Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Christopher Hitchens - Topic of Cancer
I'm working on a post, which will be up soon. In the meantime, read this. Vanity Fair contributing editor, world-renowned author and atheist Christopher Hitchens discovered his body was riddled with cancer last summer. His writing is so eloquent it makes me ache. My Dad is in the late stages of metastatic colon cancer, so I read this piece with that in mind.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Try And See It My Way
I was having lunch with a dear friend of mine recently. She's known me since I was thirteen so if you are doing the math that's almost 29 years. I met her when she started teaching the teenagers Sunday School in our "New Age" church. She knows me in all the ways that actually matter. She knows my entrenched adolescent parts, and she has watched the sometimes glacial progress of the evolution of the parts of me that I didn't allow life to irretrievably harden into little black lumps of coal. She's known me since the time I moved beyond willingly and fun-lovingly doing stupid human tricks to amuse my parents' friends, to the time when I began to notice that the world was noticing me, appraising me, and deciding if I was worth pursuing. She was an important sounding board as I moved through toxic relationships into the one that has meant everything. And she's watched me navigate my way through education, career, setting career aside and putting children first until, well, now.
Karen was the first adult in a position of authority who dignified my teenaged self by engaging in serious discussion when the agnostic in me reared its head and started to question everything I was being told by the "powers that be" about what God was and how the universe supposedly worked. (Hear the attitude in that last part right there? That's been with me for a LONG time. And that skepticism? I've been a questioner practically from day one.) At times throughout my life, Karen's either been a catalyst for, or played a role in my effort to expand. She has said things to me that cracked my locked heart open when no one else could, try though they might. She challenges me to be my best self, and she holds me accountable. Like a few other key people I hold dear, Karen represents the institutional memory of my life. So to say that she's important to me is an understatement.
Anyhow, as we ate Karen and I meandered from subject to subject and finally rolled around to talking about how two people, even those whom it seems would have almost identical relationships to an event (e.g. siblings) can have radically different perspectives, and therefore make very different judgments, about said situation or set of circumstances. And as is typical of most of my post meet-ups with Karen, after we parted ways, our conversation triggered a bunch of thoughts for me with respect to this topic. I got to thinking about why it sometimes seems like such a crap shoot to try and suss out how someone, even someone I think I know pretty well, is likely to view or respond to a situation or a person's behavior. I mean, really, sometimes I think I know what someone's reaction is going to be and I end up being so far from right that it's just plain ridiculous.
I don't know about you, but there's this recurrent conversation I have with my closest friends about how we think others view and judge us - our actions, our choices, our lives, our things. My perception of how I think I am being judged can affect both the decisions I make, and / or how much I choose to tell the world about the decisions I've made. Admittedly, some of that is good. But it also means that I don't ever show all of my cards. I don't live completely out loud. I dream about it. I imagine the intense freedom that would go along with it, but I don't do it because I was "raised right".
So when this conversation comes up, it inevitably ends at the same conclusion - that a judgment someone makes about another is more about the person making the judgment than the person being judged. (No doubt one of the nice things about this point-of-view is that it helps take the sting out of being on the receiving end of harsh judgment.) So, do you buy that? I do. My take on it is that we are all just beings who have no choice except to be egocentric. We can't help but view the world from a singular perspective, through a lens that's been cut and polished from the hardened and compressed layers of our unique set of experiences that get laid down one atop another atop another over a lifetime. They are things like the beliefs our parents pressed into us; our position in a sibling line-up and how that affects how we relate to others and they to us; what we've bought into from society; the parts of ourselves that we've managed to develop into either good, solid qualities or nagging insecurities; the baggage we drag along from past relationships; etc.
There is actually only one place from which I can assess the world - from the place where my body takes up space, via my senses, especially my eyes. I can earnestly try to imagine something from another person's point of view, but I can never truly have that point of view as my own. I only get the one that I've spent my lifetime developing. And this makes sense if you think about it for just a second. Even conjoined identical twins, arguably the best possibility of two people being able to have an identical filter through which they view the world, still see the world from two different angles. It's true that the space that separates those angles seems infinitesimally small in the scheme of things, but still they receive information about the world from two different positions. And that difference makes a difference.
I'm not suggesting that we can't rise above our ego centrism, feel empathy, and act in ways that reflect that, I'm only saying that it is the default position from which our worldviews emanate, where we forever ask the question, "how does this affect me?" I tend to judge harshly something that challenges or threatens my worldview, and I tend to proclaim my support for people, things and situations that support my worldview. It's overly simplistic, unmindful, and habitual, but I know I'm not the only one who does this.
When a harsh judgment is unequivocally declared and hurled in my direction, usually after my thin skin has been pierced and I've licked my wounds, I marvel at how I managed to be surprised yet again by how strongly held an opinion can be. Ever notice how an opinion that's being bear-hugged for all it's worth usually comes along with a total lack of willingness to consider the possibility that any other legitimate point of view exists? I got a real-life version of this today.
I was at the gym getting ready for a class and listening to this one trainer rail on unsympathetically with his rigid opinions about all manner of things political. Ever heard the expression "sometimes right, never in doubt"? (Side note: he's a middle-aged hardass of a guy who used to have a hand in training the Georgia Tech football team. He's gruff, hardcore, and will push you until you are lying flat on the floor, your body in full-scale revolt begging for mercy. Then he'll tell you to get your ass moving because it isn't quitting time yet! So some of his no-nonsense, "I know what's best for you" ways are beneficial.) After he spent himself verbally spewing his thoughts, he loudly threw out a jab line or two about all the "bleeding-heart liberals" running around these days and the trouble they cause. (I couldn't help but smile to myself because no doubt he would put me straight into that category if we discussed issues.) But it made me wonder why he was so unbending.
Listen, I'm as guilty of proclaiming a judgment about something as the next gal. But as I age, I notice a lot sooner when something seems to have unreasonably gotten my knickers in a twist, and I'm glad that I'm softening rather than becoming more rigid in my thinking. I've always been pretty open-minded, but I find I'm increasingly willing to consider other viewpoints, or at least hear what they are, even about something that's considered quite controversial. And I also find myself asking why it is that something has gotten me all riled up when it has. If I have a particularly strong reaction to something, I need to look at what that's triggering for me, and that can sometimes be uncomfortable.
Maybe you agree with me. Maybe you don't. It's okay if you have a different opinion. Your opinion would be wrong, but I'm okay with that.
Karen was the first adult in a position of authority who dignified my teenaged self by engaging in serious discussion when the agnostic in me reared its head and started to question everything I was being told by the "powers that be" about what God was and how the universe supposedly worked. (Hear the attitude in that last part right there? That's been with me for a LONG time. And that skepticism? I've been a questioner practically from day one.) At times throughout my life, Karen's either been a catalyst for, or played a role in my effort to expand. She has said things to me that cracked my locked heart open when no one else could, try though they might. She challenges me to be my best self, and she holds me accountable. Like a few other key people I hold dear, Karen represents the institutional memory of my life. So to say that she's important to me is an understatement.
Anyhow, as we ate Karen and I meandered from subject to subject and finally rolled around to talking about how two people, even those whom it seems would have almost identical relationships to an event (e.g. siblings) can have radically different perspectives, and therefore make very different judgments, about said situation or set of circumstances. And as is typical of most of my post meet-ups with Karen, after we parted ways, our conversation triggered a bunch of thoughts for me with respect to this topic. I got to thinking about why it sometimes seems like such a crap shoot to try and suss out how someone, even someone I think I know pretty well, is likely to view or respond to a situation or a person's behavior. I mean, really, sometimes I think I know what someone's reaction is going to be and I end up being so far from right that it's just plain ridiculous.
I don't know about you, but there's this recurrent conversation I have with my closest friends about how we think others view and judge us - our actions, our choices, our lives, our things. My perception of how I think I am being judged can affect both the decisions I make, and / or how much I choose to tell the world about the decisions I've made. Admittedly, some of that is good. But it also means that I don't ever show all of my cards. I don't live completely out loud. I dream about it. I imagine the intense freedom that would go along with it, but I don't do it because I was "raised right".
So when this conversation comes up, it inevitably ends at the same conclusion - that a judgment someone makes about another is more about the person making the judgment than the person being judged. (No doubt one of the nice things about this point-of-view is that it helps take the sting out of being on the receiving end of harsh judgment.) So, do you buy that? I do. My take on it is that we are all just beings who have no choice except to be egocentric. We can't help but view the world from a singular perspective, through a lens that's been cut and polished from the hardened and compressed layers of our unique set of experiences that get laid down one atop another atop another over a lifetime. They are things like the beliefs our parents pressed into us; our position in a sibling line-up and how that affects how we relate to others and they to us; what we've bought into from society; the parts of ourselves that we've managed to develop into either good, solid qualities or nagging insecurities; the baggage we drag along from past relationships; etc.
There is actually only one place from which I can assess the world - from the place where my body takes up space, via my senses, especially my eyes. I can earnestly try to imagine something from another person's point of view, but I can never truly have that point of view as my own. I only get the one that I've spent my lifetime developing. And this makes sense if you think about it for just a second. Even conjoined identical twins, arguably the best possibility of two people being able to have an identical filter through which they view the world, still see the world from two different angles. It's true that the space that separates those angles seems infinitesimally small in the scheme of things, but still they receive information about the world from two different positions. And that difference makes a difference.
I'm not suggesting that we can't rise above our ego centrism, feel empathy, and act in ways that reflect that, I'm only saying that it is the default position from which our worldviews emanate, where we forever ask the question, "how does this affect me?" I tend to judge harshly something that challenges or threatens my worldview, and I tend to proclaim my support for people, things and situations that support my worldview. It's overly simplistic, unmindful, and habitual, but I know I'm not the only one who does this.
When a harsh judgment is unequivocally declared and hurled in my direction, usually after my thin skin has been pierced and I've licked my wounds, I marvel at how I managed to be surprised yet again by how strongly held an opinion can be. Ever notice how an opinion that's being bear-hugged for all it's worth usually comes along with a total lack of willingness to consider the possibility that any other legitimate point of view exists? I got a real-life version of this today.
I was at the gym getting ready for a class and listening to this one trainer rail on unsympathetically with his rigid opinions about all manner of things political. Ever heard the expression "sometimes right, never in doubt"? (Side note: he's a middle-aged hardass of a guy who used to have a hand in training the Georgia Tech football team. He's gruff, hardcore, and will push you until you are lying flat on the floor, your body in full-scale revolt begging for mercy. Then he'll tell you to get your ass moving because it isn't quitting time yet! So some of his no-nonsense, "I know what's best for you" ways are beneficial.) After he spent himself verbally spewing his thoughts, he loudly threw out a jab line or two about all the "bleeding-heart liberals" running around these days and the trouble they cause. (I couldn't help but smile to myself because no doubt he would put me straight into that category if we discussed issues.) But it made me wonder why he was so unbending.
Listen, I'm as guilty of proclaiming a judgment about something as the next gal. But as I age, I notice a lot sooner when something seems to have unreasonably gotten my knickers in a twist, and I'm glad that I'm softening rather than becoming more rigid in my thinking. I've always been pretty open-minded, but I find I'm increasingly willing to consider other viewpoints, or at least hear what they are, even about something that's considered quite controversial. And I also find myself asking why it is that something has gotten me all riled up when it has. If I have a particularly strong reaction to something, I need to look at what that's triggering for me, and that can sometimes be uncomfortable.
Maybe you agree with me. Maybe you don't. It's okay if you have a different opinion. Your opinion would be wrong, but I'm okay with that.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
You Want to Know What?!
Brian's five-year-old, pip-squeak voice piped up from the backseat, "Mom, what are drugs? What do they look like? How do drugs make you feel? Why do people take drugs? Have you ever taken drugs?" My friend, Mindy, kept a steady hand on the wheel while thoughts pinged through her head with machine gun-like rapid fire: What the? Oh, Sh-t! Isn't it a little early for this sort of inquiry? Why is he asking me these questions? Where is this coming from? How truthful do I need to be? What was it that parenting class said about handling kids' out-of-the-blue, tough questions? Oh yeah, breathe, gather information, calmly tell him only what is necessary to satisfy his curiosity, then divert his attention to more innocuous subjects without lying, if possible. A half-truth is definitely alright in this case. Okay, I can do this.
