Live Now and Zen

Because even when it seems like a gag gift, the present is still a gift

Disappointment Is A Growth Opportunity

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I’ve reached an important but difficult stage in my journey to reclaim my life story, the one where you start living your truth. When you’re used to a life where you make decisions based on what others want or what will keep you out of “trouble” with them, it’s a scary step. And when you decide you no longer want to be a people pleaser, the people who have benefitted by your remaining in your role and doing what they would prefer aren’t fans. While I am not 100% clear what I want from my life, I am resolute regarding things I do not want. I’m finished living someone else’s playbook.

My middle sister called yesterday to invite me to her birthday party. I love my sister. We have our differences and we’ve had our struggles due to the dynamic that was set up for us in our childhood. That said, she is a kind, loving, thoughtful person with many friends and a deep love of her family. When she told me that my parents would be at the party, I winced. I knew that was coming. I wasn’t sure I was ready to deal with this moment now, but it was here. I took a deep breath and told her plainly, while I would love to celebrate with her on her birthday, if our mother and father would be present then I would not be. It was the first time I’ve faced one of these moments with my family of origin. While I haven’t had any direct contact with my parents in well over a year, I’ve accomplished that by having excuses not to see them rather than by directly expressing it was my conscious choice not to see them. I knew she was disappointed, but she respected my boundary, which I appreciated.

When I got off the phone, I realized my pulse was rapid. I was anxious. I felt guilty for letting my sister down. She is collateral damage in this situation. She and I were parented differently. We have different relationships with our parents and different demons as a result. I had to remind myself that, although my sister is likely frustrated about the situation between my parents and I and what that means for the family at large, she is an adult and she will be fine. I had to remind myself that even if people become upset with me for my choices, that doesn’t mean I don’t have the right to make those choices. And I had to tell myself this will take practice. With time, expecting other people to deal with their disappointment rather than disappointing myself to preserve their happiness will become a habit for me and bring me greater peace. I can only imagine how freeing it would be to say to someone, “I won’t be attending,” full stop, rather than concocting some excuse to avoid their judgment.

Many people cannot accept that someone might be so traumatized by their childhood experiences that they need to abandon their parents to heal. When I tell people I don’t communicate with my parents because of childhood wounds, they tell me all parents of that generation were not the best or I will be sorry when they are gone that I didn’t try harder with them. They tell me I should forgive and forget and move on. These comments, well meaning or not, invalidate my experience. But I no longer am triggered when people don’t understand my choice regarding my parents. I’m at the place now where I can hear these comments and let them roll off me. Those people don’t have the full story and, even if they did, they don’t get to tell me what I should do because it is what they would do or what they feel is right.

It’s my life. You don’t have to understand it. You don’t have to approve of it. You don’t have to comment on it without my request. You don’t have to tell me how I can make it better. You don’t have to do or say anything about my life because it’s not your concern. Despite what I was told in my youth, taking care of yourself and your mental health needs is not selfish. It’s imperative to living authentically. While disappointment is part of life’s experience, I’ve mercilessly disappointed myself for too long. Allowing others to manage their disappointment offers them a growth opportunity. And so I begin letting others grow too.

Live Forever

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I couldn’t sleep again last night, likely because I drank a couple glasses of wine. What can I say? Sometimes you just want pizza and wine with friends without acting like an old person and worrying about the consequences. Still, when I wake up at 1 am ready to take on the world, it’s not the best. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson by now, but here we are.

I read if you can’t sleep, it’s a good idea to journal to unload your mind of whatever thoughts might be hindering your return to sleep. So, after an hour of hoping but failing to drift back off, I got up, herded our senior furry friend (the one who had woken me up in the first place) to the bedroom door, and headed to the sofa with a journal and pen in hand. Ruby is 14.5 now, which is towards the older end of a border collies’ general life expectancy. She seems to have her days and nights confused, sleeping all day and wandering aimlessly all night. I never know where she will be at 2 a.m. A couple days ago I found her in the master bathroom staring at the closet door, presumably thinking it was our bedroom door, the place where she stands when she wants to go out. And as I sat writing, she continued her travels around our main floor. Her nightly 5k is recorded through nail clicking, then silence when she hits an area rug, then resumed clicking. She seems unsure of where she was headed or what she was looking for. All I can think is, “Same, girl. Same.”

I find myself in tears when I look at her now for more than a few seconds because I know is waiting down the road, whether I am ready to get there or not. She has cataracts and doesn’t see well; she doesn’t hear well either. Tonight I noticed a small, tumor-like growth on the back of her right leg. Just another sign of where she is in her life’s journey. The medication and CBD treats we give her to ease her discomfort seem to be less help these days. Right now it feels like we’re in a holding pattern, circling the inevitable, but not yet cleared by the tower to land.

