Mandetory End of Year Reflection, 2020

Another year with all the hijinks therein.  Deploy the bulleted list!

• We bought a freakin' house!  And we're continuing to add in different touches that make it more and more us.  
• We paid off all our student debt!  I have so many feelings about this. #MillenialUnicorns
• I have entered into the wild world of management.
• Andy has a new project car to work on.
• My eyes are lasered and successfully so, meaning that I no longer need glasses.
• Mike moved in with us.
• We had all kinds of interesting travel, including but not limited to the following:
• Orlando, FL (family vacay to Universal Studios)
• Austin, TX (work but also some hangage with Wendy and Jason)
• San Benito, TX (work)
• San Antonio, TX (work)
• Oahu, HI (family vacay, yo)
• Andy got a vasectomy, which means that we are never going to go through pregnancy in this house--it's been a HUGE relief.

Things we're looking forward to include but are not limited to the following:

• Actualizing some of Andy's plans for the car, starting with outlining the full scope of the changes needed.
• Regarding the house, we are considering making some significant changes to our downstairs bathroom sooner rather than later.  This will include expanding out that space by about four feet, adding an ostomy toilet, and building a closet space for our master bedroom.
• As per usual, I'm aiming to continue to learn new things:
• Riding a bike 
• Taking another class (or three)
• Picking up DuoLingo again for Norwegian, having dropped it for several months
• We're trying this new thing called saving money, with no small amount of gratitude that our situation allows it.

THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT is that it's been another unpredictable year.  I think that's the best word for it.  There were a few things that we were setting up for--paying off debt, for example, required some specific, long-term planning, and the family vacations were determined far enough in advance to appropriately ask off for work--but there were all kinds of surprises and timings tossed in the mix.  A number of people in my circle are in this interesting transition time in their lives, preparing and/or anticipating changes.  In some cases, it's retirement; in others, changing jobs and moving are at the forefront in the upcoming year; others still are waiting for clarity in what those next steps are going to be, preparing all things for whatever comes to fill in the gaps.  Politically, too, next year is going to be a doozy.  I'm very much tapping into the anticipation of impending change.

Last year, I felt some similar pieces, that we were collectively preparing for changes, calling it "The Year of the Precipice," for myself at least.  We were very much planning on buying a house at that point, hoping that the stars would align accordingly.  As a result, we did make some big changes this year, taking some significant leaps to do so.  And yet, that anticipation is still present and, I think, more urgent.  I've been trying to re-empathize with the me from last year, to remember myself in that space, to compare, but I'm not certain.  I'm not the me I used to be, which is terrifying and gratifying in the same breath.  

This year, I think I'll go with "The Year of the Shove."  The exhilaration of jumping off of the precipice.  Ready or not.  All that preparation carrying us to where we are and propelling us to where we will be.  Gravity increases the acceleration.  There's uncertainty and a lot of fear from that.  There is also a strange confidence, as we have been throwing pillows and cushions down to meet us at the eventual *ahem* sudden shift in velocity.  Here we go.

Also, I'm already tired of the 20/20 jokes.  

Happy Everything, All!

Not much to say today except some great love and affection to you all.

Wishing you hope where you feel worn through.

Wishing you joy whether you feel like you have a reason to be.

Wishing you peace, particularly in those spaces where you might think you're too busy to feel it.

Thinking warm thoughts to you and yours, my dears.  Rest, celebrate, whatever you need to do over the holiday season.

May you be as snug as a unicorn onsie

Action Mode Beta, Engaged!

So, my eyes are probably my favorite physical feature.  I appreciate the complexity of the blue, how the edge of the iris has that slightly darker edge that stands out against the sclera, and how my smile wrinkles in the edges around them. If I'm thinking about not wearing makeup on a given day, I tend to at least put on mascara, because I enjoy how it makes my eyes pop just that little bit more.  I've worn glasses since the second grade, until (after two swings) all settled after Lasik surgery, so I've invested no small amount of money in them over time.