"Why do you ask, honey?" asked Mindy. Turns out that Mindy's Mom, who sometimes takes care of Brian, uses the time-tested strategy of many modern day Grandparents caring for energetic, young children while their own children are out doing something fun, they plop those little suckers down in front of the television and encourage them to quietly catch up on the local news with Grandma rather than tearing the house apart.
Calling the local news "news" these days is charitable at best. It's more like a laundry list of salacious, fear-inducing, sensational stories that the "journalists" were able to put together that day, usually chock full of cheesy stunts and props just to add to the theater of it all. As my reporter friend says, "if it bleeds, it leads." So Mindy's Mom was getting her daily fix of scaring the crap out of herself when a story about Senior U.S. District Court Judge Jack Camp came on. It was yet another of those all-too-common stories of someone in a position of power and authority partying like a reckless rock star the minute he leaves the respectable space of his public life, and taking ramped up risks until he crashes and burns. Apparently, when he wasn't handing down harsh sentences from the bench in his courtroom, His Honor had developed a taste for a stripper as his piece on the side, cocaine, marijuana, and prescription pills, and his fall-from-grace story is precisely the kind that the "news" organizations love to feature.
This particular story had created a whole bunch of questions in Brian's young brain. After hearing what led to his incessant questioning, and cursing her Mom under her breath, Mindy began to try and answer / divert. "Well, Bri, drugs are medicine. You know, like pills that the doctor gives you. Why do people take drugs? Sometimes people take them because they are feeling nervous or anxious and they want to feel a little calmer and more relaxed. On the other hand, sometimes people feel a little too relaxed and they want to have more energy, so different drugs or medicines have different effects on people. I have taken drugs, you know, medicine that was given to me by my doctor. Remember when I was in that car accident and my back was hurt? I took medicine then to help make my back feel better.
Brian, with a perplexed look on his face finally spoke up one last time and said, "but Mom, what about the milk drugs and the orange juice drugs?" "Milk drugs and orange juice drugs? What are you talking about?" asked Mindy. "You know, the milk drugs and the orange juice drugs that we have at our house. What about them?" said Brian. "Brian, I think you mean jugs not drugs", said Mindy.
"Seriously?!" she said to herself.
"Why do you ask, honey?" asked Mindy. Turns out that Mindy's Mom, who sometimes takes care of Brian, uses the time-tested strategy of many modern day Grandparents caring for energetic, young children while their own children are out doing something fun, they plop those little suckers down in front of the television and encourage them to quietly catch up on the local news with Grandma rather than tearing the house apart.
Calling the local news "news" these days is charitable at best. It's more like a laundry list of salacious, fear-inducing, sensational stories that the "journalists" were able to put together that day, usually chock full of cheesy stunts and props just to add to the theater of it all. As my reporter friend says, "if it bleeds, it leads." So Mindy's Mom was getting her daily fix of scaring the crap out of herself when a story about Senior U.S. District Court Judge Jack Camp came on. It was yet another of those all-too-common stories of someone in a position of power and authority partying like a reckless rock star the minute he leaves the respectable space of his public life, and taking ramped up risks until he crashes and burns. Apparently, when he wasn't handing down harsh sentences from the bench in his courtroom, His Honor had developed a taste for a stripper as his piece on the side, cocaine, marijuana, and prescription pills, and his fall-from-grace story is precisely the kind that the "news" organizations love to feature.
This particular story had created a whole bunch of questions in Brian's young brain. After hearing what led to his incessant questioning, and cursing her Mom under her breath, Mindy began to try and answer / divert. "Well, Bri, drugs are medicine. You know, like pills that the doctor gives you. Why do people take drugs? Sometimes people take them because they are feeling nervous or anxious and they want to feel a little calmer and more relaxed. On the other hand, sometimes people feel a little too relaxed and they want to have more energy, so different drugs or medicines have different effects on people. I have taken drugs, you know, medicine that was given to me by my doctor. Remember when I was in that car accident and my back was hurt? I took medicine then to help make my back feel better.
Brian, with a perplexed look on his face finally spoke up one last time and said, "but Mom, what about the milk drugs and the orange juice drugs?" "Milk drugs and orange juice drugs? What are you talking about?" asked Mindy. "You know, the milk drugs and the orange juice drugs that we have at our house. What about them?" said Brian. "Brian, I think you mean jugs not drugs", said Mindy.
"Seriously?!" she said to herself.
Friday, October 8, 2010
He Is More Than a Hero
I'm not really a consumer of poetry, but during a college Literature course I fell in love with one poem in particular. The poem "He is more than a hero" was written by Sappho, an Ancient Greek female poet born on the island of Lesbos in the 600s BC. Since reading this poem, I don't think I've come across a more achingly clear description of desiring someone, in this case another woman. Read it and tell me if I'm wrong.
He is more than a hero
he is a god in my eyes—
the man who is allowed
to sit beside you — he
who listens intimately
to the sweet murmur of
your voice, the enticing
laughter that makes my own
heart beat fast. If I meet
you suddenly, I can't
speak — my tongue is broken;
a thin flame runs under
my skin; seeing nothing,
hearing only my own ears
drumming, I drip with sweat;
trembling shakes my body
and I turn paler than
dry grass. At such times
death isn't far from me.
What a stunning depiction of desperately longing for that which is right next to you, but isn't yours. Lately I've been thinking of this poem from a different perspective. I have a dear friend who, about a year and a half ago, found herself falling head over heels in love with another woman. That in and of itself isn't unusual, but all of this happened while she was a married, stay-at-home Mom to two children, enjoying a very comfortable, secure life and fitting neatly into her little corner of society. It was the kind of thing that wasn't supposed to happen.
My friend, S, is one of the most intriguing women that I know. When we first met, it took all of fifteen minutes for her to start grilling me. If I hadn't found it so interesting, I would've been put off by it. The thing about her is that she's super curious about what makes others tick, and if she likes you, she wants to know everything about you. It didn't take long for me to learn that she grew up under a set of circumstances so tough they leave me amazed she's as sane as she is. She's intense and edgy, but has a huge heart. She's like a scrappy, little street fighter - full of strength and courage, and willing to walk right up to a situation and deal with it, regardless of how uncomfortable it may be. Yet she usually manages to find the sweet spot between all of those qualities that allows her to confront without being overly confrontational.
She and I can, and do, talk about everything. There isn't an off-limits subject between us. As her new love was developing, she did me the great honor of trusting me enough to let me fully into her world. I closely observed, and tried to be the best sounding board I could be for her as she stepped off of the safe, solid ground that was her married life, and plunged into the foggy unknown of a new relationship with another woman.
Over some period of time, before I knew anything about this, her feelings for her new love were deepening from mere friendship into something she couldn't ignore, but it was far too overwhelming for S to even think about the ramifications of that. This blossoming situation was without a doubt the wrecking ball that would lay waste to the carefully constructed building that was her married life, and it had the potential to render everything she knew unrecognizable. In those early days, she wouldn't admit even to herself what those feelings really meant, so she told no one. But when the message that her heart kept trying to send to her brain ratcheted up from a whisper to a scream, she couldn't ignore it any longer, and she began to spill her secret to me, which she tentatively described as her crush on a red-headed, spirited, pixie of a woman.
Nothing physical had transpired between S and her friend at that point, but the emotional intimacy had become very real, and it was unlike anything S had felt before, including what she had with her husband. Her marriage, which had had issues for quite a while, began to feel like an unbearable sentence in purgatory as she wrestled with staying put and shooting for absolution by trying to make her marriage work, or following her heart and blowing her family apart. I watched her struggle with admitting how she really felt to herself, and then I watched her agonize over not wanting to hurt her husband, her children, and her extended family. She worried and wondered about which of her friends might turn their backs on her if she left her husband and entered into a lesbian relationship. And she worried about being on the receiving end of bigotry from her very southern family and from people in the wider world.
Ultimately, after untold hours of talking with her husband, her therapist, their couple's therapist, her friends, and the woman she knew she was in love with, S took steps to dissolve her marriage. With her typical gusto, once she made the decision to live her truth and go down this path, she decided to just be who she was and let the chips fall where they may. S and her love have now been a couple for a little over a year. It's had its share of very tough moments, but I have to give all three of the adults involved a lot of credit. I have marveled repeatedly at how mature S's ex-husband has been through all of this. He's had some not-so-pretty moments to be sure, but far fewer than most guys in his position would have had. Mostly, he and S decided to put aside pettiness and focus on doing whatever was best for the children to help them adjust to this new reality. It has generally gone well.
As for S and her girlfriend, well women are complicated in and of themselves, but put a couple of them together in a love relationship and the amount of time spent talking through issues can be extensive to say the least. That has been the case this past year. But that's mostly due to S's desire to deal with things as they are happening, to be totally honest about how she's feeling and what a situation is dredging up for her, and to walk right up to it and talk it out. While I've watched from the sidelines all of the tough moments these two women have managed to work through this past year, I can only say that there's no denying that the kind of tough-love, courageous, honest communication S regularly employs would be completely off-putting, if it weren't so darned effective.
He is more than a hero
he is a god in my eyes—
the man who is allowed
to sit beside you — he
who listens intimately
to the sweet murmur of
your voice, the enticing
laughter that makes my own
heart beat fast. If I meet
you suddenly, I can't
speak — my tongue is broken;
a thin flame runs under
my skin; seeing nothing,
hearing only my own ears
drumming, I drip with sweat;
trembling shakes my body
and I turn paler than
dry grass. At such times
death isn't far from me.
What a stunning depiction of desperately longing for that which is right next to you, but isn't yours. Lately I've been thinking of this poem from a different perspective. I have a dear friend who, about a year and a half ago, found herself falling head over heels in love with another woman. That in and of itself isn't unusual, but all of this happened while she was a married, stay-at-home Mom to two children, enjoying a very comfortable, secure life and fitting neatly into her little corner of society. It was the kind of thing that wasn't supposed to happen.
My friend, S, is one of the most intriguing women that I know. When we first met, it took all of fifteen minutes for her to start grilling me. If I hadn't found it so interesting, I would've been put off by it. The thing about her is that she's super curious about what makes others tick, and if she likes you, she wants to know everything about you. It didn't take long for me to learn that she grew up under a set of circumstances so tough they leave me amazed she's as sane as she is. She's intense and edgy, but has a huge heart. She's like a scrappy, little street fighter - full of strength and courage, and willing to walk right up to a situation and deal with it, regardless of how uncomfortable it may be. Yet she usually manages to find the sweet spot between all of those qualities that allows her to confront without being overly confrontational.
She and I can, and do, talk about everything. There isn't an off-limits subject between us. As her new love was developing, she did me the great honor of trusting me enough to let me fully into her world. I closely observed, and tried to be the best sounding board I could be for her as she stepped off of the safe, solid ground that was her married life, and plunged into the foggy unknown of a new relationship with another woman.
Over some period of time, before I knew anything about this, her feelings for her new love were deepening from mere friendship into something she couldn't ignore, but it was far too overwhelming for S to even think about the ramifications of that. This blossoming situation was without a doubt the wrecking ball that would lay waste to the carefully constructed building that was her married life, and it had the potential to render everything she knew unrecognizable. In those early days, she wouldn't admit even to herself what those feelings really meant, so she told no one. But when the message that her heart kept trying to send to her brain ratcheted up from a whisper to a scream, she couldn't ignore it any longer, and she began to spill her secret to me, which she tentatively described as her crush on a red-headed, spirited, pixie of a woman.
Nothing physical had transpired between S and her friend at that point, but the emotional intimacy had become very real, and it was unlike anything S had felt before, including what she had with her husband. Her marriage, which had had issues for quite a while, began to feel like an unbearable sentence in purgatory as she wrestled with staying put and shooting for absolution by trying to make her marriage work, or following her heart and blowing her family apart. I watched her struggle with admitting how she really felt to herself, and then I watched her agonize over not wanting to hurt her husband, her children, and her extended family. She worried and wondered about which of her friends might turn their backs on her if she left her husband and entered into a lesbian relationship. And she worried about being on the receiving end of bigotry from her very southern family and from people in the wider world.
