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.

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!

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. 

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.

Zombie Survival Plan

About three weeks ago the wind was howling for days on end. 30 miles an hour all day long with gusts at 75 and above. It was intense and it interrupted my sleep. I had about three nights of really disturbing dreams, and one of them was right before an interview.

I had gotten an email asking me for that interview, and since my application had been as a response to Craigslist, the email didn't help me with the problem I had when I applied . . . which was that I didn't know very much about what this job would actually have me do. The email asked if I could meet that Friday at 11, and gave me an address, that was all. Somehow the combination of unnerving winds, sleep deprivation, anxiety, and unknowns combined and formed in my brain as a really horrible dream.

I dreamt that I showed up in an office park for this interview, and the building I was in had a long side hallway. It was dim, and there were no doors along the way. I walked down the hallway, entered the office, and the reception area was normal, normal, normal. I waited in a chair, and as the receptionist took me back, I was pushed into a dark room, chained to a metal frame on the wall, and locked up for over two days. There were other women there, most drugged or beaten. We were sold for . . . . well, you get the picture.

I was freaked out enough by this that when I went for the interview, I texted the address to a friend and picked a check-in time to text again. I joked about this on Facebook, but I was actually pretty upset.

A friend was joking with me the next day, and I was telling her about the actual interview, and how when I had to go down a long empty hallway, I actually almost reconsidered, and when their reception area was completely dark, I almost left. She joked, "You were thinking there were zombies in there." And quick as anything I retorted, "No! If it was zombies, I would know what to do!" You see, I have a zombie survival plan, but not a terrible-people-selling-woman-flesh plan.

So, you know, clearly, there were neither zombies nor disgusting pimps at that interview. But, in honor of my favorite show coming back tonight with the mid-season premiere, I want to talk about zombies. (I mean, let's be honest, I always enjoy talking about zombies. But since it has little to do with my quest to balance my life and make it more meaningful, I restrain myself here as much as possible. Other occasions in my life . . . maybe not so much restraint.)

So, here is the deal, while I don't believe in zombies, I do heart them deeply. And I have thought a LOT about zombie apocalypse preparedness. Luckily, a lot of the basics apply to being ready in case of other emergencies.

So, now for your reading pleasure, I will discuss my zombie survival plans.

If zombies attacked me in my home, well, I have two sliding glass doors and a window at garden level. So, I would pick something up and start swinging, close and lock a door behind me, and get out. There is no making a stand in this condo. If I had been in that office, same idea. Pick up a chair, start swinging. Aim for the head, and try not to get backed into a wall or room with no door. And then run.

But, the thing about running is, no matter how great your cardio endurance is, you will not be able to do it forever. So, in my mind, it's important to run smart, not just fast. You don't want to run into any dead ends or enclosed spaces. Nowhere dark if you can avoid it. And you want to aim for somewhere that will allow you to rest/close out the zombie pursuers for a bit or somewhere that will allow you a more permanent safety. Like the horror movie rules put forth in SCREAM, it is also wise to not run up anything you can't get down off of. Zombies used to be people, and people can climb stairs, and in some cases, trees. Run out and DOWN whenever possible

Now, most people who survive the initial wave do it out of luck and quick reflexes. Being in the right place at the right time, or accidentally figuring out how to stop a zombie that comes after you (go for the head!) will keep you alive on the first day, maybe the second. But the key to the third day and beyond is to start stockpiling necessities.

