I’ve spent the past two and a half weeks absorbing Taylor Swift’s latest album, The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology. With 31 tracks, it’s been a full-time job. One song, in particular, I cannot stop thinking about because of how true it feels for my life as well. thanK you aIMee is about a person (or persons) in Swift’s past whose cruel behavior pushed her to her breaking point and ultimately served as a catalyst for her extraordinary success.
All that time you were throwin’ punches, I was building somethin’, and I couldn’t wait to show you it was real…I pushed each boulder up the hill, your words are still ringin’ in my head…I wrote a thousand songs that you find uncool, I built a legacy that you can’t undo, but when I count the scars there’s a moment of truth, that there wouldn’t be this if there hadn’t been you. ~Taylor Swift, thanK you aIMee
People have spent a lot of time surmising whom the song is about. The identity of the bully/bullies makes no difference to me as a listener. I simply appreciate the emotional intelligence Taylor exhibits in knowing that sometimes the people who were the worst to you and caused you the most heartbreak and stress were actually the ones who offered you the opportunity for the most auspicious growth. I suspect everyone, at one point or another, had someone whose negativity, crappy behavior, or downright bullying abuse became the catalyst for growth. In those moments of anguish, did you fold or did you find a way forward? Do you have someone who you, perhaps somewhat regrettably, owe at least a mental debt of gratitude for the pain they caused you?
I’m 15 days away from the ten year anniversary of the day I woke up and saw my life clearly for the first time. That day changed me irrevocably for the better. Yes. For a while I was reeling, spinning through anger, pain, frustration, and confusion. Then I realized I couldn’t live where I had been, so I needed to find my way forward to a new reality. I’ve been in weekly therapy since. I’m still slaying my dragons, but every single day I wake up grateful I’m no longer living unconsciously. This doesn’t mean I behave well all the time. I don’t. It’s hard to break old, deeply worn patterns. That said, I’m awake now and that is only because of one huge argument on my front porch right after our youngest’s 11th birthday party. Every single day, however, I am grateful to that person for helping me see what I had never seen before. It shook me in the best way possible. I would not go back and undo that hurtful moment for all the money in the world. No matter how much pain and work have gone into the last ten years, I’m a healthier me now for the struggles I’ve endured. Not quite out of the woods yet, but definitely better armed and more at peace.
‘Cause I’m a real tough kid, I can handle my shit, they said “Babe, you gotta fake it ’til you make it” and I did. ~Taylor Swift, I Can Do It With a Broken Heart
(PS…I also have to shout out Taylor Swift for writing songs with a huge range and depth of human emotions. She’s teaching this old dog all the feels I never knew how to feel.)
We got into F1 racing the way the most Americans have and in the most American way possible. We watched the Netflix series, F1: Drive to Survive. We began watching in January of 2022. I became way more entrenched in the sport than I ever imagined. I chose a favorite team. It’s Scuderia Ferrari. (I am a fan of the Buffalo Bills, so I am accustomed to cheering for an underdog.) I zeroed in on a couple favorite drivers, Charles LeClerc and Carlos Sainz. I didn’t choose them because they were the current leaders. I chose them because they seemed like good, solid guys, not unlike Josh Allen and Jim Kelly. We got an F1 TV membership and began watching the races on race day. I have followed along with live updates of qualifying sessions and have watched races on my phone when I wasn’t near a television. I have woken up multiple times at 5 a.m. to watch a race happening across the globe in real time. I may have issues. There is so much more I have yet to learn about the sport, but I’m hooked.
Qualifying Day
Years ago, my youngest sister told us for her 50th she wanted to experience the Monaco Grand Prix, and it was her wish we would join her in this adventure. We started researching and saving. Last fall, I got online an snatched up grandstand seats for us. Then I secured lodging in Nice because, well, we aren’t A-list celebrities with A-list bank accounts who can stay in Monaco. I bought some Ferrari merch. We were really going to do this. On May 25th, two days before my 55th birthday, we landed in France, F1 tickets in hand.
