The Aron Ralston Problem

So, somewhere along the way, about once a year, I encounter the same question. Trainings, conferences, magnets that  Whole Foods distributes, speakers at the yearly event for the the program I volunteer with . . . somewhere along the way, year after year, the following question is posed: What would you do if you could not fail?

Most recently, I encountered this question in a TED talk. (Yes, yessss, I post links to way too many TED talks . . . It keeps me feeling like I'm part of a learning community but somehow magically from my couch. There are worse addictions . . . )

What would I do if I knew I couldn't fail?

I'd write. I'd work for NASA mission control (A secret dream I'm just admitting now). I'd learn how to blow glass (no jokes, please) and I'd make a living by some combination of these disparate but thrilling skills. I'd jump out of a plane and dance and sing and take photographs and hike and climb and swim races. I would master the making of chocolate mousse.

I think that there's a lot of things we all would do if we knew we couldn't fail - flying and making really complicated stuff comes to mind. The question I've been wondering about is: what would we do if we HAD to? What would we do if our survival depended on it? What would we do even if success was unlikely because doing it was so important, or not doing it was reckless and wrong?

Asking ourselves what we would do if we didn't fear or face limitations is a worthy question. It helps us identify the limitations we assume, the weights we agree to when we rule things out. In turn, that leads us to consider if the limitations outweigh the passion we have, or if they are even real guard rails or just imagined ones. It helps us honestly own what we desire to dedicate ourselves to. It makes us speak what most makes our hearts sing.

So, I don't mean to sound jaded or removed from the idea of "what could we all achieve and contribute if we didn't have to pay bills and be grown ups." I watched Sesame Street and listened to "Free to Be" just as much as the next kiddo. I think dreams and believing in them are good and not to be squashed.

But, in the world where all of our dreams and plans aren't as we imagined them, sometimes it pays to ask, "What would I do even if there was no assured pay off?"

I refer to this as the Aron Ralston Problem.

Often, when people refer to Ralston, it's him having been trapped in the Blue John Canyon in Moab for 127 hours before freeing himself by severing his arm with a multi-tool. I watched, transfixed, as he gave interviews in 2003 and 2004. I read the book in 2005. I saw the movie in 2011. So, I'm a bit of a Ralston nerd, as it were. It's not the gore or the outdoorsy-ness. (Though, those things are cool, to be sure.) For me, I'm captivated by how he worked through things, processed, and figured out his options as the full weight of what he was dealing with settled on him. I mean that literally as well as figuratively since he was trapped by an 800lb boulder that suddenly moved as he was descending into a slot canyon and settled directly on his arm, pinning him between the boulder and the wall. He had planned to bike in the morning and hike in the afternoon, so he had only a day-trip's worth of water and food with him. What occurred to him first was that he needed to ration that, and that the water would be the bigger of the two problems. Having not been clear on his hiking plans with anyone, he realized next that even if anyone started looking for him, they would be looking too late, and not know where to search. I'm amazed that he survived long enough to have the choice to amputate because if it had been me I might have panicked and done things to make a terrible situation worse. Even if I hadn't, would I have been wise and focused enough to ration my food and water, recycle my own urine, use the rope and climbing equipment I had to allow my legs to rest and myself to sleep, and kept warm for five days? Of course we all want to say yes, but in reality, would I have been able to come up with all of those strategies while staring at the boulder trapping me and possibly causing my death? I don't know.

Somewhere on day two or three, Aron considered amputation but he also found it was very hard to use the knife/multi-tool he had to . . . uhhhh . .. get in there. He hadn't packed for technical climbing or camping so he had a fairly simple and dull multi-tool. Later  he realized that although the boulder trapped his arm, it also provided the leverage he could use to break his bones. This meant he could cut through flesh and nerves (soft-tissue), but not have to cut through anything dense and hard. The boulder that could have ended his life became the very means to save himself. That boulder, an incredible will to live, and a dull multi-tool.

And one other thing: the ability to do what was in front of him, without any certainty that it would work. 

What I always say when I reference Ralston is this: it's not that cutting off his arm meant he would survive. What's incredible is that by amputating his arm MAYBE he would live long enough to find water and people. He cut off his arm knowing there was NOT enough time to make it back to his car before he bled out and only hoping that he would find water and help soon enough.

Ralston knew he didn't have the water, food, or strength to last another night at the bottom of that canyon. If he had stayed he would have certainly died. But he made a choice that most of us cannot fathom without any assurance that it would mean that he would live. That's what blows my mind.

It's perhaps difficult to imagine our lives without limitations of time, money, training, responsibility. That's what makes the question of what would we do if we knew we couldn't fail an interesting mental exercise. I think it is harder still to imagine ourselves facing doing something where the probability of success is against us. What would be so important that we would do it anyway? Would we have the will to do something really hard, really painful, really unimaginably against our instinct if we knew it might-not-probably-would-not work?

When we watch Ralston interviews, or read about him, or (for some, best of all) watch James Franco on 127 hours, what we wonder, what I wonder, is Could I do what he did if I had to?

Stick a pin in that for a minute and let me ask this instead: how many things do we do with no persuasive evidence that it will work?

This isn't even me writing more about faith or belief. It's about trusting ourselves to go out and do things in the world (which, ok, for many people is wrapped integrally around faith and trust. Yes.) In college philosophy we examined the idea that we actually don't KNOW that the sun will rise tomorrow. It has risen every day SO FAR. But even that overwhelming evidence doesn't guarantee that there wouldn't be an event that could stop the sun from rising tomorrow. We believe it will because it's easier to go on the evidence of what has happened and because so much depends on it. But what about the things we do where we don't have overwhelming personal data to shore up our actions or beliefs?

I know several people who have gone skydiving, but one in particular who did it BECAUSE she was afraid of heights and wanted to push the envelope . . . right out the door of the plane, as it were. Who are these people who step out the doors of planes?! As human beings, knowing the statistics of sky-diving safety and safe jumps has got to be intellectually puny compared to the will to actually JUMP when terror has overtaken rational thought. But people do it.

All evidence from my life of . . . ahem . . . more than 30 years suggested that getting on a bike was a bad idea. Let's really think about biking for a sec: when I look at it rationally, ohmigoodness. It's aluminium tubing connected to two wheels that I'm supposed to balance on while speeding through the open air with moving traffic and/or other bikes around me? Yeah, that seems like a good idea! Moreover, I'd had bad experiences on bikes. Why would I ever get on a bike and ride dirt and single-track trails. And yet, that's just what I'm doing . . . for several hours a week. Also in the realm of sports, this may not be news to any of you, but most people don't like getting hit in the face. But I BEGGED my Sensei to help me come up with an individualized plan to get me from the beginning belt curriculum  in American Freestyle karate to the intermediate curriculum and to prepare me for sparring. I knew at the time there were no other women sparring in the dojo and that this would mean getting hit by men who were stronger, faster, and more advanced than me. Life-evidence would suggest that getting hit isn't fun, but I found some way to ignore that and suited up to get kicked and punched. Um, a lot.

We do other things, every day, that seem so hard if we really think about them. Why would we get up in front of a room of people and give a presentation? What imperative could be so strong as to motivate us to move past our natural fear of being vulnerable to do that? Or perform on stage? Why would we ask that person out knowing that there's just as good a chance that they'll say no as yes? Why would we move away from the people we know and love and make a new life somewhere else? As adults, I can tell you, this is very hard emotional work and takes weeks and months to settle out to where we can see if we landed in the right place with the right people. I did this four years ago, and a friend recently described her experience of trying to re-settle herself and meet people as being, "tired out by the small steady bits of courage it requires . . . " That was my experience for months. I mean, really? Why would we do these things?