My list includes building a plan that allows me and whomever I'm with to have more of some important stuff:

• Water - need a source, and a plan to purify it
• Food - standard stuff applies here. Lots of protein, and stuff that keeps well. Canned goods are great, but hard to carry if you're hiking. Protein bars, protein powder, and jerky seem like the right call, however unappealing.
• Medications and someone who has some medical knowledge (EMT, nurse, doctor. More on that in a minute).
• Shelter
• Weapons (More on that in a minute too)
• Transportation
• People
  

Yes, that's right, people. The thing is, without other people, I'd be a goner. I'm not that fast, I don't know how to shoot a gun, and I have health issues. But even if those things weren't true, surviving an apocalypse depends on people working together. Anyone on their own can't sleep, whereas groups can set up shifts and protect one another. That is a BIG deal not just in terms of safety while sleeping/vulnerable, but also in that sleep deprivation will impact long term health, and can impair judgement in the short term. And, with more people, you are likely to bring together different skill sets than your own. My guess is that a camp of people trying to survive don't need my experience as a business consultant or writer, but I'm a fast learner, know basic first aid, and they would benefit from my cooking, and my ability to find answers and organize. Meanwhile, one hopes that there would be someone who knew more about weapons than me.

If we're to believe Hollywood, what I can expect is a magically blended group of lots of different ethnic backgrounds and skills. My requests are for one person who knows electronics, one person who know weapons and can train others, someone who has medical knowledge, and someone who knows something about food and agriculture or finding food in the wild (I have a friend who knows all about edible wild plants - she would be welcome in my group!). So, having more people isn't just about safety in numbers, it's about gaining different skills in those numbers. I'm accepting applications now . . . you know, just in case.

A special word about children: of course, with no kids, it doesn't matter if my group survives, or even another group. Humans would die out eventually. So, kids are necessary. But let's be honest, they're also risky. (In the race to stay alive, kids slow us all down. Brutal, but factual) The nature of children is that they have to push the envelope while growing up in order to become adults. That often involves impulsive, loud, messy, high-profile behavior. Which of course is dangerous when trying to protect an encampment or run for your lives. So, I think kids have to be handled very carefully. And honestly, that means there have to be enough people to help handle them. And a stable location if at all possible. Good lord, I just hope that no one with a toddler hooks up with my camp despite the fact that I love toddlers.

See how people are the most valuable resource in case of surviving a zombie apocalypse? A group of about 10-20 is ideal if actively running and not hunkered down somewhere stable. If somewhere stable, it's all about what your facility and supplies can handle without being stretched too thin. But, of course, if the group gets too large, some kind of hierarchy or decision making structure has to be put in place. Lord of the Flies plus zombie apocalypse is a baaaaaaaaaaaad plan.

Now, in an urban environment, you want to look for a building that has access to other things you need such as food and water, but at the same time, it can't be something too big to hold down. For instance, I would NOT recommend a hospital - it's too big to secure. Too many places where zombies could work their way in unbeknownst until it was too late. I have the same worry about department stores or malls, plus the big plate glass windows in those places too. I can see reinforcing a Target with a group big enough. Plus, then you have the air mattresses and granola bars right there, some basic first aid supplies, not to mention the built in Starbucks with the espresso machine (ahhhh). The other big concern in this situation is that nowhere, not even a Target or Walmart, will have everything you need for all time. So you need to have a plan to be able to get in and out very stealthily without being chased, or caught.  Here's the trick with that Target-type place. I and my zombie-surviving peeps  could decide, "Yes! That store is perfect!" but if you get there, and there are hordes of undead wandering around, and it will be noisy to get by them . . . it's not perfect. In an urban setting, you can bet that if there's a crowd of 50-100 zombies around your spot, there are hundreds more just a couple of blocks away that WILL make their way to you once they hear the scuffle or the shots fired. Move on to plan B, quickly and quietly.

In a more open or rural environment, the choices are a little more complex. I've heard arguments for mountain tops, valleys with water sources, small towns. I'm willing to be persuaded on most of those. I'm not a fan of the mountain top option, because it would be easy to get surprised by a tenacious horde that made the trek and happened to come upon you on the part of the mountain that sealed off your route. I have been convinced that a free-standing building that has a generator, some guns, and the ability to be secured could work. I'm also a fan of the secluded farm or ranch, as long as there are enough people to stand watch in shifts. I am NOT psyched about the idea of camping out doors . . . too vulnerable.