Ultimately, after untold hours of talking with her husband, her therapist, their couple's therapist, her friends, and the woman she knew she was in love with, S took steps to dissolve her marriage. With her typical gusto, once she made the decision to live her truth and go down this path, she decided to just be who she was and let the chips fall where they may. S and her love have now been a couple for a little over a year. It's had its share of very tough moments, but I have to give all three of the adults involved a lot of credit. I have marveled repeatedly at how mature S's ex-husband has been through all of this. He's had some not-so-pretty moments to be sure, but far fewer than most guys in his position would have had. Mostly, he and S decided to put aside pettiness and focus on doing whatever was best for the children to help them adjust to this new reality. It has generally gone well.
As for S and her girlfriend, well women are complicated in and of themselves, but put a couple of them together in a love relationship and the amount of time spent talking through issues can be extensive to say the least. That has been the case this past year. But that's mostly due to S's desire to deal with things as they are happening, to be totally honest about how she's feeling and what a situation is dredging up for her, and to walk right up to it and talk it out. While I've watched from the sidelines all of the tough moments these two women have managed to work through this past year, I can only say that there's no denying that the kind of tough-love, courageous, honest communication S regularly employs would be completely off-putting, if it weren't so darned effective.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Bad Habits
This is something I wrote about a year ago after a tough parenting day.
I'd rolled out of bed that morning and quickly realized it was going to be one of those days. I was tired and as my Grandma used to say, I had no ambition to do anything. The irritations started bright and early as my children bickered vigorously with each other and threw fits. I had a long "to-do" list filled with things that I had zero interest in actually doing. Top all of that joy off with a gray, drizzly day as the backdrop for a family who had already spent too much "quality time" together during summer break, and cabin fever had definitely staked a claim in our house.
Everything and everyone I encountered that day felt like they came with sharp edges. By mid-afternoon, as annoyances piled atop one another, my mood turned pitch black. I had barked at the kids continuously, refused to do anything that would actually make me feel better, and resorted to listening to my iPod with headphones in an effort to cocoon myself from my daughters' unending, fingernails-down-the-chalkboard shrills.
By the time the babysitter arrived, my own personal storm cloud hovered just above my head, and it was clear that I wasn't going to be good company for anyone. Since one of the ways that I escape the unrelenting, mundane tasks that can bury a stay-at-home Mom is by ensuring that I get some solitude periodically, it seemed that the only sensible thing for me to do was to go sit in a dark theater and watch a movie. Nothing about attending a movie solo in the middle of a weekday invites conversation, and that suited me just fine.
Shutting out the world and being entertained by a decent movie for a couple of hours lifted my spirits enough to come home, make dinner and get the children into bed with minimal yelling. Now I fully admit that I may live a little too much in my head, but I really do need a break from the day's chatter to think, reflect, assess my behavior, plan, and hopefully evolve in the process. So once the house got quiet, I looked back on the day and realized that this had turned out to be yet another day, in a collection of them since my children were born, capped with self-doubting, remorse-tinged thoughts that "I could have done better" and "tomorrow, I'm going to try harder."
Late into that evening as the black tide began to ebb, in an effort to connect with that quieter, knowing part of myself, I read some things that felt poignant to me. In this case, I read part of the novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and a magazine. The novel dredged up deep sadness in me as I read about a little girl who was so lonely throughout her young life, and who was consistently, profoundly disappointed by most adults, especially those closest to her. It made me think of my own little girls and wonder how often I may have stung them with words or made them feel as if they were invisible or unnoticed by me.
In that fine state of mind - regretting my less-than-stellar parenting efforts earlier in the day - I started thumbing through O magazine and got to the article "31 Ways of Looking at Power". What I read in the section about Pema Chödrön struck me. A native New Yorker in her 70s with four decades of study and contemplation under her belt, Chödrön is a Buddhist nun, prolific author, and respected teacher. The article presented her take on the Power of the Pause. "[I]f right now our reaction to seeing a certain person or hearing certain news is to fly into a rage or to get despondent or something equally extreme, it's because we have been cultivating that particular habit for a very long time." She went on to say that, in the midst of the frenetic day-to-day of our lives, "...we could choose to stop, to slow down, to be still for a few seconds." This pause "creates a momentary contrast between being completely self-absorbed and being awake and present", and can give us time to reset ourselves if we breathe and take in the stillness of that short pause.
This turned out to be a pretty serious clarifying moment for me. As a 40-year-old with bouts of extreme moodiness over the past few years (my poor family!), I know with certainty that hormones are a significant contributor, but I hadn't connected with the fact that, for a good part of my life I'd habitually responded to a hormone-induced funk by disengaging from the world and indulging myself in a quiet but palpable fume, single-handedly turning an emotional dull throbbing into an acute hammering. I had always thought of my mood swings as biochemical, uncontrollable things that were just part of the landscape of being female. Until I read Chödrön, it hadn't occurred to me that a large part of my bad moods was caused by habitual response, and was therefore changeable.
Interestingly, none of what Chödrön was saying was particularly new to me. I consider myself to be open-minded and fairly self-aware. I have done my time thinking deeply about what my core issues are and why I do the things I do. I make a regular effort to take stock of my behavior and to change what isn't working. But occasionally, something that's been said before manages to reach in and grab hold in a different way, and rather than just passing through my brain for a short visit, it sticks. This was one of those times for me.
Having absolved myself of worrying about the "why", I was all set to work on the "how". But as so often happens, a few days later all sorts of relevant information about the "why" showed up in the form of a New York Times article. Entitled "Brain is a co-conspirator in a vicious stress loop", it offered up scientific research results that explained to a degree the "why" behind bad habits that get established during tough times. Basically, scientists studying rats have discovered that prolonged stress creates changes in brain physiology that reinforce a tendency to make choices that in no way help those rats get out of the stressful situation in which they find themselves. This was oddly comforting, so I ran with it and took the liberty of applying this to myself. (a) I have created bad habits in my life, and (b) it's possible that my brain rewires during stressful times so that I am most comfortable continuing to make choices that are unlikely to help me get out of the bad place.
That was a rather amazing revelation to me. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for holding myself accountable, but sometimes it just feels like I'm flogging myself because I can't seem to manage to "do better" even though I have every intention of pulling myself out of the mire. To know that my brain may in fact be working against my better efforts is helpful, and I'm pretty sure that knowing this will allow me to be a little gentler with myself. The silver lining here is that the research also showed that, just as the brain can wire negatively during prolonged periods of stress, it can essentially be rebooted to default neural settings that help us make better choices as soon as we start to take care of ourselves again (e.g. eating well, getting adequate sleep, exercising).
So here's what I know: I've got some bad habits. I'm going to have to work with some uncontrollable things (hormones), some potentially tough but malleable things (stress-induced changes to brain physiology), and fortunately, some things well within my control but which will require extra diligence (my behavior patterns) in order to change my bad habits. Should be a piece of cake!
My daughter's lips were moving but I couldn't make out what she was saying. "What?" I said, pulling off the headphones and pausing my iPod for about the fiftieth time that day.
I'd rolled out of bed that morning and quickly realized it was going to be one of those days. I was tired and as my Grandma used to say, I had no ambition to do anything. The irritations started bright and early as my children bickered vigorously with each other and threw fits. I had a long "to-do" list filled with things that I had zero interest in actually doing. Top all of that joy off with a gray, drizzly day as the backdrop for a family who had already spent too much "quality time" together during summer break, and cabin fever had definitely staked a claim in our house.
Everything and everyone I encountered that day felt like they came with sharp edges. By mid-afternoon, as annoyances piled atop one another, my mood turned pitch black. I had barked at the kids continuously, refused to do anything that would actually make me feel better, and resorted to listening to my iPod with headphones in an effort to cocoon myself from my daughters' unending, fingernails-down-the-chalkboard shrills.
By the time the babysitter arrived, my own personal storm cloud hovered just above my head, and it was clear that I wasn't going to be good company for anyone. Since one of the ways that I escape the unrelenting, mundane tasks that can bury a stay-at-home Mom is by ensuring that I get some solitude periodically, it seemed that the only sensible thing for me to do was to go sit in a dark theater and watch a movie. Nothing about attending a movie solo in the middle of a weekday invites conversation, and that suited me just fine.
Shutting out the world and being entertained by a decent movie for a couple of hours lifted my spirits enough to come home, make dinner and get the children into bed with minimal yelling. Now I fully admit that I may live a little too much in my head, but I really do need a break from the day's chatter to think, reflect, assess my behavior, plan, and hopefully evolve in the process. So once the house got quiet, I looked back on the day and realized that this had turned out to be yet another day, in a collection of them since my children were born, capped with self-doubting, remorse-tinged thoughts that "I could have done better" and "tomorrow, I'm going to try harder."
Late into that evening as the black tide began to ebb, in an effort to connect with that quieter, knowing part of myself, I read some things that felt poignant to me. In this case, I read part of the novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and a magazine. The novel dredged up deep sadness in me as I read about a little girl who was so lonely throughout her young life, and who was consistently, profoundly disappointed by most adults, especially those closest to her. It made me think of my own little girls and wonder how often I may have stung them with words or made them feel as if they were invisible or unnoticed by me.
In that fine state of mind - regretting my less-than-stellar parenting efforts earlier in the day - I started thumbing through O magazine and got to the article "31 Ways of Looking at Power". What I read in the section about Pema Chödrön struck me. A native New Yorker in her 70s with four decades of study and contemplation under her belt, Chödrön is a Buddhist nun, prolific author, and respected teacher. The article presented her take on the Power of the Pause. "[I]f right now our reaction to seeing a certain person or hearing certain news is to fly into a rage or to get despondent or something equally extreme, it's because we have been cultivating that particular habit for a very long time." She went on to say that, in the midst of the frenetic day-to-day of our lives, "...we could choose to stop, to slow down, to be still for a few seconds." This pause "creates a momentary contrast between being completely self-absorbed and being awake and present", and can give us time to reset ourselves if we breathe and take in the stillness of that short pause.
This turned out to be a pretty serious clarifying moment for me. As a 40-year-old with bouts of extreme moodiness over the past few years (my poor family!), I know with certainty that hormones are a significant contributor, but I hadn't connected with the fact that, for a good part of my life I'd habitually responded to a hormone-induced funk by disengaging from the world and indulging myself in a quiet but palpable fume, single-handedly turning an emotional dull throbbing into an acute hammering. I had always thought of my mood swings as biochemical, uncontrollable things that were just part of the landscape of being female. Until I read Chödrön, it hadn't occurred to me that a large part of my bad moods was caused by habitual response, and was therefore changeable.
Interestingly, none of what Chödrön was saying was particularly new to me. I consider myself to be open-minded and fairly self-aware. I have done my time thinking deeply about what my core issues are and why I do the things I do. I make a regular effort to take stock of my behavior and to change what isn't working. But occasionally, something that's been said before manages to reach in and grab hold in a different way, and rather than just passing through my brain for a short visit, it sticks. This was one of those times for me.
It occurred to me that if my moody days are mostly habitual, then what I need to do is remember this when those days come and adjust my perspective about my crappy mood by accepting that it's just where I am instead of struggling against it. And though it will probably feel about as uncomfortable as rolling around in a fluffy pile of fiberglass insulation, I need to muscle through and force myself to do the things that I know will make me feel better in those moments. And honestly, it was liberating to think that I didn't need to do a lot of navel-gazing to divine the deeper "why" behind my bad habits, I just needed to change my actions.
Having absolved myself of worrying about the "why", I was all set to work on the "how". But as so often happens, a few days later all sorts of relevant information about the "why" showed up in the form of a New York Times article. Entitled "Brain is a co-conspirator in a vicious stress loop", it offered up scientific research results that explained to a degree the "why" behind bad habits that get established during tough times. Basically, scientists studying rats have discovered that prolonged stress creates changes in brain physiology that reinforce a tendency to make choices that in no way help those rats get out of the stressful situation in which they find themselves. This was oddly comforting, so I ran with it and took the liberty of applying this to myself. (a) I have created bad habits in my life, and (b) it's possible that my brain rewires during stressful times so that I am most comfortable continuing to make choices that are unlikely to help me get out of the bad place.
That was a rather amazing revelation to me. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for holding myself accountable, but sometimes it just feels like I'm flogging myself because I can't seem to manage to "do better" even though I have every intention of pulling myself out of the mire. To know that my brain may in fact be working against my better efforts is helpful, and I'm pretty sure that knowing this will allow me to be a little gentler with myself. The silver lining here is that the research also showed that, just as the brain can wire negatively during prolonged periods of stress, it can essentially be rebooted to default neural settings that help us make better choices as soon as we start to take care of ourselves again (e.g. eating well, getting adequate sleep, exercising).
