that way. More often than not, my feelings come from fears, limiting beliefs, judgment, and insecurities. And more often than not, those fears and insecurities and weak spots in my tough-girl armor come from knowing how flawed I am.

The word flaw actually means: a feature that mars the perfection of something, defect, fault.

This always reminds me of craftsman looking at a piece of wood and rejecting it because of a knot too big to work into the chair or wall they aspire to make, or a big dark spot in the middle of a diamond. Something visible. Which is ironic and alarming, because I work so very hard to make sure my flaws are as invisible as possible. I want the world to see good hair days, no pimples, and certainly not the moments where I am fighting the tears over having to send an email that makes me judge myself by imagining how someone else will judge it. I want those things tucked under the floor boards (since I live sans rugs).

But, I've been brought up short by being unemployed, by going back to therapy, by realizing that people love me not because I am perfect but for other reasons, by seeing a moving TED talk about vulnerability and then reading the researcher's book, and realize now, the flaws in the wood make it richer and more interesting, and I've never cared for diamonds anyways.

So, in going back and re-reading Elisabeth Glibert's book, Committed (about marriage and misgivings and love and honesty and tradition and ways to buy into it without the bullshit . . . in my opinion, better than her more renowned Eat, Pray, Love ) I was reminded that something she and her beloved did before confirming they could marry (even with misgivings) was to present a list of their own flaws to one another and . . . double-check that they were ok with what they were signing up for. They were searingly honest. Witness:

1. I think very highly of my own opinion. I generally believe that I know best how everyone in the world should be living their lives - and you, most of all will be victim of this.

2. I require an amount of devotional attention that would have made Marie Antoinette blush.

3. I have far more enthusiasm in life than I have actual energy.  In my excitement, I routinely take on more that I can physically or emotionally handle, which causes me to break down in quite predictable displays of dramatic exhaustion.  You will be the one burdened with the job of mopping me up every time I've overextended myself and then fallen apart.  This will be unbelievably tedious.  I apologize in advance.

4. I am openly prideful, secretly judgmental, and cowardly in conflict.  All these things collude at times and turn me into a big, fat liar.

5. My most dishonorable fault of all:  Though it takes me a long while to get to this point, the moment I have decided that somebody is unforgivable, that person will very likely remain unforgiven for life--all too often cut off forever, without fair warning, explanation or another chance.

What made it ok for her and her partner to leap into this cesspool of uncertainty was BECAUSE they could share these lists of terribleness with each other and say afterwords, "I can work with that."

It sounds terribly unromantic (even less romantic than slaying a zombie head in a wedding ceremony in lieu of lighting a unity candle) but it is an incredibly loving act for another person to say, "I take all of you. Even the hard parts. Even when you make them sound really bad." It makes me wonder: how many of us are able to love ourselves that deeply, looking really deeply into the mirror and seeing every visible flaw, every humiliating or hurtful moment, everything under the rug and beyond? I don't. Do you?

How many people spend the time to know themselves that deeply and then say, "I love me anyways."

If I inventory my flaws, I sound really terrible to myself.

1. I talk too much, think too much, and generally cannot rest until I've analyzed the breath out of everything, everything, everything. Myself, how best to set up the laundry room shelves, my family, my goals, what shoes to buy, how to get $10 a week off my grocery list . . .  This data gathering and analytic machine does not rest and it is exhausting for every other human on the planet, but I can't stop.

2. I am a really judgmental person. I have a lot of opinions about a lot of things. Generally, I don't make snap judgments (see above: data gathering) but when I've thought something over, I typically have a pretty good idea of what I think should or shouldn't happen, how to implement my plan, and why it will be awesome. My niece once asked me if my plans always work out and I answered, without missing a beat, "When my plans don't work it's almost always because someone has failed to follow them." I have tried, in recent years, to speak up promptly when I have no opinion because there are times I meet a topic where I genuinely don't care or haven't formed a thought on, and I want people to get a break from my constant assessments and perspectives. I've tried also to get better at making room for new data, to have my mind changed, and to hear others. I've tried most of all to recognize when judging others comes from judging myself (Almost always! SHOCKER!) but it remains true that I am the most outspoken, annoying, insufferable know-it-all most of you will ever meet.

3. I am what some people call stubborn or persistent. Those are far kinder words than I think apply. I am beyond determined, I am attached to willing things to be the way I need them to be. This often gets me stuck in a rut of patterns that aren't working for me, or what one friend charitably described as me being "dogged, at times." Yup, that's me.

4. I am very attached to my plans, my pride, and my independence. This means that I will jump in and help almost anyone, almost all of the time but will refuse to let my person take a shopping bag from me when he sincerely offers to carry it. I will run myself into the ground being a caretaker for others, all the while ignoring my own needs. It's extraordinarily unhealthy and detrimental to seeking balance and although I've addressed it with a vengeance this year, it will be a lifelong struggle for me to put myself first, ever, and not feel shame about it.

5. I'm deeply principled, and hold myself and others to painfully high standards. But mostly myself. When I can't meet them, as I've described, it's not a matter of failing and then picking myself back up. It's inevitable failure, then kicking myself while I'm down, beating myself up after the kicking, rolling around in the mud, and then expecting myself to write an essay about how I'll do better. This means that although I've been successful at many things I have no natural aptitude for, I'm not what you call resilient. I rebound . . . eventually, but it takes me an inordinately long time to pick myself up after a fall and because I'm so resistant to help (see above) taking a hand up doesn't even occur to me, even when it's offered.

6. I am tough, sassy, and strong. I have same-day surgeries without pain killers, travel like a champ, have almost no phobias, and generally act like I am unaffected by pain, injury, illness, and fatigue. Yet, I have incredibly thin skin. Even small accidental moments can hurt my feelings and sting years later. Having an unyieldingly killer memory does not help this cause.

7. I believe in forgiveness. I believe in letting go of anger and wounds, because otherwise you carry them with you and hurt yourself and others with them over and over. I believe in second chances. I often give third and fourth and fourteenth chances, because despite all of my toughness, independence, and judgment, I see the good in almost everyone. But, when someone has hurt me badly enough or often enough, when all trust or faith in their ability to be decent has been eroded, I am completely incapable, at that point, of the kind of forgiveness that leaves what happened in the past. (The memory thing doesn't help much here either.) It would be far kinder for EVERYONE to just stop earlier and close the door more gently on people that aren't good for me.

8. I have only felt pretty, smart, and appreciated all at the same time for three or four days of my entire life. This means, that when someone tells me I am attractive, I am suspicious they think I'm stupid. When someone praises my intellect, I wonder if that is code for them thinking I'm ugly, and that if they see both, I assume I'm unappreciated for these and any other good qualities. I am constantly undermining myself by playing old tapes in my head of being unworthy of real belonging.

9. I have a horrible, horrible habit of making fun of things I actually care about quite a lot because I can't quite bear to let people see me care that much and be that vulnerable and drop the sarcasm. I suspect this is offputting or at least tiring for many people.

10. As in introspective extrovert (or a very social introvert depending on which test I take and how I interpret questions as applying to my life ) I am often caught up in being what is needed by everyone else, and, as mentioned above, caretaking everyONE but myself. But, I also require an enormous amount of time and mental resources to process all of the data I'm gathering all of the time. Sometimes this all comes to a head and I find myself lying on the couch watching terrible re-runs or staring at the ceiling and not having the will to do anything for a couple of days at a time. At these times, I'm completely incapable of taking out the trash, doing my dishes, or meeting friends when we've made plans. This means my people get lots of attention from me when I am "on" and then suddenly, when the switch flips, I am suddenly 100% MIA. I know I hurt people this way.

11. There is almost nothing in my life that goes unprocessed (see number 1). But, I am accustomed to delaying emotional processing. This leaves me isolated, and often angry, and it puzzles and hurts people when something they thought nothing of resurfaces as an issue I'm still dealing with days, weeks, months later.