Transportation depends a lot on setting, but suffice it to say you need at least one form of transportation that is very maneuverable on different terrains and can weave in and out of things - motorcycles and horses come to mind. But this should not be the primary form of transportation for the group, since their strength of being smaller and more movable is also their weakness in that in the wrong situation, that lightness could easily be preyed upon and taken down . . . literally. So, you also need something big and tough - giant redneck trucks and tanks come to mind.

Now, here's the deal. Once shelter and a group of people to secure it and keep it supplied and secured are in place, then it's time to think of other things. Weapons are everyone's priority, and I see it as an important piece. But, for me, as long as a range of weapons (guns, yes, but something quieter too . . . guns with silencers? Cross bows? Axes? Throwing knives? I'm not entirely sure yet. ) and a cache of ammo is socked in, I'm good.

My primary concern is that after a group of people is assembled and has survived a week or more, then the issues become not just the zombie-problems, but the people-problems. This is to say, survival in an apocalypse is about more than not getting eaten; it becomes a lot about how civilization's answers to our problems may or may not exist anymore to be taken for granted. Routine surgeries and health issues quickly become life threatening. That appendicitis could kill you. That asthma attack could take you down. So for me, medicines and medical knowledge are paramount. Included in that is the dire need for birth control. Somehow, when trying to survive and make sure life is still being lived, people seem to like to . . . ahem . . .  get it on. Lets be honest, we need kids to grow up in this apocalyptic imagining, but nobody needs to be pregnant while running for their life. By the second trimester, that's just like a two-fer for the zombie that catches up to her.

There are other things too, though. Like, taking for granted the things that technology provides. Hence, someone with a background in electronics, technology, and/or mechanics is most welcome on my zombie team. I need someone to help me re-start a generator, hot-wire a car, fix a radiator, or get the radio working.

So, my hope is that if I could fight my way out of the aforementioned office or home invasion, and meet up with the right people, I could learn to shoot, make a fire, find food, or at least cook the food that was found, siphon gas, and expand my basic first aid to include giving stitches if not removing diseased appendixes. Let me know if you'd like to join me in case of apocalypse.

Three years ago today

Ah, Halloween. This is my mother's favorite holiday, and although I've been through different phases and thoughts about it, I do love this holiday. I love how excited children are about their costumes. I love how schools and pre-schools make this a fun day. I love that this is a holiday for everyone. I love that there are as many ways to celebrate this holiday as there are families. I love that this is a holiday where you can do as little as buying some stuff to give out and turning on your porch light, or as much as making a bug cake and putting a lot of thought into one's costume . . .

I love my memories of my mom sewing our costumes. And I love trick-or-treaters knocking on the doors of places I've lived. I went through a phase in high school where I pretended to dislike this holiday, but still not-so-secretly enjoyed staying home and giving out the treats to the kids knocking on our door. I went through a phase in college where this holiday genuinely struck fear into my heart. Hampshire Halloween is legend - wait for it - dary. It actually has gotten quite tame but when I was there there were some old-school staff who remembered the days of "Trip or Treat" where the open campus attracted a lot of outsiders, drugs, and parties fueled by acid and kegs. As Hampshire's answer to RA's (more responsibility and less power than RA's in regular dorms) I was typically working from noon until 3 or 4 the next morning on different shifts: setting up drug-free activities, running drug-free activities, patrolling the dorm, patrolling outside the dorm, and seeing a LOT of naked, drunk people. I mean a lot. We weren't allowed to be in costumes, so I sort of fell out of the habit of costumes somewhere between high school and college. It took a major push to put me in a costume for Halloween in grad school and it only happened once (And it was an incredibly offensive inside joke. Ahem.) .