And yet, we do. We run marathons and cliff dive and go to new countries. We get pregnant and labor for over 24 hours, we have major surgeries and move far away and give giant presentations and suit up to jump out of planes or get beat up by someone bigger than us. We do things that, out of context, seem INSANE.

I discussed with my therapist yesterday a time, at age 17, where I seriously sought ways to leave home. I was persuaded otherwise, and there was a brief reprieve, but I was prepared, that night, to pack a suitcase and go live elsewhere given some things that were just untenable at that point. Less than a year later I found myself completely responsible for the cost of my college education. At 18, I didn't know how to come up with $7-$10,000 of "family contribution" to college tuition. I'm not sure that 18 year olds are supposed to know how to do this. And each year I would tell the staff I worked with that I couldn't guarantee that I would manage to do it again, and that if they wanted to be safe, they should hire to replace me. And I meant it. I never knew, for sure, where all of that money was going to come from every year. But every year I did it, and thusly I graduated (without pause) in four years having constructed a complicated and rigorous concentration of studies (read: self-designed major), a network of amazing friends, colleagues, and mentors, and knitting together ten or twelve different things I did for money in order to afford life and tuition for that time.

So, maybe the question isn't, "could we do the thing which seems really scary and impossible if we HAD to?" but instead, "how do we know what we can do until we do it?"

I think the answer is, we don't. We can't imagine amputating our own arm, cutting through nerve with what amounts to a pocket knife (that we would struggle to use to trim a stray thread on our shirt), breaking our own bones, and hiking out of a canyon with no reason to believe that we would find help in time. But we also probably can't imagine ourselves doing a lot of things we end up doing until we find ourselves on the precipice of doing them. Although hindsight is 20/20, things don't always make sense looking up ahead too far. Focus in too closely and a pebble can look like a boulder. Step back and it is a minor speck on the road. We can't see the whole picture if all we're focusing on is the point at which we cut through our own flesh and endure pain. We can't see all the things that brought us to that moment, we can't appreciate being between a rock and a hard place and using those surfaces to squeeze ourselves out into what awaits us next.

So, I'll say it again - how do we know what we can do until we do it? In this way, the question of "what would we do if we knew we could not fail" takes on the same flavor. Both kinds of questions lead us to admit that we are more powerful than we acknowledge when we're just going day to do brushing our teeth and making coffee and deciding between chicken or turkey. Much more powerful.

Sometimes at those moments, it's important to acknowledge that failure is possible, and then move past that moment. Ralston describes knowing that he would die someday, maybe even (probably even) THAT day, but choosing that he wouldn't die standing in his grave in that canyon. He wanted, at least, to surmount that. He wanted, at least, to have done what he could to survive past that boulder or be somewhere where his body could be found. He acknowledged that he might not make it to medical attention, and then moved past it and did it anyways. And, when I'm headed down a really big hill on the bike I'm typically saying, out loud (Like a crazy idiot), "I might fall. That's ok. I've fallen before. Ok, this is really steep. I'm doing it. Here comes that tricky turn." Ahhhhhhh.

Game face ON!

Until I got to the bottom of that hill without falling, I couldn't imagine doing it. So, if I based the decision to move forward on what I could see, what had already happened, what I knew, past performance (which involved falling down that hill, getting up and then falling down again) the evidence suggested I should be thinking, NO WAY JOSE! But walking my bike down that hill without trying was unacceptable to me. What that left was accepting that I might fall. That I probably will fall on that hill again (it's a toughy) but that heading down it is better than accepting defeat. Game face on is better than pulling up the covers, trapped by the proverbial boulder.

All of this is to say, it is hard to keep applying with no evidence so far that it is going somewhere. My person said recently that this was most definitely an exercise in faith, which is interesting since he is probably a more spiritual person than I am and I am probably the more religious of us two. It requires faith, yes, but also the understanding while I don't have any data that my job search is leading somewhere, not doing it assures a continuation of things I'm not fond of. If it means thinking about how to take on a part or full time job that is less than stellar (probably admin. Siiiigh) in the next month or so and then running around to babysit, tutor, and do other part time work to "make up the difference" that is what it means. But. Butbutbut at 17 and 18 I had no idea how to support myself and pay an adult amount of tuition each year. And I did that. At 24 I did't know how to spar, and I let big men hit me in the face as a way to learn. At 28 I had no earthly clue what I would do as I was leaving grad school, but within a week of the semester being over, I had a job. Ralston describes the "miracle" of beginning to lose strength from the blood loss and no longer having adrenaline pulling him down the path. Of reaching the point where he'd have to climb up and out and just then encountering the rescue helicopter. But when he hacked off his limb, there was no way to know that would happen that way.

Miracles for me tend to be smaller events, and not always as seamless in timing as I might like. I am a bit of an obsessive project manager, after all, and I do like to line things up perfectly. I can't wait for a helicopter to swoop in without doing the work to get on the path, is what I'm saying. It might not happen as I wish it would, but taking a paycheck-job, or making plans other than the perfect next thing is a chance to remind myself that I have done hard things before. That I have made it down scary and steep roads and will again. I'm really not expecting a last-minute movie ending or to be saved, nor for things to be as dramatic as all that, just to keep moving forward and look back some day and say, "I had no idea I could do that . . . until I did."

Birthday List

Nearly a month ago, I noted that I needed a job before my birthday. Well (shuffle, shuffle) . . . ummmm . . . ahhhh . . . errr. Yeaaaaahhhhh.

In a week, it's. My. BIRTHDAY.

I've been joking around about this being the one week countdown to my midlife crisis (yes, yes, I know most people wait until their 40's to do this, but I figure a running start is warranted. I also think, as long as I'm freaking out, I should multi-task my anxiety and just package this in. And, a good friend pointed out to me today that Dante had his mid-life crisis at 35, so, there's precedent!) but I'll admit this is dfficult for me.

My birthday is also the anniversary of my becoming a Colorado resident, and, for anyone who has read this blog, you know that the story of how I came to live here isn't really a good one. I remember that first birthday here as a blur of unloading boxes and furniture after having been driving for close to a week (it feels like most of that week was spent in Nebraska. Ugh). Somewhere in there, there was a bad movie, and a broken promise. So, birthdays here in Colorado are always seem to come part and parcel with feeling a little tender and tentative.

And this year, my birthday also feels like it is bound up with other drama. My need to figure out my living situation. This arbitrary deadline I set for myself to get a job. The end of the month . . . yayyyyy, more bills due. And, well, 35 doesn't feel like a small number. I want to not have hang ups about that, and to be enlightened and to feel that age has made me better, but without a clear picture of where I'm headed, looking back and saying, "all of that got me here" doesn't work as well. Meh.

For many weeks, as this date approached, I had the ostrich reaction and my instinct was to stick my head in the sand and IGNORE. NEGLECT. And, if things got really bad, maybe uproot from the proverbial sand, RUN AWAY.

But the truth is, I will turn 35, and be unemployed, and wake up with these same unsettled questions whether or not I acknowledge this birthday. So, I'd better get on with it and acknowledge the impending arrival of my mid-life crisis. And as long as I'm acknowledging it, I should go ahead and celebrate. Sitting here, right at this moment, I'm not sure what there is to celebrate to be painfully honest. But I have always adored birthdays (yours, mine, birthdays are just great) so I'm trying to fall back on that.

Of course, what everyone has asked me is, What do you want for your birthday? I have some pretty phenomenal people in my life, both near and far. Some of them have settled this questions by telling me what they are doing to celebrate my day, and others have asked me. One of my smartest, funniest friends put it this way, "what do you want for your birthday aside from word peace and an awesome job?"

Actually, if those things could be gift wrapped, that would be just awesomesauce. Way to hit that nail on the head, RR!