So here's what I know: I've got some bad habits. I'm going to have to work with some uncontrollable things (hormones), some potentially tough but malleable things (stress-induced changes to brain physiology), and fortunately, some things well within my control but which will require extra diligence (my behavior patterns) in order to change my bad habits. Should be a piece of cake!
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Was It "Good" For You?
Have you ever had something happen in your life that you thought you REALLY wanted only to discover later that it led you face-to-face with something you would rather have plucked out every last hair on your body one-by-one with a set of tweezers than face? Ever been dealt a horrible card that justified viewing the world from behind a high wall of righteous anger until, further down the road, it dawned on you that without that card and the path it put you on, you never would have reached the much better place you eventually found yourself? Ah yes, nothing quite like being shoved kicking and screaming out of the comfort zone and just plain having to deal with it! How do we know whether the thousand little things that happen in our lives every day can be classified as "good" or "bad"? It's such a temptation to judge something definitively when it's happening, especially if it fits into our "bad" category, rather than to try and talk ourselves off the ledge and slow down our hyperventilating long enough to see what will come next.
In terms of how people size up a situation, I think there are "black and white" people in the world and there are "shades of gray" people. I definitely fall into the latter camp (probably why I almost went to law school), though I'm still working on learning to talk myself down from that ledge quicker these days than in the past. Thank goodness for time and the clarity that comes with hindsight. I believe the ability to see both the good and the bad of a situation or a person is what allows us to live civilly and to maintain some level of compassion and humility in a situation that we don't otherwise truly understand.
A while back I was listening to one of the podcasts that I follow, NPR's Planet Money. Between February and July, Planet Money did several episodes that followed a Haitian businesswoman named Yvrose Jean Baptiste. Her story is, I think, a tidy example of why it's tricky to conclude that something is "good" or "bad" in the moment. (For the record, I am summarizing the excellent reporting done by Adam Davidson, Chana Joffe-Walt, and Caitlin Kenney.) It goes like this: Yvrose, a married mother with four children, was introduced to podcast listeners in a Haitian marketplace. She was carrying a big tub of chicken necks on her head and selling them for pennies in the local marketplace shortly after the earthquake. Before the earthquake, she'd had a stable business as a small level wholesaler, which depended on her obtaining regular microloans at a certain rate, purchasing inventory (food items), and extending credit to small retailers under terms that racked up a modest profit for her as she fronted them items to sell at the retail level, and then collected her money a couple of weeks later. This was certainly a sound business model. It's what US bankers do every day, with the difference being that Yvrose operated with such a thin margin of error, that it was essential that everything go right, always. And for a time in her life, it did. She was able to help purchase a home for her family and send her children to school - rather serious success for a women with only a fifth grade education. And then the earthquake hit.
Not only did Yvrose's house collapse, but all of the homes of her 10 small retailers were destroyed (a few died in the quake), along with every last bit of the $500 U. S. dollars worth of goods she had distributed to them on the day before the earthquake. But the bank survived, and as she still owed approximately $100 U. S. dollars, payment was expected. So in an act of what I imagine must have been desperate optimism, Yvrose borrowed from a loan shark at a much higher interest rate to buy the chicken necks to sell in hopes of making enough money over time to pay back the microloan, and stay ahead of the loan shark.
The podcast aired and some listeners wanted to help her. An account was set up in her name through a microlending institute in Haiti, and $3,860.00 was donated to her. In March, she withdrew it all (several years' worth of wages), more money than she had ever seen or held in her hands. She immediately paid off her debt, put some in the bank, refused to buy anything she considered non-essential, and paid for her four children to go live in the countryside with relatives and attend school. The rest of the money she invested in her business.
As a result, Yvrose now has a tin-roofed, semi-permanent stand in a local marketplace where she maintains a broad selection of items. She currently makes $20 to $30 per day, which is life changing money for her and her children. If affords her the ability to access medical care when necessary. Her goal is to get her children through high school, and she no longer has to interrupt their education because she can't pay the school fees. Her cash flow has stabilized and debt no longer hangs over her head.
It sounds like everything had turned around for Yvrose, and that life was on a good course, except for one dark spot in her story. Shortly after receiving the money and paying off her debts and re-establishing her business, Yvrose's husband left her. Turns out that the power shift in their household was too much for him to take. Now she worries that she has no man in her tent (she still lives in temporary shelter) to protect her from potential thugs who might want to steal from her, or worse. Despite this, she said that she is generally optimistic about her future for the first time in her life, and who knows, even her husband leaving may prove to be a good thing eventually.
I think the twists and turns of this story are a prime example of why it is a seductive misstep to conclude that something is "good" or "bad" in the moment. Every situation contains what appears to be "good" and "bad" in varying measures, but even those we judge one way or the other, when viewed from some distance may end up looking like the exact opposite of what we initially thought them to be.
In terms of how people size up a situation, I think there are "black and white" people in the world and there are "shades of gray" people. I definitely fall into the latter camp (probably why I almost went to law school), though I'm still working on learning to talk myself down from that ledge quicker these days than in the past. Thank goodness for time and the clarity that comes with hindsight. I believe the ability to see both the good and the bad of a situation or a person is what allows us to live civilly and to maintain some level of compassion and humility in a situation that we don't otherwise truly understand.
A while back I was listening to one of the podcasts that I follow, NPR's Planet Money. Between February and July, Planet Money did several episodes that followed a Haitian businesswoman named Yvrose Jean Baptiste. Her story is, I think, a tidy example of why it's tricky to conclude that something is "good" or "bad" in the moment. (For the record, I am summarizing the excellent reporting done by Adam Davidson, Chana Joffe-Walt, and Caitlin Kenney.) It goes like this: Yvrose, a married mother with four children, was introduced to podcast listeners in a Haitian marketplace. She was carrying a big tub of chicken necks on her head and selling them for pennies in the local marketplace shortly after the earthquake. Before the earthquake, she'd had a stable business as a small level wholesaler, which depended on her obtaining regular microloans at a certain rate, purchasing inventory (food items), and extending credit to small retailers under terms that racked up a modest profit for her as she fronted them items to sell at the retail level, and then collected her money a couple of weeks later. This was certainly a sound business model. It's what US bankers do every day, with the difference being that Yvrose operated with such a thin margin of error, that it was essential that everything go right, always. And for a time in her life, it did. She was able to help purchase a home for her family and send her children to school - rather serious success for a women with only a fifth grade education. And then the earthquake hit.
Not only did Yvrose's house collapse, but all of the homes of her 10 small retailers were destroyed (a few died in the quake), along with every last bit of the $500 U. S. dollars worth of goods she had distributed to them on the day before the earthquake. But the bank survived, and as she still owed approximately $100 U. S. dollars, payment was expected. So in an act of what I imagine must have been desperate optimism, Yvrose borrowed from a loan shark at a much higher interest rate to buy the chicken necks to sell in hopes of making enough money over time to pay back the microloan, and stay ahead of the loan shark.
The podcast aired and some listeners wanted to help her. An account was set up in her name through a microlending institute in Haiti, and $3,860.00 was donated to her. In March, she withdrew it all (several years' worth of wages), more money than she had ever seen or held in her hands. She immediately paid off her debt, put some in the bank, refused to buy anything she considered non-essential, and paid for her four children to go live in the countryside with relatives and attend school. The rest of the money she invested in her business.
As a result, Yvrose now has a tin-roofed, semi-permanent stand in a local marketplace where she maintains a broad selection of items. She currently makes $20 to $30 per day, which is life changing money for her and her children. If affords her the ability to access medical care when necessary. Her goal is to get her children through high school, and she no longer has to interrupt their education because she can't pay the school fees. Her cash flow has stabilized and debt no longer hangs over her head.
It sounds like everything had turned around for Yvrose, and that life was on a good course, except for one dark spot in her story. Shortly after receiving the money and paying off her debts and re-establishing her business, Yvrose's husband left her. Turns out that the power shift in their household was too much for him to take. Now she worries that she has no man in her tent (she still lives in temporary shelter) to protect her from potential thugs who might want to steal from her, or worse. Despite this, she said that she is generally optimistic about her future for the first time in her life, and who knows, even her husband leaving may prove to be a good thing eventually.
I think the twists and turns of this story are a prime example of why it is a seductive misstep to conclude that something is "good" or "bad" in the moment. Every situation contains what appears to be "good" and "bad" in varying measures, but even those we judge one way or the other, when viewed from some distance may end up looking like the exact opposite of what we initially thought them to be.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Cuts Like a Knife
I have a bit of a hard edge to me. Typically I think of it as providing me with that special little something that keeps me from rolling over and completely taking it when life presents me with a rough situation. I'll show you, world! I won't politely stand by when I think an offense has been committed against me.
I've always liked this part of me, at least to some degree, when I keep it reigned in - a tool rather than a character defect. Ever since I left the somewhat cutthroat world of lobbying and began staying home with children, I've had to fight to keep myself from feeling like I've become a complete grass eater since the world of stay-at-home Moms that I navigate daily is fronted by a nicer facade and is much less confrontational than lobbying. (Perhaps it just requires a different subset of my diplomatic skills.) That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I like knowing that I have this tool I can employ to keep people from viewing me as a pushover. Unfortunately, like all personalty traits that work when meted out in reasonable doses, my edge turns into something more ominous and revealing about me at times, like one morning last May.
I seemed to have rolled out of bed with foul mood fully intact that morning. I yelled at the kids for the better part of an hour as they thwarted my efforts to hustle them off to school with anything resembling efficiency, and finally dropped them at carpool. Oh, sweet relief. On my way back home during morning rush hour, I was sitting at a stop sign of a five-way intersection waiting for another car to turn left in front of me. Because this intersection is a little funky, harried drivers often get impatient while waiting for each other to figure out whose turn it is to go, resulting in horn honking or bad-mouthing from behind the perceived safety of rolled up windows. I let the car make its turn, which required a few extra seconds of waiting to those cars behind me, and just as I began to make my own turn, the car directly behind me gave a longish honk. I did what any edgy person does and lifted my hand and gave a big, fat "up yours" to the honking driver, which I regretted about two seconds afterward when I noticed a hand waving to me from the unfamiliar car.
About half a minute later, my cell phone rang and my friend Mack (who is seriously one of the nicest people I know) asked if I was the irritated, not-yet-fully-caffeinated, carpool Mom who had just given him the finger at the intersection. Yep, the honker behind me was my friend and husband's co-worker merely trying to wave "hello" to me while on his way to work. In fact, he'd been on the phone with my husband as the whole thing went down, so Steve got to hear all about it in real time.
Laughing uncomfortably, I tried to explain myself and rationalize my behavior with weak excuses - that I thought I was being honked at by some impatient jerk who couldn't stand to wait a few extra seconds at a stop sign, that I didn't know what his new car looked like, etc. I sheepishly tripped all over myself apologizing for having been the only jerk at the intersection that day. He chuckled and said it was alright. I told him I was really glad that he had been the person on the receiving end of my digitus impudicus rather than someone who would be less amused by my rude driving antics, such as one of the parents I barely knew from my kids' school (did I mention I was the PTA President last year?)
I exhaled loudly as I hung up the phone and then proceeded to spend the better part of that day unable to shake how truly awful I felt about my behavior. I couldn't get out of my mind what an almost-instantaneous reaction it had been for me to flip someone off in traffic when they honked at me, just because I was in a crappy mood. What the hell was wrong with me? What did that mean about what really lives in me at the deep core and drives my so-called "edgy" behavior? Why was I so mad? Why was I so reactionary? Why can't I just be calmer and be the "bigger person"? At 41, why haven't I cultivated a more reasonable perspective about what's worth responding to and what's worth shrugging off? Moreover, why do I choose to respond to things that I actually know I should shrug off?
And that angst-riddled, internal questioning sums up my life-long spiritual struggle of forever trying to get to the peaceful place that I know resides somewhere in me so I can wrap myself in it and quiet the cacophony of harsh voices yelling at me that I am broken and need to do and be better. When I imagine what that peaceful place would look like were it a physical presence, I can't help but think of Mohandas Ghandi - slight and unassuming, easily underestimated but undeniably powerful, exuding calm knowing, and standing silently with a welcoming smile and arms open just waiting for me to choose to come to it. And when I do, the world goes quiet for just a little while, and somehow I find a way, for that short period of time, to be okay with who I am, warts and all.