So, when I started working, I had hoped to retire costuming and just be the cool lady who handed out  treats and stayed HOME watching scary movies. I have struggled, of course, on what to give out. I don't want candy in my house, and I don't really want to infect neighbor kids with corn syrup if I can help it, yet, you can't give out apples because most parents don't trust that, and with good reason. I gave out toys one year. I gave out water bottles another year, but of course I worried about being the "uncool" neighbor. Life has been easier in this condo because I don't get trick-or-treaters. Most people living in this development are young professionals. There are a few young families but I've learned they take their children to one of the local Halloween parties rather than trick or treating. So, for the past two years, I've made Halloween bags for the children in my building. This year they each got a toy (bug, mummy, etc.) or glow stick, a spider ring, a package of cheese crackers, a bag of organic animal crackers, and a water bottle. I know, so very Boulder-hippie-progressive of me.

As I was putting those together and delivering them yesterday, I was remembering how different things were three years ago. Three years ago I came home on Halloween afternoon devastated. I called my mom and best friend and left them messages updating them to tell them I was fine but not ok, and that I needed to be alone. I turned my lights off and prepared to drink a lot of vodka, and pass out ASAP and be left alone all weekend. In the end, drinking alone didn't appeal to me. I watched scary movies on my computer and pulled all the shades. It didn't occur to me until the next week that no one had come knocking so I must not have had trick-or-treaters. I was that emotionally absorbed.

See, I had arrived here only four months before. I came for my fiance, and my company created this position for me (though it has worked out very much to their advantage as well, so at least I don't have to feel guilty about THAT). About 2 months after my arrival, my dad, who had been sick, got much more ill very suddenly. My father didn't quite tell me what was going on, but between my mom having seen him in the hospital and being so, so quiet, and my aunt sharing news from the doctor, and my dad saying, "Well, I guess you should do something soon," in response to me asking if I needed to come home (sidenote: why everyone refers to Connecticut as my "home" is a mystery since I have not had residence there for as long as I DID have residence there . . . ) I decided to hop a plane with some black clothes. Sadly, I was right and I needed those clothes. I also needed the 10 days before he passed, and a couple of weeks after in order to clean out his house. All told, I was gone for more than 3 weeks. It was a long, hot, grueling, emotional, complicated 3.5 weeks where a lot of things happened that were just as difficult as my father's death.

It took a lot of fast foot work to make this trip happen, and a lot of financial maneuvering, but when I left I had a temporary apartment with my fiance, a security deposit on the condo we were jonesing for, bills paid, the move into the condo planned and paid for (even though I couldn't be there), and a relationship to come back to.

When I came back, well, things were subtly different. The condo was (and IS!) great, but the person I left in it . . . well, a lot of things happened to be sure, but let's just say that somehow he felt that my dad dying was about his feelings, not mine. I was shocked by his decision to not be part of anything that I needed, and frankly, I was exhausted from all of the family drama I had just flown back from. I had only enough fight in me to yell once, and throw one watermelon (yes that happened). It didn't quite sink in for me that the moment I needed something from the relationship he left. I had enough presence to say some really biting things and to insist that he take his things right away. I had scant threads of self-respect but just enough knitted together to insist that he pay me back for the money I had spent supporting him while on unpaid family medical leave. And then, nothing. Everything is a blur of unhappiness and trying to explain how this happened to various people. I put one foot in front of the other, I got up and worked, but my heart wasn't in anything. I was double-grieving and it sucked up all my heart and soul.

So, a few weeks later when he asked to meet me for pizza and then said he was getting counseling and wanted to start couples counseling with me, it seemed like a good thing. I took it as him taking steps to sort himself out, to try and make things better, to not give up on us. We had our first session which was really good and helpful, and I loved the therapist. We had a complicated time making our second appointment, and decided the only day that worked for all three of us was Halloween.

Do you see where this is going? I didn't.

