I’ve had some big falls off of the bicycle of life.
When I was suffering from chronic depression in college, I accumulated seven Fs on my transcript because I wasn’t able to handle the necessary hoop jumping to get certain classes dropped – which I should never have been signed up for in the first place. *Sigh*
You would think seven Fs would kill your college career for good, and yet, even when my appeal was denied to get some of them retroactively removed, I was still able to get my master’s degree in Linguistics, a very difficult field.
How did I do it?
(1) Ignore the naysayers, real and imaginary
I didn’t allow my negative self-talk, or anyone else, to deter me from my goal to enter the field of Linguistics and to finish with my Master’s degree. When I had to face the head of the Linguistics department with my seven Fs, I held my head high and said, “I am aware this looks bad, but I know I can do this.” After his initial skepticism (boy did he hit me with some heavy condescension!), it was he who invited me to apply for the Master’s program two years later.
(2) Get Over It: Don’t Dwell In, or On, the Fall
I know there are many people who would have given up for good upon failing out of college – as I essentially did (I was required to take a year off before I was permitted to try again). It is for that reason that I trot out this story over and over again. I did not dwell in the story of my failure, deciding to be a college dropout for the rest of my life. Nor do I dwell on that story of failure, by using it as a “poor me” story. Instead my story of failure has become a story of success.
(3) Just Do It, AKA, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway
Get back on the bike. When my academic probation was over, I held my transcript in my hand and met with the head of the Linguistics department. That took tenacity. Guts!
In the end, really, you have nothing to lose.
Currently I’ve fallen off the blogging bicycle.
Somehow I’ve let the weeks slip by and have not posted in two months! It never used to matter so much when I let time pass without posting, but now this blogging thing is more than a purging of thoughts to me – I care about what I’m doing in this space – and I don’t want to lose all my readers by being perceived as an unreliable poster.
How do I solve this according to the above strategy?
(1) Ignore the naysayers, real and imaginary
For me, aside from my fears that my readers all hate me now, is my extreme writer’s block stemming from, “What exactly do I write to fill in the blanks of several weeks gone by?” Seriously, where do I start? So much has happened in the past two months! Sebastian has begun eating solid foods, has eight teeth, enjoys swimming (being held and swirled around in deep water), and is crawling!
(2) Get Over It: Don’t Dwell In, or On, the Fall
I messed up.
Why didn’t I just post the following?
:: Summer Break ::
“Dear readers, I’ll be taking a summer break. I will resume with weekly Keep or Purge posts sometime in September.
Enjoy your summer!”
I refuse to identify myself as a failed blogger. I have blogging goals that I have not yet reached and I’ll never get there if I keep replaying that negative self talk over and over and over. Yes, I’m upset with myself for not at least foreseeing that I would need to take a summer break and alerting my readers to that fact. But what’s done is done.
(3) Just Do It, AKA, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway
And here I am! I’ve done it. I was terrified to post again, but now I have! I’m back on that horse, or bicycle.
Yesterday was my husband’s birthday and I completely forgot.
First I made him take a boring walk around the neighborhood with me and the baby instead of letting him go on a scenic hike when he got home from work early.
Then I pooh-poohed what he wanted to make for supper. “Do you think we can grill a plantain? Then we could eat it with the grilled sea bass and some black beans.”
“Blech!”
“You might like it!”
“I might like it but I’m not really in the mood for it.” (I’m not really in the mood for it – on his birthday!!!)
Then he offered me oysters and I said, “No!” As in, Ew, how could you even suggest that!
He said, “But it’s a special occasion! We have to celebrate.”
And I said, “Celebrate what? That you bought oysters again?”
“No, today is a special day. Don’t you know what it is?”
I tried to get my sluggish, stuck with baby twenty-four hours a day on very little sleep, don’t even know the date, brain to work. Our anniversary!? No, I know it’s not May yet. Just when the light bulb was about to go off he says, “Today is my birthday.”
Oh, I felt so bad. I buried my face in his chest for a while. He took it well though.
Then he made this fancy concoction for dinner:
Grilled sea bass (his own recipe, with stuff like chiles, minced tomato, onion, and cilantro, lime, etc), a tostada with vegetarian beans (for me) and queso fresco, a mango-cucumber salad, and a grilled plantain that didn’t turn out very well.
And then I shared this awesome birthday video with him:
I still suffer from the belief that every post needs a picture – and I still don’t know where we packed the camera charger!
See, this blog was supposed to be a show-case of the things I manage to succeed in doing and an illustration of the realities that go on behind closed doors. Most of the time the rooms of my house are in disarray and I loath getting dinner on the table. I want to document the chaos and the processes I use to conquer each pile at a time. I want to document the bread pudding that turned out great, despite a couple of huge mistakes, that I then left out all night and had to throw away because my husband won’t risk food poisoning, especially since I’m pregnant.
But this blog should also be a reflection of my inner journey, and for that I don’t need photos.
So what have I been up to during my long silence? I’ve been settling in to the new town, SLOWLY unpacking, and doing some private writing.
Lately I’ve been reflecting on how much better this major life-transition has been, compared to the last one three years ago. At that time I had finished graduate school, gotten married, and moved from the Midwest to Denver. And I didn’t have a job line-up. It’s hard to be a participator in life when you’re caught up inside yourself, listening to yourself tell the same-old stories about your past, and your struggles, and why who are different from other people. And the stress of all those life changes happening at once, turned me into a wreck. My obsessive negative-thinking and social-anxiety were magnetized by 1000. I experienced culture shock and didn’t want to drive anywhere. I experienced agony each time we were supposed to go anywhere where we had to interact with our new peers.