I don't think Amazon has a category for those, so I've put some thought into what else I'd enjoy. My mom askes me to make two lists, each year. A Christmas list, and a Birthday list. I try really hard to make the first no longer than 10 items, and to ask for things that aren't things (Can you make lasagna? Can we go get pedicures?) and the later no longer than 5 things. This year, something about free-falling and not having my feet on any kind of solid ground means I feel free to ask for just EVERYTHING I want. Here goes:

• I would like to excise the parts of my head and heart that tell me, with searing repetition, that I have become "less than" in my weeks of unemployment.

• I want to be able to do the bound yoga poses without fear of losing my balance.
• I want someone to create head bands that don't slide off the back of my giant head

• I'd like for dresses that accommodate girls with GIRLS to be made more flattering.

• I want to put honey in my yogurt without the honey bottle getting all sticky.

• I want my friend to be released from prison and exonerated. I'm grateful that he still has a loving heart, and kindness, but I want him out sooner rather than later to keep it that way. 

• I want children to be wanted and planned. And loved beyond all belief. All of them. 

• I want all of my friends who love each other and are willing to risk everything to be allowed to get married and have those marriages be recognized by my government.
• I want for our country to stop thinking that separate but equal works. Because it never does.
• I want for the U.S. voters and leaders to remember that in a free society you need a reason to make something ILlegal, not a reason to make something legal. And, bee-tee-dub, "the bible" isn't a good thing to point to when it comes to our laws since we eat shrimp and don't sell our daughters.

• I want women to not feel so limited and judged that they treat life as a zero sum game, and learn, all too well, to tear each other down. 

• I want men to not feel so pigeon-holed and pressured that they feel competition and destructiveness are expected. Required even.
• I want a cure for cancer.
• I want to hear my dad read Brer Rabbit stories, with the killer accents and voices, one more time.
• I want more people to go to therapy prophylactically.
• I want more people to hold themselves accountable for their own issues, wounds, and baggage. I need people to be accountable for how their actions affect others.
• I need for us to realize how broken our education system is. How wrong it is that we will spend money to incarcerate, but not to educate. How forced into lock-step my teacher friends feel. How unhappy parents and students are. How wrong our curriculum is and how sticking with it is throwing good money after bad. And, why, oh why, do we think it is ok for us to require college in order to aim higher than Walmart in the job market, but then expect to pay them with no regard to the cost of that education . . .which keeps going up.
• I want people to be kind to each other. And if that's too much to ask, can we at least not be engaged in (and horrendously thrilled by)  being cruel to one another?
• I want things to stop being at this constant fever-pitch of black/white, right/wrong, good/evil where somehow we picket funerals, call women "sluts" on national broadcasts, and say that we wish certain groups of people would die out. (Can you believe it was a pastor who said this?! It actually made me physically ill.)
• I want a way to have all of my closest people at one dinner party - my Colorado people, my Florida, Maine, OK, Illinois, NY, Boston, and Jersey people. And my brother in New Haven for good measure. Then I want, as I once did with Heather, to come up with a curriculum so that people understand each other better, as David and Rob and I have, talked about how to actually do good for people in the world. Then, I'd put Wil in charge of implementation. The rest of us would be his minions. I'm sure I'd be hired on as a personal masseuse. (And if that comes with health insurance, that solves my job problem. La!)
• For just ONE day (it would have to be limited for reasons of will power) I want Dunkin Donuts to be down the street from me so I can spend $3 or less on really good coffee and a donut.
• I want more choices available for streaming on Netflix. Don't you?
• I want popcorn to be magically carb free. Especially when I eat it at 11pm

Barring all of that, because, really, I think it will be hard to get Dunkin Donuts to set up shop here on time, and because none of us know what to do about the crazy people who take it so lightly to propose concentration camps for gay people, I'll take some beer, a burger, and a nice quiet birthday with a few of the people who I think of as teachers and friends and loved ones. But, you know, if you happen on some carb-free popcorn that tastes as good as the stuff I make at home . . . send it on over.

Expectation

Suffering is the result of attachment.

This is something my therapist reminds me of a lot, and he freely attributes it to the writings of Buddhism. He's an equal opportunity user of religious tenants in our session and has mentioned, among other things: Buddhism, Christianity, and Judaism. (It's kind of nice to sit on a couch that welcomes science and logic, feelings and things that are less than rational, and world religion in equal measure.)

What he's really saying though is, when you get attached to something, you place expectation on it. You make plans based on the idea of counting on something that will hold those plans up. And since each thing you build on top of this foundation is contingent upon the thing before it, and since the foundation may or may not live up to the expectation, if any of this goes against the grain of the wood you're laying on this foundation or if the foundation itself wobbles . . .  the expectations come crashing down. Unmet. And then what you have on your hands is a mess to clean up, and something akin to a bruise on your ego with a healthy dose of disappointment. Frustration, kicking yourself, sadness for what could have been but wasn't. Suffering.

Expectation leads to suffering.

And I am the queen of expectation. Mostly, I hold myself to painfully high standards, which is another way of saying I create expectation and the accompanying suffering for myself. I owe a lot of what I've accomplished to setting the bar high, and then going above and beyond to get there, but along the way I also have signed up for more than my fair share of being hard on myself. In fact, just today I was telling a story that I often tell when I'm remembering how hard work-life balance was for me in my old job (or alternatively if I'm looking to make fun of myself) about a time when I was trying to support an entire branch's worth of centers by my lonesome and working well over 80 hours a week. It meant eating a lot of Subway and being on the road from 7 am until often well past 8 or 9pm. It meant that this chic, the one who hates speaking out loud (to anyone if I can help it) before 8 or 9am, and has low blood sugar (especially in the mornings) was trying to work out at 5am and then on the road for 10-14 hours a day. I was saying how I came home on a Wednesday at 10pm and realized my choices were to stay up until past 1am doing laundry or get up at 4am to do laundry.  Orrrrrr secret door number three: iron and re-wear my pants and drive 4 blocks to Walgreens and buy new underwear. I took secret door number three but as I was driving the 4 blocks there and back I was mentally consumed by the feeling I was (and I quote) failing life.

That's right: not working too much, or sacrificing for my team and my job, or going above and beyond for the clients and centers I supported. But failing basic life 101. It's funny, but it isn't. 20/20 hindsight took so long to sink in that it was literally more than a year before I looked back on that night (which I have vivid memories of) and realized that if there was any failure it was in the planning that left me as the only consultant in a territory covering three states, or on the part of the expectations set by my employer.

This is related to, but not the same as my musings on failure. Abstractly, I understand the uses of failure. The importance of failure. Even the necessity of failure. But I see it in terms of how successful people (Ali, Steve Jobs, JK Rowling, and Einstein come to mind) carved a path, picked themselves up, and learned what not to do. Even my own failures are best viewed from a safe distance. The time I didn't get cast in a show, but discovered my passion for stage managing as a result, the time I failed a class at a college that didn't have grades (oh, yeah. It takes someone really spesh like me to fail even in the absence of grades), the time I moved across the country for my fiance only to find myself alone knowing no one at the worst, most emotionally raw moment I've ever experienced. Sitting where I sit now, 20 years, 14 years, 4 years after those hard, weak, disappointing moments and outcomes I see how those hardships, those mistakes, those speed bumps opened my eyes, made me grow, bent me in a new or even better direction. From this safe perspective, I can be grateful for my expectations not being met, for those failures, and I can even see how they lead to successes.

From here. But never ever from the moment. Really. Never.