In between the first and second session we had some things we were supposed to work on separately and together. And we had agreed on a couple of phone calls and a chance to get together in person. When he called, he immediately was stand-off-ish and had excuses why he needed to change that schedule. When I expressed my concern about that he hung up on me unceremoniously. After that, he wouldn't answer any texts, calls, or emails. I did let him know that barring hearing anything from him, I would plan to see him in therapy.

I had talked with my best, best friend about not wanting to show up after all of this. He said," It may not turn out well. But you have to go. Not only did you say you would be there, but if you don't go, you'll always not only wonder if things could've been different . . . I know you. You also need to know you did what you could. All you could. You need to be able to like yourself for that. "

So, Halloween arrived, and I took two hours off from work to get over there, and have time for the session and to drive back. I showed up 10 minutes early, and proceeded to sit in the waiting room for 25 minutes. It was the most humiliating 25 minutes of my life. I kept breathing, shaking, and checking my phone for the time . . . or any messages. It slowly dawned on me that he wasn't coming. It took me about 15 of the 25 minutes to really convince myself that not only was he not coming, but apparently didn't consider spending the 13 seconds it would've taken to text or email me so that I didn't leave work for this. Then it took me another 5 minutes to understand that the therapist didn't seem to be looking for me or him. And 5 minutes after that it occurred to me that nobody at the front desk was calling either of our names. This is how strongly I see and believe in the best in people. It took me 25 minutes of sitting in an empty waiting room before the horrible truth rolled over me.

Like I said, humiliating. Devastating. I felt so . . . used. Discarded. And so dumb. And honestly like the biggest asshole in the western hemisphere for making such a giant deal out of this thing that he so clearly thought nothing of.

I finally talked to the front desk, and the therapist, and found that my beloved (heh) had canceled the appointment four days before. Wow. So, I was stick-a-fork-in-me-DONE. I just couldn't fathom that this was the person who supposedly loved me so much just a couple of months before. I couldn't believe that I had done all I was asked to do and more, only to get this in return. I was absolutely floored that I had worked so hard to make it emotionally ok for me to show up to this session after being shunned, only to find that . . . he didn't care at all. Later is was clear that it was to his advantage to suggest free counseling and then run away from it because it delayed him having to write a check to me. But at the time, nothing occurred to me other than that he respected and cared for me so little after years of having my support (in a lot of different forms) and understanding and love that he would let me show up knowing he wouldn't bet there.

So, I drove home, sans candy but full of shock and profound numbness. I called a couple of people to say, "I'm not ok but I'm fine. He didn't show up." and I went to bed. At 3 in the afternoon.

All of a sudden today I remembered that this was my three-year anniversary of getting out of that relationship. What he did was shocking and hurtful, but in the end, I am so grateful I didn't marry him, or worse, have kids with him. I am grateful that I got OUT. I'm thankful, so thankful that I moved on. I never would have known how bad things were, and how needy and demanding he was if I stayed inside that environment, but from the outside, it is clear there was no room for me to take a deep breath, much less have a life or need things. So, even when I am struggling now, even when finding the time to work out is hard, when figuring out what to eat is effort, when my brain is consumed by new ways to walk, even then, I am grateful. I was sad, and lonely, and challenged by that break-up, but my life is truly better for it. I get to be MYSELF and figure out who that is now. there is room for me. sometimes I wonder if all this room will make it hard to have a lasting relationship with someone else, but I'm not sorry I get to be me. So, corn syrup or not, this is a day to celebrate and remember.

zombies

Today is something of a holiday for me. Today ends 44 weeks of waiting. Today the long awaited season two of Walking Dead starts. (eeeeeeeeee!)

I know I have mentioned my love of zombies before, but I don't think I've explained why zombies cause me to grow as excited as small children get around bowls of chocolate. (In fact, all of my food addictions and love of carbs aside, I would rather watch zombies than eat a magical bowl of delicious and yet calorie free chocolate)

Zombies quite simply, are phenomenally fascinating. Of course, there is something kind of supernatural about them, but they aren't all airbrushed and pretend-sexy-scary like the vampires. You know what I'm talking about. (That fakeness and feeling of being in a magazine shoot doesn't do it for me.) And yet, zombies are the dead become undead. How beautifully brill.

