All rolled together

Original Post: 7/26/12
Re-post due to blog breakage 8/2/12
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I have a dear, dear friend faced with a more than difficult situation in the pregnancy she fought so hard to attain. We've been discussing this as it has been unfolding. Tears, anger, denial, and cold, hard, clinical facts, all of it. And she still has good days and bad days with it. Several weeks ago she reported she was a"hot mess." Two days later she was fine and thinking very carefully about ways to both honor her sad news and celebrate the happy parts of her pregnancy, without one taking away from the other. The conversation we had was how she is happy, sad, disappointed, grieving, excited, angry, and grateful all at once. And we discussed how this is like LIFE. Nothing is ever completely easy, or completely dark and twisty. Nothing is ever all good or all bad. It's always all rolled together.

I'm trying to embrace this as I look at me and my life moving forward: my relationships, my future, my choices, my good and less than good days, and my job prospects. My therapist is always very keen to remind me that seeing things as black and white means not seeing all of the gray shades in the picture, and that means resigning myself to not seeing the whole picture. I'm occasionally keen to block out that message, or make a face when he says that, but I recognize the wisdom therein.

As you might imagine, I have varying levels of success with seeing things as good and bad together, easy and hard, red licorice and black licorice in the same bag. (After all, I am the organization queen.) For instance, today it worked out pretty well for me to get up at a not obscene hour, eat breakfast, make a lunch, go to my part-time gig for 4 hours, feel productive, and then mosey around Boulder for a couple of hours getting little bits of things done - capricious pedicure, my quest for Popsicle molds, finding some healthy snacks for the house (settled on strawberries and jalapeno cheese sticks for those who wonder), and dropping off a prescription.

I can look at that and feel like I did things that were meaningful out in the world, personally satisfying, and good for my homestead. This kind of balance was . . . well, I wish I could say rare, but it was actually non-existent when I was holding down a full-time job that included running a remote region by myself and being on the road more than I was in my office . . . which was a bit sad since my home WAS my office. This is to say, there are many things about being unemployed that are GREAT.

 . . . And of course, there are several that are less than great.

I heard myself say today to the business owner I was consulting with, "Listen, I get it. you aren't used to being the bad guy, and you really, really liked being the team player that everyone liked and it's hard not to be in that position because you are working for yourself and sometimes have to make decision that don't make everyone happy. But, I'm sure there wee things at [your job] that you didn't like. Whatever it was. Hours, people, certain tasks. This is like every job. there is always some part of your job that you'd really rather not do. Running your own business is a job, and so there are going to be parts you don't like. "

Don't you love it when you can be wise for OTHER people but not yourself? Right.

So, here's the thing: being unemployed is a JOB. For me it's a job that involves devoting the larger part of my "working hours" to job searching, applying, networking, and interviewing. But there are other tasks such as: tracking sales in order to stay in budget, grocery shopping and cooking on said budget, exercising more than before in order to relocate that balance in my life, balancing my scant opportunities to make money with the seeking of potential opportunities, finding creative outlets in my cooking, photography, and writing, and going to therapy at least once a month to make sure I am being appropriately supervised in this new job I find myself in.

Honestly, this isn't the worst job description I've ever signed on the dotted line for. (No, that would be the kid I babysat 4 days a week when I was 14. He refused to flush the toilet and threw things at people as well as launching into frequent tantrums.) Like any job there are going to be tough days, days I want to close the door on, disappointments and frustrations. But there are also days where I feel accomplished, hopeful, aligned with my principles and core values . . . in other words, days where I am doing exactly what I know I should be doing, and doing it well. I had those days with my last employer . . . days where I knew I had done work that mattered, days where I knew I had contributed positively. But I also had days where I felt like I was being asked to jump through hoops, backwards, while standing on my head just because that was someone else's idea of what getting things done looked like.

Nothing is all good or all bad, I suspect - it's often in how we look at it that smudges it dark or colors it good. As Shakespeare says, "there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." (Hamlet, if you're curious.)