Whelp, been having some new trouble with them recently.  Post Lasik, I've been a little photosensitive--enough that I always wore sunglasses outside, like we are all supposed to anyway--but something switched over in the last couple weeks where I started wearing them inside, too.  They're angry.  And I have decidedly felt unsafe driving, even at night once we factor in headlights from other cars.  Work has been gracious enough to only make a few polite inquires about the sunglasses, but otherwise not insist I take them off.  Thankfully, I haven't had anything client facing, so it's not been much of an issue.

Got in to see the optometrist, got a script ordered and an action plan, pharmacy was out of stock so I did have to wait another day for what I've been calling my eye-buprofen, but so far it's been a slow turn around.  We're keeping things pretty dim in this household, I'm soaking my eyes in rewetting drops, and we're waiting.

All of the above happened because a particular switch was flipped in me.  For Monday and Tuesday of last week, I was waffling pretty hard on whether to call the doctor.  But then I tried to drive myself home for lunch on a sunny day.  It was a profoundly unsafe ten minutes, but certainly solidified in my mind that this was not okay.  It had crossed one of my specific thresholds, this one being "significantly intrusive to normal activity."

I was very relieved to have that switch flipped.  The indecisive cycles are one of my least favorite places to be, but once the decision is made, it's action mode.  I'm decisive.  I can advocate for myself.  I will have no problem calling the doctor or insurance or whomsoever is necessary to get pieces moving.  I will be reasonable and ask how I can help someone help me, but I am persistent.  I cut a great deal of the emotions and feelings out of the process.  Can't think about it--just have to get it done.

It's my crisis mode.  It's what got me through the mechanics of my major health concerns.  It is not a sustainable form.  I've brought this up before in other blogs, though the contrast with this particular experience is how aware I am of the different steps that are happening.  I am working on intentionally checking in with my body, a skillset I did not have in previous events (in no small part because I was afraid of the answer).  How I word my internal conversations has also shifted.  Sure, I'm very annoyed with my eyes at the moment--the squinting gives me a headache, the skin around my eyes is irritated with all of the additional moisture from the drops, my eyelashes are crusty from the renaments ot previous drops, I'm mildly annoyed at the looks/comments from folks as I wear my sunglasses inside (real or imagined), and the specialty drops get expensive--but I'm ensuring that my verbiage is not blaming my eyes.  I am frustrated at the situation but not my body this time.  Even a more gentle "ah, let's rewet those peepers and keep them feeling good" instead of a huffy "ugh, I have to stop what I'm doing again to take care of this BS" is important to the collective framing of the experience.  That compassion, given to myself as an olive branch of self-love, cuts away at the frustration.  There is pain; I am not the pain.  There is dryness and irritation, and it sucks that my eyes are feeling that--but that part of me is suffering right now, and I need to react with kindness.

A little more rest.  A little more space.  A little more time.

I am choosing to slow down because that's the care my body needs; I am not forced to stop.  ...Okay, definitely still struggling with that particular affirmation.  I do not actually feel that one yet.  There's a very real fear of missing out that I still very much struggle with, because there are many, many things that I've missed out on and there is no small amount of grief there yet to process.

And in the meanwhile, I'll pretend that I'm a starlet trying to evade paparazzi in my $8 sunglasses from Kohl's.  

Locker Room Chicken

I've been getting back into the pool recently, swimming laps again for cardio.  It's been good for my heart in more than one way, where not only am I already starting to re-adjust to the work (acutely aware of how out-of-shape I am), but it's a delight to be back in the water again.  I don't like to run much--I have too many jiggling parts to much enjoy it, I figure--but I hear from those that do run for fun/exercise that there is a point where you just zone out and let your mind disconnect from your body.  I have gotten that with swimming, where I nearly lose track of which lap I'm on in my mile for the day, simply for being lost in my thoughts on something else.  Muscle memory takes over.  I am free in the water and idly plotting what I want to do for the next 250 yards.

But I have new joy right now at the gym that I have internally named "Locker Room Chicken."  After I get out of the pool and shower, I wait until the last possible moment to cover up my ostomy bag.  I make eye contact with people walking by, silently daring them to ask questions.  I still smile, trying to be welcoming in a space where many people feel vulnerable.  I will dry off the bag with a hairdryer, tend to everything else with the colostomy bag prominaently against my side--shameless.