Over the past few years I've found myself drawn to Buddhist philosophy, mostly because it says that we are who we are, and that suffering in this world comes from wishing that reality was something other than it is, or wishing that I would be someone at my core other than who I actually am. When I embrace this notion, I find that I can adjust my behaviors in ways I feel good about. But to do that, I have to pause for just a tic, and shift my thinking slightly so I move beyond habitually reacting to having one of my buttons pushed. I don't know if I will ever get to the point where I can truly be peace and project that out into the world with any reliability, but I do know that I haven't flipped off anyone in traffic since last May.
I've always liked this part of me, at least to some degree, when I keep it reigned in - a tool rather than a character defect. Ever since I left the somewhat cutthroat world of lobbying and began staying home with children, I've had to fight to keep myself from feeling like I've become a complete grass eater since the world of stay-at-home Moms that I navigate daily is fronted by a nicer facade and is much less confrontational than lobbying. (Perhaps it just requires a different subset of my diplomatic skills.) That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I like knowing that I have this tool I can employ to keep people from viewing me as a pushover. Unfortunately, like all personalty traits that work when meted out in reasonable doses, my edge turns into something more ominous and revealing about me at times, like one morning last May.
I seemed to have rolled out of bed with foul mood fully intact that morning. I yelled at the kids for the better part of an hour as they thwarted my efforts to hustle them off to school with anything resembling efficiency, and finally dropped them at carpool. Oh, sweet relief. On my way back home during morning rush hour, I was sitting at a stop sign of a five-way intersection waiting for another car to turn left in front of me. Because this intersection is a little funky, harried drivers often get impatient while waiting for each other to figure out whose turn it is to go, resulting in horn honking or bad-mouthing from behind the perceived safety of rolled up windows. I let the car make its turn, which required a few extra seconds of waiting to those cars behind me, and just as I began to make my own turn, the car directly behind me gave a longish honk. I did what any edgy person does and lifted my hand and gave a big, fat "up yours" to the honking driver, which I regretted about two seconds afterward when I noticed a hand waving to me from the unfamiliar car.
About half a minute later, my cell phone rang and my friend Mack (who is seriously one of the nicest people I know) asked if I was the irritated, not-yet-fully-caffeinated, carpool Mom who had just given him the finger at the intersection. Yep, the honker behind me was my friend and husband's co-worker merely trying to wave "hello" to me while on his way to work. In fact, he'd been on the phone with my husband as the whole thing went down, so Steve got to hear all about it in real time.
Laughing uncomfortably, I tried to explain myself and rationalize my behavior with weak excuses - that I thought I was being honked at by some impatient jerk who couldn't stand to wait a few extra seconds at a stop sign, that I didn't know what his new car looked like, etc. I sheepishly tripped all over myself apologizing for having been the only jerk at the intersection that day. He chuckled and said it was alright. I told him I was really glad that he had been the person on the receiving end of my digitus impudicus rather than someone who would be less amused by my rude driving antics, such as one of the parents I barely knew from my kids' school (did I mention I was the PTA President last year?)
I exhaled loudly as I hung up the phone and then proceeded to spend the better part of that day unable to shake how truly awful I felt about my behavior. I couldn't get out of my mind what an almost-instantaneous reaction it had been for me to flip someone off in traffic when they honked at me, just because I was in a crappy mood. What the hell was wrong with me? What did that mean about what really lives in me at the deep core and drives my so-called "edgy" behavior? Why was I so mad? Why was I so reactionary? Why can't I just be calmer and be the "bigger person"? At 41, why haven't I cultivated a more reasonable perspective about what's worth responding to and what's worth shrugging off? Moreover, why do I choose to respond to things that I actually know I should shrug off?
And that angst-riddled, internal questioning sums up my life-long spiritual struggle of forever trying to get to the peaceful place that I know resides somewhere in me so I can wrap myself in it and quiet the cacophony of harsh voices yelling at me that I am broken and need to do and be better. When I imagine what that peaceful place would look like were it a physical presence, I can't help but think of Mohandas Ghandi - slight and unassuming, easily underestimated but undeniably powerful, exuding calm knowing, and standing silently with a welcoming smile and arms open just waiting for me to choose to come to it. And when I do, the world goes quiet for just a little while, and somehow I find a way, for that short period of time, to be okay with who I am, warts and all.
Over the past few years I've found myself drawn to Buddhist philosophy, mostly because it says that we are who we are, and that suffering in this world comes from wishing that reality was something other than it is, or wishing that I would be someone at my core other than who I actually am. When I embrace this notion, I find that I can adjust my behaviors in ways I feel good about. But to do that, I have to pause for just a tic, and shift my thinking slightly so I move beyond habitually reacting to having one of my buttons pushed. I don't know if I will ever get to the point where I can truly be peace and project that out into the world with any reliability, but I do know that I haven't flipped off anyone in traffic since last May.
Friday, August 27, 2010
The Accidental Cougar
I was walking and talking with a friend, R, one morning after dropping the rug rats off at school. We were chatting about women we know and telling each other funny stories. Fine, we were gossiping. Anyhow, as I listened, I realized that at one time or another, both she and I had found ourselves embarrassingly associated with a pack of Cougars getting their prowl on. The Urban Dictionary defines a Cougar as "a 35+ year old female who is on the "hunt" for a much younger, energetic, willing-to-do-anything male. The cougar can frequently be seen in a padded bra, cleavage exposed, propped up against a bar... waiting, watching, calculating; gearing up to sink her claws into an innocent young and strapping buck who happens to cross her path."
My Cougar association was unintentional. In R's case, she knew what she was getting into because she gets invited on an annual weekend-long "girls' trip" with a particular group of ladies, and has elected to go on several of them. Though R herself is in no way a Cougar (and neither were a couple of the other women on her trip), she pretty much knew what to expect and was even a little fascinated watching some of these ladies sink fully into their "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" personas, regardless of the fact that they were in Phoenix or Dallas or San Diego.
My story goes like this. One Spring night last year, I found myself suddenly free on a Friday evening when my kids got an impromptu spend-the-night invitation from their Grandma. It's not even really necessary that she ask me whether it's okay that they come over because the answer is an automatic "yes" as far as I'm concerned. So the kids took off, and I started casting about to see what my options for the evening might be. About three calls in, I found myself striking out amongst my friends in the not-so-fast Mom crowd that I run with, spontaneity being nigh on impossible for most of them. But I am nothing if not persistent, and I was determined to find someone to hang out with, because since Steve was already tied up with his own plans, about the last thing I wanted to do was sit around planless and pathetic in my quiet house.
I tried a divorced friend of mine whose kids were with her ex-husband that night to see what she had on tap. She said she was going to go have drinks and dinner with a girlfriend (whom I knew as well, didn't love, but could tolerate) and a couple of her friend's friends (whom I didn't know at all) at a Mexican restaurant in Buckhead, and encouraged me to come along. I had never been there and didn't know anything about the place really, but a margarita and a patio sounded like a good plan to me, so off I went.
I showed up at the appointed hour, and a quick glance toward the packed patio coupled with the fact that it took the sweat-soaked, frantic valet a full five minutes to get to my car so I could hand over the keys as I waited just feet from the door clued me in that this place was clearly a scene for the young singles in the area. See, I'm usually home wrestling my way through the bedtime routine with the kids by seven on a Friday night, so I had no idea that this restaurant was a typical booze-soaked first stop for the young professionals trying to secure that night's hook-up. The bar thing was never my scene when I was young and single, so being in the midst of one as a married 40-year-old left me immediately feeling a little weird. But I pushed through my wariness and met our group at the bar.
Perfunctory introductions were made while we waited for the bartender to notice that we needed drinks and learned from the hostess that it would be at least 45 minutes before a table was likely to open. Here's a thumbnail sketch of our happy little group: me: 40 and married; my friend: 38 and divorced with a serious boyfriend; my acquaintance: 40-plus, aura of bitterness, unmarried and REALLY wanting to change that (I'm fairly sure I know why that hasn't happened yet); her friend #1: 40ish, recently divorced, on a mission to find a replacement; and her friend #2: 40-plus, single and pleasant, and definitely looking for a boyfriend. Aside from my unremarkable outfit, the "uniform" of the group was mostly trendy sandals, tight designer jeans, and clingy shirts with plunging necklines. Mostly I passed the time just talking with my friend while the other ladies talked to each other without making any actual eye contact because they were busy scanning the faces of every guy who walked by.
We finally got to our table, which to the delight of at least sixty percent of our party was directly in the middle of the patio and completely walled in by a sea of people throwing back margaritas and shots and chatting loudly. It was fantastic people watching. I watched the slow turning of the heads of the prowling contingent of ladies at our table as they visually swept the room flashing eager smiles while sipping their drinks, chair-dancing to the beat of the background music, and sizing up the male potential, or avoiding the gaze of those males whose potential they had some history of having already sampled and found lacking. With dawning realization, I felt the blood start to creep up my neck and face as it occurred to me that I had managed to secure myself a seat at what definitely looked like a table full of Cougars. Sweet Jesus!
I mentally smacked myself for not recognizing the situation sooner, and promised to get out of there as quickly as was politely possible after eating, which as it turned out took more than a full hour. Why, you ask, was this making me wish with all my might that I had powers of invisibility that I could invoke at that very moment? I mean, relax, right? Well, if you know anything about Cougars (e.g. any episode of Real Housewives of Wherever), watching women who are past their prime roll up into a bar and try to compete with twenty-somethings for the attention of men is just plain cringe-worthy. Their perfume, a combination of desperation and trying-way-too-hard, swirls around them and announces their presence to the room. And they are almost always oblivious to the fact they are being laughed at rather than laughed with. Oh, and because the younger women usually attract the "prime" quality men in the room, the douchebags are drawn to the older, hungry ladies like a devoted cheapskate to a 1/2 price sale at the dollar store. This night was no exception I realized as I watched one of the women at our table happily being chatted up by this guy that I recognized from high school. He was a d-bag back then, and it certainly appeared that nothing substantive had changed in the 20 years since I'd last seen him.
So, yeah, I was embarrassed because I just didn't want people to look at our table and take me (a happily married, trying-to-age-gracefully, average 40-year-old woman) for a Cougar. When I finally got out of there, I went home and told Steve all about the evening. He laughed and in his typical good-natured way gave me some funny angles from which to view the evening. And in that moment, I thanked my lucky stars that I was married to this great guy and that I didn't have to navigate the tricky waters of dating in my forties. And lest you think I am a complete jerk, let me just say that I felt for my friends and acquaintances that night. I can't believe they really enjoy the effort it takes to try and bag a new guy at that age any more than I imagine I would.
My Cougar association was unintentional. In R's case, she knew what she was getting into because she gets invited on an annual weekend-long "girls' trip" with a particular group of ladies, and has elected to go on several of them. Though R herself is in no way a Cougar (and neither were a couple of the other women on her trip), she pretty much knew what to expect and was even a little fascinated watching some of these ladies sink fully into their "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" personas, regardless of the fact that they were in Phoenix or Dallas or San Diego.
My story goes like this. One Spring night last year, I found myself suddenly free on a Friday evening when my kids got an impromptu spend-the-night invitation from their Grandma. It's not even really necessary that she ask me whether it's okay that they come over because the answer is an automatic "yes" as far as I'm concerned. So the kids took off, and I started casting about to see what my options for the evening might be. About three calls in, I found myself striking out amongst my friends in the not-so-fast Mom crowd that I run with, spontaneity being nigh on impossible for most of them. But I am nothing if not persistent, and I was determined to find someone to hang out with, because since Steve was already tied up with his own plans, about the last thing I wanted to do was sit around planless and pathetic in my quiet house.
I tried a divorced friend of mine whose kids were with her ex-husband that night to see what she had on tap. She said she was going to go have drinks and dinner with a girlfriend (whom I knew as well, didn't love, but could tolerate) and a couple of her friend's friends (whom I didn't know at all) at a Mexican restaurant in Buckhead, and encouraged me to come along. I had never been there and didn't know anything about the place really, but a margarita and a patio sounded like a good plan to me, so off I went.