How can that list be compatible with being lovable? And yet, despite all of these things working against me, I have friends who call me family that I've had, respectively for 33 years, 17 years, 15 years, and 12 years. There must be something there. I reason it this way - they don't HAVE to see me at Thanksgiving and pretend to like me, they choose me over and over, and I them.

I saw a cartoon once that showed on the left pane, a field of flowers. Daisies, lilies, pretty, pretty flowers. Underneath it, it said, "How we see flowers" In the right hand pane, the same flowers, but with faces in their centers, and all of the faces had big ugly glasses, warts, crooked noses, pimples. Underneath that it said, "How flowers see themselves."

While we are staring in the mirror and side-stepping the lumps in the rug, we're all the while consumed with the pimples and the secret-keeping, which makes it impossible for us to see what is wonderful about us. We're burdened with the things that are less than awesome because we have to carry them around on our backs, and are always angling to stand in front of them so that no one can see what is behind our backs . . . like when we were children trying to smuggle cookies out of the cookie jar by keeping our hands tucked behind our backs. If we stood those things up in front of us and made peace with them, maybe we could see what was fun and useful and easy and memorable about us to others. If I loved my flaws, the bumps and knots in the wood, would I see the good things more easily?

Here's an interesting thing that happened as I was writing this post. I had assembled some of the pieces of this post last week, and sat down to write last night. I got about as far as I had hoped I would (up to the sentence, "If I loved my flaws the bumps and knots in the wood, would I see the good things more easily?") but knew I wasn't finished. So, I decided to sit down with Brene Brown's book. Her writing is just as captivating as her presentations are. I found myself laughing and empathizing as she shared her own struggles with imperfection and courage because they are all of our struggles - being too busy, trying to hard to fit in at the risk of missing real belonging, wanting to send angry emails to snarky people, etc. But I also found this quote:

"When we can let go of what other people think and own our story, we gain access to our worthiness - the feeling that we are enough just as we are and that we are worthy of love and belonging. When we spend a lifetime trying to distance ourselves from the parts of our lives that don't fit with who we think we're supposed to be, we stand outside of our story and hustle for our worthiness by constantly performing, perfecting, pleasing and proving. Our sense of worthiness - that critically important piece that gives us access to love and belonging - lives inside of our story."

When I read this, I realized, if I had just dug into this book a month ago then I wouldn't have needed to spend the 2 hours it took me to pull the pieces of this post together and write all those paragraphs. Brene has already said it more articulately for me.

My story is one of hustling, as she says. Of trying to prove, to please, to make my worth and value known by showing others how useful I can be, how hard I will work for it, how much I am willing to do for others rather than just locating my worthY. When I do this, I attach my feeling of being good enough to external things. Accomplishments and work are the main culprits. And, so, when I look at it that way, being unemployed is my first opportunity to stand apart from what I do or who I am in service to others or my job title. It is, if I do it right, a chance to get very honest in a way that isn't hurtful to the person I'm looking at in the mirror, but instead embraces the knots in the wood so that I can clear a path to seeing how I am good enough, job, no job, and whatever else comes next.

Choosing Shoes

A couple of nights ago, my person and I were discussing my blog. I was mentioning that one of my friends had reported she reads my blogs when she can, but sometimes finds certain posts to be more philosophical than she's up for. I remarked, "It's not like I'm writing about the meaning of life or something. My thoughts are pretty commonplace."

He smiled a little smile, shook his head, and said, "Wellllllllll, you come close to some pretty significant deepness sometimes. Even when your posts are about everyday things like, I don't know, choosing shoes, by laying out your thoughts, arguments, process, analysis, things verge on philosophy sometimes."

Well, I don't write about the meaning of life - why would I? It's already been covered adequately by Douglas Adams. I do write about the search for meaning, sometimes very much in the footsteps of writers I love such as Douglas Copeland and Barbara Kingsolver. Maybe even more importantly, I write about the things that make me the best version of myself, what's meaningful to me, and ways to hold myself to that. (It's not that I think my life is more important than the bigger meaning of life in general, just that the only system I can really contribute to or influence on a regular basis is ME so understanding myself well is, in my opinion, one of the better things I can do for the greater good).

But I can write about decision making, and choosing shoes. And since my person teased with the "choosing shoes" example, I laughingly pledged to write an entry about shoes.

Today, I was barefoot for most of the day. That's because it's 101 degrees out and my basement is far lovlier than that so I chose to apply for jobs, cook, do laundry, clean my house, and catch up with a good friend before getting showered and dressed and leaving the house. But when I did put shoes on, surprisingly, I did actually have to think about it - all joking aside. I put on a denim skirt, bright green tank top, and black t-shirt to go out for groceries in. I have great sandals that have green in them but, they are brown - not great with a black shirt. I also have a beaded necklace that is dear to my heart because my girl K-bomb made it for my 5th 29th birthday (I turned 29 for the 5th time last year on my birthday), and it has green and BLACK beads. I have a pair of gorgeous black flowered Alegria shoes that I could get away with. Magically, they are not only cute and distinctive, but orthotically correct without looking like old lady shoes. This is important for someone like me who has hyper-extending joints, bad knees, and feet that like to cramp but who also loves to look stylish. Ultimately, though, if I wore those shoes, it felt like it would be over the top to wear the necklace too. So, I went with the plain black flip flops and rationalized it by deciding: plain, black, soft, open air on my feet, and easy to slip off when I come home, which is good since I just cleaned the floors.

So, there you are, sweetie, some writing about choosing my shoes.

But, there's another way to look at this, which is to look at decision making. We all make decisions all day, all the time, every day. what to bring for lunch, what to watch, how to say something difficult to a loved one, Tylenol or Advil?

I'm unemployed, so I don't make workplace decisions like I used to, but my work days used to be filled with selecting priorities, choosing which things to pass onto other departments and which to solve myself, thinking about and implementing action plans, communicating and setting goals with others, and decision after decision of who, what, when, where, and how. But, even not working, I'm still engaged in decision making every day. Here's a quick example of things I've decided, just today:

• Get up now or sleep a little longer? (I slept because I've had some intermittent insomnia lately and need to catch up where I can)
• Yogurt, banana, hard boiled egg for breakfast or protein smoothie with bananas? (I had a smoothie and a cereal bar because it was fast and used up bananas that were a little over-ripe)
• Shower right after breakfast? (I decided to clean my house first and then shower during the hot part of the day as a way of cooling off)
• What salads should I make? (Kale salad and corn salad)
• Take stuff out to the trash or compost? (Compost because it's experimental at my place right now, and I want to encourage others to do it even if it's a little extra effort for me.)
• Mean note or conciliatory note to the person encroaching on my space. (Neither. Something in between, asserting that I think it's reasonable for me to ask him not to use my space, but also mentioning that I'm checking with the HOA on how they treat that space. I don't want to be harsh unless I know I'm right, and even then, I'd prefer to be on good terms with my neighbors if that can be achieved without being a doormat.)
• How specific should I be about my current relationship while talking with an old friend who once wished he could date me? (Neither vague nor specific since it didn't come up in conversation too much and I didn't feel the need to force it as he told me where he was at with dating, his ex and his ex-wife.)
• Should I buy a cookie while I'm out. (No! I don't need it, and this heat makes me less than hungry)
• Should I stop at the liquor store (No! I recently expressed a plan to drink less beer in order to reduce carbs, don't need the calories, wanted to get home, and I'm broke)
• Bulk almonds or packaged (Easy, same price per pound. Take the packaged ones as a matter of efficiency.)
• Should I get gas today or tomorrow? (Today because I could go by the station where I can use reward points and get gas for less than $3.50 a gallon without going out of my way.)
• What should I listen to? (The Nylons, because I'm in the mood for some music that is upbeat, and has interesting harmonies)
• What song should I post today? (For the Longest Time, The Nylons. Because I love Billy Joel, harmony, and acapella)
• Apply for more jobs this week? (No, I've done 10 apps, and since I have to contact a minimum number of employers/job postings every week, it's actually better for me to save some for next week. Especially since I won't do my best work on customizing resumes and letters right now.)
• In playing Dice with Buddies against my brother, I rolled three 2's, a 1 and a 4. I kept the 2's and rolled again, and got a fourth 2, and rolled my third turn, and did not get a fifth 2. So, play as 4 of a kind (11 points with my 2x4 plus a 3) or in the 2's category (total of all 2's = 8)? (I played in the 2's category since the highest I could have gotten in the 2's was a 10 but the highest I could get in  4 of a kind with 4 2's is 14. The highest possible in that category is 6x5 = 30, though you'd be a fool not to play THAT in 6's or 5 of a kind for 50 points. I reasoned, this way, playing in 2's I'm only 2 points below the best I COULD have done.)