So far, I've had one person ask a question, when we had a quick chat about tattoos.  Most people look away quickly, going back to minding their own business in the locker room.  So, not many conversations yet.  However, the larger goal is to normalize myself in that space.  I want to make ostomies more normal, for a couple hours at a time, not just for myself but for others, too.

It's a game of me versus societal expectations of the locker room.  Where is the propriety necessary?  When does it stop us from understanding?  Where are these spaces open to new ideas?  Should I bring a sign, that I'm open to discuss?  It keeps me entertained, people-watching with that particular lens and wondering how many people recognize me for what and who I am.  Folks who recognize it must have a story as to why and I make up these in my mind as I continue to rinse off the chlorine scent as best I can.  Their stories are invisible in the same breath that I try to make mine more visible.  Their life is as deep and complex as my own, now trying not to make eye contact with a strange woman in a locker room with something strange attached to her body.

Andy suggested maybe it's time for another tattoo...

Be Happy for me, Dammit

Andy and I bought our first house at the end of April.  I've never lived in a house that we owned, growing up in parsonages and otherwise renting once I left my parents' home.  I had no real idea of how much of a process it was going to be, that things like closing costs and inspections and other fees were going to turn a purchase into an event, let alone the shopping process itself.  It was a months-long preparation and planning to make a significant change in our lives.  Even after all the paperwork was finalized, we have to then assess what kinds of projects we wanted to address in the house, arrange movers, decide on and purchase paint, and that's nothing to say all of the surprises that eventually come to light as we start to understand what changes others have made before us and how that can complicate a simple project more than expected.  We've been well-supported in this time, with help and encouragement and the occasional bit of heavy lifting.  And it's still an ongoing process, to which even this last week we added a new shelf and were able to buy a new couch for our main seating area, a place I've started internally calling "the conversation pit," just in time for Thanksgiving.

And yet, when we were able to sign the final paperwork and proudly announce our excitement to friends and family, we went to church that weekend and were asked by maybe two or three people about it...compared to the many, many questions about how it felt to be a new aunt/uncle.

I don't begrudge my nephew his birthday nor my brother and sister their joy in welcoming him into the world; we were excited for this, too.  To be blunt, our success in buying a house was what the two of us spent months planning and preparing for, what was going to be a significant change in our lives--the baby was a change in someone else's.  As far as what was directly impacting our lives at the moment, our success didn't feel validated or recognized. 

I am not aiming to chastise or demand any late, additional congratulations:  the point is that there was a lack of attunement in those moments.  There were assumptions made.  They were not immediately in line with what either Andy or myself were feeling.

We take our social cues in different ways:  when a friend tells us that they're pregnant, based on how they say it and their situation, we know to either be conciliatory or congratulatory.  Certain big events are compartively easy:  new house, new job, new baby all suggest some kind of big reaction.  But there are other things that are big to the person that we don't always take into account.  I can remember my older brother talking about the Ancient Cave, a complex marathon of a video game dungeon that he beat.  He was very proud of this accomplishment; collectively, he got a "whatever" response from the family that I'm regretful of, now that I look back on it.  I didn't have to understand it:  it was a big deal to him, and that was important enough to be happy for him.

As another example:  we paid off our student loans.  I don't feel that many people have a full understanding of that actually means.  We are friggin' millennial UNICORNS to have paid them off, let alone only this far out from ending our degrees, particularly when many, many of our peers have given up hope of ever paying them off.  We were met with a reaction of "wow, good for you!" and then the conversation continued on to something else, feeling like the full weight of that accomplishment was less than it was.  Hell, I'm still sorting out what that means regarding our budget and what we're saving for next.  When I'm reconnecting with people I haven't talked to in a while, having bought a house and paid off our student debt are still the top two things I start with and will continue to be for a while yet.  And yet, I feel like it is generally forgotten from the collective conscious.  