I showed up at the appointed hour, and a quick glance toward the packed patio coupled with the fact that it took the sweat-soaked, frantic valet a full five minutes to get to my car so I could hand over the keys as I waited just feet from the door clued me in that this place was clearly a scene for the young singles in the area. See, I'm usually home wrestling my way through the bedtime routine with the kids by seven on a Friday night, so I had no idea that this restaurant was a typical booze-soaked first stop for the young professionals trying to secure that night's hook-up. The bar thing was never my scene when I was young and single, so being in the midst of one as a married 40-year-old left me immediately feeling a little weird. But I pushed through my wariness and met our group at the bar.
Perfunctory introductions were made while we waited for the bartender to notice that we needed drinks and learned from the hostess that it would be at least 45 minutes before a table was likely to open. Here's a thumbnail sketch of our happy little group: me: 40 and married; my friend: 38 and divorced with a serious boyfriend; my acquaintance: 40-plus, aura of bitterness, unmarried and REALLY wanting to change that (I'm fairly sure I know why that hasn't happened yet); her friend #1: 40ish, recently divorced, on a mission to find a replacement; and her friend #2: 40-plus, single and pleasant, and definitely looking for a boyfriend. Aside from my unremarkable outfit, the "uniform" of the group was mostly trendy sandals, tight designer jeans, and clingy shirts with plunging necklines. Mostly I passed the time just talking with my friend while the other ladies talked to each other without making any actual eye contact because they were busy scanning the faces of every guy who walked by.
We finally got to our table, which to the delight of at least sixty percent of our party was directly in the middle of the patio and completely walled in by a sea of people throwing back margaritas and shots and chatting loudly. It was fantastic people watching. I watched the slow turning of the heads of the prowling contingent of ladies at our table as they visually swept the room flashing eager smiles while sipping their drinks, chair-dancing to the beat of the background music, and sizing up the male potential, or avoiding the gaze of those males whose potential they had some history of having already sampled and found lacking. With dawning realization, I felt the blood start to creep up my neck and face as it occurred to me that I had managed to secure myself a seat at what definitely looked like a table full of Cougars. Sweet Jesus!
I mentally smacked myself for not recognizing the situation sooner, and promised to get out of there as quickly as was politely possible after eating, which as it turned out took more than a full hour. Why, you ask, was this making me wish with all my might that I had powers of invisibility that I could invoke at that very moment? I mean, relax, right? Well, if you know anything about Cougars (e.g. any episode of Real Housewives of Wherever), watching women who are past their prime roll up into a bar and try to compete with twenty-somethings for the attention of men is just plain cringe-worthy. Their perfume, a combination of desperation and trying-way-too-hard, swirls around them and announces their presence to the room. And they are almost always oblivious to the fact they are being laughed at rather than laughed with. Oh, and because the younger women usually attract the "prime" quality men in the room, the douchebags are drawn to the older, hungry ladies like a devoted cheapskate to a 1/2 price sale at the dollar store. This night was no exception I realized as I watched one of the women at our table happily being chatted up by this guy that I recognized from high school. He was a d-bag back then, and it certainly appeared that nothing substantive had changed in the 20 years since I'd last seen him.
So, yeah, I was embarrassed because I just didn't want people to look at our table and take me (a happily married, trying-to-age-gracefully, average 40-year-old woman) for a Cougar. When I finally got out of there, I went home and told Steve all about the evening. He laughed and in his typical good-natured way gave me some funny angles from which to view the evening. And in that moment, I thanked my lucky stars that I was married to this great guy and that I didn't have to navigate the tricky waters of dating in my forties. And lest you think I am a complete jerk, let me just say that I felt for my friends and acquaintances that night. I can't believe they really enjoy the effort it takes to try and bag a new guy at that age any more than I imagine I would.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
This One Goes Out To The One I Love (It's mushy. Consider yourself warned.)
On July 1st, my husband Steve and I celebrated 20 years as a couple. He is without a shadow of a doubt the love of my life. I learned long ago that letting go of expectations and efforts to control a situation often leads to a much better outcome than anything I could design. That bore out in 1990 when what started as a reluctant blind date (I only consented after being told it wasn't a date), with a guy who was secretly hoping to meet a tall brunette (I'm a petite blond), turned out to be an essential fork in the road of my life that I have looked back on over the years with shaky relief that I managed not to miss it.
Like any couple two decades in, we've grown used to each others' habits, insecurities, quirks, charms, etc. We've learned to focus attention on the things we like about each other, and to have a reasonable perspective about the things we find irritating. For example, I overlook his habit of almost always dropping his clothes on the floor two feet from the hamper, and focus instead on what a stellar husband, father and all-around great guy he is. I'm not sure exactly how exhaustive the list of things he overlooks in me is, but I will just say that patience is one of his best qualities.
I think our relationship works as well as it does because we really like each other. We also respect each other, give each other room to be individuals, and we talk, about everything. If something is coming between us, we hash it out and listen to what the other has to say. Sometimes one of us grudgingly comes around to the other's point of view. Sometimes, we just maintain our positions while appreciating the fact that we understand each other's rationale or inherent wackiness a little better. We compromise if possible, and adapt and move on when it isn't. All of these seem to be key ingredients to engineering a relationship that's built to last, but there is another really important element, and that is making a concerted effort not to take each other for granted.
With everyone tending to full slates of obligations that require a "divide and conquer" mentality, it's far too easy to slip into phoning it in where a relationship is concerned. Why is it that when everyone says "it's the little things in life that are important", it turns out to be the little things that are the first to go when we get busy? When we mostly see each other at the groggy edges of the day, I sometimes forget to pause, really look at S, appreciate him for all that's wonderful about him, and then to do the most important part, tell him that I noticed. And just as it's important for me to take care of myself, it's equally important that I do my part to take care of us as a couple. I once heard someone say that whatever you focus your attention on becomes the most important thing to you. It's so true.
EVERYONE wants to be adored. I think that all any of us want is a partner who sees us, knows us, understands us, and lets us know from time to time that they took a few minutes out of their day to pay us some small kindness as a nod to the fact that we matter to them. While Steve and I have regular date nights where we can escape being parents for a little while and take time just for us, I wanted to dedicate this post to him because not only is this my small kindness for him today, it's a permanent record of how I love him and how important he is to me. It's my open love letter to him.
The day after our wedding, I told S that marrying him was the best decision I had ever made. That remains true today. I've never met any man that I would rather be with than him. That is the straight up truth, and I hope each of you feel the same way about your current partner or the one you find in the future. When we met, it was immediately obvious that he was different than the guys I had dated. He was sweet and attentive, quick to laugh and funny, polite and well-mannered, and just "good people", if you know what I mean. He was tall, cute, and slightly gawky - a preppy geek. He was such a far cry from the "bad boys" that I was drawn to at the time that he took a little getting used to, but it didn't really take long for me to start appreciating how great it was to be with a capital N nice guy.
Here's what I want you to know about this man. Of all the human beings that I have met in my life thus far, he falls into the extremely rare category of "good to the core". His integrity is beyond reproach. He is honestly one of the nicest people I know (nicer than I am, for sure). If a friend, or even an acquaintance, needs something, Steve is often the first person to step up and offer help. His generosity astonishes me, whether he's giving time, money, a shoulder to cry on, his effort, his labor, he goes all in, again and again and again. He's very comfortable in his own skin, so much so that I've never seen him succumb to the urge to take someone else down a notch to make a point, even when he would be completely justified in doing so. It takes a really big person, emotionally speaking, to operate that way. He is FUNNY and witty, and only growing more so with age. He makes me laugh a lot, and that is a beautiful thing. His humor is never cruel, and he has a gift for telling the unpopular truth in an amusing way so that it can be heard without hurt. And as if that weren't enough, he is really smart. At 42, he still has boyish good looks, but to me, he's more handsome than ever these days, and I think that is because all of these other amazing qualities are what the physical package is wrapped around, and there is no denying how appealing it all is when considered together.
If I've given the impression that the past twenty years have been a complete bed of roses, let me clarify. Much of the time has been great, some of it has been mediocre, some of it has been hard as hell with tears, frustration, and heated arguments. But the thing is that a relationship is the proving ground where you test every supposed enlightened thing about yourself. After all, how enlightened really is the Buddhist monk who can only be peaceful when sitting alone and unprovoked in a cave? And if there is one major lesson I've learned from all of this, it's that anything really worth having, is worth the hard work it takes to get it and to hold on to it.
When I've had a tough day and he showers me with a little of his sticky-sweet adoration, it feels like he's just thrown a life preserver in my direction that lands within arms length just in time. I can barely believe that I am the one he chose to love. The power of having that one person in your life who is completely, dependably, happily in your corner rooting for you can not be underestimated. I hope you have such a person in your life too.
Like any couple two decades in, we've grown used to each others' habits, insecurities, quirks, charms, etc. We've learned to focus attention on the things we like about each other, and to have a reasonable perspective about the things we find irritating. For example, I overlook his habit of almost always dropping his clothes on the floor two feet from the hamper, and focus instead on what a stellar husband, father and all-around great guy he is. I'm not sure exactly how exhaustive the list of things he overlooks in me is, but I will just say that patience is one of his best qualities.
I think our relationship works as well as it does because we really like each other. We also respect each other, give each other room to be individuals, and we talk, about everything. If something is coming between us, we hash it out and listen to what the other has to say. Sometimes one of us grudgingly comes around to the other's point of view. Sometimes, we just maintain our positions while appreciating the fact that we understand each other's rationale or inherent wackiness a little better. We compromise if possible, and adapt and move on when it isn't. All of these seem to be key ingredients to engineering a relationship that's built to last, but there is another really important element, and that is making a concerted effort not to take each other for granted.
With everyone tending to full slates of obligations that require a "divide and conquer" mentality, it's far too easy to slip into phoning it in where a relationship is concerned. Why is it that when everyone says "it's the little things in life that are important", it turns out to be the little things that are the first to go when we get busy? When we mostly see each other at the groggy edges of the day, I sometimes forget to pause, really look at S, appreciate him for all that's wonderful about him, and then to do the most important part, tell him that I noticed. And just as it's important for me to take care of myself, it's equally important that I do my part to take care of us as a couple. I once heard someone say that whatever you focus your attention on becomes the most important thing to you. It's so true.
EVERYONE wants to be adored. I think that all any of us want is a partner who sees us, knows us, understands us, and lets us know from time to time that they took a few minutes out of their day to pay us some small kindness as a nod to the fact that we matter to them. While Steve and I have regular date nights where we can escape being parents for a little while and take time just for us, I wanted to dedicate this post to him because not only is this my small kindness for him today, it's a permanent record of how I love him and how important he is to me. It's my open love letter to him.
The day after our wedding, I told S that marrying him was the best decision I had ever made. That remains true today. I've never met any man that I would rather be with than him. That is the straight up truth, and I hope each of you feel the same way about your current partner or the one you find in the future. When we met, it was immediately obvious that he was different than the guys I had dated. He was sweet and attentive, quick to laugh and funny, polite and well-mannered, and just "good people", if you know what I mean. He was tall, cute, and slightly gawky - a preppy geek. He was such a far cry from the "bad boys" that I was drawn to at the time that he took a little getting used to, but it didn't really take long for me to start appreciating how great it was to be with a capital N nice guy.
Here's what I want you to know about this man. Of all the human beings that I have met in my life thus far, he falls into the extremely rare category of "good to the core". His integrity is beyond reproach. He is honestly one of the nicest people I know (nicer than I am, for sure). If a friend, or even an acquaintance, needs something, Steve is often the first person to step up and offer help. His generosity astonishes me, whether he's giving time, money, a shoulder to cry on, his effort, his labor, he goes all in, again and again and again. He's very comfortable in his own skin, so much so that I've never seen him succumb to the urge to take someone else down a notch to make a point, even when he would be completely justified in doing so. It takes a really big person, emotionally speaking, to operate that way. He is FUNNY and witty, and only growing more so with age. He makes me laugh a lot, and that is a beautiful thing. His humor is never cruel, and he has a gift for telling the unpopular truth in an amusing way so that it can be heard without hurt. And as if that weren't enough, he is really smart. At 42, he still has boyish good looks, but to me, he's more handsome than ever these days, and I think that is because all of these other amazing qualities are what the physical package is wrapped around, and there is no denying how appealing it all is when considered together.