They're gross and gory, so there's a lot of adrenaline involved in watching them. And while all of that is great, what is even better is the cognitive paradox they represent. Depending on which movie or show you're watching, there are fast zombies or slow zombies. Some zombies can climb, and some cannot. Some zombies have the presence to pursue or chase, and some can't. But they all share one important trait: they are mindless. Not brain-less, but mindless. They can't remember their name, speak, or formulate a plan more complicated than a goldfish would make. But they're still moving. And eating. Well, they're eating whenever they can get their hands on some flesh. (eeeeeeeeeeeeee!)

Zombies are one of the clearest ways to illustrate the important distinction that cognitive scientists make between the brain and the mind. The brain is an organ that but the mind is the living computer that allows us to make complex calculations, learn, and distinguishes us from other species. I sometimes describe this difference as the brain being the wet and mushy stuff in our skull that does biological stuff  and the mind being the tool that allows us to figure shit out via sophisticated processing. But my wonderful Cognitive Scientist friend boiled it down much more elegantly: the brain is what zombies want to eat, while the mind is what they lack.

And yet, do you know how to kill the undead?

Yes, that's right. The way to stop a zombie for good is to cause a serious, often severing, brain trauma. Shot to the head, decapitation, baseball bat repeatedly sunk into the forehead. What an awesome paradox for someone as nerdy as me.

I also have a hankering to be entertained by "end of the world" stories. Stephen King's The Stand, yep, read it three times. Disease outbreaks sweeping the planet? I'm there. Giant meteorite, sign me up. One of my best birthdays was when a friend took me out for dinner, and then we went to see, The day after tomorrow. It. was. awful. I mean - awesome. It was awfesome. Aliens, disease, famine, force of nature, government conspiracy, I enjoy them all. I love the end of the world because the story isn't just about the apocalypse, but also about the people left, their survival and whether or not the better angels of their nature prevail.

For me, zombies are the best, most entertaining example of this. Someone asked me once if my excitement and deep knowledge of zombies came from a real fear and belief that the zombie apocalypse might happen. Umm, no. I think zombies are a Hollywood way of saying, "We fear ourselves." But, for me, the stories that seem to really stick with me are the ones that really focus on the survivors and the difficult and dark places that decisions and morality go, but also the beautiful and uplifting examples of people trying not to lose their humanity. Nothing seems to bring this out for me quite as memorably or heart-tuggingly than the juxtaposition of people trying to make it while trying to survive the uprising of former-and-now-flesh-eating-people.

My love of zombies goes deep enough to have put serious thought into how they can function biologically but not have mind. I once spent an entire weekend writing down theories about how different agents/events could cause zombies and selectively strike their mind, but spare their brain. Yes, I am that much of a geek, and a zombie enthusiast. I had some pretty good theories too, and found out, with not that much work, that there have been "scholarly" publications about the cognition of zombies. Ahh, academia, how I love thee.