As I watched her amble around, I thought of our sons. They were 5 and 7 when she came to us. Joe is her favorite person. The boys have made it clear they aren’t ready to say goodbye to her and they hope they aren’t here to see her last moments because they think it will break them. I feel that in my soul. When Ruby is finally ready to cross the rainbow bridge, her passing won’t simply mean the loss of my constant companion of 14 years. Losing Ruby means I will have to let go of the period of my life I have loved the most thus far, the part where our boys were my day job and my night job, and Ruby was assistant to the assistant manager. It’s a double loss, which probably explains why it’s so heart-wrenching for me to sit with her on those long, silent nights. I’m double grieving. It needs to be done, but that doesn’t make it suck any less.

I see her discomfort with her achy joints, her struggle to get to her feet and balance herself before taking a step, and her confusion, but I also see moments of spunk when she goes toe-to-toe with our young corgis and very nearly resembles her 3 year old self. I am one with her in all these moments, facing my own mortality as well, whenever the universe wants its atoms back. Damn, it’s a bitter pill to swallow. “I know what’s ahead for me too, girl,” I tell her each quiet night we alone share. “I know it’s hard to let go of the people you love and the duty to watch over them.” I run my hand down the length of her frail body, weeping and reassuring her. “It’s okay. You’ve done a beautiful job taking care of us, making us laugh, and teaching us how to be present, but you can let go and rest when you’re ready. You’ve earned it. You’ve trained Loki and Goose well. They can take the torch from you and manage us with the same herding-dog spirit you did the whole of your wonderful life.” Last night she looked at me through those cloudy eyes, and I saw again what drew me to her. She is like me. She isn’t good at relaxing or doesn’t want to relinquish her favorite responsibility, either. We are sisters this way. And today she continues to fight for every moment of this precarious life as if she means to live forever, and all I can think is, “Same girl. Same.”

“Maybe I just wanna fly, wanna live, I don’t wanna die, maybe I just wanna breathe, maybe I just don’t believe, maybe you’re the same as me, we see things they’ll never see, you and I are gonna live forever” ~Oasis

I Need To Stop Eating The Dogs’ Food

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These are dogs. I am not one of them despite my behavior to the contrary.

My husband has been gone this week, enjoying time in Steamboat Springs with his mother and sister. When Steve heads up to the mountains with our fourteen year old border collie, the corgis and I chill at home. Well, I chill and they annoy each other until they get tired and fall asleep. Then they chill too. The biggest difference between life in our home when Steve is here and when Steve is gone is the menu. Steve is a foodie. He loves to eat. He is continually thinking about his next meal. When he works from home, there is a steady stream of activity as he traipses upstairs and downstairs, between his home office and the kitchen, foraging for food, making food, carrying food downstairs, and then bringing the empty plates back up when it’s time for the next meal. Sometimes I think he must be a hobbit. Breakfast. Second breakfast. Elevensies. Lunch. Afternoon latte. Dinner. Then supper. Me? I don’t get all wound up over food. When you have the food intolerances I do and food can make you rather sick, you decide that maybe eating isn’t all that exciting. The most for thrilling food choice I contemplate is whether for my afternoon snack I should mix it up and skip the baby carrots and go crazy and eat a handful of raw almonds instead. Yawn.

For dinner this week, I’ve had some gluten free/dairy free/soy free soup from Whole Foods, some gluten free butternut squash ravioli, rice noodles with peanut sauce and broccoli, and a couple kale salads. Tonight, I decided I would treat myself. I planned to put in the effort and cook some actual meat. As I was choosing which cut of steak to buy, I waffled. I had thought I would pick out a beef tenderloin for myself, but when I saw the price I balked. So, I bought a top sirloin, which was less than half the price. As a result, the dinner was disappointing. I didn’t time anything right. The sautéd mushrooms and shallots were done before the sweet potato, which was done before the steak, which took forever to cook because it was so thick. Even though I had trimmed it, it was too fatty for my liking. The potato was perfect and the mushrooms and shallots were a delight, but I ended up feeding most of the sirloin to the corgis, which they were quite happy about, thank you very much.