I don't want to be preachy or speak for anyone else so I'll just talk about me (narcissism beats preachy by a nose!): often how grateful I am for what I have, how willing I am to admit hope and be optimistic, and how much faith I have that things are as they should be and that I am doing ENOUGH (or as Brene Brown points out that I AM enough, regardless of what I do or don't do, have or don't have) determines the relative goodness of something, not it's inherent properties. Doing laundry can be a boring chore, or a chance t make the bedroom smell like fabric softener and put clean sheets on the bed. Working can be a blessing or a necessity. My friend's dilemma and pregnancy can be an uncomfortable reminder that things don't work out the way we plan or a cause for celebration, and my continued quest for the right career opening can be stressful or an opportunity to value myself higher and hold out for something awesomely awesome.

On Monday, I was pretty miserable with this. I was mentally listing all of the things that discouraged and irritated me, and generally made me want to pull a blanket up over my head and give up. Witness:

• It's been 7 months, what's to say it won't be 7 more?
• I've had several near misses on actually landing job offers for positions I've interviewed for . . . this must mean I'm the weakest link.
• Not being employed means making health decisions sans health insurance
• I have enough money for food, bills, and the occasional trip to get frozen yogurt but not enough to do things like visit my peeps in Jersey, meet my bestie's (not new! It's been 8 months!) baby or go to my friend's wedding.
• I also miss my brother and my sister terribly
• Paychecks are nice . . . siiiiggghh
• I worry people will think less of me because everyone so profoundly expected me to land a job within weeks of applying and here we are in the second half of the year with no job in sight. Oy.
• I miss singing and performing and can't really afford expensive habits like that right now
• I'm weary o answering people's queries and invitations with a non-committal, "Umm, I'll have to see what's going on then because it's really hard to plan ahead right now . . . "
• I really miss working out with my trainer

That was Monday. Today I can see the value of what one friend refers to as my desert island time.

• I've had 7 months where I've been able to examine, and really plumb the depths of, what happiness looks like for me and how to create and attract that to my life.
• I've had some amazing almost job offers and opportunities to consider careers "outside the box" of things that I have aimed at before. I also know the not-hiring of me in those circumstances were about organizational rifts, not about me. I know I am interviewing well.
• I have been insanely healthy (not my usual thang so this is big) and so the hard health decisions have been few and far between
• I work from home all the time in this job. I can also work from the library, the coffee shop, and even within a lunch date at Panera while my friend is doing homework and we are both enjoying sandwiches. 
• I have enough to cover the basics, and after 7 months of not working, that is saying something. Re-learning how to budget strictly and make choices means I'm happier with what I DO have than I have been in a long time. this reminds me of when I was dirt poor in college (like, 2 jobs every semester, at least, and three in the summer, with babysitting and house sitting thrown on top) and said to a friend (who I am still proud to call friend!), "When I don't have money, it's typically not an issue because I just don't want as much. The problem is when I have more money than I planned and then want a lot of thing at once.
  
  The psychology of decision making is complex enough that I have several friends from grad school that have made careers from it. I'm wary of boiling it down to a pop psychology nugget but research in this field suggests I am not making this up and that there are many cases where having more to choose from leaves us less satisfied with the decisions we settle on.
• I have missed people and places and events that I regret and wish I didn't have to . . . but also more than ever, I have palpable evidence of how loved and surrounded by sincere caring and support I am. It's new for me to be at peace with that, to see myself in that light, to accept help and have some sense of being worthy of the love and attention. As Heinlein says, "this is a goodness.
  
  I am loved and I am lovable, and knowing it means I have some hint of a sketch of a blueprint of what love is and means to me.
• I'm learning that my attachment to plans are often a symptom of not feeling secure enough to be what I am, do what I need, and walk boldly. If I'm too steeped in a plan then it is worth at least taking my temperature and seeing if I'm suffering from some thinly veiled insecurity. And even if that's not the case it's still NECESSARY to remind myself that my plans don't actually get shit done (plans don't accomplish things! People do!) and also that planning is just another way of saying "expectation" and that expectation leads to attachment, and attachment leads to suffering.
• I took a walk in the middle of the day yesterday. It as the perfect time - early enough in the day to not be too hot, late enough in the morning to sidestep blood sugar issues. Working out when and how I want to means I'm more apt to do it because I'm not talking myself into stopping at the gym at 8pm as I'm driving home after a 14 hour day. 
• I have a sense of my identity outside of what I "do." I DO lots of things. I throw amazing tea parties for 5 year olds. I get babies to sleep and coax smiles out of them. I cook. I write. I hike. I organize offices. I lesson plan for tutoring. 
• I have enough peace of mind in my insufferable know-it-all head to have the space in my heart for a little faith. It's still work for me - I'm just not gifted in this realm. But, I believe in enough good in the world to know I believe in something. 
• I have enough time in almost every day for all of the ingredients of what happy looks like for me. Good and healthy food (mostly homecooked), doing something that makes a difference, connection with friends (emails, texts, Skypes, Panera dates, hiking, what have you . . . ),working out, time spent with my person, enough sleep, music, photography, laughter, processing time. This means . . . I got to watch every episode of Grey's Anatomy on time this spring, if I wanted to. It means I get to write and re-teach myself to read music. It means my laundry can be done on time . . . though it still often isn't.
• I know myself sososososo much better these days - flaws, my need to process in my own special way, sometimes less than well-contained ADD and all.
• I am letting go of the notion of PERFECTION as being equivalent to WORTHINESS. This is, shall we say, an ongoing project for me. (Ahem) And it probably always will be. I'd also bet all of the money I DON'T have that this will be a major theme in the blog moving forward . . .