A lot of people SAY they're their own worst critic. But for me in the moment of defeat, I become a poor, abused child. I don't just beat myself up, I beat myself up, followed by kicking myself while I'm down (from the beating), then, while I'm lower than low (from the beating followed by kicking) I bring on the flogging and torture, and then I ask my wounded, limping, inner self to write "I am a terrible, miserable failure. I am not worthy" on the proverbial blackboard 100 times. Then I ask that poor child to write an essay about what she's learned from all of this  ( . . . hence this blog).

It's ironic, because I'm told I'm a good person to have on hand when things aren't working out as planned. I'm compassionate and I often even say things that aren't just supportive, but are smart and understanding. I get it, I let people feel their feelings, but then I also help them see the road ahead. this is what I'm told. So . . . why can't I tell myself these things?

Well, hey, this is what therapy is for, and so we've come full circle to where I started - my therapist says attachment leads to suffering. There's a multifaceted idea he and I are working on . . . ways to notice how much I judge myself, ways to work on it without setting the expectation of banishing it too high . . . leading to more judgement and suffering. Ways to pick myself up when I do find myself rolling on the ground taking kicks.

But, I've had a lot of speed bumps this year. If I'm honest, my expectation was that I would have a job long before now. That my feet would be back on the road of figuring out how I want things to align in my life, and what I'm going to be putting my passion and energy and drive and killer work-ethic towards. I truly never expected to be just a few days away from turning 35 still wondering what opportunities I might have, and how the pieces would fit together.

I've realized lately that standards are one thing, and judgement, expectation, and self-flogging are completely another. I was in the process of discussing a job that, frankly, had more liabilities than assets. It very likely would have held me in place, for not enough money or challenge, while making it nigh to impossible to job hunt for anything else. We mutually reached the conclusion that when she moves her business forward, she will be ready for my higher skill set, but until then, she needs to hire to fill the need she has now. It was perfectly reasonable, and more than that, self-preservational (even, gasp, hopeful and optimistic of me) for me to reach the conclusions that this job didn't meet my standards and might create as many issues as it solved if there wasn't a clear path for me to move onto greater things (and there wasn't). The problem that I avoided was getting attached to this interview as the solution to my rapidly scary problem.

I've learned this lesson the hard way a few times over this year. I've worked so hard to apply only for jobs I really want, so this means that when I get an interview, or worse, a second interview, I feel, well, attached. And what follows is expectation. And over and over, that has lead to disappointment and suffering.

My therapist is of the opinion that when I figure out how to let go, when I stop white-knuckling, when I can be truly and authentically OK without slotting everything into a plan, a design, a structure (all disguises for expectation, by the way) that is when I will find and land the right opportunity.

I have some significant reservations about attaching my job search results to something mystical. Of the jobs I've been most excited about and not gotten, one of them was really hiring from within. Another changed the details of the job as well as the salary after I had already interviewed several times. A third turned out not to have the budget for another full time employee. A fourth re-wrote the position significantly around another candidate, and that wasn't the job I had applied for so I was just not in the running anymore. I'm not sure that not getting any of those jobs had to do with the cloud of judgement and expectation I let mushroom around me.

But I can't deny the fact that I have this desire for all of the struggle and emotional work and mis-steps to lead to something amazing. Some job that is better, less commute, better for my life outside of work, contributing to the greater good, thrilling, worthy of my passion and skills. You know, all around SHINY. And If I can't deny that desire, I also can't ignore that that is expectation setting me up for pain again.

That is the truth, though. I want things. I want to know if I am going to be able to swing it to go to my dear friend's long overdue wedding celebration in August.  I want to have the ability to feel secure enough on my own path that I have some sense of how I would walk that way with my person . . . if it turned out we both wanted that. I want to fly to New Jersey and meet the beautiful happy baby some of my best friends' had. I want to work out with my trainer again. I want to not have to tell people, "I'm not sure I can do that. We'll see what I can afford." I want to go hiking without worrying what would happen if my knees blew out again and I had no insurance. I want to not have my answer to almost everything be, "I have NOOOOOOOOOO idea what my life will look like in three months so . . ."

I want things. I want them two months ago. and I think what I really want is a smidge of stability and some predictability. I think I want some safety and I want some relief from doubt. It's like my favorite Toad the Wet Sprocket song,"I spend too much time seeking shelter. World without end couldn't hold her."

I don't know if getting better at free-falling will help me get a job, but as long as I'm out here, falling fast without a chute, it probably pays to get better at it anyways. Lord knows I'm not working, soooooo, if not now, when?! (A little unemployment humor goes a long way.)

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. 

Meditation and giving myself a grade

As is often the case when I have several half finished posts, it seems completely reasonable to me to start a brand new one. Ha!

So, about 6 months ago, my therapist suggested I start a daily breathing practice for myself. He was very careful not to refer to it as meditation (smile) but was about the 5th person to recommend it to me including my endocrinologist, my trainer, a dear friend who I wish I had realized was a dear friend when we were in high school together, and several others. I suspect I appear a little . . . anxious, or that the signs of how thoroughly I work myself over show more than I pretend they do, and so people think, "it could help a LOT if she would just sit and appreciate what's good right now."

When I first tried to do this, a couple of years ago, it was on advice from my trainer and a friend, and it was so hard that I barely managed a few minutes each day. I would pull up a cushion, sit, and after a few breaths think, "Uggggggghhhh. That's good enough, right?" My blood pressure and sleep habits said otherwise, and then with two injured knees, that became my excuse to stop - sitting was a little complex then. I felt relieved, because, man had I not done well at implementing that, but still uneasy thinking, "Why can't I just breathe?"

Fast-forward to late 2011 when I found myself mired in dishonesty from a lot of corners of my life. Nothing sets my blood on fire like dishonesty, and ultimately, I wasn't coming clean with myself about what I could and couldn't do. It actually got to the point where I was sleeping only 2-3 hours at a stretch because my thoughts were so restless. My therapist not-so-gently pointed out that I take everything I come in contact with as my responsibility to right, and then judge myself harshly when it doesn't work. A terrible Midas touch that paints me, constantly, as a failure in my own eyes. He suggested that someday it might be possible to stop seeing the world as win-loss, success-failure, good-bad but that for now, the best thing I could do was gently acknowledge those moments that I was steeped in judgement (almost all the time, as it turns out) and then just breathe through them instead of letting them mount and gain momentum.

So, now, I try to sit every day. Here's the truth - it sounds so simple, but it's the hardest thing in the world for me. Given the choice of singing, naked, in front of strangers, and sitting on a cushion for an hour trying to empty myself out and just notice the moment I'm in, it would be a toss up. It's ironic, right? That I might rather be vulnerable to others, than be still and see if I can be vulnerable to myself? Of course, there is no requirement that I sit for an hour (and I don't) but I am very aware that when I am sitting, time goes by very slowly, painfully even. And I am always trying to get better at this.

Yesterday, I had to walk for 90 minutes before I could bring myself to sit. I was always within a mile of Boulder's amazing Shambhala Center but kept walking to get out some of the raw anxiety before trying. Then, of course, instead of heading to the big, beautiful rooms with air and light, I headed for the "practice" room. Translation: small, dark basement room. I don't even light any of the candles, I just sit there glad that it's everyone else's last choice and that I can wrestle with the idea of just. right. now. by myself.

On Tuesday, we talked about my practice (such as it is) in therapy. My therapist (who is still being careful not to talk about meditating or sitting, but instead about a daily practice, by the way) remarked that if I am constantly giving myself a grade on everything, then I am choosing always to judge myself, and worse, often not giving myself the grade I deserve. I told him that sitting felt like work, and that I really can't manage it for more than 10 - 20 minutes. Somewhere in the middle, if I've metered my breath and let go of some of what I carried in with me, there's a quiet moment where all I feel is my hands on my knees and my chest rising and falling, but very quickly, everything comes rushing back. He used the word "loud" in that all of my stuff gets very noisy in my head, as a pendulum swing off of things having gotten quiet.