As I was doing the dishes, I started pondering my disappointment. Was I disappointed because if Gordon Ramsey had been watching me cook, he certainly would have stuck my head between two slices of white bread and told me I was an idiot sandwich for not getting the timing right and not cooking the steak to a perfect medium? Was I disappointed because I made a huge mess in the kitchen for a meal that I ended up giving to the dogs? Was I disappointed because I enjoyed the mushrooms and sweet potato the most, which isn’t surprising because I lean towards vegetarian anyway so what was I thinking? It was none of the above. I was disappointed because I’d cheaped out on the steak for myself. I wasn’t willing to spend the extra money for the tenderloin I really wanted because I prefer the leanest steak possible. Instead, I opted for the same organic top sirloin I feed to our dogs with their kibble and green beans. What’s ridiculous is that the extra money for the steak I wanted was not an issue. We definitely had enough in the bank account for the tenderloin and the extra amount on the grocery bill was not going to mean I had to cut our budget somewhere else. How depressing is it that I couldn’t bring myself to spend an extra $12 for the cut of steak I really wanted? I mean, I probably wouldn’t have cooked it right anyway and I most likely would have still messed up the meal timing, but at least I would have enjoyed the steak rather than giving it to Loki and Goose. So apparently, ala When Harry Met Sally, I am the dog in this scenario.

I’m disappointed in myself because I haven’t yet learned my worth, even though I keep saying I’m figuring it out. I guess it’s a lot to ask of myself to forget a lifetime of negative programming that convinced me I didn’t matter and didn’t deserve anything good. But I have been working so hard in therapy to reimagine myself in a more positive light, to feel that I’m worth something. It kind of sucks to realize I haven’t gotten very far with that yet.

Don’t I know by now that I’m not top sirloin? I am organic beef tenderloin, dammit. Sigh. Hopefully next time I will remember that and treat myself accordingly.

Shame: The Best Secret Keeper Of All

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“We desperately don’t want to experience shame, and we’re not willing to talk about it. Yet the only way to resolve shame is to talk about it.” ~Brené Brown

Me in sixth grade, 11 years old

Most of my childhood memories are vague and hazy, more of a feeling or a sense about an event than something I remember vividly. They are sad, anxiety inducing, and filled with shame, though, so it’s probably better I don’t remember them distinctly. I’ve spent my life unsure whether the limited number of fuzzy memories I have, reminiscent of a show that keeps bouncing to static on a 1960’s television without an antenna, even occurred. There have been many times when I would mention one of these memories to my mother only to be told it never happened or it happened differently or told it to another family member or friend who would tell me it couldn’t have been as bad as what I was recalling. So I stopped trusting my mind. This might explain why my memories are so few and so unclear I’m only about 50% certain they actually happened, despite there being no reason for me to have invented them.

This morning, I’m assuming because it’s Girl Scout cookie season, a memory popped back into my head. I have spent my life ashamed of this particular memory. I’m not sure I’ve spoken of it to anyone other than my therapists and my husband. But I’ve been thinking a lot about Brené Brown’s work on shame, and how important she says it is to bring shame into the open to neutralize its sting.

“If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive.” ~Brene Brown

So, I’m hoping my readers will be empathetic here and try to avoid shaming me for not being able to do better for myself that day.

I was around 11 or 12 at the time. I went to bed on a hot, still, summer night, and must not have been able to sleep because we didn’t have air conditioning and the night was not cooling off as they usually did. I am unable to sleep without covers, and it was too hot in my pajamas. So I had undressed and slept naked under the covers, something I rarely did because I didn’t want to risk getting called out by my strict, Catholic parents for doing it. In the morning, my mom burst into my room to wake me up. A troop of older Girl Scouts were kidnapping our troop for a come-as-you-are breakfast. Hiding under the covers, I told my mom I didn’t want to go. She insisted that the girls were downstairs waiting for me and she had told them I would be right down. Risking a berating, I told her I wasn’t wearing pajamas. She handed me a robe. I asked her if I could put my pajamas on instead. She told me to put the robe on and get downstairs because it wasn’t fair to keep the other girls waiting. Dutifully, like the good girl I so wanted to be, I slipped into the robe wearing nothing underneath, put a pair of slippers on my feet, and went downstairs to go to a breakfast I did not want to attend.

I remember nothing about that breakfast. Not one single detail. I don’t know what we ate or who was there. I don’t remember talking to anyone. I don’t remember where I was or whose car I got into or what was said. I don’t know if we played games or if we simply ate and were driven home. I am certain I did not have fun. My only souvenirs from that morning are memories of the fear I had of my robe accidentally opening and revealing no nightgown or even underwear underneath, the horrific awkwardness I felt sitting around in a stranger’s house wearing nothing but my birthday suit and a flimsy shell, and the shame I continue to associate with that event.