On the numbers alone, the positive outweigh the negatives in this, my new job. (13 vs. 10!) But this is also what my brother calls, "comparing apples to NOT apples." The characteristics of the items on the top list isn't the same as those on the lower list. The top list is about convenience, societal norms, and boxing things up neatly. The lower list is about leading the life that's good for me . . . even, and sometimes especially, when it's neither convenient nor easy. It's about being healthy, and not just physically. It's about setting myself up for success beyond what looks good on a resume, and it's about what this blog set out to do, back in the day.

That list is about high-quality calories, maybe not fancy, but the kinds that don't leave room for empty ones.

I can't promise to never have another bad day with frustrations, low self-esteem, and taking things out on myself when it comes to the disappointing and downright discouraging cycle that is job applying. I can say I know there are always hard days at work, and pledging to see this as a job, and therefore neither all good nor all bad, is my goal.

Walking the walk

I saw my therapist today.

In all of the things am doing to try and keep my head above water, and stay healthy, seeing my therapist once a month is as important, if not more so, than the drugs I order from Canada in my uninsured place in life.

These days, I'm happier, healthier, more relaxed, and more . . . at peace with my core than I was. But, I also know this is new and I still need some supervision when it comes to establishing and maintaining this new friendship I have with being who I truly am.

We talked about a lot of things: the difference between opinions and judgement, what standing up for myself looks like and if it works for me, intuition and insight, boundaries, and current milestones for me. We talked about shame and guilt and vulnerability and connection, and how I am as a person when I feel my feelings on time and how patterns are helpful until they're not. I had some specific recent events to discuss with him, but mostly we were relating these things back to general understandings of where I am and what I sit on that couch to do - brainstorm new practices to help me be a better me more of the time.

He said this, that made me laugh and laugh and laugh. "You're soooooo open to change." Then I had to  tell him this story from my recent life. My person is in the process of moving in and everyone, including  my person, has been asking, "Isn't that hard?"  "How do you feel giving up your office?" "Does it feel weird to be sharing space?" "Is it a lot of changes?"

In order:

1. No. It has been almost completely natural. (Life would be harder if we had to share the important things - bathroom, closet, Netflix account. This house has two full bathrooms. The master bedroom closet is a bigger walk-in than my bedroom was for 4 years in NJ and we each have our own Netflix :-)
2. I am ELATED to have that room transformed. The office hasn't felt like it belonged to me for over a year, long before I got laid off and stopped using it as my office. Giving it away feels like the healthiest thing I could do. My bestest bestie offered earlier this year that short of peeing in the corners, it would be very hard to bring a different energy into that room. Having someone else turn it into THEIR space is the antidote to that.
3. Sometimes, as we are getting settled, I am noticing the edges and habits that might need to soften over time. But, mostly, we have a strong enough communication foundation and know enough about who each other REALLY is that it hasn't been weird
4. I embarked on cleaning out my closets and divesting myself of CRAP about a month ago. Not because of this, but because I needed to find a healthy way to let go of things that weren't needed and to make my load lighter should I need to move. This means there's a lot more space than there has ever been in this house and that makes the changes easier. So while what is on the shelves, as well as where the shelves are, may have changed, the only really significant changes I've noticed are: I no longer pee with the door open, there is a much nicer TV in my house, and I'm suddenly very aware of how outdated most of my technology was/is.