It’s not easy to encapsulate what happens in Monaco on Grand Prix weekend. The city state of Monaco, encompassing an area of land roughly 60% the size of New York’s Central Park, swells from 37k residents to roughly 200k people. DJs pump club tunes through speakers. It’s not a place for agoraphobics or claustrophobics. Myriad fans in all their team paraphernalia follow signs through winding, fenced passageway and, in some cases, over recently constructed bridges over the race track, to reach the grandstands. Each grandstand offers a unique vantage point of the race. Ear plugs are a wise choice. I got the chills the first time I heard the cars in the midst of their first practice. I could not believe I was actually there. None of us could. The race is iconic. The location is beautiful. The yachts are plentiful. The mix of languages being spoken is mind boggling. The excitement is palpable everywhere you walk.
Our seats were near the Tabac CornerBridge constructed over race trackMy watch telling me to put in ear plugs
My husband and I attended two practices and qualification to prepare ourselves for race day.
Video from Free Practice 2 on May 26th (Grandstand L)
Between the driver’s parade and the race, Steve and I decided the Monaco Grand Prix experience would not be complete without some libations. We noticed you could purchase an entire bottle of champagne. Done, thank you very much. With paper cups and straws in hand, we texted our group our shaded location and told them to hurry. We started pouring and when everyone had a cup we tried to made a toast to commemorate our day. A woman who was standing nearby offered to take our group photo. Okay. That happens all the time, right? Well, this particular woman wasn’t just a kind onlooker. She was a gem, the kind of person my sisters and I would love to be friends with in real life back home, bold, hysterical, and smart as a whip. We stood conversing with her for a while after she took the photo, learning she was at the race with her daughter and husband. She’s from Virginia. We gabbed and giggled with her like we were long-lost friends. We gave her a cup and asked her name. She told us we would never forget it. She was right. Blythe was fabulous. Before she went back to her husband and daughter, I asked if she’d be willing to be in a photo with us. Of course she would. Sometimes I really do love Americans. We promised we would toast to her for the remainder of our trip and we did. Each night we raised our glasses and toasted Blythe, the kind stranger who became an instant friend.
As for the race itself, F1 fans will tell you Monaco is not the most exciting race on the calendar. It is a narrow road circuit and passing is risky in the few places where it is possible. Two-time World Champion and current 2023 championship leader, Max Verstappen, started on pole position and with the fastest car on the grid was basically assured a victory. I watched Carlos and Charles, hoping one of them would make it onto the podium at the end of the race. A little more than halfway through the race, Max was well ahead of his closest competition. We’re talking like 17 seconds ahead. Max would whiz by and what felt like an eternity would pass until the next driver appeared. Max was stomping the competition like they were buildings in Tokyo and he was was Godzilla. We began to pray for rain to make things more interesting. About ten laps later, the sky opened up. Boy-Scout-level-prepared, I had ponchos for all six of us. We donned them, sat in the stands while the rain fell steadily, and watched driver’s slip around the Tabac Corner. Despite a few incidents among other drivers, Max won again to the delight of many fans in the crowd.
When the race was over and the cars were taking their final lap, the yachts in the harbor began sounding their horns. It was something else. While the race had not gone the way I hoped, the experience of the Monaco Grand Prix was everything I’d hoped for.
Celebration at the end of the race
It’s never lost on me how fortunate I am to have “once-in-a-lifetime” experiences filling my memories. Swimming through the Green Grotto at Capri, hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, being close enough to an elephant in Tanzania to see her eyelashes, watching a blue-footed booby interact with my sons in the Galapagos Islands, witnessing a sunrise on Haleakala. The older I get, the more I am able to be present in these experiences and the more I understand how precious they are. I see so many people today in amazing locations and at impressive events, not noticing and experiencing, but preening and posing for photos they will share to prove they were there. I saw tons of them in Monaco, with an entourage filming an experience they were not really having, only documenting. We’ve become so obsessed with creating FOMO with our myriad selfies and our constant filming and posting that we don’t often recognize we may be the ones missing out.
Last Tuesday, I wrote about a shopping trip with my sister that brought up some big feelings for me. The trip highlighted the ways in which opportunities that are mundane for many are triggering and difficult for me. (I had to have two vodka shots before going to try Thai food for the first time.) Almost nine years ago, I had an eye-opening fight with my mother. It wasn’t a fight I initiated or that I saw coming, but it changed my life by creating an opening through which I could see that what I believed had existed had not. Since then, I’ve been in and out of therapy, working to heal and begin again without the baggage.