I also have spent a lot of time thinking about survival in the zombie apocalypse. I didn't realize how well formulated my plans were until last spring when my cousin posted something on Facebook. He asked if it would be ok to leave somebody behind in a zombie apocalypse, if it meant saving yourself. I answered that that question had more than moral overtones. Of course, morally speaking, it would be hard to sleep at night if you left your friend to be munched on (though with zombies on the loose it would probably be hard to sleep at night anyways), but there's a more important and less altruistic thing to consider: surviving the first wave of the apocalypse usually depends a lot on luck, location, and timing. But surviving the second wave is almost always dictated by things beyond luck such as having more of something - shelter, food, fuel, people. So, save people!!! What followed was a rolling Facebook conversation between me, my friends, my cousin, and my cousin's friends about how to survive zombies. We discussed optimal locations (remote mountains, warehouses, and army installations were most mentioned), how to gather food (don't forget water! Very important!), the best modes of transportation (horses are great for all terrain, but not for escaping hordes of flesh eating undead. Tanks are awesome for driving over the masses of zombies, but not so good if you want to be somewhere remote. Motorcycles . . . have a lot of maneuvering pros, but a lot of vulnerability cons. My mother suggests a dragon. Yes, A DRAGON.), and some other items. I raised the point that after civilization dies other problems arise. Simple things become less simple, such as common illnesses and appendicitis. It's important to stockpile medication and find someone who can act as a doctor. Also, people seem to like to get it on at the end of the world, and when running for your lives from zombies is not the ideal time to be knocked up. One of my other cousins (we have 19 first cousins on my mother's side) remarked that zombies must love pregnant chics because it's like an appetizer and an entree (ha!). Stockpile birth control, peeps. It was an awesome conversation.

As you can see, zombies are a BIG DEAL for me. So much so that I once drove from Central Jersey to Albany to see the opening of Dawn of the Dead with my fabulous Cognitive Scientist friend, who loves zombies as much as I do. So when AMC started making The Walking Dead really the only bad thing was that Season 1 was only 6 episodes long. (Luckily Season 2 is contracted for 13 episodes.)

Ittttttt'sssss baaaaaaa-aaaack! Yay, Walking Dead! Honestly, it's not just that I love zombies so much, though I do. It's also that nothing on TV is as well done as this show. My love for the West Wing still knows no bounds. But it ended  5 years ago, and though I mourn the loss, we all have to move on. Don't get me wrong, I like me some bad reality TV from time to time, and I watch a couple of other shows when I can keep up, but, this show, mmmmm. This show is produced at the level of a movie, which really shouldn't be surprising given that Frank Darabont is writing and producing most episodes, and he was hugely influential in the writing and direction of my favorite movie of all time. This show is moving, emotional, a heart-racing thriller, and an unrelenting exploration of humanity's highs and lows. We loves it, precious.

In honor of tonight's important event, I re-watched the last season, talked my mom into watching Season 1 (after informing her that, no, there would not be any dragons, and yes, she would have to endure some gritty plots, some complicated characters, and yes, some gore), and I plan to celebrate with some popcorn. I know that popcorn is a dangerous food for me, but I'd like to believe I can have foods that I like and not descend into mindless eating. I am not a zombie, after all. So, we'll see if I can enjoy zombies without becoming an undead-like-eater on my couch. I've been on my new eating plan for 5 days, and am feeling like I have some idea of how to fit foods in, and how to eat them in moderation. I won't know for sure how I handle this until I try it, so I have to try it. I can't let the zombies do all the eating, eh?

In other news, today is a real occasion. Someone whom I love very much turns 30. Welcome to the next decade, dude. I love you and hope this next year is everything you want and need it to be.

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Post Script - it has been suggested that I "tossed off" comments about The West Wing. Let me be clear. My love for the this show is unending. I feel the work the cast, crew and writers did in this show shattered the supposed limits of TV. It elevated television based drama to a new level, it changed the conversation about politics, at least in my circle, and it educated me. At turns, it amused me, devastated me, and taught me; sometimes all in the same episode (this episode is a particularly good example of that special blend of humor, drama, and information). I was hooked on this show within two episodes. I wrote my same fabulous Cognitive Scientist friend after he sent me a video with the same two episodes and said, "Damn you! Now I'm hooked on this show and don't have cable!" I love, love, love The West Wing. I miss, miss, miss The West Wing. What is important to note is that I have been interested in TV since then but never until The Walking Dead did I have anything that came close. Thank god someone finally found the right cast, with the right story line otherwise I might've sank beneath the weight of bad hospital shows!