I have three points that I want to make explicitly:

1. I don't think that people know how to be happy for Andy and I because we're not complacently riding the managomy escalator and popping out babies, like it's an easy thing.  In the absence of what is "normal," folks maybe just don't know how to celebrate with us, since we're out of the societally expected path.  We've seen this crop up in a few different ways.
2. If we want to know what's important in someone's life, I suggest we ask.  I'm guilty of this, too, of not creating the invitation for someone to share what they're happy about. Suggestions:  "what's real to you right now?" or simply "what are you excited about these days?"
3. Though something might not be a "big" deal on the surface, you can celebrate with someone even if you don't understand it.  This could also mean that more of a response is desired, too--take the student loans, that we received praise but we were frustrated that the weight didn't feel validated.  Not sure if more praise is required?  Ask.  For example:  "How does make you feel?" or "How does that impact your life?" to at least get a gauge by asking some additional questions about the presented accomplishment.  Checking in later is another great way, too, to acknowledge those joys, seemningly small or large.
   

Not everyone is immediately in tune with what their needs are in the moment, but creating that invitation for folks to voice needs can open that door to greater attunement or otherwise create an opportunity for their own introspection.  I've gotten more comfortable with asking people what they need directly and this I feel has helped in extending my awareness and reacting more appropriately.  In other words, my own practice includes recognizing that it's not fair to be mad at someone for not reading my mind.  The feeling of frustration is still valid, but I have choices in how I want to voice that need.  

Naming the Cliff

I started saying this phrase recently, referring to spaces where I had been feeling a particular body response to some unknown threat or problem and was able to ultimately trace back to what the root concern was.  I call this "naming the cliff."

In those moments, I was a few steps away from overwhelmed, teetering on the edge of an invisible something.  Driving back along a particular path was causing a lot of physical symptoms from an extreme emotional space--however, once I connected what the emotional spark was, why those symptoms were there, I named the cliff.

Naming the cliff is a huge benefit unto itself.  I knew where I was.  I knew where the edges were.  I might even be able to start making tentative steps down from the cliff, talking myself down from the scarier areas with that actualized understanding of that space.  It does not make the cliff dissolve to know its name, but at least I have more tools available to me to tell someone where I am and techniques that I might used before, like places to attach my carabiner put in the wall by a previous excursion.  There is less "unknown" factor, which is a reassurance unto itself.  If this is a frequent cliff that I end up on, there might still be a level of frustration, at least until compassion enters, but not knowing is worse to me than wandering in figurative fog.  The cliff I'm standing on could be just a stump or it could be stemming from a trauma mountain--I know better what resources I might need once I know where it's coming from, after I have recognized it and named it for what it is.

New cliffs might not have any resources there yet, but at least I can survey the area clearly.  Maybe it's like another cliff I've been on before.  It takes practice.  I'm getting more and more practice in interpreting physical symptoms into what their emotional source might be--it has been and will continue to be a process.  The problem, the reaction needs recognition before we can carry forward.

Physical Symptoms of Emotional Trauma

This last week, I had an adventure up to Skyward Corporate Headquarters, up in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.  With stops and traffic, this drive from Blormal I tend to average at five hours, meaning that there is plenty of time to think and otherwise make a lot of headway on a good audiobook.

I do enjoy going up to Headquarters.  There are some amusing doubletakes, and I appreciate seeing people in their context, where everyone is more than their name and a picture in the upper corner of the email or a voice on the phone.  I work with real people outside of my own small office.  The training that I was up there for seemed to go really well, in my estimation of things, and I have some good things to keep thinking about.  However, the part that I want to share today was the drive home.

After about an hour and a half into the trip, I realized that my hands were aching, which in turn led to the realization that I was gripping the steering wheel as though it were anchoring my body to my chair, white knuckles and tensed arms.  I also realized that I wasn't breathing, either holding my breath or taking only tiny breaths.  These tiny breaths are designed to not disturb my abdominal cavity.