What makes a decision good or bad? Is it getting compliments on the shoes I wore? Getting the best price on almonds? Whether or not I end up beating my brother in Dice with Buddies? Is it the outcome of that decision?

Maybe not, especially not if you think about how even small choices can affect other things. I also think . . . it's hard to consider the weight of any decision in isolation. It may have been a mistake to give up the things I gave up on the East Coast to come here for a fiance who didn't put as much effort into the relationship as I did, but it didn't end up being wrong for me to be here. My job with my former employer was the right thing for me as I was leaving grad school, but ended up not being the right thing for me by somewhere around late 2010. My bestest friend everest regrets not taking me to my prom when I asked, but I ended up with the most amazing, sweet, entertaining, funny, charming, solicitous friend-of-a-prom-date EVER. I may lose my Dice with Buddies game, but winning or losing isn't why I play - I play because it keeps me in communication with my favorite family member.

Outcomes are hard to measure when they keep unfolding in new ways. If you had asked me during Labor Day of 2008 if I was ok being here, the answer would've been, "get me the frak outta here ASAP." But, being here has left me stronger, healthier, more reconciled with myself, knowing my limits and how NOT to push past them, and with a much deeper connection with my loved ones, despite being farther away from them. A year from now, though, I'll have even more information and may look at this completely differently, for better or worse.

For my part, what allows me to judge a decision I make as being "good" or "bad" is more about the process I use to arrive at it. Have I considered the important facts? Have I done the math correctly? Have I not only collected the right data and analyzed it, but made sure to collect enough of it? Have I spent the time needed to feel like, whatever happens as a result of this, I won't wonder if I should have asked different questions, or looked for supporting evidence differently? Have I thought about how the necklace and the shoes work together?

What this looks like for me is spending a lot of time writing, journaling, researching, talking, asking questions, reading, and then trying to see the bigger picture (in fine detail . . . I don't want to lose the trees for the forest, nor the forest for the trees) as I stare at a ceiling or chop vegetables into very small pieces. And, as a result, there are really only half a dozen or so things I genuinely regret in my life. (I don't say that to brag, but only to say that I think if you stop looking at ONLY outcomes, it becomes much harder to regret because what's left to notice is process and ongoing repercussions, that are always unfolding, positive and negative, since nothing is a closed system. ) One of them involves some rope, a closet, and my little brother. The other does involve my career. A third involves a dear friend from college and a vacation house in upstate NY. A fourth, a friendship I didn't keep . . and a couple of others are too complicated (not too private, just too twisty and detailed) to write here.

When I look at those moments in my life . . . there were good and less than good outcomes of each of those decisions in all cases. Maybe, the good and the bad are intertwined, or maybe how things work out or don't work out have more to do with how we react and what outlook we take as things unfurl. It's so hard to say at this point in my life, sitting where I'm sitting, wondering what will happen next and trying SO HARD to be ok with whatever that is. Knowing that I won't know what that looks like until my nose bangs right onto a sliding glass door looking out on that scene.

I say this as a reminder to myself, not a guideline for anyone else. Because I'm in the midst of making some big decisions about my life. Where to live, who to live with, how to make that work, what jobs to look for, how to aim towards them . . . going back to school or not? Whole new career or slight shift in tasks, roles and title but similar function? If the universe is anywhere near as hilarious as it has been in the past, I'll walk part way down the road towards settling these things, and then, simultaneously, after stumbling through a desert, a dearth of options, I'll find myself showered with choices, fruit-basket like, wondering if I should eat bananas or apricots or melon or grapefruits, or or or. I am certain that if I decide to go back to school, that will be the moment I get a job. I am certain that by deciding to re-sign my lease, I'll now find myself considering job options or school options more than an hour south of here.

And when that happens, I'll stamp my flip-flopped feet and gnash my terrible teeth but I'll also laugh and laugh and laugh. None of these decisions are irrevocable, and I have more than a small number of friends who are making bigger decisions, decisions with longer-lasting consequences. Decisions about who should parent their children, or when life begins, or how to be at peace with choosing jail for a lesser sentence over fighting the good fight and losing in the court of public opinion anyways, or bankruptcy, or infertility.

My problems and choices are mine, so of course, they are magnified in my brain. This isn't a bad thing. It means I take ownership of them, and do my best to make sure the things I'm doing add up and don't hurt others if I can avoid it. But, I need to remember that in the larger scheme of things, school vs. job hunting, staying here vs. moving is closer to a "what shoes should I wear" decision than an earth-moving one.

In this vein, the very best I can do is to make decisions in a way that I can look back on and feel good about, even if they don't work out the way I planned. Decisions I can take responsibility for proudly, choices that reflect my convictions and beliefs, and things that are as consistent with the information I have and goals I'm aiming for as possible. I'm learning that my plans aren't always THE PLAN and that the way to feel good about my choices isn't to measure my success in traditional metrics, but to look back and say, "was my process sound? Was the data set robust? Was the analysis one I would arrive at again?" Because we never really know if the choices we make will be what we hoped they were - marriage, shoes, haircuts, dinner menus, jobs, colleges, cookies. None of it.

Wear the shoes that feel comfortable today, and worry about tomorrow tomorrow. Make the kind of decisions that you can live with even if they don't work out as planned because not much does. I stubbed my toe in those black sandals, but, I never thought, "I shouldn't have worn those . . . "

Yes, all, this is me, 6 months into unemployment learning that we can't nail everything down in the order and arrangement we would most like, and if we could, it might not be for the best since we can't ever see the whole scene from where we're standing . . . even if we're wearing heels.

Two weeks

Despite having a masters in Cognitive Psychology I, like everyone else, have absorbed some pop psychology it seems. For years, in my job, it was part of my role to help business owners with their "parent orientations" (read: sales process) and often their insecurities centered on how to explain to parents why their child was starting at a point in the curriculum that was below their grade level. I coached these business owners to talk about how the program expected children to build a habit of doing small amounts of daily work, and that the formation of that habit was aided by them not struggling to do the work, thus easing in was best. I often mentioned how "forming a new habit takes 3 to 5 weeks." Apparently I got this idea from some pretty old research that showed that on average it took amputees 21 days to adjust to losing a limb. As it turns out, depending on the habit and the process used to form it, it can take anywhere from 3 weeks to 9 weeks.

So, it seems, I've given people slightly bent data, but of course, I've been refeeding it to myself too thinking that getting through the first two weeks of my second 365 days self-portrait project was a milestone not just for the project, but for establishing the habit of a daily photo post. I thought, "If I make it two weeks I'm either two-thirds or half there to having this ingrained as part of my day.Do two weeks and then start thinking about more complicated self-portraits, using photoshop, and more involved shoots." Well, maybe, or maybe not. But I can report that while taking the picture has been three times almost-forgotten, I am loving the idea of charting myself in this year-of-christie when I am rediscovering myself, exercising more than I ever have, and (hopefully, hopefully) finding a new job. And, I'm remembering how soothing editing photos is for me. It's better than blood pressure medication or reading myself to sleep. It should probably be a daily activity for the rest of my life.

