Confronting Fear

September 9, 2018 by

It isn’t always comfortable or easy – carrying your fear around with you on your great and ambitious road trip, I mean – but it is always worth it, because if you can’t learn to comfortably travel alongside your fear, then you will never be able to go anywhere interesting or do anything interesting.
~ Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic.

I have a hard time with fear, mostly because I have a lot of it. I find that unfortunate as I believe it is one of the two primary emotions. And if I am fearful, if the majority of my thoughts are fear based, how much capacity can I have for love, the other primary emotion? Is a person’s emotional capacity finite? Does a person who feels a large amount a fear handicap themselves from being able to feel large amounts of love?

I want the answer to that question to be “no.” I want to sit here (in fact I have already tried) and say that I think that a fearful person is as capable as a less fearful person to express, receive, and process love based thoughts. And the best that I can do is to acknowledge that it might be true for some people.

It is not true for me.

I do not travel comfortably along side my fear. We are not road dogs. We do not have a working relationship. The secondary feelings my fear produces are not helpful. It does not energize, motivate, provide productive adrenaline, or excite. My fear is in no way functional.

I can recognize fear when it presents itself in the “normal” ways in response to the “normal” things I am afraid of. That is typical fear and, for me, falls more into the instinctual “fight, flight, or freeze” dynamic that I think is normal and appropriate for most people. It is the less obvious instances that create journey difficulties. In those situations, I am learning to recognize when fear is the dominate force. If I am feeling overwhelmed, indecisive, melancholy, or distracted, I am more than likely operating in fear. Unfortunately in these nuanced situations, I am still only able to assess this truth outside of the moment, after behaviors have been decided and choices made. Not ideal.

But I think I have discovered a strategy that may help in becoming less fearful – at least for me. Funny thing about it, it’s super scary. Let’s see if I can coherently walk you through my thought process…

Shame derives its power from being unspeakable.
~ Brene Brown, Daring Greatly

In all the things that Brene has ever said or written, this one point has resonated with me the most. I have found it to be 100% true and I have successfully employed it a number of times. My ability to handle shame laden feelings has become quite proficient if I do say so myself.

In Brene’s research on shame, she has created a definition that I think works: Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.

She more simply states it this way – Shame is the fear of disconnection.

So if shame is the fear of disconnection, then I can deduce that shame belongs to the primary fear and not the primary love. And if speaking shame works to neutralize it, then maybe the root emotion fear has the same Achilles’ heel.

*Note – I originally wrote “dispels” instead of “neutralize.” I think recording that edit is important. Shame, fear, are never dispelled. They always exists somewhere in some form. It is unrealistic for me to set the goal as “I will never be fearful.” I do not need to find a way to make fear nonexistent. I need to find a way to remove its influence in my decision making. The better goal for me is to transform fear into a decision neutral force.

In considering this thought it occurs to me that fear rarely gets named or called out. We hear the questions “are you okay,” “what’s wrong,” “is everything alright” and the like. What if the question was, “What are you afraid of right now?”

In considering areas of my life where I know I need improvement, time management is a big one and has been for quite a while. I sat with that one this morning and couched the idea in the new “what are you afraid of” strategy. The issue sprung open like seedling that was just looking for the right path to the surface. The obstacles were obvious. I suck at time management because I am afraid of choosing the right priorities. I am afraid when I do choose, I will execute the choice poorly. I am afraid that my choices will inadvertently reveal some actual truth or misconstrued truth about me that cause others to feel negatively about me. I am afraid that I will fail in following my schedule and appear incapable, undisciplined, lazy.

That’s a lot of bullshit going on when all we are talking about is taking a pencil to my calendar and deciding whether I want to put my gym hour at 0800 or not.

Let me say that to myself again – all we are talking about is where to put my gym hour, in pencil.

Let me say that again – a penciled in gym hour creates fear that I will be unloved, judged, disconnected.

Seriously? AYFKM?

And now the time blocked doesn’t seem so scary.

Understand I am not sitting here feeling a rush of “Tada!” I understand that this is just one thing and it feels successful right now. It has also taken about 72 hours of occasional idea rolling and three solid hours of Thinking Chair sitting to deduce that I will not lose the love of my life, my family, and my friends if I pencil in the gym on my calendar. That’s not exactly efficient. But it is a start. It is a step. This morning, I’ll count it a win.

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Unused Creativity is Not Benign

September 4, 2018 by

Unused creativity is not benign. It metastasizes. It turns into grief, rage, sorrow, shame. ~ Brene Brown

I am fighting the urge to close the laptop and do something – anything else. It’s not that I don’t want to write; I absolutely do. I am just not sure what I want to say. That’s not accurate. It would be more honest to say I want to write all the things, say all the things, do all the things, and catch up on the every minute of time I have ever wasted before I have to wake the house up in an hour.

Just for clarity, that’s impossible. Because it is impossible, I have the overwhelming urge to just throw up my hands and do nothing – again. Never mind the ridiculousness of the expectation.

Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the intersection of Doubt and Sabotage. It’s a seedy little part of town where no one like to be seen so there’s a quick little cut through to Keeping up Appearances. The shops there are cute but the food is horrible.

There’s is also a pretty good bit of self talk going on that says “FFS, are we really talking about this – again? You are seriously starting to sound like a hack. For over 30 years you have put words on paper, lose consistency, talk about lost consistency, put words on paper – wash, rinse, repeat. Same with running. Same with food. Same with the gym life. Same with your housekeeping. Same with time management. Same with your parenting. Same with your ability to maintain relationship. I am noticing a pattern here and Ape, the verdict is you just suck.”

If you are thinking that’s a little harsh, you’d be right. If you’re thinking it’s a bit overwhelming, you’d be right again. If you think I am unusual in this assault on myself because you yourself have never had thoughts like this, that’s where you’d miss the mark.  This kind of asinine self talk is more common than you think.

So I am here again. Talking about it again.

About a year ago I discovered Gary Vaynerchuck. For those of you familiar, yes, I know I’m late. For those of you that don’t, might I suggest him. While I am not actively attempting to build an empire, Gary’s content regularly resonates. I have found quite a few parallels between growing as a business and as a person. The most recent example has been between Brene’s work on shame and Gary’s suggestion that documentation is just as powerful as creation.

Brene ~

You either walk into your story and own your truth, or you live outside of your story, hustling for your worthiness…Our brains are hardwired to protect and that often means wanting to run or fight. At work that can look like rationalizing, hiding out, and/or blaming others…The most difficult part of our stories is often what we bring to them—what we make up about who we are and how we are perceived by others. Yes, maybe we failed or screwed up a project, but what makes that story so painful is what we tell ourselves about our own self-worth and value.

Owning our stories means acknowledging our feelings and wrestling with the hard emotions—our fear, anger, aggression, shame, and blame. This isn’t easy, but the alternative—denying our stories and disengaging from emotion—means choosing to live our entire lives in the dark. It means no accountability, no learning, no growth.

Gary ~

Documenting your journey versus creating an image of yourself is the difference between saying “You should…” versus “my intuition says…” Get it? It changes everything. I believe that the people who are willing to discuss their journeys instead of trying to front themselves as the “next big thing” are going to win…just start talking about the things most important to you. Because in the end, the creative (or how “beautiful” someone thinks your content is) is going to be subjective. What’s not subjective is the fact that you need to start putting yourself out there and keep swinging.

Starting is the most important part and the biggest hurdle that most people are facing. They’re pondering and strategizing instead of making. They’re debating what’s going to happen when they haven’t even looked at what’s in front of them.

Therein lies a pretty solid road map for avoiding the traffic jam at that Doubt and Sabotage intersection. And that’s all I really need. The truth is most of my journey is going to have to go through that intersection – avoiding it is damn near impossible. Going through it is fine – getting hung up there is the killer.

Interestingly enough another thought just occurred to me – getting hung up there is a killer. That’s what I tell myself. But that’s not really true either. It’s not a killer…I’m still here. And so are you.

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The REAL Thing Confident Women Do

July 17, 2018 by

I’m about to let you in on a little secret. Caveat: if you have ever been to my house, watched me work, or know me at all, this is not a bombshell. I lean decidedly towards the “dis” side of the “organized” spectrum. My intentions, however golden they may be, have never quite been enough to tip those scales. As such, I attempt to, as regularly as I can muster, take a bite of the clutter elephant and put order into the chaos.

Today the task was to go through all my “saved” posts I had clipped on Facebook. It really is quite the handy feature. I save all sorts of things: recipes I’ll likely never make, videos I’ll forget to share, articles I probably won’t read, and topics that I intend to, at some point, maybe, write about.

I can only assume that “22 Things Confident Women Don’t Do” falls into the “articles I probably won’t read” category. But, because I needed to decide whether it was a delete or keep, I clicked through.

I have decided the article would be more accurate if titled something like “22 Things Imaginary Woman Don’t Do” or “22 Unattainable Ideals” or, my personal favorite “Hey Chica, come here and let me kick you in the teeth you inadequate, less than female”.

The list is full of bumper sticker declarations that have the same shallow effect that messages of this type typically have – on the surface they are simple and concise lending the appearance of noble, healthy, and appropriate, but taste all of it for just a minute and it’s just over processed non-food.

In order to maintain perspective (I am prone to knee jerk in these moments of self doubt), I sat with it a while. I am still sitting with it as I do not know the writer and it is not my desire to assume her intention. I have understood for a long time that once you put nouns and verbs together and release them into the world, the intention you insert into the blank spaces may or may not be the intention received by the reader when they, in their own place, encounter those spaces.

However, I have also understood that the responsibility in preserving your message by the surrounding nouns and verbs you choose to couch it in is a real one. Since the author chose to launch her list with “See how many of this list of pitfalls you avoid and how you measure up as a confident woman,” the blank spaces are filled with judgement, condescension, and beratement.