Run your own race

I heard this phrase  in a workshop this week. The workshop was rife with platitudes, but also opportunities to get different perspective or consider new strategies, so to this particular phrase, I worked really hard not to roll my eyes.

I found myself today, with real reason to think of it. After being on the road non stop for work, then away and in this workshop for two long days, and then vacationing with friends, we decided today was the day to head out for a run. I told them about some of the outdoor running I had done, and nearby parks, but we also noticed that there was a very handy grid of roads around my condo that make a near perfect 2.5 mile square starting and ending at my door.

It's not like I hadn't thought of road running before. After all, this is Boulder. I see more people on bikes and running in my neighborhood than I see prairie dogs, and given the prairie dog preserve I live across from, there are a lot of prairie dogs!  But, I've been intimidated to road-run before. It seemed much easier to hide my inadequacies in a nice private part of a park, or even better, on the lone treadmill in the much neglected work-out room in my development. Also, in the past distances were an issue for me, But now I am regularly completing 2-3 mile running "assignments." One excuse down.

The other thing is, I don't run continuously. My trainer and I are on a strict program of me running intervals. We work hard to make my running intervals longer and my rest intervals shorter, but I don't bust out 2 miles non-stop. I definitely feel like this excludes me from the club of real "runners" that I am surrounded by in this part of the country.

Finally, I'm not all that fast or super-fit looking, so running where people can see me does make me a little insecure. what this has resulted in is me often running in a very isolated and boring way, aka the treadmill. I don't get wind on my face, good scenery, or the feeling of forward motion, but I do get to carefully calculate my times, and run in a way where few people see or scrutinize what I'm doing.

Today, my friends and I had decided, was a day for being more healthy, so we headed out with lots of "I've been researching non-stop for a month, so I won't keep up," and "I only do 10 minute miles at my best and with the altitude . . ." type comments as disclaimers about nobody needing to keep up with or hold back for any one else. Still, I knew that I would be arriving back at my own house, after my very own sea-level guests. No matter how long it had been since they ran, or the adjustment to the altitude, I knew. Because, fundamentally, although I am someone who runs, I am not a runner. And there is a difference.

It was hard when within 5 minutes both of them were more than a quarter mile ahead of me, but I had to tell myself, "This is your first road run in, ummmmm, ever."

Then they were both a half mile ahead. It's hard to not be "in the pack" but I can only do what I can do. I reminded myself that I have short legs and what I can churn out is just different. Forget the knees, my bad feet, the asthma. Even if all of that was magically erased, as someone who stands "5'2 on a good day!" having my pace match that of someone a foot taller is unlikely.

Finally, after about 10 minutes, I just settled into my running assignment, which is actually a discovery assignment. (I love these because I get to be  scientist studying myself and seeing what happens) No intervals set for me, just a run this amount, break it up how you need to, and see how long you can run for, how many intervals, and how long it takes you assignment. I had to run my own race, and make the run about me getting done what I needed to get done.

What came of that is that in the same amount of time i took to run 2 miles last week (at 10 at night) I ran 2.5 miles today. Outside. On the road. and I ran my longest distance without stopping yet! My competitive nature made me feel a little . . . disappointed when I returned home to find my two best friends already lounging and recovering, but if I can be competitive with myself, well that gets the job done much better. 2.5 miles! 28 minutes!

I also realized a few things on this run:

• running outside during nice weather is infinitely more enjoyable than running on a treadmill. I never thought about quitting, was not aware of muttering to myself like a crazy person, nor did I have to use the zombie-trick to stay motivated
• Running into the wind is hard
• Timing my breathing is harder on the road
• My feet, hands, and shoulders like running outside more
• My back likes treadmill running better
• Not having a clock keeping track actually made me push myself harder
  

So, while it may get me better results to run on a treadmill right now, it may also be keeping me from having better experiences running. Hmmmm. I probably need to plan some more outdoor runs before the weather turns bad. Which, in Colorado probably means I have about 6 day. Ha! See you out on the road!