But, last night it occurred to me that while the office has changed substantially, and the living room reflects his presence, and the kitchen and dining room may never change substantially (cooking makes some people happy and excited and others anxious and worried. I am the former kind of person, my person is the later), the bedroom needed to be OURS (not just mine with an added dose of him). So, I mentioned that I wasn't sure our bedroom was set up ideally and was beginning to think about ways to rearrange the furniture. . . I asked my person to help me think of ways to change it for the better. After about five minutes of conversation he said, "Here, get up. Let's try it." And before I knew what was happening, the bed, night tables, chair, and bookshelves were moving, seeming to swirl around me, almost like a Disney movie where things come alive. He had an partial idea in his head, and working off of that started sliding things across the floor and saying things like, "Ummm, hmmm, maybe moving the light over will make sense," and "I'm not sure what goes in that corner now. " I stood against the wall and watched this, not knowing what to make of it. If I'm being honest, I was experiencing a weensie bit of panic.

Where were the measurements? Where was the list or drawing showing where everything would go? Oh my goodness, where was the PLAN? Aaaaaaaaaaaa!

He saw this and said, "Are you ok? You look like you're physically bracing yourself."

I replied, "Umm, you're moving very fast. I'm just staying out of the way. "

"Well, you wanted to think of different ways to arrange things. This is how I think. Is this really disturbing to you?"

On the one hand, of course, the answer was YES! On the other hand, there was part of me sitting deep inside my braced-self laughing and laughing saying, "Not only did you ask for this but real change for you never happens unless someone or something MAKES it happen. Look at this metaphor laid out right here, in your bedroom. Ha!"

It's no secret to my readers and my friends that I struggle with change. I can get very excited about change in idea form, But actually making changes to where I live, how I live, doing things like leaving (ahem, quitting) grad school, or leaving a job that makes me unhappy . . . well let's tally it up. I cried for a week when leaving my college to start grad school, because I was leaving my first home and a community where everyone knew and mostly respected me. I lived in the same apartment throughout grad school, and the year after, even though the management company was shady and the price tag exorbitant because the idea of packing my things in boxes and moving made me feel physically ill. I stayed in grad school a year longer than I had to get my masterses (plural Master's degrees - M.A. and M.S.) because . . . habit won out and going into the department was a habit even though, at that point, I had endured 3 years of advisor abuse. Most importantly, most wishy-washingly, most embarrassingly, I stayed in a job that no longer challenged or motivated me, or made me happy.

All of my excitement about change is worth nothing if I talk the talk but don't walk the walk. Or, as my brother often says - go big or go home.

So, when my therapist says I'm open to change, I have to fess up and admit that while I may be OPEN to change, that is vastly different to being good at it.

What I reported to him is close to the truth - I want things to change, and progress, otherwise I feel . . . numb. But sometimes I don't know how to do it. I posted a couple of months ago on FB "Christie Veitch wants everything to be different." A hilarious and whip-smart friend wrote, "I only want the things that are the same to be different. the things that are already different can stay the same."

The truth is, though, I want so much to be different (me, my family relationships, my job situation, the fact that no TV will ever again be as good as The West Wing . . . ). And yet, I still sometimes stand with my back to the wall and let it happen around me. I want change but I often don't make it happen. I'm skilled at putting things neatly in their place, ducks in a row, or, as my person said today, "being out in front" of what's coming.

Guess what, CV? Life doesn't work like that. Deal with it.

So, I am.

I have a friend who is hitch-hiking to a wedding this weekend, and therefore, not sure when he will get back. Just throwing himself to the mercy of what happens next. I have another friend who all in one year got married, bought a house, got a third dog (bringing the total poundage of her dogs-in-house-to over 300!) and got pregnant. I can look at my life and say, with honesty, I want everything to be different (imagine me . . . in Seattle. imagine me . . . somewhere where I could have a dog. imagine me . . . in a job that I loved. imagine me . . . back in school . . . maybe.) I have friends who have packed up a couple of suitcases and boxes and headed out for a new life that is 6000 miles away from where they are; but I am stubbornly in this house, seeking a job right here, because I want somehow to keep things same-ish while I'm changing.

Pema Chodron says:

ABANDON ANY HOPE OF FRUITION

“Fruition” implies that at some future time you will feel good. One of the most powerful Buddhist teachings is that as long as you are wishing for things to change, they never will. As long as you’re wanting yourself to get better, you won’t. As long as you are oriented toward the future, you can never just relax into what you already have or already are.