I am currently sitting here contemplating the desire to go through each of the 22 things on this list and refute them. They are ALL refutable; not in the base idea necessarily, but in the absoluteness of the structure. I think that is what a confident woman can do when confronted with the idea that someone’s uneducated opinion of personal behavior is summarily judged and condemned without perspective.

The debater in me wants to follow that path so bad I literally had to step away from the computer to consider it without my fingers poised on keys.

However, I respectfully decline to go that route. Should the course of any conversation that results lend itself to discussing the particulars, so be it. Today, the confident woman in me has a different hierarchy of priorities. Because that is real life. That is how real shit goes. I am not everything everyday. While I may not be consistently immune to self doubt, worry, or the need to people please in my behavior, I am consistently confident as a person.

And there’s the realness of my confidence and the confidence of women, people, I know. I am not ashamed of my vulnerability. I do not judge harshly my base behaviors that I work out in safe spaces with those who know me well and allow me to be safe and vulnerable and real. I am confident in me and confident in them. I hope that is what you find in these blank spaces.

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My Schedule is Shit and I have Little Idea What I am Doing (Normalcy and Worthiness)

July 16, 2018 by

May 18, 2018

I’m going to be super honest up front and fess up to that post title being a bit misleading. My schedule currently is shit, AND I have little idea what I am doing. But, those are two separate ideas. My schedule is currently shit, but not BECAUSE I have little idea what I am doing.

As is par for my current course, the past seven months have brought about exponential amounts of change. I quit a seriously well paying job with copious amounts of benefits just because I hated it (well, that and he said our family finances could handle it and I always trust him). I found myself unemployed (yes, I know being the supportive partner, primary caregiver of children, and general house CEO is a job – you know what I mean) for the first time since I was 14.

That, in itself, is enough. There’s more obviously. But
***************

July 16, 2018

But, once again, I have no idea where I was going with that little revelation up there. I can’t for the life of me remember what little gem I had stumbled upon in my own brain that compelled me to the keyboard. Neither can I remember the fact of life that took me from it. Sitting here this morning on this back porch, I have the most wonderful peace of realization that what I do know is that I do not care.

It isn’t that I don’t care to remember what the things were or that events in my normal day to day aren’t important to me – they obviously are. It is simply that what I do remember of that small bit of writing time is the feeling of listlessness. The feeling, once again of being too much and not enough. That in my being there was something purposeful and I in my inability was not living up to the occasion and the occasion was important.

Here, on this back porch, I realize that none of those things are true and that is a better insight than anything I had discovered on that day. Understand I am appreciative of that insight, whatever it was as it, no doubt, was a piece of the path. And there is a small part of the writer in me that wishes I had the words from then if only to have a better view of the picture now. But not so much that it disturbs me. And that is progress.

There are those who are always one goal post away from “being there.” A job, house, a spouse, a goal – then, then they can experience happy, there they can find joy. Until then, they are head down, easily agitated, and sacrificing the joy in the now for the joy in the future. Because joy doesn’t work in that way, the goal is accomplished and they don’t find what they are looking for. Instead of adjusting their understanding of joy, they create another goal post. Rinse. Wash. Repeat.

There is me. While this cycle is not one I typically find myself caught in, I have recently wrenched myself out of a small bout with it. It was abstract so I didn’t recognize it at first. But I had created two goal posts in my brain – normalcy and worthiness. If I could achieve those two things, then I could relax just a bit.

Normalcy and worthiness. At least I picked small things, amirite?

In my brain, I had convinced myself that those around me deserved these things. They deserved consistency, they deserved stability, they deserved a person that could create these things for them and present them as whole and easy. My life is so utterly amazing, I needed to do these things to be worthy of the love I receive. I needed to be good enough to deserve this life, to deserve the love.

In my appreciation of the wonderful, I had forgotten to keep perspective of the journey. And the journey is only “normal” in that we are all on one, both with ourselves and with those we love. And worthiness? That’s just like joy. It comes from within not from without.

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Sidetracked

February 27, 2018 by

This is not what I want to write about this morning. But I am not going to ignore the reasons in which I found myself here to begin with. So, I will sit here and do what I do and see where it goes.

I also haven’t had my first cup of coffee yet. As I reach for it, I realize that thought up there may be expressed in a way that comes off a little harder and frustrated than I actually feel. That’s not quite right. A bit side eyed is exactly how I feel, but not because my intentions were so quickly redirected this morning. The more I think about it, I think it’s just the proximity of the redirection to my first cup of coffee. Anyway…

I woke up this morning with the intention of getting back to Daring Greatly. While getting my coffee and settling into the thinking chair, I had a sliver of an idea that suggested writing prompts were a super good idea. It would add some variety to my subject matter. Variety, it happens, has been something I have been thinking about while playing with the idea that my writings as of late have been a bit indulgent and self centered. I’m not sure that I mind that so much, it is my writing after all, and this little blog isn’t the only thing I am working on. But it was a wonder that came from somewhere so I thought it fair to give it a bit of attention.