I experienced an inside-myself feeling that brought me close to tears each time I was forced to interact with others. The, I am barely getting by each day alone in my house without having to put on appropriate attire and talk to strangers around a Bar-B-Que, feeling. First there is the intense feeling that my clothing, make-up, shoes, and jewelry are inadequate – because I just don’t know how to harness the power of that stuff. Then there is the inevitable “What do you do?” question. I’ve gotten better and better at all of that stuff, but when it’s all you can do to take a shower and force yourself to cook meals, how do you shine yourself up for a public appearance and be relaxed about it?
It’s a relief to have become happy, comfortable in my own skin. I can’t describe that shaky, swimming around inside myself feeling that was sometimes quite literal, when I wasn’t balancing my meds properly, and sometimes simply caused by my emotions. During that time, I was unable to concentrate on what people were saying fast enough to formulate responses. Then I’d be so busy obsessing over what I should have said, that I’d miss the rest of the party. There were times when I was fighting back tears every time I had to open my mouth to respond to another human being. Just terrified of people. It is such a horrible way to live. If you only knew what that was like, you’d want to stay safe in the cocoon of your home too. Never initiating social contact, and nearly falling apart every time you accepted a lunch invitation. I lived so many years of my life that way. But moving to Denver it was really emphasized because there were so many of us in the same shoes, arriving in this new city, needing to make new friends; socializing was necessary and expected.
Anyway, now here I am in the midst of another huge life transition, pregnancy and a big move to a new city (small-town – another culture-shock), and I’m doing great with it. I think this is a result of cleaning up my thinking. I’m comfortable with being uncomfortable. I know that it always passes. I don’t care so much if people don’t take to me right away, or if it seems that the rest of the world (AKA the women around me) are involved in some choreographed dance that I’m not a part of. I used to think that dance was what I was supposed to be doing and that there was, of course, as always, something wrong with me because I didn’t know and couldn’t seem pick up the steps. But I don’t believe that anymore. I now think that other people have baffling interests and needs that I’m pleased not to be bothered with. They get off on doing that. That’s great. I get off on reading, thinking, writing, and spending time with my husband. That doesn’t mean I don’t like them or want to hang out with them from time to time, or have girl time – I do, and I will. But, all this stuff that they do, that I don’t, I can let it go.
And I’m sure part of it is age. I’m relieved not to have to contend with the energy of those in their early- and even mid- twenties anymore. The boundless, work hard, play hard, exercise, party, socialize, ethic. Now people the people I meet are more settled and chill. If they do have boundless energy, they package it up into self-contained adventurous outdoor activities, such as mountain climbing, and rafting, that happen outside of my presence.
The bottom line is, although I’ve been blog-silent, I’m doing well. I’ve been proactive about my mental-health and it’s paid off. I’m still well in the midst of transition, and that will probably continue to interrupt my blogging for awhile. But in time, I’ll be back in full-swing.
If you’re curious to know how I managed to clean up my thinking and get over the extreme social-anxiety, that, my dears, will take another post.
It’s time to get up off my bum and be productive again. I’m posting this picture of Casey, which I’ve probably posted before in one of the lost posts – and of course, you’ve seen it before in the About Me column – because it sums up all of the photos my husband and I take besides those of the beautiful landscape in our new town. I haven’t yet found my camera charger, but I still take tons of pictures of this old dog with my phone. He’s 14 now, and the light of my husband’s and my life. That is until the baby comes along. He’s getting so grumpy in his old age, we really hope he does okay with the baby around. He’ll probably pout a lot from his doggy bed. Hopefully, he’ll feel a little protective over the baby instead of just jealous.
Now, as for me, I’m planning to empty some more cardboard boxes of their contents today, and maybe buy a new desk to set up the office area. We gave away our old one when we moved. It was an ugly thing from a University. It served it’s purpose for several years, but we couldn’t bear to bring it into our new lives. Without it though, we have ugly boxes bursting at the seems with office stuff that won’t fit on shelves. That desk sure did hold a lot of stuff.
I’m going to concentrate on books today, of which we have too many. But most of them we own for a reason. I’m going to pull out some inspiring books about eating right and setting goals. Peruse them, put the rest away – the trick will be deciding which bookshelf in which rooms will hold which books – and then get motivated to decorate, write, knit, sew, and cook!
Yeah, I know, poor me. I don’t have to go to a job right now. I have all day to bake and make crafts. But, I’m not good at those things. I’m the chronic disorganization queen! I’m more likely to be a sloth all day reading YA novels and feeling guilty that I don’t read adult novels or exercise.
Alright, that’s enough complaining! My husband and I have already gone on two amazingly beautiful hikes since we’ve been here and I’m planning to start walking in the mornings. So, there is exercise in my future. I just have to learn to organize these long chunks of days that I’ve got ahead of me now. I don’t even have to fight through traffic anymore. I’m in paradise and I don’t know what to do with myself!!!
I keep reminding myself to just enjoy this ability to be lazy, because it’s going to go away in five months when the baby is born. But the life-long feeling of being an unproductive, lazy slob never goes away. What do you all do to combat non-productivity? Are you compulsive list writers? Remember, I can’t even plan a weeks worth of meals, I don’t know if I can handle lists. The problem with lists is that I come up with five hundred things I need to do and that just overwhelms me. Is there any hope for me? Do you have any book recommendations on this subject? I love reading books.