I’ve acknowledged and grieved the loss of the reality in which I had lived for 46 years. I’ve scrutinized what that time in the dark meant my life had actually been. I spent years laboring earnestly, like an archaeologist with dental tools and brushes, to unearth the way events of my past had created who I was now and shaped the life I had created for myself as an adult. I wasn’t guarded, cynical, and defensive solely because I was born that way or because it was what had been modeled for me as a child. It was also attributable to decisions I made as an adult because of the messages I ingested through my youth. That was a heartbreaking revelation. I spent years learning to forgive myself for not having figured this out sooner and, instead, flying blindly through life until midway through my 40s. That was precious time lost. But I survived it all and am feeling much healthier and happier. I’m not disappointed in or angry about my past because it made me resilient and capable. I am not only to see but also appreciate the me that I am.
After Monday’s EMDR session in therapy, I awoke on Tuesday feeling lighter. EMDR psychotherapy can radically alter a person’s perception of their memories, and the messages they carry as a result of those memories, in just a few hours. By Wednesday, Monday’s work had been processed enough that I felt different in my body. I felt taller and more willing to take up space in the world. I felt less willing to settle for the crumbs I used to think were all I deserved. Every day since then I have continued to practice living in that place. I’ve noticed that comments from others that might have sent me into an overthinking tailspin and elicited an immediate, defensive overreaction have shifted to more innocuous thoughts like, “Well, that’s one way to think about it.” I believe I am not responsible for anyone else’s thoughts and feelings. I don’t have to bend myself into a pretzel attempting to fix things that make others uncomfortable, nor do I have to make myself smaller so they can feel better. Although I’ve known that on an intellectual level for a while, I hadn’t been able to actualize it. More incredibly, my thoughts about myself have shifted. I’m not seeing myself as broken or in need of fixing. I recognize the parts of me that maybe aren’t my favorites, but I also see the ways I am actually pretty awesome. I’m learning not to take everything so seriously and to know the people who love me wish me no harm, and the people who are unkind or unengaged don’t matter.
I’ve worked long and hard to get here. And while I’m not finished doing the work, I am pausing today to take a victory lap for this phase of my journey. Halle-frickin-lujah!
I know this post is totally random, but this is where I am today and it felt important to mark the occasion. Ten years later, this blog is still for me what it has always been, an online journal, a place to store my experiences and memories and enshrine my struggles and growth. So that is what I came here to do today. I also want to thank my readers for traveling some rough seas with me, and for tossing me an orange, float ring and hauling me back into the boat when I’ve fallen out. Your patience and kind words have been a lifeline on more occasions than you might believe, and I am grateful for you.
Here’s to love and light going forward, with only the occasional storm to weather.
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.
“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.
Along my path to a healthier me, a me who isn’t stuck operating from the trauma responses I adopted as a child, I found this poem. It has been my goal post as I move through the stages of recovery.
Autobiography in Five Chapters by Portia Nelson
Chapter I
I spent most my life unable to move beyond Chapter I. I was self-unaware. With no understanding the dynamics that had been in play when I was a child had heavy consequences, nearly everything I encountered was a challenge for my nervous system. Normal interactions and situations triggered my fight, flight, or fawn defenses. Without those defenses, I would have collapsed in on myself like a dying star. I had no real idea who I was underneath the overthinking, perfectionism, people pleasing, boundary ceding, bullying, and negativity. Worse yet, I didn’t see there was anything unhealthy about my MO at all. I was stuck for a long, long time.
Chapter II
Six days before my 46th birthday, I was sabotaged in public by a family member. Because my eleven year old son had been used as an unwitting pawn in the scheme to humiliate me, something in me snapped. It was my roller shade moment. After decades spent repressing abuse I endured as a child, the window shade I had pulled down to protect myself from repeated trauma flew up. I could not unsee what had been lurking behind it. I was bumped into Chapter II, forced to acknowledge my past and reckon with my trauma responses and their repercussions. I couldn’t stop using them to protect myself yet because I still needed them. So, I kept behaving mostly the same way I always had, only now I was aware how unhealthy my reactions to every little thing were. I didn’t know how to stop them, but I knew they were wrong. Every time I caught myself in an epic overreaction, the shame was overwhelming. I read a stack of self-help books and realized I needed to start regular therapy. Through therapy, I faced my past. It was painful and slow going. Every time I hurt my husband or my sons because I could not control my responses, I felt like the worthless person I was told as a child I was. I was a skipping record, stuck in a groove, doomed to repeat my patterns.