I’ve pondered why I have kept this anecdote to myself and why it still holds power for me. There is a lot of shame for me to unpack here. I’m ashamed to admit my mother put me in that position. I’m ashamed to admit as a young girl I went to a party with friends very nearly naked. I’m ashamed to admit I wasn’t brave enough or smart enough to figure out a way to put on some damn pajamas despite my mother’s protests. I’m ashamed to admit this memory still brings me to tears. I’m ashamed I can’t laugh about it yet. Mostly, I’m ashamed I’ve doubted myself that this event was real. And I can’t decide if I feel worse that my mother would put me through what she must have known would be an excruciating, shame-inducing event or that at around eleven years of age I had already learned what I wanted and felt was right didn’t matter. Perhaps now that I’ve exposed my dirty little secret, I can be at peace with it or at least forgive myself for the crime of being human on a hot summer’s night and choosing to sleep au naturel.

I decided to tell this story today to cement for myself that it did happen, that my memory (blurred though it may be) is real and I didn’t make it up to hurt someone else or live with it this long in shame because I am a person who not only invents misery but prefers to wallow in it alone for decades. My memories, sparse though they are, matter to me. My stories matter to me, and I’m finished permitting others (including shame) to control my narrative.

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.” ~Maya Angelou

The Long And Winding Road To Self-Acceptance

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I have this app on my phone called Timehop. It collates the experiences you shared on social media on that particular date in previous years. Most days, happy memories populate my Timehop feed. I love when the app shows me photos of my much younger sons or of me traveling or participating in an event or hanging out with friends. For the most part, it is a positive way to check in on my progress through this life.

Today, one of the photos was a shot I captured in my therapist’s office three years ago. I remember that session well. She handed me a deck of cards with colorful, emotive drawings on them and asked me to sift through the deck and pull out any cards that resonated with me somehow. There were some fifty cards in the deck. When I finished, I had four cards in my hands. She asked me to show them to her and tell her why I had chosen them. It was one of the most eye-opening sessions I’ve ever had. Here are the cards:

My life in four depressing cards

The first card shows a little girl standing on a table while people around her, presumably family and friends, mock her. The second card presents a stern-faced judge issuing an admonishment. The third one is of a person alone, backed into a corner. The final one depicts a child running on a hamster wheel surrounded by scary and sad thoughts. Oof.

I explained the first card represented how I felt as a child. I was that girl on the table, red-faced, awkward, and singled out as wrong simply for being me. The second card represented the result of being that little girl in the first card. I am constantly afraid to do something wrong, to draw negative attention, to be chastised or called out. I’ve lived my life trying to fly under the radar, to not be seen lest someone catch me making an honest, human mistake or appearing naive or uneducated or imperfect and pointing it out. The third card told the story of how I usually feel on the inside as a result of the experiences I related from the two previous cards. I feel isolated, inherently broken. The final card represented the usual state of my mind. I’m a perpetual over-thinker. I spend most days in my busy brain either ruminating on past mistakes that come up because of a more recent, similar mistake or trying to figure out how to just be better because it’s obvious there is something wrong with the way I am. Yikes.

If you’d asked me when she handed me the cards what I thought was going to come of this exercise, I would have told you probably not much. I was so wrong. The feelings that came up for me when I saw those four cards explained where I came from, what that past created for me, how I felt around other people now, and how I lived my daily life. It was all negative and it was a lot to take in. As the session closed, I asked if I could take a photo of the cards I had chosen. I guess I thought I might want to reflect on them again at some other point. Apparently today was that point.

When the cards showed up in my feed today, they hit differently. Yes. I still recognize that little girl in the first card but, instead of feeling there is something wrong with her, I feel there is something wrong with the rest of the people in the scene. Yes. I sometimes still shrink when someone close to me points out my flaws, but other people’s opinions about my choices in my life mean much less to me now. Others don’t hold the map for my journey, and I know they are out of their lane. Sometimes I still feel alone and different, but I recognize the feeling will pass. I know we are all struggling and lost. It’s nothing unusual. And yes, I still run that damn hamster wheel in my head. These days, though, the thoughts are more appreciative of the me I am now rather than reproachful of the me I was.

The past three years have been something else for us all. They’ve been a little extra for me too, but I’m so stinking proud of myself. The work I put in is paying off. And I kinda kick ass.

It’s The Little Things, And Also The Big Things

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Two small things that bring me joy

Today is a day for gratitude.