This is about RIGHT NOW. Not how things could be, tomorrow, but how I am making today work, on how I am practicing presence today, and how I want things to be. Now.

These people, while their choices aren't the same as the ones in front of me,  are inspirations. Wedding you want to go to? Go! Time to get married, get some dogs, expand the family, and get a house - DO IT. Chance to move to Hawai'i or Vancouver? Don't stand against the wall while things move around you waiting to be pulled into it.

I'm realizing that boundaries are boundaries, but that even when we draw some lines to keep us safe, there's a lot of space in between for things to vary and move and grow and end and move on and change. It takes practice for me to remember, every day, that everything is impermanent and not mine to control. My plans and lists and pictures don't actually help me make change. What helps is when I ask for help. What helps is when I get what I ask for.

I need, sometimes, to be thrown in the deep end and reminded that I know full well how to swim.

If this year hasn't been 7 months of this exercise, then I don't know what is.

Or, in the words of the David Bowie:

 "I still don't know what I was waiting for

And my time was running wild

A million dead-end streets
Every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me
But I've never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I'm much too fast to take that test

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

(Turn and face the strain)"

Change is disruptive. Always. Even when it's welcome, needed, or asked for. Disruption is having to think outside the box to make money and seek opportunities to do things that feel meaningful. Disruption is re-evaluating priorities. Disruption is my friends having babies and re-learning the true value of five minutes with two hands free or an hour of sleep. Disruption is waking up this morning and  having that moment of, "where is the alarm now?"

Disruptive isn't the same as destructive. I get what I ask for, sometimes, and at others, I get what I need. In this case, it's both.

Off the wall, CV, get off the wall.

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p.s. it's important to note, that while my person was all about the swirling of furniture about me, after he had gotten things to where we could both see what his new plan looked like he gave me a solid hour or two to quietly absorb this, rearrange books and knick-knacks, and the like. And he also offered me verbal-gold stars as I moved things around in ways that made the room feel more balanced and spread out, which is what we were going for. It's now been two days, and I'm happy with the room like this. 

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.

Romance

As it turns out, I am broken in the romance department.

A good friend said to me today, "how could your job search not be depressing at this point? What's remarkable is that you seem to be doing so well in the rest of your life." And this is all true. (My job search is a little bit of a downer after 6 months. On the other hand, I'm doing really, really well.) One of the things that has changed most for me in the last 6 months of unemployment is to have really located my feelings and made peace with feeling them. On time. And to deal with them in pretty healthy ways. (As opposed to stuffing my feelings down, pretending to be fineFineFINE and then having to unpack that particular box. LATER. All alone. In unhealthy ways.)

I know, everyone else figured this out right around the time they were learning to tie their shoes, but this is big for me. So, having located my feelings, and knowing what I am feeling at any given moment, for maybe the first time in my adult life, it's surprising to me to discover I'm not much for romance.

Let me be clear. I am, indeed, a girl. I get pedicures and I even wear skirts on occasion. This is to say, the standard notions of romance don't totally escape me. Having someone tell me I'm pretty, wonderful, incredible, etc. is GREAT. I also like flowers. But since I've discovered various locations in my neighborhood where I can . . . relocate flowers from, I don't need anyone to bring me flowers. (Before you judge me, know this: for two years, I've had dead and dying bushes blocking the path to my house. This year, my complex landscaped everyone else's pathways, adding flowers to many, and ripped out my bushes. Path cleared, view into every window in house also fully cleared. They did not plant anything else. So . . . I figure, I am owed a few flowers in my every-curtain-closed-house every couple of weeks.) I like thoughtfulness, and snuggling. Yes indeedy. All girl over here.

But, I had a boyfriend who was all about the flowers and the compliments and the telling me how much he loved me . . . and then was completely unable to back it up with action, reliability, or . . . integrity. Ultimately, it felt worse and worse every time he brought me flowers or told me he loved me or told me how wonderful I was because . . . I knew that was his cover for all that he refused to address in himself, our relationship, and the ever widening gap in our communication. It was all motivated by making up for some basic relationship need that wasn't being met before that moment, or it was covering up some as of yet undiscovered other relationship sin. I've been lied to too many times to accept the flowers and compliments without wondering what they are REALLY about. I want honesty, and buckets of it.