So, with all of that in mind, here is my first two weeks of 365:2.1.  (Pictures here, and if you click on the links you can see them, and their descriptions on Flickr. the descriptions I've given here are very minimal.) I won't do this all the time on my blog but do want to sometimes cross-pollinate from Empty Calories to 365.

Day 1 - My Birthday

Day 2 - Wanted to see if I could remember underwater techniques

Day 3 - practicing with the Gorilla Pod

Day 4 - My Birthday dinner and my peeps!

Day 5 - Killer sunset collage

Day 6 - My part time gig

Day 7 - some times technology and life conspire in evil ways

Day 8 - Cut Offs

Day 9 - the sloppiest SP ever

Day 10 - Reality. Even though I'm no longer in my "on the road" job I am still on the road a lot.

Day 11 - restoring my computer. Boring for everyone to see, crucial for me.

Day 12 - an amazing Birthday hike with an amazing friend.

Day 13 - apply, apply, apply. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Day 14 - healthy routines

Coming out

I've outed myself a couple of times in online places. Back in February, I admitted on FB that I actually really like Hot Chelle Rae. I know - it's not good music, but it makes me want to MOVE and makes me sing and smile simultaneously. I outed myself long ago as being bisexual, and it was an important point in this post. And a couple of days ago, I admitted the possibility that after all these years proclaiming my extrovertedness, I might be an introvert (gasp!).

Now I'm going to come out on something else. I'm a (mostly) centrist liberal. I'm not registered with either major party (I know, gasp again!) and I believe very much in individual rights. I know that we sometimes have to consider the needs of the many over the needs of the one, but as the balance of how that feels and works tends to vary from person to person, whenever it is possible to uphold the rights of an individual without endangering others, I think that should be the priority. A lot of my politics come down to privacy and individual rights . . . thus, mostly a liberal.

But I'm a liberal who believes that life begins at conception. (I hope you saved some gasps for that.) I will likely be asked to leave the liberal enclave now. I might even be escorted out. Does this mean I have to leave the club? Start listening to different music? Be a suit? I hope not.

I said "life begins at conception" in the long, awkward-sentence way because I am NOT pro-life. (not, Not, NOT!!).

In fact, I really hate the idea that this question can be broken down into two camps at all, but what I might hate even more is the inequality between the two. Pro-life vs. Pro-choice? Soooo, if you believe in a woman's right to choose (or her partner's, for that matter . . . because, I don't know if you know this, but - pssssst!! - men are involved in making babies. I say this because we seem to have forgotten about male participation in pregnancy in this country of late.) you are . . . Anti-Life?

Moreover, a woman who considers an abortion clearly has no respect for life, if things are broken down this way . . . she hasn't, for instance, considered what kind of life that baby would have, if born, or how she would or wouldn't be able to provide for it, health issues, issues about parenting and her partner's involvement. (Sarcasm is dripping heavily now)

I have to be honest here and say every single woman I've known who has considered abortion, much less had one, have had the long view on life and asked themselves not just "how will this impact me?" but "what kind of life would this child have? Am I prepared/ready/able/supported in order to give them the best life possible?" Every. Single. One. (Certainly, there are women who may have abortions blithely, but I don't know them.)

On the other hand, I have never heard someone who was vocally "Pro-Life" (yes, the scare quotes are necessary) clearly answer what should happen to the unwanted, unplanned for children that they think should be born regardless. Their interest seems to end in making sure that the woman cannot get access to a medical procedure protected by law, or that she is intimidated out of it. What happens with that child seems to be someone else's issue to sort out.

Granted, in the last couple of years I haven't asked any of them . . . there were some really scary people who used to gather outside of the building that was next to my Physical Therapist's office. There was a cordoned off area, and 6 times a week, as I drove down and back that street, I saw them very visibly and audibly praying. It took me going during a snow storm to see they the sign they were congregated in front of - "Boulder Women's Clinic" - before I realized they were there to pray away the patients and doctors of that facility. Maybe I should go back and ask them if they have thoughts about what someone who is emotionally and financially unprepared for parenthood should do once their baby is born. Maybe I should ask them if a mother who already has children should lay down her life in the situation where its a health risk for an unborn baby. But instead I limped by in my knee braces and said, "It's nice how your right to scare people is protected."

(And please, let me be clear here. I support their right to pray, just as I support Rush Limbaugh's right to say putrid things about women, or my friend's who did get an abortion having the right to take that action. My issue is . . . if you believe prayers are heard, if you believe prayers are answered, if you believe prayer can change things, then you must also believe that there's no difference between praying at home for abortions to stop, and praying at the doorstep of the abortion clinic. In which case . . . why are you at the doorstep again? Oh, to intimidate people with your prayer. Yes, because the sacred act of praying and communing with God should always include that.)

For me, this came to a head one VERY early morning driving through deepest, darkest Pennsylvania. It was, no joke, like 5am. And as the sun rose over the rolling hills, every mile, on the mile, there was another graphic billboard showing, as it proclaimed, "the results of abortion." I mean, first of all, ick. People have children in their cars. (do the "Pro-Lifers" care about them?) And, also, it was 5am and as a 25 year old, I didn't need to see that. I'm all for truth, and information, but people can get that without it being splashed all over the road. They can go looking for it when it's pertinent to them. As it happens, I was driving to Connecticut that morning having worked late the night before. And I was driving to Connecticut to babysit my foster-brother while my mom went to some function.

And it hit me. What would happen if the pro-choice "side" advertised similarly, showing, "the results of unwanted children." Because, my foster brother was the best case scenario. He was neglected, but as far as anyone could tell, never abused; malnourished, but not unfed. He was developmentally delayed but not irreversibly damaged. And (and this is key) he was removed before his first birthday.

But I know something about babies that people have but don't raise. And I can't think of anything worse than that.

If those beaten, neglected, starved, emotionally-handicapped-for-life children were depicted graphically on billboards supporting Pro-choice you can be sure the "Pro-lifers" would cry foul saying it was overblown, predicting or even marketing abuse, and that the pro-choicers were using pain and suffering for their own political gain.

Umm, hi. Do you not think the woman who chooses abortion feels pain, remorse, regret? And also, dear "Pro-lifers" - whose life are you protecting? Do you have a way to help ensure that child you're insisting needs to be born will have the opportunity to have a good life? What about the woman? Her partner? Her other family? Other children she may be supporting? Yup, this is why "Pro Life" is in scare quotes for me.

So, I support my friends who have chosen abortion. Because children need so much that if you know you can't give it to them, or don't want to, or aren't able to . . . your having had sex, or birth control that failed, or whatever happened shouldn't doom somebody else to a life that can't be what it might have been in different circumstances.

I say all of this, and still admit it: I think life begins at conception. (I think it, but don't know it for sure. And it's important to note, it's what I think, and there's room for other people to think differently.) It would take out a piece of my heart to walk into "Boulder Women's Clinic" with or without the prayer-scarers. It would take very special circumstances too. I don't know what I believe about souls, or God, or "the right to life" (it seems like we are so casual with our other rights, I'm not sure why this right should be more important than others) but I know I think that whatever makes a person a person starts at conception not some magic date later. And still, I don't think it's my government's place to decide that for me, or anyone who may disagree with me. I'm not going to raise the children of those people, and neither are the prayer-scarers, or the "Pro-lifers" so who am I to make that decision for them?

It's also worth noting that . . . it's easy for me to say how difficult or impossible it would be for me to choose abortion since I'll never have to. This is perhaps the upside of having my junk be so jacked up as to be almost totally infertile - I can hypothetically take a hard line because I'll never be in the shoes of the women who actually have to make hard choices about their lives, their childrens' lives, their partners, and quality of life.