I grabbed my Writer’s Companion with the intention of just flipping through it a bit while I let the first bit of coffee do it’s thing, before hanging out with Brene. I opened it up to a random, unintentional place, and this is the first prompt I encounter. 

A lot of different things happened in my brain pretty quickly.

First, I couldn’t believe how the opening line resonated with me. This is literally THE thing I have been wondering about most when it comes to my general headspace and tone in my writing. And then here it is. Laid out like permission, insistence even, from the universe to keep doing the work. I understand that I am particularly open to the “follow this inspiration” idea as it is a central concept in Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Big Magic – the book which is currently blowing my little brain at the moment.

“Holy shit! Would you look at that,” happens next as I read on and see that it is, in fact, Elizabeth Gilbert who gets the mention in this prompt. That instantly smacks of universal confirmation to continue going deep. To continue to write about those hard, fun, interesting, not so different but feels like a battle things I discover or remember about myself. This is a ton of fun and I’m enjoying my little universal tango.

“Leave our lives behind for indulgent travel?” I am sideways smacked with irritation. I mean the shift is instant and jarring. I actually close the book to see what heifer wrote this trash. Seriously. It occurs to me that this a rather extreme response to something that is pretty innocuous. But, dammit, it feels very nocuous. I mean for real. You think the best way to describe a person’s account of blowing up lives and relationships because you literally see no other way to save yourself from being completely obliterated under all the “ought tos” and you’re pretty sure if you don’t do something your soul is going to be lost to the great unknown forever so you pack up and travel to foreign places where you are alone and have to figure out what in the hell you did and what in the hell you are going to do now is with the words “leave our lives behind for indulgent travel?” Get the fuck out of here.

I am beginning to feel something of a temper tantrum toddler, so I slow down a bit. I understand that I hold a lot of appreciation for Elizabeth Gilbert and her writing. Eat, Pray, Love changed the way I look at writing and authenticity and “ought tos.” Committed helped me work through, in pretty quick fashion, a fairly brain tangled spot in the journey from the life before to the life now. And Big Magic, well, that’s just been amazing. So the truth is I felt like someone had said something super judgy and condescending about a girlfriend to my face. That, I recognize, is ridiculous on two main fronts. First, Elizabeth Gilbert is not someone I know personally. Second, neither is Amy Peters. I am currently all up in my feelings about a statement that was probably well intended towards someone who may very well see it as such herself.

But neither do I discount the discord. I have an understanding that not all feelings express truth. All feelings are indicative of a truth, but what is felt on the surface isn’t always the thing. It is my job to figure out the difference and get to the root of the thing.

After I have stepped back from it, I am glad I allowed this momentary derailment of my morning plans to do what it wanted. I am glad I was open to whatever it was. I am glad that when it felt uncomfortable (even if that uncomfortable wasn’t of any real consequence) I didn’t shy away from it. Understand I completely realize what a small thing all of this is. But it gave me an example to draw from whenever I get up in my feelings about assuming someone else’s motive, think I have any control over how things I create are received once I release them, feel like closing myself off from the gentle suggestions of my thoughts. And that is worth a couple hours of sidetracked.

 

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Grown Ass Conversations

February 19, 2018 by

“I don’t want to talk about it. The whole thing feels stupid and ridiculous. That’s why I texted you. I wanted to tell you about it but I don’t want to talk about it.”

But I did want to talk about it. What I actually wanted was for him to simultaneously find a magical way to tell me I was right, I was wrong, I was super smart, I was super silly, and this was the miraculously simple way to fix the whole thing. That should be easy enough, right?

Instead he just loved me through it. And told he some soft truths about myself. Things I already knew. Things I was working on. Things he was proud of me for making progress in. The truths are actually pretty hard. They are things I hate to think about and just want to function in their dysfunction. But they don’t because they are, well, dysfunctional.


“Why do you feel ridiculous?”

“Because I am grown. Grown ass women aren’t supposed to get up in their feelings about this kind of thing.”

“It’s exactly because you are grown ass woman that you are capable of having the grown up conversations.”

“But what if I’m wrong?”

“Then that’s on you. I watch you do this thing pretty often where you feel a kind of way and should do something about it, but you go to your programming that says you are probably wrong and so you do nothing and nothing changes and you just take it. Now understand that I am not saying you are less than, I am saying that you are too hard on yourself.”

“I might do that a little.”

I might do that a lot.

I watch folks who are able to say anything. They are able to engage in confrontation in a way that makes my skin goose up. They are able to have the conversations – provoke them even – and keep moving forward. I am trying hard to be that person. To say the things I want to say fearlessly and openly. To be honest with people even it exposes a weakness or a wrong. To open loops that might close differently than I would like them to, or worse, not close themselves at all.