I am grateful for the sunlight in the morning because it means I’ve been gifted another day. I’m grateful for the tendonitis in my elbow, which is slowly healing, because it reminds me I am present in this body and this body is capable and resilient. I am grateful for the three dogs in my house, with their barking and shedding and crazy antics, because they fill our home with life. I am grateful for my husband who makes special trips to buy me the decaf espresso I love because he looks out for me and loves me generously and without condition. I am grateful for my sons because they have taught me the depth and breadth of love and the potential to rise above . I am grateful for cut flowers in the winter because they remind me spring is around the corner. I am grateful for the opportunity to travel because it reminds me of the good and beauty in the world and its people. I am grateful for the psychologists, therapists, and gurus who provide me daily wisdom on Instagram because they give me guideposts for personal growth. I am grateful for those in my life who have seen me for who I am and not who I was told I am because they taught me there was more to me than I was raised to believe. I’m grateful for those in my past who mistreated me because they taught me what not to tolerate. I am grateful for the relationships that broke my heart because they reminded me how to feel. I’m grateful for the bridges to my past I was wise enough to burn because I’m not going back that way again. I’m grateful for the friends who have shared my struggles because their support and insight illuminated my path forward. I’m grateful for my liberal arts higher education because it taught me to think critically and understand that life is grey and not black and white, only a Sith deals in absolutes. I’m grateful for the Star Wars franchise, even in the Disney era my sons malign, because it has given our family hours of entertainment and spirited debates. I am grateful for the written word because through it I’ve been able to dissect, analyze, and document my life’s experiences in the only way I knew how. I’m grateful for the makers of Jovial pasta because they gave me a gluten-free life that doesn’t have to be pasta free. I’m grateful that my body decided to reject gluten and dairy and to eschew soy because I learned the benefit of whole foods and creativity in preparing them. I’m grateful for Lydia Fairweather because she patented the snow shovel that digs us out after a February storm. I’m grateful for puzzles because they allow me to escape my overthinking and accomplish something small. I’m grateful to have lived the life I’ve led because it has been filled with more beauty, grace, and wonder than I ever imagined for myself. And I’m grateful for the people who take the time to read my posts because they allow me to feel seen in a world where it’s so easy to feel invisible.

Today is a day for gratitude because, although I am grateful every day for people, places, experiences, items, conveniences, privileges, and memories too voluminous to mention here, today I am filled with the positivity that only comes from breathing in the good and living in the moment.

Protect your peace and know your worth, my friends. Happy Friday!

“Gratitude for the present moment and the fullness of life now is the true prosperity.” ~Eckhart Tolle

The One Where She Finally Asks For Help

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Rabbit Ears Pass Winter Wonderland, taken by my talented husband, Steve

Forgive me readers, for I have sinned. It’s been five weeks and change since I bothered to post anything here. While I couldn’t get my shit together to write, you may be relieved to know I literally couldn’t get my shit together for much of anything else either. It’s been fits and starts for me for years now, and I’m spent from trying to figure out how to start my engine again. It seems as the rest of the world is beginning to bounce back into some sort of trial, post-pandemic life and get going again, I’m still standing in the starting gate questioning whether I heard the gun go off. It might have. I probably wasn’t paying attention. I don’t know. What day is today anyway? What am I going to make for dinner? I’ve got no clue. Will I actually put on something other than pajama pants today? Probably not. I’m too tired to put in the effort for myself and I’m too tired to care about it.

What’s the point. It’s not even a question anymore. It’s just a statement.

I’ve come so far in my emotional journey, breaking down my life’s components, decade by decade, to help me understand how I got to be 54 without having any idea who I am. Still I am coming up short of knowing myself honestly and without filters. I understand how I got this way. I know exactly what led me here. There’s no undoing it. First I had to accept that my childhood was run by emotionally immature adults who used me as a foil for all their issues. Then I had to grieve the loss of the childhood I wished I’d had. Then I had to work my way through the traumatic memories to take away their sting. Then I had to accept my own part in remaining that lost little girl. Then I had to begin to make amends to myself and to others who I used to bolster up my assumed identity. And, well, it was all worth it, but I’m spent and I’ve been spent for years.

I found this today in an Instagram post by The Holistic Psychologist. I wish I had written it. I couldn’t find the words, but I am grateful she did.