He reminded me that it's a practice, and that that word is deliberate. That like a runner who practices every day, sometimes times will be longer, and sometimes shorter, but what matters is how they accumulate. Sitting isn't meant to get judged and graded each time - there is no good or bad. It just is whatever it is on that day. He also said that if I'm only sitting when I feel bad, it will take a long, long time for me to feel anything other than tired by it. Finally, he said, trying to get me to ease up and be a little less hard on myself, I suspect, "If you practice today, you can't expect it to solve everything! Just sit and breathe and let it be only that."

Grasping for control, trying to fix everything, and then (of course) not being able to succeed under that weight and thus kicking myself until I bleed is the lather, rinse, repeat I've set myself up on. And it's got to go. I have to evict it, even if I can't give it the boot all at once, because it's that treadmill that kept me in bad patterns and bad relationships. And when I say relationships, I mean all relationships, not just romantic ones. Friends, family, boyfriends, girlfriends, my relationship with my work, myself, my former employer, all of it.

So, I sit. I read this book and and this one. I listen to the beginning of "Joking" by Indigo Girls over and over and over trying to understand how it would feel to "Forget about your ego. Forget about your Pride. And you will never have to compromise." this is what I want - to live more out loud, and not compromise my happiness. I talk a good talk here, in this blog, but I admitted "on the couch" this week that right now, while everything is going so well (minus, you know, the obvious absence of a new job) for me, I find I have all this anxiety that I will mis-step and mess it all up in one swell foop.

So I sit. and I breathe in and out. And I try to grok the idea that the only thing I can do is nurture this moment. and in the next moment, and only when it arrives, then that one. But I can't plan, control, fix, heal, solve, berate, pre-ordain, judge, plot, arrange, engineer, project, steer, contrive or chart what happens in the next moment, the next day, the next month, the next year and expect to get it right, get what I want, get that A.

In the vein of Indigo Girls philosophy, I want to not just forget about my ego, and not compromise, but to sidle up on "Closer to fine" in that I understand the smart thing I said to someone yesterday. He said, "I don't always see the full scope of what needs to happen right away." I sounded, I'm sure, like I was assured of the high horse I was sitting on when I answered, "No one does. That's why we use the verb 'process' to describe thinking and coping - it's a process. It's not an event."

It's all fine and well for me to tell those things to other people, but I do a laughable job of reminding myself of them in the day to day. I can say this - I've done much better than I had predicted at keeping myself happy, grateful, calm, and productive in unemployment. This is why I'm doing well enough to fret about messing it all up. But, the choices I made before this frighteningly delicious free-fall of creating a new life for myself tell a less flattering story. It's hilarious to me, actually, how I sometimes lean into danger - I will move more than 2000 miles across the country knowing no one, I will spar men twice my size - but play things so safe and close to the vest when it comes to asking for and admitting what I really, really want and doing the work to arrive there.

"Darkness has a hunger that's insatiable, and lightness has a call that's hard to hear. I wrap my fear around me like a blanket. I sail my ship of safety 'til I sank it. And I'm crawling on your shore."

So, this girl, this one who had to hold one of her best friend's hands when plunged into 20 seconds of pitch black on the Cave of the Winds tour because she is so deeply afraid of the dark, sits in a small, quiet very dark room daily, knowing that everything scary in there is something I brought with me. And knowing, even more, that that means it's with me whether or not I go into that room and sit on that cushion. And I listen. Very hard. To the noisiness in my neurons, but also to that call that's hard to hear. Because I'm pretty sure I'm done signing up to crash ships of safety.

Think of this as your desert island time

The set up is like this . . . last Wednesday had all the makings of an excellent, good news, shiny day. (And having recently availed myself of Firefly via Netflix I mean "Shiny!") Instead, it turned into a day where I worked very hard to stay professional and calm, and as a result found myself sitting in the back of my car, trying to meditate my way through not losing my shit.

In between the things that happened were an interview where the job offer that had been previously discussed was divided by 2, and the territory for said job had magically relocated too. (Note: even if the salary offer wasn't an issue, which it was, the fact that 4 hours of phone interviews had given me one set of details on salary and territory and the in-person interview gave me another was the bigger red flag.) I held things down and asked some pretty intelligent questions about this, I thought, without getting accusatory or defensive. So, that was good. But then, I got back into the parking garage and found that the jacknut parked next to me was literally about 3 inches from my driver's side. Couldn't even get my arm through to open the door. So, I had to see if I could crawl in from the passenger side. I tried a couple of tactics, all the while dreaming of notes with flaming hot prose left on their windshield. So, I ended up sitting in the backseat, trying to breathe out the rage and find the cool, calm, center of the universe.

I had posted lots of rainbows-and-hearts type things on Facebook about this interview, so of course when I got myself together and crawled my way into the front seat,  I posted something cursory on FB. I didn't want to be over-the-top negative; I did want people to know that things were not as promised and not hold out on details for the people who were wanting to know.

This caused my sister and a couple of my best friends to call me. I kept it together with my sister for half an hour, but finally found myself in a parking lot just saying, "Why can't I just have a year where everything is ok?" One of my friends then let me swear, pretty much non-stop for 10 minutes and then obliged me when I said we needed to talk about other things. We spent another 10 minutes talking about him and other things about me and making jokes.

The other friend asked me what happened. And I told him . . . calmly. Not without emotion, but with some perspective. We talked about my job prospects, and his work situation (job talk in the near future! Yeah!). And he asked me if there was anything else going on in my life.

The hard truth is . . . not so much. I see friends. I go running. I went on a date. (well, by now a couple) I've never been so on top of the TV shows I like. I write. A lot. I read. And in terms of job searching - I have 5 places I check on the regular, I file what I find, I write and adjust cover letters, I submit letters and resumes online. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I said to him, "I'm not chasing after a kid, but I'm growing to really appreciate how hard it is to be at home all the time. I feel very much not a part of the world, and so it's hard to have anything interesting to say when people ask me what I've been doing. It's a lot of the same." Over and over, I would add. (I have to say, I have two mommy friends in particular in mind as I write this paragraph and hope they know that I'm not saying I understand the full scope of how hard that job is, just a small glimpse)

My friend said to this, "Think of this as your desert island time . . . so rare are the down times that when they come they really annoy you!"

It is ironic, actually, that what I was fighting for in my last job was the ability to keep being successful but not have to sacrifice my personal life to do so."Be careful what you wish for" is cliche, and also doesn't adequately describe what I feel about this. I think this time is . . . harder work than my job. But maybe better for me in terms of my long term goals and needs and wants. I'm not sorry for what I wished for because it is still what I wish for - a job where I can use my strengths to my best advantage, make a difference, and be successful, but also go home and feel like I can service the rest of my life.

So, back to last Wednesday. I was annoyed that I spent 7 hours to hear what, had I heard in the first half hour, I would have said no to. Annoyed that I had to crawl into my car from the back seat. I'm annoyed that I had to invest 5 hours to get to was such a bust. I'm really annoyed that I'm becoming a boring person that pretty much only has this to talk about. And annoyed that I'm the horrible friend that had this discussion with my friend on his birthday. Ugggghhhh.

I'm also annoyed that because of the nature of this position, this could be a mind game. It could be (I don't think so, but I can't help but wonder) that they were expecting me to come back and sell them on me being worth the potential offer that was discussed initially in my phone interview. Of course, it could be, just thinking about the wording, that the phone interview person was just not being clear on how their compensation works . . . either on purpose or by accident.