This season’s Big Brother is the Celebrity edition and it has been very interesting. I am watching these somewhat accomplished folks participate in varying degrees of empowerment. During many of the exchanges I find myself so frustrated that person A won’t just tell person B to go to hell, you are not the boss of me. They should say it. Person A deserves to say it and person B deserves to hear it, but they don’t. I would like to think I would. I probably wouldn’t.

But the real truth is that candidness is part of being a whole, real, honest, decent person. It isn’t fair to people I want relationship with to have to bear the judgement of my unspoken assumptions. It isn’t the way I would want to be treated. I would want them to have the courage to come to say what they needed to say. More than courage, I want to be seen as the kind of person with whom it is safe to have those kinds of conversations. I want to be a grown up and I want to be with grown up people. If I hope for that level of maturity from others, it is reasonable that I have to foster that type of maturity from myself.

It’s a funny little Catch 22 that I notice more in woman than I do in men. It’s the “if I have to ask for it, I don’t really want it” or its cousin, “if you loved me you would just know.” I don’t know where these tendencies come from, but I will be the first to admit that I have them. Further, they make sense to me in an inarticulable way. But it also makes sense that we should be able to ask for what we need, have adult conversations about wants and happys and hurts.

I’ve done much better the past year opening my mouth and exposing my inner thoughts. There’s something to be said for safety and confidence. There is also something to be said for the being able to see a real glimpse of unconditional love for oneself and others – not in the wild or in the pretend, but in your own life, involving your own heart. Like any other behavior, it is easier to understand and adopt once you see it modeled.

The neat thing is that motion creates momentum. The more I speak my thoughts, the more I think, the more I get comfortable with having all the thoughts, the more I feel okay to speak, the more connection I create, the more love I am able to give, the more love I am able to receive, the more positive my thoughts, the more I am able to converse, the more resilient I am when things are funky, the more whole I feel, the healthier I am, the more I speak my thoughts.

Take all the time you need to go through that spiderweb of interconnected healthy. Nothing happens in a vacuum. None of us are labels or defined by one singular thing. Sentient, dynamic, eclectic beings we are. That movement of all things in us and around us is a beautiful thing.

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Brooks was Here

February 14, 2018 by

There are these really interesting things going on in my head right now. It looks a whole lot like freedom. Unfortunately, because I am currently unlearning and relearning that concept along with a host of other things about myself, what should be a somewhat easy and beautiful brain float has become super fucking overwhelming.

And what do I do when my brain becomes overwhelming? Well, when I am doing it right, I write. And this single act of nouns and verbs has become quite the interesting project in a way that it really never has before.

I have always put nouns and verbs on paper in a way that I hoped could be read by other people. I understand not everything has to be “in the world” to be valid. I also understand that some things should not be out in the world. But, by and large, the things that I put on paper have the expectation of being fit for public consumption.

But words stay the same over the course of time and change. People do not.

Being overwhelmed creates lack of structure in the thoughts. There are so many ideas trying to push their way to the front in an attempt to be sorted and accounted for. It makes the coherent assembly of nouns and verbs a struggle.

In all honesty, it isn’t just being overwhelmed. It’s the freedom to do it the way I want. I have been writing since I was 10 years old. I have the general gist of the activity down. But there have always been rules set down by someone else. Boxes I knew I had to fit into, boundaries I knew I couldn’t cross.

There is a comfort in the box. Sure, it sucks because you are forced into being someone you aren’t. But, there is order, understanding, and a general “way we do things around here” that, while stifling and damaging, is comfortable when it becomes what you know. When your confidence to trust in your own judgement is reduced to ruble, you second guess everything. When your desire to create something outside yourself is judged and mocked, you harshly judge your own motives. When your ability is marginalized, you start believing you are no good.

When your efforts are labeled too much, too loud, too open, too indulgent, you start to believe those things and you forget that you are a smart, capable, caring, basically decent person. You don’t need the box, you never did. But you functioned inside of it for so long that it is comfortable and you’re not really sure if you know how to do it without it. You worked really hard to rid yourself of the box, to have the courage to break free of it. You know the work that took. But, here you are anyway, trying like hell to recreate the box so you can feel comfortable once again

Trying like hell to recreate the box so you can feel comfortable once again.

Trying like hell to recreate the box so you can feel comfortable once again.

Trying like hell to recreate the box so you can feel comfortable once again.

How fucking stupid is that?

Probably pretty damn. But you know what else, it is also completely normal. We fight to hold on to comfort, even when that comfort is toxic. Even when the alternative is healthy. Even when the healthy is more comfortable once you get the feel of it. Being coerced into the box didn’t happen overnight. It took skillful manipulation and time to put you there. It takes time to work all those things back out. It takes honesty in taking responsibility for the parts of it you are responsible for. It takes confidence to refuse ownership for the parts you aren’t. It takes trust in those who love you that they will still love you through the change, through the growth, through the fuck ups, through the wins. It takes faith in your own inner, real, raw, regular goodness.