So, to me, standard Hollywood romance has become . . . something that people do to distract from what's really going on. The things people say to make things look ok, for now. I don't want to take anything away from people who do sincerely nice things for someone they care about. I don't. (Especially since I genuinely enjoy being nice to people I care about. and not just people I'm dating.) But a lot of my experience with being brought flowers, told I'm perfect, or bought a nice dinner is that it comes from ulterior motives.

I want also to not think that honesty and romance are incompatible. But these days, romance to me is reality. I know there wil be good days and bad days, even if I'm happy in my relationship. I know romance is nice, but trust and communication are worth sooooo much more.

And I know that the idea that love makes everything ok is not only wrong, but dangerous. I had long talks while walking with another friend this spring. We see the same therapist and have some of the same pitfalls when it comes to insecurities and relationships and were prone to picking them over and examining them together in the backdrop of West Boulder with lattes in our hands. What I finally said to him was, "Dude, if you think about it, some of your worst, miserable, lonely, most doubt-filled insecure moments were when you were in love, because you were in love with someone and struggling with them. They were for me. Love is no guarantee that you will feel good."

I was reasoning my way through this last week, and heard myself say out loud, "Saying that being in love isn't the equivalent of 'everything is taken care of and happy' doesn't mean you can never be happy and in love, but it does stand as evidence that unhappiness and love can co-occur too which does prove that love and unending happiness are not the same thing."

For me, this isn't a pessimist's tale, but the reason to notice and appreciate and smile big when being with someone does make you happier and things are going smoothly.

It's also the reason why the last time I wrote marriage vows (to any new-comers, that's right! I've been engaged twice, but never married) I noted in them that promising forever seemed outsized, but that promising that for each day we were together I would go to bed with a plan to wake up the next day trying to be the best version of myself loving them again. I wrote:

"Plans are often the blueprint of what we want and hope for, but it's important that what I promise is something that I deliver, not just hope for. I want to be sure that what I pledge to you today is something you will believe and put your faith and trust in.

What I pledge to you is that every day I will try to support you and nurture the best in you, and that I trust in you to do the same for me. I say this knowing that our love for each other encompasses, understands, and forgives the things that are less than our best selves and hoping that we continue to believe in the strength of our relationship to seek what is mostworthy about each other and our together-ness, and move past the things that detract from that. 

I stand here choosing to be your wife, your partner, and a source of strength, safety, love, and compassion for you. I ask you to do the same for me. My pledge to you is that I would not choose another nor can I think of anyone more worthy to make this comittment to."

Now, roughly 5 minutes after I wrote these, the person I wrote them for made fun of marriage, commitment, and tried to dodge the whole conversation about our relationship while also asking me to move across the country for him and somehow still demanding credit for having thought about maybe-kinda-sorta proposing to me. So, you know, I was wrong about him being worthy of those promises. I've been wrong a lot in my life and this is ok because mistakes and being wrong aren't the same as regret.

As my person said to me recently, when people promise to be together forever, what they're really pledging is to be together until forever becomes impossible, "but that's not what you say in front of your friends and family because it doesn't sound romantic." I must not be very romantic then because, as you can plainly see, I wrote wedding vows that weren't about the forever that no one can promise (because there isn't any of us who can see that far). I also didn't marry either of the people I was engaged to because . . . well, I believe in marriage being a promise to love the person you're marrying enough to support them in being their best selves, and to be challenged to be your best self BY them. And neither of my fiances turned out to believe that or to be those people. I also believe marriages are relationships, not contracts, and that all relationships should be built on honesty and communication. And both of the people I was engaged to struggled with one or both of those things at those times in their lives. But most of all . . . they didn't love me for me. They loved me for what I could give them or who they thought I should be. And none of that boded well for making a big commitment, even if I was very conscientious and conservative about what I was committing to.