If I've given the impression that the past twenty years have been a complete bed of roses, let me clarify. Much of the time has been great, some of it has been mediocre, some of it has been hard as hell with tears, frustration, and heated arguments. But the thing is that a relationship is the proving ground where you test every supposed enlightened thing about yourself. After all, how enlightened really is the Buddhist monk who can only be peaceful when sitting alone and unprovoked in a cave? And if there is one major lesson I've learned from all of this, it's that anything really worth having, is worth the hard work it takes to get it and to hold on to it.
When I've had a tough day and he showers me with a little of his sticky-sweet adoration, it feels like he's just thrown a life preserver in my direction that lands within arms length just in time. I can barely believe that I am the one he chose to love. The power of having that one person in your life who is completely, dependably, happily in your corner rooting for you can not be underestimated. I hope you have such a person in your life too.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Mirror, mirror on the wall...
Aging sucks. Not the part where I get progressively comfortable with who I really am and stop caring about those who don't like it. That part is fantastic. It's the looking in the mirror part of aging that I don't love so much. I'm 41, and let me just say that I totally appreciate how my sweet husband tells me on a regular basis that I am beautiful, especially, he notes, when compared to the average lady in my peer group. Or the time a friend of mine told me that I look fabulous and am in great shape, and that anyone who saw me from behind would think I was in my twenties. Um, thanks? I couldn't get over feeling like I'd just been told that I was a tall midget.
I came across this website yesterday called formerlyhot.com, and I had to laugh. (Mind you, I was never "hot", but I had my fair share of attention in my younger days.) Clearly, I'm not the only one struggling with the fading flower that was my youth. A lot of women like me have reached this place referred to by Formerly Hot's blogger, Stephanie Dolgoff, as the "adult tween years" - that time when you are within shouting distance of your best physical years, though there's no fooling yourself that you're still in them, but you haven't yet reached old age. Now that I have come to terms with the fact that I fall squarely into this category, clothes shopping has become an annoying foray into a fashion no man's land. I end up walking the razor-thin line between buying stuff that is age appropriate and cute but not matronly, versus succumbing to the siren's song of some (usually young, hot) salesperson in one of the fun stores convincing me that I look great in styles geared toward enhanced, super-skinny young ladies. Few things are as painful as seeing an "adult tween" woman prancing around in an outfit that would be appropriate for her if she were 10 years younger.
It's not that I'm uptight, it's just that I've decided to shoot for aging gracefully. Aside from not buying age-inappropriate clothing, this includes resisting surgical interventions. Plastic surgery is a foot jammed in the doorway of youth, and on the other side of the door is something BIG and determined to close it. Even with the best work, no one is fooled, and unfortunately, the best work seems to be the exception rather than the rule. What I hate most about the proliferation of all this plastic surgery is the implicit message that women aren't allowed to age, or our value diminishes when we do. So, yeah, I'm trying to get used to my crow's feet (I prefer to call them laugh lines), my small, somewhat-saggy breasts (common to women who've birthed children), and my fairly fit body, which could always be better but is a decent representation of a 40-something who works out regularly. Some days I feel pretty Zen about aging, and some days it's more like a slog up a 15% incline in the freezing rain with only the promise of a thin blanket to warm me when I reach the top.
As my favorite podcast host, Dan Savage of the Savage Lovecast, says (I'm paraphrasing here), "enjoy being objectified while you can because there will come a day when you no longer will be, and you'll miss it." I'm not going to lie, I miss it.
I came across this website yesterday called formerlyhot.com, and I had to laugh. (Mind you, I was never "hot", but I had my fair share of attention in my younger days.) Clearly, I'm not the only one struggling with the fading flower that was my youth. A lot of women like me have reached this place referred to by Formerly Hot's blogger, Stephanie Dolgoff, as the "adult tween years" - that time when you are within shouting distance of your best physical years, though there's no fooling yourself that you're still in them, but you haven't yet reached old age. Now that I have come to terms with the fact that I fall squarely into this category, clothes shopping has become an annoying foray into a fashion no man's land. I end up walking the razor-thin line between buying stuff that is age appropriate and cute but not matronly, versus succumbing to the siren's song of some (usually young, hot) salesperson in one of the fun stores convincing me that I look great in styles geared toward enhanced, super-skinny young ladies. Few things are as painful as seeing an "adult tween" woman prancing around in an outfit that would be appropriate for her if she were 10 years younger.
It's not that I'm uptight, it's just that I've decided to shoot for aging gracefully. Aside from not buying age-inappropriate clothing, this includes resisting surgical interventions. Plastic surgery is a foot jammed in the doorway of youth, and on the other side of the door is something BIG and determined to close it. Even with the best work, no one is fooled, and unfortunately, the best work seems to be the exception rather than the rule. What I hate most about the proliferation of all this plastic surgery is the implicit message that women aren't allowed to age, or our value diminishes when we do. So, yeah, I'm trying to get used to my crow's feet (I prefer to call them laugh lines), my small, somewhat-saggy breasts (common to women who've birthed children), and my fairly fit body, which could always be better but is a decent representation of a 40-something who works out regularly. Some days I feel pretty Zen about aging, and some days it's more like a slog up a 15% incline in the freezing rain with only the promise of a thin blanket to warm me when I reach the top.
As my favorite podcast host, Dan Savage of the Savage Lovecast, says (I'm paraphrasing here), "enjoy being objectified while you can because there will come a day when you no longer will be, and you'll miss it." I'm not going to lie, I miss it.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Friends - I Sure Know How to Pick 'Em
I don't have a lot of friends - acquaintances, yes, friends, no. Oh, I can put on my game face, make small talk and navigate a party when necessary, but I much prefer quiet solitude to forcing chatter with an obvious round hole to my square peg. I can count my close friends on two hands, just barely. To my friends reading this, you are of course in that count.
The first blush of a friendship is a little like falling in love for me. There's an undeniable, immediate attraction. We click. I'm fascinated and want to know more. I invest, but make sure to stay this side of "overly eager". I pay special attention. I miss them in between visits. Secretly, I hope that they feel the same way about me.
My closest friends, most of whom could populate the human version of the Island of Misfit Toys (yeah, yeah, I'd be there too), are generally an appealing combination of somewhat damaged, vulnerable and open as a result, scrappy and intuitive, and genuinely trying to make the world and themselves better. They are nice people with an edge. Unflinching honesty delivered with a velvet glove, plus the ability to discern when that's necessary (a skill typically honed by having swallowed wounds and slights, but not the accompanying bitterness) goes a long way with me.
Were they clothes, they would be like the Mad Hatter's ensemble in Tim Burton's version of Alice in Wonderland - comfortable with a cozy fit, well-constructed and tough, slightly frayed around the edges because of wear but holding up well otherwise, and always containing some slightly kooky, delightful flair. Few things thrill me like discovering that some sweetly-exteriored person has a bite to her inner self. Unwrapping a beautiful package and discovering grit and dirt inside only makes me want to know the back story that much more, and those unanticipated revelations keep me wondering what else this person is going to show me. I love a friend who will go to the raw places with me, but who also has figured out how to filter her crude internal self just enough to function in polite society.
I would like to think that, as a friend myself, I am a satisfying combination of "what you see is what you get" and "what you get is doled out in a slightly surprising way", because while my brain knows that I fit more neatly into a demographic than I wish I did (as evidenced by the number of times iTunes' Genius nails my song recommendations), the "you're the only snowflake like you in the whole wide world" part of me hopes I'm not completely predictable.
I'm low profile and laid back, and I appreciate the same in others. A few of my friendships died premature deaths when I just couldn't take anymore of the unceasing "Me" show. Turns out that the "Look at me. No, really, look at me" personality is only interesting for about the ten minutes it takes to realize that's all there ever will be there. The older I get, the less willing I am to waste time with the energy vampires. I've taken a lot of steps to live consciously and to let people see me as I really am, and I'm glad I've made the effort to purge relationships from my life that don't work for me. At the same time, I've managed to hold onto people who on the surface may appear ordinary, but contain within them incredibly beautiful and valuable qualities. Sometimes I can scarcely believe I had the good fortune to stumble upon them at all, and even more so that they've allowed me to stake a claim in them.
I have this one friend, for example, who is seriously one of my favorite people in the whole world. Aside from being quirky, funny, and very clever, he has this oh-so-refreshing habit of always telling the truth, to everyone. He's just so utterly charming while doing it that it's easy to swallow even the bitterest pill when it comes from him. Maybe it's because he doesn't feel the need to bludgeon with the truth. Even so, not everyone is interested in being friends with someone who is globally honest. It definitely takes some getting used to, but once you do it's liberating. It works for me because I have discovered that I have no patience for trying to interpret a message, and really, I'm just not very good at it. Whether I like what he's saying to me or not, at least I always know where I stand with him.
The common theme here is that every single one of my close friends brings something to the table that I admire and want to emulate - unwavering honesty, incredible courage and a willingness to walk right up to and confront very uncomfortable situations, wide open minds, the deepest wells of integrity and goodness so pure they couldn't be faked by even the best actor, a hardcore sense of adventure and desire to soak up everything life has to offer. The people dearest to me make me want to dig deep and find the best version of myself, pull it out, breathe life into it, and head off down the path with them to see what lies around the next bend.
The first blush of a friendship is a little like falling in love for me. There's an undeniable, immediate attraction. We click. I'm fascinated and want to know more. I invest, but make sure to stay this side of "overly eager". I pay special attention. I miss them in between visits. Secretly, I hope that they feel the same way about me.
My closest friends, most of whom could populate the human version of the Island of Misfit Toys (yeah, yeah, I'd be there too), are generally an appealing combination of somewhat damaged, vulnerable and open as a result, scrappy and intuitive, and genuinely trying to make the world and themselves better. They are nice people with an edge. Unflinching honesty delivered with a velvet glove, plus the ability to discern when that's necessary (a skill typically honed by having swallowed wounds and slights, but not the accompanying bitterness) goes a long way with me.
Were they clothes, they would be like the Mad Hatter's ensemble in Tim Burton's version of Alice in Wonderland - comfortable with a cozy fit, well-constructed and tough, slightly frayed around the edges because of wear but holding up well otherwise, and always containing some slightly kooky, delightful flair. Few things thrill me like discovering that some sweetly-exteriored person has a bite to her inner self. Unwrapping a beautiful package and discovering grit and dirt inside only makes me want to know the back story that much more, and those unanticipated revelations keep me wondering what else this person is going to show me. I love a friend who will go to the raw places with me, but who also has figured out how to filter her crude internal self just enough to function in polite society.
I would like to think that, as a friend myself, I am a satisfying combination of "what you see is what you get" and "what you get is doled out in a slightly surprising way", because while my brain knows that I fit more neatly into a demographic than I wish I did (as evidenced by the number of times iTunes' Genius nails my song recommendations), the "you're the only snowflake like you in the whole wide world" part of me hopes I'm not completely predictable.
I'm low profile and laid back, and I appreciate the same in others. A few of my friendships died premature deaths when I just couldn't take anymore of the unceasing "Me" show. Turns out that the "Look at me. No, really, look at me" personality is only interesting for about the ten minutes it takes to realize that's all there ever will be there. The older I get, the less willing I am to waste time with the energy vampires. I've taken a lot of steps to live consciously and to let people see me as I really am, and I'm glad I've made the effort to purge relationships from my life that don't work for me. At the same time, I've managed to hold onto people who on the surface may appear ordinary, but contain within them incredibly beautiful and valuable qualities. Sometimes I can scarcely believe I had the good fortune to stumble upon them at all, and even more so that they've allowed me to stake a claim in them.
I have this one friend, for example, who is seriously one of my favorite people in the whole world. Aside from being quirky, funny, and very clever, he has this oh-so-refreshing habit of always telling the truth, to everyone. He's just so utterly charming while doing it that it's easy to swallow even the bitterest pill when it comes from him. Maybe it's because he doesn't feel the need to bludgeon with the truth. Even so, not everyone is interested in being friends with someone who is globally honest. It definitely takes some getting used to, but once you do it's liberating. It works for me because I have discovered that I have no patience for trying to interpret a message, and really, I'm just not very good at it. Whether I like what he's saying to me or not, at least I always know where I stand with him.