Even as I go back through that last thought, I understand that it takes more than faith. It takes more than trust. Those things, when broken down into their honest forms, are easy. All that can happen in your brain, in the quiet privacy of solitude without interference from anyone else. What it really requires is testing, trying out, tasting – “an untested virtue isn’t a virtue” kind of workout.

That’s the part that is scary. That’s the part that will put you back in the box. The box sucks too but there is some comfort in dancing with the devil you already know versus the demon you haven’t vetted yet.

But Brooks was comfortable in jail, institutionalized for the box. They made him leave. He wanted to go back. He couldn’t.

I wake up scared. Sometimes it takes me a while to remember where I am. Maybe I should get me a gun and rob the Foodway so they’d send me home. I could shoot the manager while I was at it, sort of like a bonus. I guess I’m too old for that sort of nonsense any more. I don’t like it here. I’m tired of being afraid all the time. I’ve decided not to stay. I doubt they’ll kick up any fuss. Not for an old crook like me. ~ Brooks Hatlen, The Shawshank Redemption

He called prison home. Freedom made him afraid all the time. He hung himself, decided death was better than figuring out how to be his own person. Still scared I may be, but a Brooks I am not.

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#TeamGnat

February 13, 2018 by

I don’t think I have ever been so excited to see a sand gnat in my entire life as I was Sunday. Kids were slapping themselves silly and the adults were reaching for sprays and remedies.

I sat on the bench of the picnic table in my backyard and felt like a kid at Christmas 4th of July.

Weather is not my favorite. I like it one way – hot and sunny. I will tolerate warm and sunny. My face starts distorting at rainy (don’t even ask what my hair does). When the mercury dips south of 70, I get nervous and it is all downhill from there. Fall is my least favorite time of the year because it’s the furthest away I ever am from summer.  Hurricanes? Snow? Just. No.

This aversion to a wide range of weather patterns is not new to me. I’ve known this about myself for a long time. I typically get more moody in the winter and have to pay a bit more attention to my general outlook during those months. I live in southern Georgia for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is our milder, shorter winters.

Listen, I have been known to occasionally have the ability to pull my shoulders back, put my head down, and bulldog my way through situations that are less than fun. I am no stranger to the harder things and I can carry my own in the physical toughness/mental fortitude department. I am typically a pretty positive person with a seemingly deep reservoir for optimism. All that being true, this winter has seriously kicked my ass.

I didn’t realize what was happening until pretty late in the season. I have had a lot going on. There is way more change happening in my life than I am typically accustomed to. I am at this interesting moment in my life where I am happier and safer than I have ever been and that translates into more movement of environment and self than I can keep up with most days. My life resembles a drunken game of speed Yahtzee. Just when I think I have found my groove, I lose it again.

Since I came off the corporate payroll in October, every single strategy I have attempted to employ in my life has had roughly the same life span as a lovebug with about the same level of usefulness. And I have worked really hard on strategies – time blocking, goal setting, accountability, schedule keeping, free range, lists, reminders, affirmations – you name it. But, none of those things have helped. This all get pretty frustrating especially when the things I am attempting to accomplish aren’t even new to me. I would simply like to be a better caretaker of my family (food, chores, availability), a better friend (time, attention, support), and a better steward of myself (health, writing, self care). That’s it. That’s not a lot. I’ve done it before.

I have, surprisingly enough, been pretty gentle with myself in the process. I am very careful to watch how I talk to myself. Even those “better”s in the last paragraph gave me pause as I was worried how others might view them. I know that I don’t mean I think I am less than. I have come to a comfortable place where I know I will always want to be better and that’s okay. I can want to be better while still being happy with the present.

Except when the present looks like me last week, playing Call of Duty, in my pajamas, at 1:30 in the afternoon, hands wrapped around an Xbox controller being the only thing that kept them from being thrown up in utter defeat. I had completely given up on even trying to figure out why I couldn’t get the gumption to go to the gym, why I couldn’t noun and verb, why the laundry pile up was unphasing, why brushing my teeth seemed like the biggest chore in the world at that moment. Seriously, hadn’t I gotten my whole family up, out, and on time? That’s something.

But, the universe loves me and I have the best friends. A text came in completely unrelated to my life or Call of Duty. But because I have friends who think the deeper thought and love without judgement, I found the space to think about it for two seconds longer in a slightly different way.

Holy shit! It’s this effing weather. This is my first winter without a regular job. I have no frame of reference for being prepared to go through this particularly off putting time without a pretty rigid foundation for things I just have to do. I can’t find a center because I have been unable to spend any real time outside and I don’t have the crutch of the job. I wasn’t prepared to go into this season without a plan. The whole thing had caught me off guard.

I was encouraged by the realization. I instantly felt better. There was nothing I could about it at the moment. As good as I am, I cannot change the weather. But there is comfort in knowing. I took solace in that and felt a little better killing zombies.