So, I'm a life-loving Pro-choicer? A Pro-lifer who protects choice? I'm not sure. But I do know that when issues as complex and personal as this are boiled down to two sides, everyone loses, and that in a free-society we should spend some time reflecting on reasons to make something illegal, not the reasons to legalize something; so I continue to straddle this line but not because I'm wishy-washy but because I object to the line in the first place.

The story of this blog

Out of the mud, grows a lotus. 

This is literally true, of course. But more figuratively, this is mentioned and quoted in different ways in Buddhism. Thich Nhat Hanh was quoted as saying, "There is the mud, and there is the lotus that grows out of the mud. We need the mud in order to make the lotus. "

At the moment that we're in the mud, of course, we don't think about the lotus. We think about the cold, the mess, and the feeling of being stuck. From down in the mud, beneath even the water, and the algae, the mud doesn't feel good, and it's difficult to see the flower that isn't yet.

But, creativity and pain correlate. Beethoven lead a miserable life, and (not BUT but AND) produced some of the worlds most recognizably moving classical music. It is the foundation of so much music that came after it. Writers, artists (just look at Frida Kahlo), most anyone with a creative bent will acknowledge that even if they were not able to produce at the moment they were in the mud, they were inspired by the time they spent down there.

It's not really any different for me. I mightn't ever produce things that move or reach people as much as the artists I know best for being inspired by and then out-stripping their pain in order to create, but all of my biggest creative projects came from distress.

My 365 photo-a-day self portrait project came from the realization that grieving the loss of my father and my relationship in one fell-swoop had shut me off to living and knowing the new and beautiful place I was residing in, and because I tried to mourn both at once, I had done neither properly.

My best poems were about that processing.

And this blog . . . well, it came from recognizing the need to, as the wonderfully wise Pema Chodron says in her best book, "lean into the sharp points of life."

Recently, a friend asked me about this blog. Why I started it, what inspired me, how I held myself to such a high standard of honesty and where my topic ideas "come from." She said she felt she was creative and prolific when it came to fiction writing but was having, "a difficult time when it comes to writing about 'real life.' I know the question might be a bit simplistic, but am really curious, and value your opinion as a fellow writer."

Well, first of all, anyone referring to me as a "writer" flatters me more than I can say. I think of myself mostly as a hack who can't keep herself from begging for attention. So, being included in the "fellow writer" circle with someone who had the guts and talent to go the hard road of getting a degree in writing is a sure bet to make me blush.

I gave her advice that may or may not have been satisfying, but also told her the story of this blog, at least partially.

This blog was in my head for months before it was ever on this site. And . . . even when it was one this site, I wrote three or four posts before I announced it on Facebook . .  . thus allowing everyone to see it, and then show it to everyone else. If I think very carefully, this blog started with a piece I wrote for a friend's book about a year before I ever wrote the first post.

This friend is an incredibly talented chef, and when her family began getting various diagnosis where diet changes could make a big difference, she made the command decision to do a full cleanse. As a family that was already Orthodox Jewish, and thus, keeping Kosher, dietary limitations weren't news in her house, but she then added on top of that: wheat free, gluten free, and dairy free. And yet, she magically makes some of the most amazing meals and baked goods I've ever had the pleasure to eat. In a series of long and long-distance conversations, she shared with me that she wanted to write a book. Not just a cookbook with recipes, but essays, research, and discussion on the benefits of eating and cooking your own food, how to do a cleanse and determine food sensitivities, and how to plan meals and events with this lifestyle of mindful eating. I had been experiencing a complete mental road block on the poems I was writing (see above) and found myself one night sitting at my neighborhood pub, drinking a beer, and just gushing out hand-written paragraphs about how eating and health aren't or shouldn't be disconnected from our other life choices. It was edited as an intro to her book.

But it got me thinking about how food worked for me, or didn't. It stayed on my mind and I found myself watching myself from the outside.

Then, another friend inspired me. One of my mommy friends started a blog writing about her family, the intentional and mindful child-rearing decisions she was making, health, and finding balance in her life as a mom and still being a person outside of that. I can't link to it because she ultimately decided to end the blog and give that time back to her family, but the simple, clear, straightforward way she spoke to these topics was compelling enough that I read it eagerly despite being a non-mom. It also taught me that real life doesn't have to be spectacular or exceptional to be interesting.

I carried these ideas and inspirations with me for several more months though, before doing anything with them.  I tentatively started a list of possible topics, but couldn't quite make the leap to writing anything online that others saw. What I found though, was that I started to notice myself from the outside with regard to those topics. One of the first ones on the list was "Perfect is damaging." What's ironic about this is not just where this topic arose from, but that it has yet to be written! The act of putting that topic idea on a list caused me to notice things about it, and it spawned other topics. As I started to observe myself, and how I made day-to-day decisions around those topics, how I thought about them, how I would reason them out if I was discussing them with a close friend, other things started to drift up against those ideas. Quotes. Things my friends said or did. Something I saw or heard in a movie. Some of these things, in turn, got re-purposed into other topics when the ideas got too big to be under one umbrella. Before I knew it, I had a list of 15 or so ideas and some skeleton structure for where I would go with them.

And still I didn't do anything.

It really wasn't until August of last year that I had the will to write and post. And at first I let just a few, select, people in on those posts. (One of my friends who had seen my 365 creative efforts on Flickr, another friend who had a secret blog, and a third friend I discovered had a blog on this site.) The right questions to ask was EXACTLY what my young writer friend asked - what motivated me to do it? What pushes me to be this publicly honest? She remarked that she knew her question was "simplistic." The answer is simple, but in the discipline of doing this, nothing could be less simple.

I was finally moved to do this because I was hurting inside, and the jagged pieces were no longer ignorable. I was faced with a choice of numbing myself and furthering the feeling of being broken and having jagged, broken edges poking me from the inside, wounding me further, or leaning into the pain and letting it teach me and guide me to new places. I chose the latter, but it meant acknowledging the mud I was in.

That mud included far too many dysfunctional relationships. I was not merely dissatisfied at work, I felt . . . misled and neglected to the point where neglect becomes passive abuse. I was noticing addiction everywhere in my loved ones. And I was in a romantic relationship defined by lies and denial. It hurt, but more than that, it made me sick because my engine runs on integrity and honesty and the chance to learn and contribute to making things better. I had sugar in the gas tank, which is a sadly hilarious metaphor since sugar was part of what I turned to in my brief stint of trying to deaden the ache.

It didn't work of course. And so, I did a bunch of things. I started going to a 12-step meeting for the loved ones of addicts, I got myself a therapist, I looked long and hard at a proverbial mirror and tried to come to terms with my beliefs and my needs, and I created some systems of accountability and honestly with myself, including this blog. I told my "fellow writer" friend that, "I started this blog at a time when I was facing a lot of dishonesty. Dishonesty at work, dishonesty in what is now my previous relationship. I was seeking more open doors." I truly felt like it was the element in my life that was lacking, like not getting enough sun or water. So, I decided I needed to BE the change I wanted to see. I had no idea how far I was going to have to reach down to do that, and so the other piece of this story is that when I find myself hedging around something now, I imagine my (incredibly loving, generous, extremely tiny and fierce) grandmother saying, "Now, Christie. Is that the whole truth?"

The short story is, we can be moved by the art, the ideas, the things happening around us, the people who teach us and show us new things, and I am. But I had to be in the mud to make a go of this kind of writing. As much as it feels like a bruise on my soul to be writing this post five months after losing my job with no new career in hand, I was far more wounded and far less functional and healthy on August 27th, 2011 (9 months ago, with a job!) when I first sat down to write something here. I know I am a better version of me now, I know the things that aren't ideal will change and change again. I know more about who I am, and who I can be, and what lengths I will go to to make that positive and meaningful, and I see myself in a much kinder light. I know everything is impermanent and I'm learning how to breathe through that. I know that I bruise easily, but that as thin as my skin sometimes is, the rest of me is tough and keeps going.