If this is my desert island, well, it's filled with a lot of doubts, second-guesses, and questioning myself. But, as a very wise therapist pointed out yesterday (not related to this story, actually, which makes me believe that it's even more true) that is what my desert island is whether I'm interviewing, or employed, single or coupled, living alone or with someone. I often make decisions competently and confidently, and then second guess them. I sometimes aim lower than I should, and while it doesn't happen all the time doubting or blaming myself is something that has importantly defined some of the situations that have most shaped me. So, maybe this isn't the island I asked to be on, or maybe it is. But, I was living some of this island life before I was let go.

But now that I am on the island, coconut in hand, it's interesting to note what is different and what is the same. Once, in a very bad movie (that I nonetheless enjoyed) Harrison Ford said, "It's an island, if you didn't bring it with you it's probably not here," or something very like that. There's some truth to that. What I had with me, came to the island. In that sense my insecurities don't have a lot to do with my situation. And, the culture and realities here are importantly different. It's filled with a chance to sleep 8 hours every night, but also not always of peace of mind to implement that. It's filled with a lot of alone time . . . though I suppose that's the point of a desert island. If it was an island where I had more means, it would be a time to redo some of the rooms of my house and take some online courses, but as it is, it has been a chance to read a lot, and educate myself on a couple of new things. (Both of them pretty cool!)

Much like a desert island, I ration food, and other resources. And, my days are very repetitive and a little bit . . . boring, and lonely. It's clear that while I was making a zombie survival plan I should have also been making a plan to survive the desert island. You know - what would you bring, who would you want there, how would you make it through. You know the game.

Let's I was in the way of being stuck on the LOST island, for instance. My scary unseen monster is the day my bank account hits zero, and I have to live in my car. (Yes, that is hyperbole. Because as we all know there's a beautiful room waiting for me in Boston) Or ask people for money. (Of the two, the later is VASTLY worse.) The "others" on my island of unemployment island are . . . well, ok, I haven't figured that out yet. And, the force controlling everything that I'm trying to reconcile myself with, well that's obvious.

So, the survival plan so far has been, as my friend said that night, keeping my options open. (He actually said something porny-er but, you know, I'm reporting the part that applies.) In this case, it takes a lot of work and energy to create those options, but, this is ok because I am excited about finding them, and settling on the right fit. What I need on the desert island to keep that going are the people who help me see myself, and think out loud. I suppose this is like the zombie survival plan in that way. It's the people. In this case though, the skills I'm looking for may have a little more variation. If it were a real island, of course, my top priorities would be someone who knows about living/eating in the wild (food and shelter),  someone who can patch people up (medicine), someone who can fix the radio or get us things we need out of the scrap metal or plane crash (electronics and technology), and ideally, a barrista who happened to wash ashore with their trusty espresso machine. (Let's be clear though, if it's a choice between saving the barrista and the espresso machine itself . . . well, I'd at least have to think about it since I ran a cafe in college and could make my way back to making a decent latte if needed.) Those things don't change in my survival scenarios. You know, just the basics.

But, desert living, I've discovered, is different than zombie living.  A lot less flesh eating, a lot more people wanting to eat lunch with you. A lot less running for your life, a lot more making yourself go to the gym to run. So, on this island, I need my people. I need David who keeps me practical without letting me get grim. I need Wil's special brand of hope and pessimism, of intricate, even artistic language, and the ability to be blunt and efficient. I need Rob, because there is nowhere in my life where I don't need the person who knows me best, and has known me for 32 years. Also, who else can I find myself in 7 off-shoot conversations from the original topic? And more to the point, Rob and I are very different, but the same, so he is sometimes my conscience and heart, and yet can also make me laugh like no one else. I need my girls because they love me for exactly who I am, and it is rare that I'm with any of them for more than 30 minutes before things get pretty irreverent. Rebecca, Elisabeth, Gabrielle, Krystel, and Annette are high on this list because they keep everything real whether it's good or bad, celebration or consolation time, dance party or dealing. I need Heather, because where Rob is my heart, Heather is my head. She and I think much the same, and yet subtly differently. In the last year I noted that when I'm at her house, my working vocabulary goes up and I feel more intelligent and more clear in my thoughts. (Importantly, this doesn't mean I don't also need her affection. Just, if I'm giving out jobs, well, she excels at that one) And I need Susan who is much like Rob, in that we seem to be able to share everything without reserve. She has so much heart that some of it has to be on her sleeve, and in her over-abundance, she gives a lot of it away. She helps keep me grounded in faith and belief while also supporting me in every other way she knows how. And, I need a trainer on this island, so it's lucky that I have the best one.

I know, espresso, trainer . . . this is a very swanky desert island. That's just how I roll. I should just go for broke and wish for ice, limes, and tequila, eh?

The thing I'm trying to do is to leave the desert island, but take some of this with me. To have brought whatever I brought here is inevitable but to take out only what is useful is, I think, the task at hand. I'll take these friends without question, because they take me without reservation. I'll take the trainer, and the espresso and tequila (not together!) if it's available. But there are some other deeply important things I'd like to pack when I board to leave. this is crucial, because what I actually want is NOT a year where everything is "ok" but a year in which I have the same ups and downs as everyone else yet still feel, on the whole, that my life is better than ok, stunning and moving even.

• The belief that I live in a time, and have the skills and strength to choose and shape the future I want
• This new found faith and belief. But even more than that, the wonder I feel at being able glimpse the tiny bit of the pattern I see
• The understanding that it's not accidental that I "fall" into creative pursuits - this blog, other writing, singing, photography. That it is what most feeds and energizes me, and so it has to be part of my lifestyle. Not an afterthought
• The time and quiet to read as voraciously as I can, and have in the past. I missed you old friend, glad you're back.
• The understanding that my values of being there for others, showing love, and offering help where I'm able has to work both ways. There is a way in which always being the giver is . . . ironically, selfish. If I truly believe that being here for each other is what we're here to do, I have to be willing to participate in the whole cycle, not just the part I'm comfortable with. Independence is one thing, pride just damages that cycle.
• This new found ability to be passionate without apology
• All the honesty I brought in, has to come back out with me.
• Patience and Forgiveness. These are still underway but maybe will be formed enough to survive the trip when it comes time?
• The understanding that I can think one thing, and feel another
• The certainty that I am loved, and at the end of the day, that is enough.
• The ability to let go - total responsibility and accountability for the things I can and should do, zero judgment or blame for the things I cannot control
• As much gratitude as I can carry. I may need a bigger suitcase for this, honestly.
  
  
  

And you know, if customs isn't a problem, I'll take some coconuts too.

I know how silly this is

The last time I was in an all out hunt for a full-time job, it took 4 months. And I got the job that I held for the last 5 and a half years. Which let's be honest . . . I've said some vague things about, and my readers have gotten the impression I didn't like much. A lot of my readers know me personally, and have for awhile, so that's not a pure view. A lot of them knew, outside of evidence in this blog, I was unsure this was a good job for me, and had been for some time.

I wasn't thrilled with some of the things I had been asked to do, but I still felt I was doing something worthwhile. I put it this way to one friend," I didn't hate what I was doing, but I was unhappy with some of the situations doing it had put me in." In this blog what I said specifically was something along the lines of realizing I had probably outgrown the job. What I said less than specifically was that I had concerns about the lifestyle the expectations of the job was creating. and how I passively accepted things like not eating dinner until 9pm or working out at 10pm.

But it wasn't always like that, and even when it was, I learned a lot from that job. While not all of my almost 6 years in that job were contented ones, there were happy years, and times I felt very fulfilled by what I was doing. And even if that weren't as true as it is, that job was still a decent place to start my career after leaving grad school.