The common theme here is that every single one of my close friends brings something to the table that I admire and want to emulate - unwavering honesty, incredible courage and a willingness to walk right up to and confront very uncomfortable situations, wide open minds, the deepest wells of integrity and goodness so pure they couldn't be faked by even the best actor, a hardcore sense of adventure and desire to soak up everything life has to offer. The people dearest to me make me want to dig deep and find the best version of myself, pull it out, breathe life into it, and head off down the path with them to see what lies around the next bend.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Carving Out Some "Me" Time
I've been in a state of a stay-at-home Momhood for almost 8 years now - 2 more than I expected to be working only at home. I say working because make no mistake, I am working, there's just no paycheck involved. I'm not suggesting that it's particularly hard work or that I don't benefit from this arrangement. My basic needs, and even some wants, are more than adequately met in return for my contribution. And I like to think that my staying atop the persistent pile of mundane tasks related to keeping children healthy and ensuring the house doesn't end up as a candidate for "Hoarders" makes it easier for my hubby to go to work and continue to pay for all of this. For the record, I'm married to one of the best guys around. He gets how taxing dealing with children full time can be, and he certainly gets that taking breaks are necessary for good parenting to continue to be possible.
There are circumstances in life though when, if you aren't careful, what was your assuredly solid sense of self can slip unnoticed through your fingers until you hardly recognize what remains in your grasp. Unguarded parenthood - constantly attending to everyone else's needs before your own - is a good example. When the kids are very young, that high level of sacrifice is an essential part of the job. You start out taking care of babies whose needs unquestionably must be met by you if they are to thrive. You gladly put your own desires aside because it is vital that you do so, and because it is absolutely worth the sacrifice, and because it takes almost no time to discover that you love them with a primal fierceness that you had no idea existed before they came along and you want to do whatever it takes to get them off to a good start in life. But as they get older, what was once a necessity can become a crushing habit of ignoring your own need to grow and develop in service to the family. It can be insidious if you've left a career that you don't intend to reenter (and you haven't settled on what you will do professionally in the future), and with each passing day a little of the known quantity of who you were in that role slips away until you realize that you aren't quite sure who you are anymore. The role of being Mom can grow so large that you forget what rounds out the rest of you. At least this is what happened with me.
Parenting is basically a delayed-gratification marathon. Let me be clear, I love my children and being their mother, and I don't regret my decision to be at home with them, but being a mother doesn't complete me. It is simply one dimension of who I am, and I want to continue to hone my other facets. I didn't long for motherhood as my ultimate life's goal, though I am so happy that I opted to take the plunge. Motherhood has been the most rewarding, and the most difficult thing I've done so far. I am not striving for perfection as a parent, but I make a serious effort to do right by my girls, and when I fall short, which happens more than I care to admit, I feel terrible about it and I try to reset myself so I will do better the next time. For me, what that often means is carving out some "me" time and finding some things to do that have absolutely nothing to do with my children.
I'm in the very fortunate position of not having finances require me to work, and about the last thing I want to sound like here is some privileged asshole whining about a life that many women would trade places for in a heartbeat. While I am grateful that I can be so present in my daughters' lives, feeding my own soul and guarding some piece of my independent self is what keeps me tethered to my sanity. So I've been making an effort to figure out what rounds me out in this phase of my life. Not me in relation to my children. Not me in relation to my husband. Not me in a role that is tangential to the family. Just me.
I've started claiming some time for myself, and when I'm not taking care of the kids I volunteer my time and effort for causes that resonate with me. It feeds my soul and my intellectual curiosity at the same time, and I feel like I'm leaving my corner of the world just a little better off than I found it. I am also starting to write - this blog, some essays, letters to my daughters for when they are older. A couple of years ago I started taking guitar lessons, which has been a fun challenge, and I've been pleasantly surprised to discover that I could learn to play music at my relatively advanced age, and that I do have some creative yearnings that want to see the light of day. When I can get away with it, I travel. I know, in the grand scheme these seem like small things, and they are, but every time I do something for me to define a new part of myself and recharge my batteries, I'm a much better Mom. It's also really important to me that my girls understand that I'm not just their Mom, I'm my own person too with hopes, dreams and desires, some of which include them and some of which don't. When I make me one of the priorities in my life, I come away having gained as much as I gave, and then I have something to draw on so I can keep giving to the family.
At the end of any given day, especially the tough ones, my sweet husband reminds me that I'm doing a good job and that when they are 30 and have their own children they are likely to appreciate us. As parents, we are middle-of-the packers, neither incredibly good, but far from neglectful. And as children go, ours are not statistical outliers - they could certainly be better behaved and more well-mannered than they are, but they could also be a hell of a lot worse too. And maybe that's one more good thing to remember about finding balance, that it's okay to be right in the middle of the bell curve where ordinary is just fine.
There are circumstances in life though when, if you aren't careful, what was your assuredly solid sense of self can slip unnoticed through your fingers until you hardly recognize what remains in your grasp. Unguarded parenthood - constantly attending to everyone else's needs before your own - is a good example. When the kids are very young, that high level of sacrifice is an essential part of the job. You start out taking care of babies whose needs unquestionably must be met by you if they are to thrive. You gladly put your own desires aside because it is vital that you do so, and because it is absolutely worth the sacrifice, and because it takes almost no time to discover that you love them with a primal fierceness that you had no idea existed before they came along and you want to do whatever it takes to get them off to a good start in life. But as they get older, what was once a necessity can become a crushing habit of ignoring your own need to grow and develop in service to the family. It can be insidious if you've left a career that you don't intend to reenter (and you haven't settled on what you will do professionally in the future), and with each passing day a little of the known quantity of who you were in that role slips away until you realize that you aren't quite sure who you are anymore. The role of being Mom can grow so large that you forget what rounds out the rest of you. At least this is what happened with me.
Parenting is basically a delayed-gratification marathon. Let me be clear, I love my children and being their mother, and I don't regret my decision to be at home with them, but being a mother doesn't complete me. It is simply one dimension of who I am, and I want to continue to hone my other facets. I didn't long for motherhood as my ultimate life's goal, though I am so happy that I opted to take the plunge. Motherhood has been the most rewarding, and the most difficult thing I've done so far. I am not striving for perfection as a parent, but I make a serious effort to do right by my girls, and when I fall short, which happens more than I care to admit, I feel terrible about it and I try to reset myself so I will do better the next time. For me, what that often means is carving out some "me" time and finding some things to do that have absolutely nothing to do with my children.
I'm in the very fortunate position of not having finances require me to work, and about the last thing I want to sound like here is some privileged asshole whining about a life that many women would trade places for in a heartbeat. While I am grateful that I can be so present in my daughters' lives, feeding my own soul and guarding some piece of my independent self is what keeps me tethered to my sanity. So I've been making an effort to figure out what rounds me out in this phase of my life. Not me in relation to my children. Not me in relation to my husband. Not me in a role that is tangential to the family. Just me.
I've started claiming some time for myself, and when I'm not taking care of the kids I volunteer my time and effort for causes that resonate with me. It feeds my soul and my intellectual curiosity at the same time, and I feel like I'm leaving my corner of the world just a little better off than I found it. I am also starting to write - this blog, some essays, letters to my daughters for when they are older. A couple of years ago I started taking guitar lessons, which has been a fun challenge, and I've been pleasantly surprised to discover that I could learn to play music at my relatively advanced age, and that I do have some creative yearnings that want to see the light of day. When I can get away with it, I travel. I know, in the grand scheme these seem like small things, and they are, but every time I do something for me to define a new part of myself and recharge my batteries, I'm a much better Mom. It's also really important to me that my girls understand that I'm not just their Mom, I'm my own person too with hopes, dreams and desires, some of which include them and some of which don't. When I make me one of the priorities in my life, I come away having gained as much as I gave, and then I have something to draw on so I can keep giving to the family.
At the end of any given day, especially the tough ones, my sweet husband reminds me that I'm doing a good job and that when they are 30 and have their own children they are likely to appreciate us. As parents, we are middle-of-the packers, neither incredibly good, but far from neglectful. And as children go, ours are not statistical outliers - they could certainly be better behaved and more well-mannered than they are, but they could also be a hell of a lot worse too. And maybe that's one more good thing to remember about finding balance, that it's okay to be right in the middle of the bell curve where ordinary is just fine.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Getting Off the Dime
I was at the pool the other day watching my kids swim and talking with this friend who was there doing the same. Though she's a pretty new friend for me, we click. She's smart, funny, a little raunchy, trying to evolve, etc. We have some similarities, but she's different from me in a key way. She's a "doer". She has an idea and she moves forward with it. I too have some decent ideas, but my tendency is to think something to death and therefore never quite get off the dime with it. Fortunately, she's as generous as she is smart, and she suggested a couple of things that finally got me moving on posting something to this blog, which I set up a solid eight months ago.
Why is it that the first step of doing anything is the hardest? Actually, it isn't even the first step that I find tough, it's the anticipation leading up to taking the first step that is often the most painful part of something new - the cautious analysis, the trying to figure out all possible contingencies, the worrying. Mind you, I'm not saying that I'm this way with absolutely every first step I take, but if the thing involves exposing my soft, fleshy underbelly in the process, the pre-first step fretting over whether I might end up making big mistakes or looking stupid can overwhelm. And, to me, few things scream vulnerable quite like writing down my most intimate thoughts, hitting enter, and letting the world in on what's rattling around in my brain.
I've been telling myself for a long time that I want to write. Let me back up and get the basics out of the way. I've been a stay-at-home Mom to my two daughters for the past 8 years, am a former lobbyist, am reasonably intelligent, and also feeling a bit rudderless in my world where a lot of my life is centered around tending to the needs of impatient children who can't begin to appreciate the sacrifices I've made on their behalf. Though that, thank God, is improving as they age, well, until they reach their teen years and become as obnoxious to their stupid parents as I was to mine. I think I might have six more decent years before the combined hormonal surges of a pre-menopausal mother and two teen aged daughters in our house send us all screaming for the exits. But I digress.
Like I said, I want to be a writer. But what to write? I am not interested in writing fiction, and the part of me that questions why the blogoshpere needs one more voice adding to the din wonders whether I have anything to say that's worth reading. In my mind, the only way to get anywhere close to that is to write about what I know, and the thing that's been a constant for me for as long as I can remember is my struggle to find balance, and then to hold it for any reasonable period of time. Sometimes I nail it, and sometimes it's completely FUBAR. So my posts, and there is an entire universe of potential topics here, will be tied to that idea, even if the binds seem loose.
If I end up being the only one who reads this, so be it. I'm glad to have finally taken the first step.
Why is it that the first step of doing anything is the hardest? Actually, it isn't even the first step that I find tough, it's the anticipation leading up to taking the first step that is often the most painful part of something new - the cautious analysis, the trying to figure out all possible contingencies, the worrying. Mind you, I'm not saying that I'm this way with absolutely every first step I take, but if the thing involves exposing my soft, fleshy underbelly in the process, the pre-first step fretting over whether I might end up making big mistakes or looking stupid can overwhelm. And, to me, few things scream vulnerable quite like writing down my most intimate thoughts, hitting enter, and letting the world in on what's rattling around in my brain.
I've been telling myself for a long time that I want to write. Let me back up and get the basics out of the way. I've been a stay-at-home Mom to my two daughters for the past 8 years, am a former lobbyist, am reasonably intelligent, and also feeling a bit rudderless in my world where a lot of my life is centered around tending to the needs of impatient children who can't begin to appreciate the sacrifices I've made on their behalf. Though that, thank God, is improving as they age, well, until they reach their teen years and become as obnoxious to their stupid parents as I was to mine. I think I might have six more decent years before the combined hormonal surges of a pre-menopausal mother and two teen aged daughters in our house send us all screaming for the exits. But I digress.
Like I said, I want to be a writer. But what to write? I am not interested in writing fiction, and the part of me that questions why the blogoshpere needs one more voice adding to the din wonders whether I have anything to say that's worth reading. In my mind, the only way to get anywhere close to that is to write about what I know, and the thing that's been a constant for me for as long as I can remember is my struggle to find balance, and then to hold it for any reasonable period of time. Sometimes I nail it, and sometimes it's completely FUBAR. So my posts, and there is an entire universe of potential topics here, will be tied to that idea, even if the binds seem loose.
If I end up being the only one who reads this, so be it. I'm glad to have finally taken the first step.
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