The long story is the tale of a blog that started with an idea about accountability, eating mindfully, exercise and health, and became a blog about the work of looking at myself, health in much broader terms, and the occasional post about zombies.

You know how people who lose 200 pounds always say, "I'll never go back to that. This feels too good." There is more behind that story. There is also the fact that there are days where it has to also be true that it doesn't feel good. Where putting the time in at the gym is the last thing they want to do. Where all they want is ice cream. But they know how working past those hard moments makes them better able to enjoy everything else, gives them more opportunities to feel good. Because when we dampen down pain, we aren't able to selectively anesthetize just pain. We shut out out good things also. That's me. It doesn't always feel good to feel all of my feelings. It's harder than going to the gym (which, let's be honest, I still don't always like doing). But it is better than being dishonest with myself, knowing that that leads directly to accepting dishonesty and dysfunction from others. And it makes me better equipped to feel and see and accept good things in my life. Sometimes leaning into the sharp points of life is like using sandpaper to uncover the natural beauty in the wood grain and shape us into something even better.

So, in that vein, I've decided to bring back another venue of creativity, structure, accountability, learning, outlet, and feedback into my life.

Welcome all to the first day of my second 365 (well, ummm, second in terms of it being version 2.1 since I did start a second 365 in 2010 and then . . . failed to finish it.) with a photo collage acknowledging that this is not just my birthday but the fourth anniversary of my residence in Boulder. I hope you enjoy it because I got up at 5am to make this happen!

Some principles

In February and March, I wrote a number of posts deeply examining my insides, my difficulty with change and belief, my growing faith in . . . something as of yet undefined, and rediscovering who I really am and who I really want to be as I continue to (sometimes painfully) grow up a little more. I wrote about values and the idea of a mission statement. I did not write the mission statement. But, a friend who has stuck by me for what is nigh unto half my life now, did.

He wrote something for a young friend, and it got me thinking about what are the things I think are important to be and understand and see and do to develop ones' self. So, this collection of ideas, (many borrowed from my friend and other places) is for my young friends, and especially for my nephew who is graduating from high school VERY soon.

 . . . And if I seem all too wise here, remember, I drew from many sources, and these are things I am still working on. All the time.

(Many thanks to Wil Doane for inspiring the thought of this post and for writing several phrases herein)

------


Learn who you are - talents, strengths, needs, blindspots.
Do what you need to do to have as clear a view of that as you can -
therapy, meditation, long walks, long talks, pushing your limits, listening to constructive criticism.
Then learn how to not be afraid to be that person, even when things get hard.
Find and maintain the friendships that appreciate you for exactly that.

If you have a friend or loved one who sees you for your best self,
and loves you through your less than stellar moments, keep them if you can.
Don't replace them simply because your life is moving on.
(My three best friends have made all the difference in my life - good moments and bad)

How you behave when you are alone is much more defining
than who you are when you are looking cool to your friends.
I often check myself by how I behave when driving alone -
do I yell at drivers, flick them off, and drive aggressively?
Find the environment you can check yourself in.
Knowing you can live up to yourself without observation is invaluable.

Set high standards for yourself,
announce your goals,
and do everything you can to live up to that bar.
Forgive yourself if you fall short; try again.

You cannot forgive anyone else if you don't first
learn how to forgive your own faults and weak moments.

Do not ask others to complete tasks or live up to standards
that you aren't able or willing to live up to.
Don't ever be "too good" to do something that needs doing or
to help when you are asked to help.

Be accountable.
Try to agree to do things that you know you can follow through on.
Try not to make promises that you have to back out of.
When you are unable to deliver on something, be honest about it, as early as possible.

Be consistent in your own beliefs to the point that you know who you are
and what values you hold dear,
But do not hold so tightly to them that you can't consider new information and questions.
Beware belief systems that construe commitment and consistency
as condemning others.

Figure out what you stand for and then stand for it all the time.
And when something challenges that, ask yourself, carefully,
if it is because your principles have changed,
or because you think you can manage stepping over the line and then stepping back.
Beware the later.

Learn to cook, even it's just for yourself.
Cooking helps you understand food better, and this in turn
creates a healthier relationship with food.
Sometimes popcorn for dinner is a necessity, though.

Be willing to let someone with one item go ahead of you at the checkout.
If you are young and healthy, do not waste your time circling for a closer spot.
Park and walk in.

Beware of people who insist on looking good
rather than being good.
Remember that goodness comes in many varieties.

Respect others and expect respect in return.
Avoid those who do not.

Always do your best work.
Be willing to accept, in return, feedback on ways to make your best better.

When at a performance or presentation, be polite.
Try not to text, start side conversations, or openly scorn those taking risks even if
what they are producing is less than you hoped for.
They put time and energy into getting up there.

Offering criticism need not solely be about being critical.
Recognize that almost everything can be improved.
Naming problems is one part of healthy progress.
Offering multiple solutions is the other part.
Figuring out how to implement them is where the real growth happens.

"Fake it until you make it," will work in some situations.
Asking honest, sincere, interested questions works in almost every situation.
Give suggestions, but voice more questions than opinions.

Be an active participant in your own learning.
Communicate often with your peers and mentors.
Strive to ask meaningful and well-formed questions.

When you find yourself connecting with people who support
and even challenge you to be the best version of yourself,
appreciate them robustly.
Let them show you who and what they are.
Remember that gaining someone's trust often means trusting yourself to them.

Choose these people carefully, but love them wholly.
Help them make connections of support with each other.

Make explicit your own principles and core values.
Find the things, people, and communities that connect you back to them.
Find the things about which you are driven and most passionate.
Make these the center of your studies, relationships, connections, network, and life.

Find something or keep doing something just for fun.

There is probably no such thing as a life without regrets.

Do your best to make the wisest choice by analyzing the information you have at any moment.

The rest is out of your control. 

Plans help.
Being able to adjust them helps more.
Learning from your regrets is best of all.

Try not to do things that you couldn't bear to tell your best friend about.

If you feel yourself rationalizing something,
giving the reasons out loud for why or why not,
this is more a sign of convincing yourself of something,
rather than convincing who you are telling it to.
Guilt is not the same as regret.
Examine if the guilt is about a regret you want to address,
or the response to someone else's expectation.

You will have failures.
Watching yourself when you are reacting to and navigating through those moments
will tell you a great deal about your strengths and weaknesses.
Try to leverage your strengths to overcome and improve on your weaknesses.

Your principles matter most when you have to act on them.
This is also when it will be hardest to do so.

Three minutes - Day one, take two

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about meditation.

Meditation is really, really hard for me. I know you all heard this all before but it is harder than making myself work out, harder than passing up cake, harder than pull-ups. and pull-ups are really hard.

The thing for me, about meditation, is that I can sit. And I can breathe . . . usually. Maybe not for long, and I may or may not actually fully empty myself out. And all of that is fine. I agree with my therapist that it's a practice, and that's it's called practice for a reason. It is whatever it can be on any given day - some days it's a constant process of hearing the voices and judgements in my head, and other days it's a chance to slow my brain down and feel something like approaching peace, some days it's a chance to process. Most days, whatever has happened "on the mat" so to speak, I feel good about having done it at all. Most days, when I open my eyes up after sitting and breathing, colors look brighter and my vision seems to be sharper. Life seems a little more in focus from how it was.

This is funny, because I've been sitting for three minutes at a time. No more, no less.