A Letter of Forgiveness to My Younger Self

I forgive myself for the time I spent in survival mode. I forgive myself for the times I used other people, alcohol, and other destructive behaviors to avoid the pain I felt within. I forgive myself because I learned that closeness meant chaos and dysfunction, and I re-enacted that dysfunction over and over again. I forgive myself because I witnessed adults who couldn’t self-regulate, so I dissociated to not feel and not connect to other people. I forgive myself because I was left alone to deal with my emotions, so I became fixed on not being abandoned by other people. In the process, I abandoned myself. I forgive myself because I learned my role was to be easy and to be liked, so I betrayed my own values to gain that approval. I forgive myself because I allowed my mother wound to impact every relationship I ever had, then avoided responsibility and blamed other people for issues they didn’t create. I forgive myself for my past and know that through taking responsibility for my life, I give the younger version of myself a new future.

That sums up where I am now. That is how far I’ve come. I get it. I see everything. How I became lost and how I kept myself lost is no longer a mystery. But I’ve remained stuck here in this place, biding my time and hoping I would snap out of it. Here I still stand, waist deep in a quicksand of exhaustion and apathy. Going NOWHERE.

Because of this, I determined that if I can’t move forward on my own, I’m going to have to ask for help. This week I did something I never thought I would do (back in the old days when I was 100% certain I was someone I was not). I started taking an antidepressant because I need a push to start living again. Not just breathing and going through the motions, but actually living my life. Being present. Being invested. Being enthusiastic. Being healthful. Being observant. Being open. Being brave. It’s too early to tell if they are helping yet and, indeed, I might need a higher dose to stop my stalling and get on with it. But, it’s a step. A step I desperately needed to take. And I am hopeful. Hopeful that I will find that lost little girl and tell her to go for it, all of it, and stop apologizing to everyone for existing in her skin. Hopeful that someday soon I will be writing again, and through my writing I will find my way to the beautiful me I’ve never known yet long to meet.

When You Don’t Like What You’re Seeing, Change The Filter

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Yesterday I did something I don’t normally do. I hopped on a bandwagon. In this case, the bandwagon was the controversial Lensa AI app. Twenty-four hours ago, I didn’t even know the app was controversial. Hell. Forty-eight hours ago, I didn’t even know becoming an artist’s rendition of yourself via an app was a thing. I had only recently glimpsed a headline about the popularity of trying these lenses and then saw a post on Facebook from a friend who had tried it out the previous day. My decision to see what the fuss was about was based solely on the idea that it might be fun to see what images of me the app would come up with. I suppose downloading an app and then uploading my photos to it without understanding more about the technology was foolhardy. I didn’t understand what I might be getting myself into. Perhaps it was a little naive, but I’ve been home alone for ten days with little human interaction, so I was looking for something to distract me from myself. We make a lot of our dumbest choices out of boredom or curiosity. If I were a cat, I would have exhausted all nine of my lives seventy times over by now.

At any rate, I signed up for the app’s seven-day free trial, uploaded some selfies, paid $5.99 (come on, people, that’s the equivalent of one grande Starbucks oat milk latte) for 100 Magic Avatar images, and waited fifteen minutes for them to materialize. When the results populated my screen, I was fascinated. Some of the images were quite realistic, looking an awful lot like me in art form. Some of them were a little off, my eyes farther apart than they are in reality, my eyebrows higher, my nose straighter. Some of them were so far off I dismissed them completely. Still, it was a fun endeavor. I’m 54 and not getting any younger, so it was inspiring to see myself as a fantasy princess and a space warrior. I’ve never imagined myself like that. The images begged me to question why I hadn’t. Seeing myself in those images made me realize maybe I’m not as plain Jane as I have always thought. It might even be possible that I am, gasp, sort of pretty. I decided that the experiment was worth the $6. I downloaded the images I thought looked most like me, canceled my free trial, and deleted the app.

Feeling a little puffed up about how cool I thought the generated images were, I posted a small collection of them to social media. It took only five minutes before I got my first negative comment. Oh, social media. Aside from a family member’s house, where else can you go to have other people instantaneously judge your choices and question your intelligence? I chose to brush off the disdain and review the rest of the feedback. Overall, it was intriguing to see which images other people liked and disliked. A couple images I thought were only me-adjacent and not fair representations of me at all garnered quite a few likes, which confused me. Do people think I look like that? Do I appear that way to some people despite my own eyes telling me otherwise? Do they wish I looked like that? I couldn’t figure it out. Maybe they simply liked the artwork? A couple of the images I felt most realistically depicted my features and expressions were not liked at all. How does that even work, I wondered. That is what I actually look like (minus the airbrushing, mind you). Why did people not appreciate the images that most resembled me in real life? Those were the ones I was drawn to, the ones that made me look slightly younger and way more badass than I feel.