So, finding myself suddenly without that job means an all out search for the next step in my career. And not just an online search, but a networking search. And not just a job search, but some real soul searching in terms of what I most want out of my next job.

One of the things I really want is a job that I'm in for longer than 5 years. I want some stability. Which isn't to say I want to do the same job, day-in and day-out for 10 years. But I would adore being hired somewhere here that wanted to keep me, challenge me, and advance me for awhile.

That being said, if it took me 4 months to find the job that lasted me for almost 6 years (and kept me happy and challenged in a good way for about 3 of those) I probably need at least half again that time to find the job that will do me one better. Six months sounds like a reasonable time frame. That seems logical. And yet, some part of me never truly pictured myself entering my 4th week of unemployment. I didn't paint that illustration in my head when I was spinning the story of my job search.

Which is really silly. I can't expect what happened as the result of 4 months of searching to happen in 3 weeks now. And I certainly can't expect a BETTER job to come of 3 weeks of searching.

The problem is, I don't have 6 months, or 8 months, or 4 months, or whatever the reasonable time frame would be. I have maybe another 2 months before things get so difficult that I would lose the ability to make them better by moving in to someone's basement (or, really, the guest room that is waiting graciously for me on the East Coast). I need to believe that because I know more now about job hunting, and because I am working really hard to accept help and support that I can get this job done faster than the 4 months it took me in spring of 2006.

I need to believe that then, I was still teaching as a full-time grad student, and thus, job hunting only about 5-10 hours a week. I need to believe I'm working harder and smarter now. I need to believe that it matters that I have a stronger personal and professional network now. I really need to believe that the fact that it's been 3 weeks, and I've had 3 interviews in that time is a reason to think that in another 3 weeks, or another 6 weeks, I'll have the RIGHT interview for the RIGHT position and get a job! Those are the things I very much need to cling to today.

It's nice to hear from friends that I am smart, savvy, capable, and will "be all right," or, "will definitely get something." It's even nicer to hear from a recruiter that "qualified applicants like you don't stay on the market for long." But what would be best of all to hear is, "You're hired (with amazing benefits)!"

But I also know this is a numbers game. And the numbers on the clock may be working against me in terms of racking up the number of jobs searched and applied for in time. I don't think this is the time to panic, but I am looking at my 3 weeks in and trying to get a clearer picture of the next 3 weeks.

It's hard to tell this from this post, maybe, but I'm not depressed today. (you can tell because the dishes and laundry are done, I'm out of my pajamas, my condo is uber-clean and I'm making a to-do list that I am excited about. Ok. So you can't tell by that, but I can) Today I have 3 offers of part time work on the table. Today I have a possible calls back from 2 different project coordinator positions, which, while not perfect fits, would mean I could keep a roof over my head for some time. Today I have a bunch of other jobs to apply to that could be perfect fits. So, today I'm optimistic. But I am also trying to frame that optimism in realism as well. Because that, as much as the bank account, will keep me going for the next 3 weeks.

Putting myself first

On the mirror in my bathroom it says, "Make yourself a priority." There are also various sticky notes in various places that say things like, "This appointment is just as important as every other you make," and "Commit to yourself."

And yet, it's really easy for me to think, Hi, you. the laundry needs to be folded and there is more wrapping and cleaning before mom gets here. Or, Mom is here! It's rude to go to the gym while she reads a book!

Yesterday, mom chose not to go to the gym with me, knowing I'd be gone for at least three hours (running, swimming laps, and then working with a friend plus a shower take up a solid chunk of time). It was her choice. When I texted my friend that Mom wouldn't be joining us she immediately said, "I don't want to take time away from your mom." and I get that. I don't want to take time away from my mom either. But the truth is, wherever I am, I have to be willing to put time into this process every day. If I'm traveling for work, I still have to try and eat right and get up early to exercise. If I go to India, which is a dream I have (and where one of my client's mothers apparently gives her head massages and brings her tea every morning, I recently found out), I will have to walk and make sure I get plenty of protein and vegetables. If I was at my mom's house, I would have to fight to find the time for cardio every day. So, if she's at my house, the same rules apply.

It took reaching down to pull up on my sense of personal responsibility and my desire to work on my goals to text my friend back and say, "I really want to swim. No one else is going to get my cardio done for me."

It feels . . . selfish to me to put myself first. It's a new experience. I've always been asked to put others first. As a caretaker in my family, my needs were always subservient to those of others, and expressing them was always received badly. And so that is the space I learned to occupy in the world. I see it in all my past relationships, in how work expands and fills more of my week than it should, in everything I've sacrificed to be where I am. Saying no is always hard for me, unless I'm saying no to the voice that says, "Get your workout done. And while you're at it, eat some broccoli instead of some popcorn."

But the truth is, no one will work out for me. My job will not take responsibility for the weight their crazy schedule and too-high expectations caused me to gain 4 years ago. My mom can't eat broccoli for me or take popcorn away from me. And if not everyone can understand that I can work out 6 days a week, 5-7 hours a week, and eat everything right, and still get minimal results, then the least I can do is to understand it and act on it. Compassion to myself means knowing the scale won't always move even if I do what I'm supposed to, but it also means lovingly getting my butt out of the seat and to the gym. Loving myself means forgiving the bowl of popcorn for dinner but also trying to do better the next day and pack my protein and veggie lunch to take with me on the road. Patience is a gift I can give myself by not judging how slow my results are, but also by planning for the long haul and knowing that taking the long view means owning that working out this much or more will be my life forever.

I have a lot of understanding, compassion, love, and patience to give other people. I tend to have endless supplies even when times may be really hard for me or when I may be angry with another person. I need to learn to apply some of it to myself. Because the truth is that if my metabolism and hormones fight even my best efforts, then putting in less than my absolute max will serve me not at all. And the other hard truth is that if things are this hard now in my 30's, my elder years will only get worse. Without work and discipline and giving myself enough love and time I could easily become a 500 pound woman that needs to be cut out of her house. I don't think I'm exaggerating to say that.

It took alllllllllll yeaaaaaaar to get to the point where my gym schedule orbits cleanly through my other obligations. Even now there are little hops and skips when I'm sick or traveling. The difference between now and a year ago is that now if the record skips, I know how to bring the needle back down to play through. A year ago, missing one workout usually was the beginning of a long string of missed workouts. Now I know that if it is missed I must get back up on the horse the next day before I find myself on a slippery slope, and ideally, "make up" the missed workout. (This is a little like doing extra-homework to catch up when I was out of school for pneumonia in elementary school.) My workouts now matter to me in a different way than they did. I know that without them I will feel less pleased with myself, regardless of the scale or my jean size. I know I will have more stress. I know I will tend towards more depression. I know what my workouts give me. Which is why there is also a sticky note in my house that says, "It will feel good AFTER you go." That is a true story. Before walking out the door, it'd be my pleasure to stay on the couch reading. After going to the gym I know I will feel more productive, happier, more energetic.

There's another result of working out: I have discovered it directly effects how well I eat. You'd think that working out and being hungry from it could lead me to fries and Cheezits, but it has the opposite effect. I come home from a work out determined to eat my brussel sprouts and chicken, and further, to plan and pack an awesome lunch for the next day. And here's the truth - while I could eat nachos and pizza all day long, I really do like brussel sprouts and chicken. So, if I know I like them, and feel better eating them, then why not do the thing that leads me to eat those things more and let go of the pizza and nachos. It turns out, shopping differently (ignore that Cheezits exist! There is no aisle 5!) and cooking the brussels and the chicken are just preliminary steps. The thing I really need to do is go to the gym and strengthen not just my lats and hamstrings, not just my core and abs, but also my resolve. So, I go. sometimes it feels like I'm dragging myself there by the ear, like a child who has sassed a crabby grandmother, but so be it.