We had a multi family potluck Sunday. The sand gnats showed up and I couldn’t have been more excited to see them.

 

Filed Under: The Thinking Chair Tagged With: ,

Appropriate and Acceptable

February 2, 2018 by

Can I be real a second?
For just a millisecond?
Let down my guard and tell the people how I feel a second?
Now I’m the model of a modern major general
The venerated Virginian veteran whose men are all
Lining up, to put me up on a pedestal
Writin’ letters to relatives
Embellishin’ my elegance and eloquence
But the elephant is in the room
The truth is in ya face when ya hear the British cannons go…
Boom!
~ A very frustrated George Washington as written by Lin-Manuel Miranda

I’m not even going to discuss Hamilton right now. It is pure genius and folks will either listen or they won’t, hear it or they won’t, get it or they won’t. I don’t really have that in me right this second.

I don’t really have a whole lot of anything in me right this second and it’s getting a bit tiresome.

Let me be real a second. I get encouraged to write on a regular basis by folks who genuinely enjoy what I have to say. There’s like six of y’all and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that. And if it were only you half dozen or so for the rest of my life, I would like to think I would keep pushing publish. I would like to think I would still fancy myself a writer.

I don’t feel like a writer much of the time and I am pretty sure that’s because I approach this whole thing all wrong. I have this idea about what it is supposed to look like. I am supposed to have a guided topic. This blog space is supposed to be more cohesive. I am supposed to have a plan. I am supposed to, supposed to, supposed to.

And it I haven’t checked all the “supposed to” blocks, well, then…

And I am definitely not supposed to get onto this super public space and just let my guard down. It is indulgent and basic to be in a public setting – even if it’s just the six of us – and have the audacity to believe that these nouns and verbs, my nouns and verbs, are any more legitimate or time worthy than anyone else’s. That’s next level arrogance and who am I really to think that I have the right?

So, I go back to being small. I try to do the things on my list, the things that make me feel real, but in an “appropriate” way. Seriously, even as I am typing that I don’t even know what the hell that means. You are talking to a person that has a hard time cleaning the house if the radio isn’t super loud, who has a hard time psyching herself up for a run if she can’t go fast(ish) for a billion miles, who is 41 years old and is fixing to get married in a white dress to the hottest man she has ever met with a wedding suitable for a 25 year old blusher. My life isn’t small. I don’t live there. It isn’t who I am. It isn’t who my family is. We have a reoccurring joke about our individual and collective extraness. But I am a person who is still ridiculously and frustratingly aware of what other people think.

Yeah, don’t say it. I already know. You aren’t supposed to care about what other people think – especially those who, in the big picture, have opinions that don’t matter. I get it. I also know that chocolate pudding and whipped cream for lunch isn’t a healthy option, but you can bet your ass I get down with that too.

It has just struck me as funny that I have been in this situation bunches before. You probably have too. It isn’t a writer issue, it’s a whatever part of you is important issue.

The mommy cartel is a fierce one. Do you work, stay home, vaccinate, homeschool, engage in sports, pay for piano, buy the dance costume, travel with the team, fix organic snacks, limit screen time, post pictures on social media, co-sleep, spank, entertain Santa Claus, buy Lucky Charms, volunteer as room mom, schedule playdates, breastfeed, understand the progressive parenting strategies, helicopter, tiger, free range, hide in the bathroom with a great bottle of Malbec…. are you an appropriate, acceptable mom?

Life partner? Do you have date night, authentic conversations about your feelings, too much sex, no sex, joint facebooks, separate friends, independent bank accounts, a five year plan, the same last name, never go to bed angry, the same waistline when you met, regular phone calls with their families, close the door to the bathroom, sexy texts, copious amounts of quality time, detailed coparenting strategies, lady in the street, freak in the bed, dinner on the table, 50/50 household responsibilities, gender roles, traditional home, hide in the bathroom with a great bottle of Malbec…. are you an appropriate, acceptable life partner?

Professional? Do you have the right credentials, love your job, tolerate your coworkers, participate in office fun, voice your opinion in meetings, reinvent yourself to fit the culture, considered assertive, aggressive, overly ambitions, qualified, on your way up, watching the clock, moving into a new field, living your passion, selling out to the grind, hiding out in the bathroom with a great bottle of Malbec… are you an appropriate, acceptable professional?

If you couldn’t tell, all this “appropriate” and “acceptable” juggling always leads me to hiding in a bathroom with a great bottle of Malbec. People aren’t supposed to live that way.

I am not supposed to live that way.

So here is the habit I am going to attempt to put into practice – just writing the shit and letting the letters fall where they may. Maybe that appeals to my six folks, maybe it gains more, maybe I end up pushing publish for no one other than myself. Whatever the outcome is, I have at least identified the elephant in my bathroom. And look – now there is more room for you to share that bottle of wine…

Filed Under: Chrysalis Tagged With: , ,

2018 – Honesty

January 2, 2018 by

Every year (or nearly every year), I write a little something that speaks to the intention for the up coming year. It typically centers around one word couched in a cute, anecdotal story, tied all up at the end with a cute little “go get ’em” bow.