The experiment made me consider our self-perceptions. Having been raised in a decidedly negative household, my general self-opinion has mostly remained negative. I am fantastic at telling you what is wrong with me. Ask me what I do well and I’m stumped. Maybe that was why the images the app created enchanted me so. I looked at the woman in the artwork and saw a different side of myself, a stronger, braver, sassier me, one less afraid of her own shadow and more empowered. One who is really great at knowing what to do with her hair. Perhaps I was seeing the me I might have been earlier if I had figured out before now that I can, at times, be dynamic and inspiring.

The lesson I emerged with from this little experiment was this: when you’re feeling down, try viewing yourself through a different lens. There’s nothing wrong with you that can’t be changed by picturing yourself as the unique, bewitching, and formidable badass who forever dwells within you, even when you’re just doing the dishes or taking out the trash.

Unfu*k Yourself, Already

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I read a book last week. Yes. A whole book. It was a short book, but still. The book was Unfu*k Yourself by Gary John Bishop. To be honest, I started listening to the book on Audible, enjoyed the introduction delivered with the author’s no-bullshit, full-on Scottish attitude and accent, and then got on Amazon and ordered a paper copy because I knew I would want to highlight passages. When it arrived, Mr. Bishop and I got right back to work. The book, as you can imagine from its cheeky title, offers suggestions for those of us who feel stuck on repetitive hamster wheel of self-sabotage. It’s a book about unsticking yourself.

As I listened, a few things became clearer to me about my life, the consequences of my upbringing, and my future trajectory. First, there was the admission that I’ve been spinning and getting nowhere for about four years now. There are several life situations that coalesced to create a quicksand pit from which I have not escaped. The specifics about them aren’t as important as the fact that I was able to name them, which gives me a concrete place from which to get to work. You have to know what stopped you to figure out how to get around it. Second, the book prompted me to do a lot of thinking about the areas of my own modus operandi that work against me the most often. The result? The behavior that most often holds me back is fawning. I am a people pleaser. This does not mean I succeed at it. It just means I attempt to make others happy by doing what they want. I regularly set aside my own wishes to avoid conflict, to ensure other people are happy and comfortable, and to be palatable. You’ll often hear me speaking Fawn-ese: I’m good with whatever. You choose. Whatever works for you is fine with me. Really. It’s okay. Don’t worry about me. I’m flexible. I don’t want to be a bother. It doesn’t matter to me. I’ve got it. No worries. I can make that work. These statements (a product of being raised to believe I am the world’s most sensitive, overreacting, selfish jerk) make me feel like I’m being generous and thoughtful to others. In reality, however, I often say them because I’m so used to deferring to others that 1) I don’t know what I want or like, so I don’t know how to ask for it, and 2) I assume that letting others get their way will make me worth hanging around with. The truth is that my fear of speaking up for myself often makes me grumpy. Who wouldn’t be grumpy when they take on more than they can handle and often end up doing exactly what they don’t want to do? Unfu*k Yourself is about getting out of your own way and moving yourself into a better future, and Mr. Bishop outlines some key things you need to do to bring that about. And he does it by not pulling any punches and speaking directly to the multitudinous methods people employ to hold themselves back. In fact, the way he reads the book in audio form you can just about hear his frustration. I’m fairly certain he is tired of having to point out to people that the path to their best life runs only through them.

In one chapter, he discusses how we are wired to win. What he means by this is that we get what we set ourselves up for and expect. We are masters of the self-fulfilling prophecy. Spending your life bemoaning your history of finding the worst partners? You’re probably attracting all the wrong people because of something in your past. If you don’t fix what’s behind that curtain, you will keep winning at picking the losers to date. But, if you sift through the memories of your old relationships, perhaps you can pinpoint where they went wrong and do some work around your discovery so that next time you make a different choice. The bottom line is that when you’re wired to win, you can win at losing or win at winning. There’s a famous quote attributed to Jessie Potter that fits this idea: “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.” You can keep repeating your mistakes and blaming mysterious exterior forces that don’t exist or you can do the work, get your poop in a group, and do better in the future.

The chapter that I most needed to hear right now was entitled, “I am not my thoughts. I am what I do.” As a person who spends a lot of time in her head, thinking, rethinking, analyzing, overanalyzing, and reanalyzing those analyses, this chapter reminded me that I will never get anywhere good this way. I have to stop thinking and start doing. I’ve been unhappy with my fitness level. I can either sit on my sofa thinking about how I used to be in great shape and now I can’t seem to get motivated or I can haul my sorry ass off the sofa and put it on the seat of the Peloton bike and change my situation. I can whine about a relationship in my life that is dying but that I keep trying (unsuccessfully) to revive or I can decide it’s time to let it go and put my energy towards endeavors that may lead me somewhere I want to be. People who are successful have one thing in common. They stop talking and start doing. You can’t just hope things will get better. You need to look for solutions and then go out and do something to put you where you would like to be.