So, I went to the gym yesterday, and it was so good to know I had done it and met my goals for the week. and as my mom naps on the couch this morning, I will continue to get ready to meet my trainer. It's what has to get done in order for everything else to line up as it should. I still have to make myself do it often, but I can see the day where it will make sense for it to be just as natural and expected as brushing my teeth. Off I go!

Patience and Forgiveness, part 1

Here's the thing -  a long time ago I asked for feedback on what people would like to hear more about. One friend encouraged me to write about singing, and about my children's book ideas. Another about judgement, patience, and forgiveness. I haven't written either of those posts, but they haven't left my thoughts either. Given my recent religious questioning it's probably not surprising that I'm thinking about judgement, patience, and forgiveness, but the truth is I was thinking about it before, and before my friend brought the idea up.

It has been on my mind since July when I first felt the full weight of my boyfriend's issues and found a broader perspective on them. I saw the lies, the loss of control, the broken promises, the misleading statements and manipulation. And he began to see them. I wanted so badly to forgive him for that, and to put it in the past. Instead, it became part of a larger pattern, and that made it so hard to let it go. Recently I was able to articulate to him that I can forgive him, but it would help enormously if he sincerely apologizes for the things he thinks he did wrong and asks for my forgiveness. But real forgiveness is just given, no asking and begging required - see I'm bad at this. I should give it over and above is breaking up with me, and I should give it freely, not in spite of, that.

Patience and forgiveness are my values, but I often fail at my values and need to be reminded of them and brought back to my center. I have been described as being "black and white." I don't think I am, I actually think I analyze a lot, collect a lot of data on my world and consider a lot of possibilities - black, white, and a lot of shades of grey in between. The thing that people may pick up on is that once I do decide on something, I tend to stick to my guns. To be honest, some of that comes from my tendency to be stubborn. But also, if I've spent a lot of time thinking about something, and collecting information on why that thing is the way it is, and forming my opinion or tracking down the best course of action, when I act, I'm usually pretty committed and convinced of how it should be. Maybe that's hubris, maybe that's being pig-headed, maybe that's being judgmental, maybe it's being black-and-white, but to me it's about dedication and seeing things through and making sure that when I do make a decision its backed up by the best information gathering I can manage.

I also have a very weird blessing/curse - I remember things more accurately and completely than most people do. I also have a nearly perfect audiographic memory which means I tend to remember exactly what people said. It's nice when I want to recall a sequence of events, or think back to what someone said to me. But, on the other hand . . . I can't forget. If someone says something that hurt me, I remember their exact words. I remember how it sounded. If someone did something that hurt me on July 4th, I'll remember it every time I think of July 4th. It makes it hard not to dwell on the things that have hurt me, let me down, or made me angry when I can remember them ALL all the time.

I am able to forgive, but not to forget. It's a complicated issue for me. I am capable of letting something go, but it's rare that not remember it. It's also a complicated issue for the people in my life. Something that is cognitively true is that we ALL more easily recall and recount negative things. It is for this reason  that if someone asks you how your most recent performance review at work went, the first thing you think of is the one negative thing your supervisor said, and it takes work to remember the 6 positive things that were mentioned. I'm not making this up out of folk wisdom - I was required to take a class on memory and attention as part of my Ph.D program in Cognitive Psych.

So, when my ex-fiance (yep, the same one who left like three minutes after I moved here, and was all alone dealing with my dad who had just died. We don't use his name anymore) told me that he felt like I only remembered things he did wrong, not things he did right. I tempered that with the fact that while my cognition might mean I remember everything more thoroughly than I really should, his cognition (and everyone's) meant that he was not remembering the times I appreciated him, was grateful for things he did or said, or was positive.

The truth is this is no gift unless I want to recall how-to instructions someone gave me orally or music. It is much more of a curse when it comes to my relationships (romantic or otherwise) because what they experience is me remembering exactly what they did and their words and tone, even when they'd rather gloss over what they said and smooth it into meaning something a little less harsh. I often can't let that slide because the computer in my head spits out, "Ummm, no. that's NOT what you said, so don't tell me I'm wrong in thinking this is what you meant." To be perfectly honest, the most harm this does is to me. I know it troubles other people about me, but the part people don't think about when they are praising or lamenting my freakish memory is that it doesn't just turn on them . . . it turns on me too. I remember all the stupid, embarrassing, mean, cruel, inconsiderate, angry, crazy, wrong, horrible things I have done or said too. And I can't make the computer not spit those things out either.

I can't stop that computer from running. But maybe I can work on being more forgiving, and to act in ways that are more forgiving. First stop, be less judgmental. This doesn't mean not having judgments. I can judge that someone who texts and drives is putting themselves and others in harms way. I can decide that when people park ridiculously badly, they were oblivious and should pay more attention. But I can also work to adopt less of a mentality of judging others and thinking harsh thoughts about them as a whole person.

As I sat at a church service last night, the questions was raised of Can we trust God. And I don't have answers to that, nor the fortitude to go looking for those answers right now. But the conversation and thought process went something like this, "Other people break promises and let me down. Other people point their fingers in my chest and remind me of how many things I screw up. So, how can I count on God not to give up on me, let me down, leave me hanging, and accuse me of being a bad person." And as the service moved forward the pastor admitted something that I had been thinking since he brought up the judgments of others . . . when we think about other people giving us a hard time, judging us, reminding us of how much we fail usually the biggest offender is ourselves. I know that's true for me. I know that I spend most of every day either trying not to think or catching myself thinking really harsh, difficult things about myself. I quit grad school, I made a dill potato salad with dill that had bugs in it because I didn't have money or time to go buy more. I had a really hard year growing up where I lied about everything to my parents, and stole loose change and dollar bills. I promised myself I would reform my eating and then ate an entire frozen pizza. I threw a watermelon on the night my ex-fiance left (ok, to be perfectly honest, there is part of met hat is horribly ashamed I did that, but part of me is proud of that too), I yelled horrible things at my most current boyfriend at one point because I couldn't believe he had spent so much time avoiding me and breaking promises . . . and no, his actions do not justify mine. I once spent an entire work day surfing the web and shopping online, which to me is like stealing from my employer. Once, in grad school (2001), I was so poor that I stole over the counter allergy meds that I badly needed . . . and no, that doesn't make it ok. You'll notice, some of those things are past actions that I worked to reform, but some of those are issues I continue to face now.

I seem really unlikable when I list those things. And this is the short version. I seem really ugly, and small, and like I deserve the finger of accusation in my chest 24/7 when I read just those things here.

So, I need to practice forgiveness with myself. Luckily, it's better for me to practice on me, and possibly fail at it sometimes, than to practice with someone else. But I need to forgive other people too. I need to forgive people who were supposed to love me and protect me and didn't. It would be better for everyone if I could forgive my ex-fiance, because then I wouldn't carry around residual anger about what he did or didn't do. (Left me alone to grieve my father and the ending of our relationship in a place where I knew nobody because I moved here for him. Left me sitting like an idiot in a couples counseling waiting room! Aggghhhh. Just listing it is a demonstration that I'm not there yet. Epic fail.) I need to decide to either forgive myself for the watermelon, or embrace that that was a true moment of standing up for myself and be proud of it. I need to right my wrongs. i need to make ammends where I am able. I need to forgive myself when I slip on the changes I'm trying to make, when I fall off the wagon as it were, because beating myself up about it keeps me from moving forward and trying to be better the next day. I need to stop yelling at myself and move past the conversations where I have yelled at other people. (I don't like yelling. )

But I need to be patient too, and realize that it's not all going to happen right away . . . and patience, I have in abundance except when it comes to myself. Irony. So much irony.