Here's the thing: I'm a hunter-gatherer when it comes to data. I pile it up. I go looking for it, and when I think I've amassed ENOUGH (whatever counts as enough) I analyze the crap out of it. The catch with data is sample size. For psych studies, there is a minimum number of data points that qualifies something as a well designed study. For mathematical reasons, most statistical tests require 33 independent data points as a minimum. In relationship terms is that 33 dates? 33 weeks? 33 years? No, it doesn't translate. I'd have to literally be able to see the future, or predict it with some strong probability in order to promise forever. But at 6 months into any relationship, as I'm off in my corner processing 6 months of data, if evidence warrants, I embark on the next 6 months and then that is unfolding. With more data. Which then needs to be analyzed. As that continues forward, well, then there's just more data being generated. Then, 6 more months . . . and you guessed it. MORE DATA. Y'all are smart readers so you see where this is headed.

So, this means . . . there will never be ENOUGH data to stop gathering, analyze, and make a prediction  solid enough to bet on. Or to stake a  promise of forever on.

I will always be scared about what happens next. About vulnerability. About my baggage. About my choices.

Moving ahead even though I'm scared . . . that's romance to me.

My friend (who's in jail), and his wife, going to counseling before he was sentenced so they could be at their strongest point before he had to be missing from day-to-day life is romance.

My dear friends who met and fell for each other while they were in other relationships forging ahead, that means something. Five years later they married and to me it was a show of bravery, of knowing that it was scary and uncertain, given that one of them had been in a marriage that dissolved, and that it was worth the leap anyways. It was a promise with teeth, flying in the face of knowing that for every amount of easy that it is to say the vows, it's three times as hard to make it stick. Them deciding that they would get up in front of their friends to exchange vows despite this country not recognizing their marriage, because it mattered to say it front of people, was love. Them deciding that doing it when they wanted to do it, how the wanted to do it trumped tradition or fanciness, and that a pizza party reception was just fine by them was almost as big a testament to their reasons for marrying as their solid "I wills" as their officiant asked, "Will you take _____ to be your wife? Will you share her joy and ease her burdens? Will you be honest with her, and be faithful to her?" after one of them experiencing the dissolution of a marriage, it moved me.

It was, of course, less heart-skippingly-lovely when they had to fight to have their marriage recognized for the purposes of one being covered by the other's benefits . . . but my thoughts about marriage rights and separation of church and state are another can of tuna.

Romance to me is about choice and action and and, yes, thoughtfulness and support. Consideration and communication. But, that looks the same to me whether the picture is painted in flowers and candy, or in things less Hollywood-worthy.

For me, the central idea here is, we can't always be clean shaven, in our hot jeans, wearing perfume. It's not real unless it's real. Flowers are nice, but someone who holds me after I've messed up dinner and wants me around after I've cried for apparently no good reason when discussing why I might or might not want to go back to school, that's priceless. The woman who loves my best friend from grad school even when she is over-worked and overwhelmed and wants nothing more than to lie on the carpet loves the real HER. The men in my life who married each other knew, deeply, exactly who each other are - good, bad, and ugly.

Romance is saying, "At any point we could discover there is no future, but there aren't deal breakers now so I want to move forward," and "this is scary, but I'd rather be scared with you than without you," and "I can work with that," but even more than that, "I think there is room for me to see this for what it is, to care for you still AND to support you to be the best version of yourself as often as possible." I was completely sappily moved by the Grey's anatomy non-wedding that the fabled Derek and Meredith performed for themselves on a post-it BECAUSE they talked about realities like getting old and senile, running away, giving up . . .

Love and happiness aren't the same thing, but I think there's a better chance of happiness in any relationship (friendship, siblings, family, romantic) if honesty and reality are present as much as possible. Reality is bad days, bad haircuts, hard conversations, simple pleasures, ratty t-shirts, calling yourself out, calling each other out, not always looking cool, forgetting things, being reminded of why you liked them, friendship, fights, growth, guards coming down, and things that can't ever be planned for. I know this from my longest relationships (none of which lasted more than 5 years) and NOT being married, so, while I know jack all about marriage, if this is true for 4+ years of non-marriage . . . then at least some of it has to be true about romance and marriage too, yes?

Ok, I'm done rambling about this for now and will just hope someone out there reading this knows more than me and will comment, otherwise I will remain, forever, romance-deficient.

Choosing Shoes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two weeks

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

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

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

Day 1 - My Birthday

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

Day 3 - practicing with the Gorilla Pod

Day 4 - My Birthday dinner and my peeps!

Day 5 - Killer sunset collage

Day 6 - My part time gig

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

Day 8 - Cut Offs

Day 9 - the sloppiest SP ever

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

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

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

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

Day 14 - healthy routines

Coming out

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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