Now, I’m sure there are plenty of people who might read the book (or listen to the audiobook to enjoy the author’s delivery of it) and say, “Yeah. Yeah. This all sounds familiar. Nothing new here.” But that is kind of the point. If you’re still reading self-help books and saying they aren’t helping, maybe it’s because a book can’t change your life. YOU have to do that. And this book has some ideas about where you might want to start and why, if you don’t take action, you can continue to enjoy all the crap you feel life has handed you that you don’t deserve. If all I take away from this book is the mindset to get back to better health and get rid of relationships that don’t serve me, it will totally have been worth the paper it was printed on.

What was it Red said in The Shawshank Redemption?

“Get busy living or get busy dying.”

I am getting busy living. I will figure out who I am and what I want along the way.

Taylor Swift, Socrates, And My Brain Walk Into A Bar At 3 A.M.

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“The unexamined life is not worth living.” ~Socrates

Ruby asks me again if I’ve seen her keys

It’s 3:31 a.m. All the male creatures in our house are asleep. I am wide awake once again, sitting on the sofa in our living room. Beneath my feet, our fourteen year old border collie has settled temporarily, taking a break from her mid-night wanderings. In a minute, she will jump up and trot off quickly as if she just remembered she is late for an important meeting. She will get halfway across the room, stop, then look left and right, confused about where the hell she was headed. Ruby and I are simpatico lately. We’re either both deep thinkers with too much on our minds or we’re both losing our shit. Maybe these things are not mutually exclusive or untrue.

Aside from desperately needing the sleep, I don’t mind being awake in the middle of the night. I appreciate the peace. I find solace in the hum of the heater kicking on, the faint crash of ocean waves coming from the ambient noise app on my phone in the other room, the click of Ruby’s nails on the hardwoods as she trots around looking for the car keys she can’t find. I try to focus on my surroundings and stay rooted in the present because this is good practice. Mindfulness is the antidote for the poison of overwhelm. But the truth of these late-night, sleepless hours is there is something, perhaps many things, out of kilter in my life. In these moments, I become innately aware I am adrift. I’m on a flimsy, inflatable raft in the midst of a vast ocean, mere inches above multitudinous unknowns lurking just beneath the surface. I’m fine for the time being, but my situation is precarious. I’m one rogue wave away from drowning. My sleeplessness is a sign. It’s time to gather my shit in.

I attempt to pull disparate thoughts from my spinning mind to categorize and file them away so I can get back to sleep, but I might as well be trying to pluck tree branches and airborne chihuahuas from a churning, F4 tornado. The desire to right all the wrongs in my messy life at 4 a.m. is admirable, though ill-advised. In the back of my head, Taylor Swift sings my story:

“I should not be left to my own devices, they come with prices and vices. I end up in crisis, tale as old as time…It’s me. Hi. I’m the problem it’s me. At tea time, everybody agrees. I’ll stare directly in the sun but never in the mirror. It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero.”

I have good days. Most of the time, I feel I am on the right path. Sometimes, though, while I’m sleeping, everything that has been running in background mode in my head pops up at once and overloads the system and I end up here. Deconstructing old trauma, adapting to life in an empty nest, managing a household, navigating health issues, raising a puppy, dealing with the manifestations of aging, trying to figure out who I am now and who I might like to be if there is a later, and accepting the incontrovertible truth that I have not been bringing my best self to the table for myself or the people I care about for years now, well, that’s quite a quagmire to wade through during the most opportune moments. It’s a bit much for the middle of the night. And it’s still going to be too much to face on three hours of sleep once the sun rises and I have to make an early morning trip to the grocery store ahead of hosting Thanksgiving at our house. Sigh.

While I can’t address my issues now and losing sleep isn’t going to make things one iota better, at least I can come here and let you know you are not alone. Most people are hurtling through life feeling frenzied and lost and imposter-ish. And the majority of the people you know who seem to have it all together? Well, they pull off that feat by living unconsciously, which, believe it or not, is worse than being painfully aware. Us up-all-night-with-our-thoughts folks may be sleep deprived, but it’s only because we’re honest and paying attention. So, I am here now to remind you and me to take heart. Today is another day in which we might still not figure anything out, but we’re alive and awake and that means we have lives worth living.