A further body scan revealed that I was tensing my legs and lower abdominals, bracing myself for any bump or, in general, against pain.  I took a moment to try to consciously relax these parts of my body, but more importantly I asked myself, gently, what was going on.  I was geared up for survival, for protection.  I mean, the construction wasn't that bad, the weather was clear, and no one was driving with any more assholery than normal.

It clicked a few miles later:  this was the Mayos drive.  My mind wasn't thinking about it at all, but my body knew this drive.  My body knew this path.  Three quarters of the drive to Stevens Point is two thirds of the drive to Rochester, Minnesota, where I have gone many times to the Mayo Clinic.

The drive up there, heading straight up 39, I've had some good associations with that first part of the trip, having pulled off toward Chicagoland for all kinds of adventures and memories with friends and family.  However, once 39 joins up with 90 and even later joining with 94, that leg loses that buffer.  The way home, once I was on 39/90/94 and then eventually 39 all the way home, has no buffer at all--it's there and raw and jarring.  Or so my body was telling me.

I have made that trip with grief, with resignation, with anger, with hopelessness, with desperation, with anxiety, with fear, and otherwise in a great deal of pain.  My mind was elsewhere, but my body remembered that drive and it knew that place.

Sorting out those thoughts, I had three particular impulses that my body wanted to do to discharge those feelings:  cry, curl protectively around myself, and escape.  As the only occupant in the car at the moment, I settled on putting my foot down a little more firmly on the accelerator, the best escape I could manage at the moment.  I still had to pull off to recognize other bodily needs, but I was pretty sure that if I allowed myself a good, long cry or just to curl up into a ball, that I was not going to pull out of it to be home in time for our evening plans, nor would I feel "safe" until I was long enough off of this path.

That drive does a number on me every time.  And I forget it each time until I tune in to what my body is telling me.  My emotions have a physical toll on my body.  The physical toll on my body has similarly built many lingering emotions.  It's all connected, the extreme symptoms of both the body and the mind, expressing through each other.  I think this happens sometimes because we haven't allowed a clear path--intentionally or otherwise--and other times its just the way your body and mind need to experience that stimuli, whether it's grief, pain, or any other overwhelming something.

I did have a good, long cry when I got home that night.  Andy was kind enough to just let me pour out all of the swirling pieces, offering reassurance where I asked for it and otherwise just being that compassionate presence.  I am still growing in this awareness of self, particularly in the physical components, pausing to ask myself where and how I am feeling an emotion in my body as it is happening.  This process is gradually refining through practice to where I work to give descriptions of what is happening in my body, which serves as its own resource.

For example, I have recently felt a surge of inadequacy that for me felt like a weight in the undersides of my forearms and upperarms, continuing into an ache in the bottom of my ventral abdomen.  Depending on the source of a particular grief I might be feeling, I might feel it with a different sensation in a different part of my body--there's a difference in when it rests as a choking weight on my throat and chest as opposed to an impossibly solid wall right behind my eyes or directly in the center of my torso as a radiating dark mass.  It's all grief, but sometimes I need to feel it differently with how that particular grief wave has rolled through.

This timing was oddly appropriate, given that I was up at corporate for emotional intelligence training and more importantly I am now two years with my permanent colostomy.  I don't know what to do with this anniversary.  When a loved one dies, socially past the first year I don't feel that it's widely acceptable to mark the day publicly anymore (not necessarily frowned on, but definitely not openly encouraged).  But the grief waves still roll through; that change in your life resonates with you even when it feels everyone else has forgotten.  My ostomy surgery was a good thing.  It was also something to grieve about.  I'm developing ways that I want to choose to mark it, but my running favorite right now is to choose to make a new change to benefit my body--this November, I'm working on getting back onto keto in earnest, and I am getting back into the pool again.  Lap swimming has a bonus of stretching me cognitively, as I watch my body in suspended space, scanning for those sensations and what I'm feeling in those moments as muscle memory slowly reawakens.

It's practice, learning how to be with your emotions and your body.  It's understanding that helps you connect them.  It's a wholistic "you" that can grow out of it.  Listening to your body is hard, particularly when it is telling you news that you don't want to hear, but it is an invaluable resource, cluing you in to pieces long before your brain can catch up.