You may remember that when I wrote about ADD I talked about following a plan of 2 minutes a day, then ramping up to 5 minutes a day. But the truth is, it took two tries to get 2 minutes a day consistent for a week at a time. Two minutes seems like so little, but just as I discovered when I was taking pictures of myself every day for a year, and posting them, the list of things we do EVERY DAY without fail, never missing them, for any reason, is really, really finitely small. For me, now that I am not longer doing a 365 days photo project the list is this long:

1. Breathe
2. Drink Water
3. Brush my teeth ( I never don't do this. Because I am very, very into clean teeth)

That's the entire list, plus now, trying to sit and breathe every day. I don't eat every day. Almost every day, of course, but since doing a 365 I am very aware that thinking you do something every day is not the same as doing things every day. So, I know, for instance, that three times in the last 3 years I've been sick enough to skip eating for a day. I may, if I can succeed at sitting and breathing every day, add writing every day, or even do another 365, but for now, four things is enough to try for because I have a tendency to over-commit and even to over-commit plus then beating myself up for not being able to maintain everything.

So, here is the story of me trying to meditate every day, for just a few minutes.

Week 1. Objective: sit for two minutes every day. After a week of doing this, advance to 5 minutes a day.

The first three days were great. I got up each morning, sat for two minutes, and then had these peaceful and very contented breakfasts. I sat on my porch and noticed things. I had visions of photos I wanted to take and things I wanted to write. I felt good. Then, I started feeling . . . dragged around by unexpected feelings. Stress, judgment, expectation. I was so, so tired and found myself sleeping in. I had interviews. I felt . . . too full. So, I missed day 4 and 5. On day 6, I really needed my processing time and did my breathing on the couch, staring at my "processing ceiling." On day 7, I knew I needed another week of two minutes before "advancing."

Week 2. Objective: Sit for 2 minutes a day. Set no other goals regarding the practice of sitting and breathing.

Day 1 - I should read that book that Susan gave me. Actually, she loaned you two books. Maybe you should swim this week. And, Gabrielle loaned you a book too. Does she still have a copy of "All Families are psychotic?" Is this helping you with your family? Maybe, maybe not. If nothing else, then at least it makes you feel better at dealing with you. Shut up, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!
Day 2 - Breathe in. Breath out. Breathe in. Breathe out. That's all.

Day 3 - One in; one out. One, two, in; One, two, out. One, two, three, in; one, two, three, out. So, on and so forth.

Day 4 - I should make coffee this morning. Shut up brain. Breathe. Seriously, you breathe without thinking. why can't you JUST do this?

Day 5 - I wonder if there's any research about how asthmatics benefit from meditation and breathing practice? I need to blow my nose. This allergy season blows. 

Day 6 - crap. I almost forgot to do this! And then . . . emptiness. And relief.

Day 7 - I don't want to. But I refuse to mess this up. Try not to fall asleep!
Week 3. Objective: Sit for 3 minutes a day. Set no other goals regarding the practice of sitting and breathing.
Day 1: Let's try sitting in the afternoon = epic fail. My mind was EVERYWHERE at once, and nowhere fully, and importantly, nowhere near settled on sitting peacefully.

Day 2: Sitting in my car before an interview. Set a timer and used this technique from the article (which I used to use in high school and college):

If (following the breath) seems hard at first, you can substitute the method of counting your breath. As you breathe in, count 1 in your mind, and as you breathe out, count 1. Breathe in, count 2. Breathe out, count 2. Continue through 10, then return to 1 again. This counting is like a string which attaches your mindfulness to your breath. This exercise is the beginning point in the process of becoming continuously conscious of your breath. Without mindfulness, however, you will quickly lose count. When the count is lost, simply return to 1 and keep trying until you can keep the count correctly.
The timer went off before I realized it. It went wayyyyyy fast.

Day 3: whoooooooooooops! Totally forgot.

Day 4: see above

Day 5: Breathe in. Breath out. Breathe in. Breathe out. That's all.

Day 6: What if I don't get this job? What should I make for dinner? Did I eat enough protein today? It's hard to breathe through my nose right now. My knee hurts. Beer sounds good. I should substitute a carb at dinner for a beer. Should I start getting serious about part time jobs for the summer? How much time will that take away from my job hunt? Does that just prolong this issue rather than solving it? 
Day 7: whooooops! Totally forgot.

Thus, today is 3 minutes, day 1.2 - insert here me laughing at myself.

But gently.

As the article says, "If you're anything like me, meditation will help you realize just how far, and how fast, your mind can wander from what you're supposed to be doing at the moment. In an age of multitasking, hyper-scheduling, and instant internet distraction, that alone can be a huge help."The problem for me, is clearly that my mind wants to run right up against the glass separating me from the the big giant beastly things we look at safely, when they are in cages. And then it wants to run back as quickly as it came. And on the path back, it encounters other things. Things that are conveniently distracting like what to eat, drink, and read.

So, when I picked up "When things Fall Apart" by Pema Chodron, I knew I was onto something when she said,"Fear is a universal experience. Even the smallest insect feels it. We wade into the tidal pools and put our finger near the soft, open bodies of the sea anemones and they close up. Everything spontaneously does that. It's not a terrible thing that we feel fear when faced with the unknown. It is part of being alive, something we all share. We react against the possibility of loneliness, of death, of not having anything to hold onto. Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth. If we commit ourselves to staying right where we are, then our experience becomes very vivid. Things become very clear when we have nowhere to escape."

It's hard to pass by a mirror and not notice that it's you in there.

I am afraid. And fear is something I don't face very often because there is little I fear. I often proceed to do things that others think are hard without fear. It's not that I don't feel normal anxiety, it's that I don't have a lot of fears. I'm not afraid of elevators, heights, jumping from them, sparring big men, tunnels, moving to new places, or  meeting new people. Other people ask me to deal with their rodent and bug issues. I have not a second thought about blood or needles, and I have watched my own surgeries. I'm allergic to pain meds, so when I do have surgeries I deal with pain on my own. The list of things I'm afraid of is almost as short as the list of things I do daily without fail:

1. I am afraid of the dark. It's silly.
2. I am not exactly afraid of  but have some strong irrational reactions to anyone pushing on or pinning my neck.
3. I have some weird and not always logical concerns about meat and diseases. This is most often seen in how I shudder and wash my hands eight times after handling chicken. Bllleeeechhhh.
4. I secretly worry that all of this time I've spent thinking about raising kids won't translate into me actually being a good parent.

I've had this list for some time. I've operated under the idea that I walk through the world, mostly unafraid so long as I don't have to deal with chicken in the dark while someone is pointing out all of the flaws in my fictitious-as-of-yet parenting.

But, as it turns out, our friend Pema has me thinking. I recently told someone that we can't every know what someone thinks, how their mind actually computes something, or what we feel. As a psychologist I was trained deeply to understand that all we can see, all we can measure, is behavior. And my behavior suggest I am attracted to other unnamed things that frighten me, but that I am, in fact, scared.

And so my natural instinct is to "forget" to meditate, forget to sit with that discomfort, or to sit, and then instantly turn the spot light on other things (like beer, and books, and peanut butter).

My therapist said "don't you think it's about time that you stopped carrying all of that judgment around with you?"

And my person said, "maybe you need to get comfortable with being able to make decision without knowing all of the variables."

These are all ways of saying, what Pema says which is, "What we're talking about is getting to know fear,  becoming familiar with fear, looking it right in the eye - no, not as a way to solve problems, but as a complete undoing of old ways of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and thinking." 

I notice that I am changing. I sleep differently. I approach things differently. And though I can often be hear lamenting, "I have no way to plan what three months from now looks like, " I can also be heard saying that with reverence and wonder. I eat differently. I sometimes rationalize what I have done, accepted, or asked for help on; but I am also doing it without nearly as much pain as I previously experienced.

So, I will keep sitting. And seeing how up-close-and-personal I can get with my fears. you know, the ones I'm still getting acquainted with. when I know what they are, an update on that list will be forthcoming. (Duhn duhn duhhhnnnn) It may take me forever and a day to sit for 5 minutes a day, but I'm quite sure that however and whenever I get there I will know my insides better, and see the outside not just more sharply, as I do now after just 2 or 3 minutes, but with much less fear and judgment and much more vividness.