I have been trying to write the 2018 piece for over three weeks now.

I looked through old writings, new blogs, unfinished journals. I thought about revisions and memes and philosophical literary quotes. I contemplated all the strong woman, be positive, get motivated, you are amazing sources I knew.

I still had nothing.

So I did the only thing I knew to do; I just dropped it. This wasn’t the year for that. 2016 and 2017 had been overwhelmed with so muchness, maybe it was just time for a breather year. So I shelved it with promises of schedule keeping (which I have never done), gentler self talk (also not a strong suit), and greater honesty. Little did I realize the one thing I thought I had on lock would be the very thing that got me.

If you asked me if I was an overall honest person, I would immediately say yes because I am. I am not a thief or a liar. I am not a rule breaker, generally speaking, although I really like to play one on TV.

However, if you asked me if I was an always honest person, I would say no because, well, I’m honest. I would go so far as to say there are times when honesty is not the appropriate course of action. I would go further and say that I wouldn’t even want people to be honest with me all the time. And I think that’s mostly true.

This topic has my brain going in a hundred different directions. I am going to back up just a second and try again.

I shelved the idea and counted that an okay thing to do because 2018 was the year of schedules, gentle self talk, and honesty. As life is ought to do, it decided to test my gangster right off the bat.

I have been known to say often that I am a jealous woman. It is typically tagged with something to the effect of, “and I don’t even feel bad about that” or “that’s just the way I am.” I have even gone so far as to justify holding on to the trait explaining that I have very good balance on my jealous nature because I realize that it is often irrational and, as long as I have that level of self awareness, it’s okay.

I have come to the very uncomfortable conclusion that it is not okay. All of that up there is inherently dishonest. In a cute twist of irony, I came to that realization while utilizing that acute self awareness to enforce some balance.

Let me be clear that this is not a moral edict on jealousy. Jealousy just happened to be the fear based emotion that spotlighted my particular moment of intellectual dishonesty. And make no mistake, jealousy is a fear based emotion.

I was ate up with jealousy yesterday. The funniest part is that it was all of my own doing. All by my little self, I worked my brain up into such a tizzy that the distraction was consuming. It was all completely fabricated in my head, so I set about doing the self aware work to talk myself down.

Me ~ Oh my effing shit I think I am about to give myself a panic attack.

Other Me ~ Honestly, April, you are being a tad ridiculous.

Me ~ I am aware. This is all very silly and I am working on sorting through the asinine.

Other Me ~ Great. Let’s start with things you know to be true. [Super private stuff that I am not sharing here. #sorrynotsorry]

Me ~ Yes, all of that is true.

Other Me ~ So now we can safely say that all these things [more super private stuff] are not true.

Me ~ Yes we can say that. I feel much better. Thank you Other Me.

Other Me ~ You are very welcome. Now, how do we keep this from happening again?

That bitch. I really hate it when she does that. Especially when I am not ready. I wasn’t ready. Other Me did not care.

Side note – if you think I have complete control over The Many, you are wrong. While I have leashes for all and muzzles for some, complete control is not a tool I possess.

Me ~ That’s super sweet of you, Other Me. I’m good for right now. Just a little bout of jealousy and we all know I am just a jealous womaHHHHHH. SHIT!! What is that????

Other Me ~ The onset of another panic attack. A really good one too. I made it for just an occasion as this. You like?

Me ~ No. No I do not like. I do not like at all. I already did the work, sorted my brain, talked myself down. We are done here.

Other Me ~ Nope. You did the easy work. April 2016 work. It’s time for the advanced level 2018 work. The real, get your shit together work.

Me ~ Fuck you. I’m taking a nap.

And that’s just what I did.

While that course of action worked for the duration of my nap, the seeds planted still sprouted and this “what do we do with it now” idea hung around demanding that I address it.

“I am a jealous woman” is a dishonest statement. I can make it true if I used the fiercely protective or vigilant of one’s rights or possessions definition. I will defend me and mine with my life. But I don’t mean it like that and I know that I don’t. When I say it, I mean feeling or showing envy of someone or their achievements and advantages and feeling or showing suspicion of someone’s unfaithfulness in a relationship. That, my friends, is fear not love. And I have committed to living a life of love and not fear.

So the truth is I now have to replace the word “jealous” with fear and figure out the root. I have to. Anytime I find that the talk down answer becomes, “because I am afraid” I have vowed to go deeper and work that out.

What fear causes jealousy? The fear of being unworthy of the thing that creates envy or suspicion. Being unworthy. In case you are curious, that flies directly in the face of my other promise of “more gentle self talk.”

The honest truth is I am not unworthy even while I feel unworthy. That’s honest. That’s how I am committed to 2018.

Filed Under: Chrysalis Tagged With: , ,