Tales from an un-house-wife

My mom is fond of spinning a web of hypothetical plans for the magical day when she finds herself independently wealthy. She says she would volunteer somewhere very meaningful, hire a trainer and house cleaner, and go to the spa every week.

These all sound like good plans.

But, I now have my first ever experience of not running from one place to the next, or one job to the next, and the idea of not working is no longer novel to me. I do volunteer, and it is somewhere very meaningful. I do work out. I don't go to the spa, but I do give myself a pedicure every two weeks - not just because it is more economical to do it myself but because I actually have time for such things now. I will probably never hire anyone to do my cleaning for me. I cleaned houses to pay for college (among many other jobs I took on during that time to pay tuition) and it's hard for me to be part of that dynamic, as a result. Also, let's be honest - I get a lot of satisfaction out of cleaning things. (Ok, maybe not windows. Or tile. Of any kind. Or stoves. So, let's say I would hire someone to clean those things, and those things only, maybe 3 or 4 times a year)

It seems like a cushy lifestyle, right? To sit outside and read, or write, to have a cool dog to hang out with and to take hikes, to have the luxury to cook, and keep your house clean, and meet friends for lunch in the middle of the day. And minus the constant applying, and the stress about where my life is going, and how far off course I am from my long term plans, this is my life right now (add borrowed dog to very cool hiking trails, mix well, smile).

But, let's just say it was possible to subtract out the stress, and the constant mill of applying and fretting about getting a job (I can manage this stress subtraction operation for short periods - maybe even for 10-12 hours on a really nice Saturday) - not working carries with it other liabilities. For one, I'm struggling with focus and concentration because of the special blend of coming by ADD naturally, stress, and open-ended-ness of this venture. For another, I'm becoming a secret introvert. I have the utmost respect for introversion, and I need my alone time to process and analyze - that has always been true even when I haven't been as good at recognizing it. But now, I'm hearing my extroverted self say, "I don't want to go to ______ if it's going to be really loud and full of people," and putting a lot more energy into having one social interaction at a time. None of this is bad, per se, except that the last time I found myself in this mode it was because I was profoundly lonely and depressed and felt stranded in the place I was in. So, I'm watching this carefully to make sure that I'm not secretly really un-ok. In practical, logistical terms it means that when I find myself in this mode, personal interaction requires a little more bandwidth for me. So, interviews are becoming more taxing. It's easy for me to go, to talk, to be open and engaging and make the connection, but it was very apparent this week that that took a toll on my reserves. Or rather, it wasn't apparent, and that's why I passed out on my couch with my clothes on afterwards . . . and now I am very aware of it.

But all of this pales in comparison to what may be two irrational fears I have been struck by lately. I have, over the last couple of weeks, been very anxious about getting a job and then not being able to do it well. This is silly, if I look at it logically, because the truth is, I was very good at my last job. And, perhaps even more importantly (and even less humbly if that is possible) I am very good at learning new tasks quickly, and deeply, and then very quickly creating systems and processes to manage them and do them with aplomb and efficiency, and shortly thereafter working to connect my tasks and efforts and communication functionally to any other employees, departments, projects, so that I have thorough knowledge of how what I am doing affects other operations. I know my strengths (high standards and accountability, communication, training, work ethic, organization) and my weaknesses (typos, over-committing, seeming to apply unreasonably high standards to others, getting very attached to processes). And I'm passionate about doing important things, doing them well, and doing them for the right reasons. So, when I'm spending all of this alone-time introspecting, I can usually logically back away from this fallacy. I can talk myself off that ledge pretty well, though finding myself on it is unsettling.

More poignant than worrying (without cause, I suspect) that I will get a job and flop, is the right-now problem of having not worked for nearly 4 months and feeling very dull around the edges. I find myself, for the first time in my life, sometimes lacking things to say. (For anyone who knows me, please note this may be the ONLY time where I have a dearth of thoughts and words to share.) I say a lot here, but don't want to repeat myself when talking out loud. And most of the rest of my life seems to exist outside of the the real world. I feel like I've been quarantined, or in a coma, and am missing out on what the rest of the world does when it goes about its business. Its funny, because when I was working, I had placed intense focus on making sure that work didn't consume me. I actively sought out a life outside of work - running, working out, friends, singing, writing, and photography. I desperately wanted to have things that fulfilled me outside of work, and that mattered to me in ways that couldn't be measured by hours worked, a paycheck, mid-year evaluation, profitability metrics. But now, my whole life is not working, and I feel I have gone MIA from the population of people who DO THINGS that matter.  I mean, who cares how much I walked or meditated this week? Or the new recipe I found and then immediately altered? Or the fact that I had deep thoughts about how to rearrange the office, and my bedroom? Right - even I don't find those things that interesting and I'm the one contemplating them.

I sometimes open my mouth to say something about mopping my floor, fixing my dishwasher (which, if I'm being honest, I was a little proud that I could do), lightbulbs in my house, and why I used yellow tomatoes in a recipe instead of red, and there's a warning siren that goes off that screams, "Don't be a 1950's housewife!!" I am nobody's wife, of course, but damn, it would be easy to drink beer at noon, watch Grey's Anatomy, and let the constellations of my brain cells form around grocery sales, how to use my slow cooker and when to use bleach as a household cleaner.

My mom admitted to me that when she graduated high school her aspiration was to be a wife and mother. I have respect for this, as she did both well, and as it was a very different time for families, for women, and for how those choices got made. But, as a dear friend (who, I would add, achieved waiting patiently for the very thing she was internally very impatient to get) who recently had her first child said to me, "I love this baby soooo much AND I'm not a stay at home mom." It wasn't, I love my child BUT. It was both things, joined conditionally by AND. I am not a mother, nor wife, but I can say this - I love my new found peace and contentment and the rightness with myself and clear vision of what I want and how I think I can contribute. I love it so much, AND even if I were able, it would not be ok with me to stay home without a greater purpose for too much longer than I already have.

I want to have stories, I want to do difficult things, I want to fail and get better at something, I want to try and fit a dentist appointment into a busy week of meetings, I want to point to results at the end of the year or quarter or whatever and know what part I had in them, I want to make a to do list of tasks that relate to tasks I can't accomplish in this house with a pot, pan, cutting board, or mop. I even want to complain about traffic or a commute or a roadblock to achieving something in my office because this would mean I was back in the world doing things, earning my happy hour in Friday, thinking about how to get better at something, how to do more, how to be of use.

I never wanted to stay home. In my mind, if I was ever going to stay home it would be for my child, and it would have a pre-determined end point, a light at the end of the tunnel. I feel now like I am at the end of the tunnel, and waiting expectantly for that light to come on.

It's time for me to find my way out of this labyrinth and see "what's next" but I'm not sure this gets to happen on my schedule. So, I'm trying to do the things that work to keep me feeling connected to the rest of the world, and trying to dream up projects and pursuits that keep me from getting too boring to stand even myself. This is where it would be GREAT NEWS to be independently wealthy because then I'd have the resources to take on whatever seemed most engaging to me - skydiving, digital photo editing, class on how to make sushi, cello lessons, done, done, check, check. But I've also found, in past lives, that working through and past limitations can sometimes unearth previously unrealized creativity. (The first time I consciously experienced this was when I wanted to have my lab over for dinner and found out that one member was vegetarian and allergic to: onions, garlic, dairy, eggs, and citrus. At first I thought, "what in the WORLD could I make that isn't completely bland without any of those ingredients?" And then I came up with a killer menu. ) So, I'm trying to see this as a stellar opportunity to be creative about how I want to be creative - read more about meditation, take some free yoga, train for a 5k that I might never race, draw sketches of how I could rearrange and redecorate my house, take free online software tutorials, think about what I would give a TED talk on, document gluten free recipes, write a zombie story, are all on the list of potential projects. Interesting other suggestions, please feel free to apply as comments to this post. :)

And let us all bow our heads an pray that I do not, someday, write a post about mopping my floors.