Chapter III
After some research, I decided to shift to a new therapist who offered EMDR therapy, which has helped thousands of people suffering from PTSD see their trauma in a different light. I’ve spent most of the past two years in this chapter. It has been an endless cycle of acting out my old habits, catching myself, acknowledging my behaviors and thoughts are not helpful, apologizing to myself and others for my missteps, and then forgiving myself and trying again from a more mindful place. Sometimes I would react in a more healthy manner immediately. Other times I had to sit with the negative pattern I had repeated for 5-10 minutes before understanding how I could do better and then ameliorating the situation for myself and those I had been unfair to. I saw my progress and was encouraged, but I also knew I could be in this chapter for decades until I was skilled enough spot the hole before falling into it.
Chapter IV
Recently, and with some extra assistance, I’ve had some legitimate success walking around the trauma hole. I can bump myself out of my well-worn groove and react differently in the moment. I’ve made it to Chapter IV. I don’t live here full-time, but I am finally here. I catch negative thoughts mid-stream and I make a choice to walk around that hole. Holy shit. There is no way to explain what a monumental life shift this has been for me. While I still stumble into my old patterns a few times a day, I also stop them a few times a day. I’m owning my mistakes because I know I’m not expected to be perfect. I’m beating myself up less, looking in the mirror and seeing myself in a positive light more than a negative one. I’m stopping my inner bullshit before it gets loose. I’m holding myself accountable. Best of all, though, I’m holding others accountable too. I differentiate between a me problem and a you problem. And I am able to stand up for myself, walk away, and let someone else deal with their own inner bullshit. I no longer think I am broken or horrible or perpetually wrong. I am still working but I am more present. I am proud of myself.
Chapter V
A lot of people have lofty goals for their lives. They know what legacy they would like to leave behind. Me? I don’t concern myself with any of that. I just want to get to Chapter V and hopefully live there for a bit, with a reasonable level of control over my actions, some mindfulness, and a lot less reactivity. If I get to a place where my childhood trauma responses are a faint whisper or dull memory rather than a full-fledged fire alarm, I will have walked the path I believe I was meant to walk. My goal in this life is to recover, to do better for myself, my spouse, and my children, to break a cycle.
The light at the end of the tunnel is growing brighter. I know someday I won’t have to negotiate my way around the hole at all because I will have already walked down another street.
While my dental hygienist, Betsi, was preparing her torture tools for assault on my teeth and gums this morning, I spied a hummingbird moth out of the picture window in front of me. I don’t see them often, so I got up from the chair, still wearing my purple paper bib, to get a closer look. It was hovering around clusters of small, late-summer flowers. I studied it for a few seconds, noting the striping on its body and the speed at which its wings moved to keep it aloft. Betsi told me she sees them in the flowers outside that window on occasion. I told her I hadn’t seen one in a couple years. I sat back down, put on the cheap, protective sunglasses she handed me, and tried to settle into my happy place for the cleaning. I kept thinking about that moth, though.
This evening, when I went to take the trash out, I noticed from the corner of my eye something buzzing at the garage window. I am not a fan of any sort of insect in our house or garage, but I am especially not a fan when they are large or noisy enough to draw my immediate attention. I’m even less of a fan when I am the only one at home to deal with them at the time. I walked closer, already planning how I would aid in its necessary exit, and discovered it was another hummingbird moth. How odd not to see one for years and then to see one twice in one day. I opened the garage door, turned off the lights, and waited for my light-seeking visitor to fly away.
I’m not superstitious. I don’t believe in destiny or fate or soulmates or divine intervention of any sort. But I do believe in the power of life’s chaos and the doors it opens. If you are really paying attention as life swirls around you, you begin to notice life offers directional signs. We don’t always see them because we aren’t always looking. I have been guilty of not paying attention to them most of my life. For decades, I went along in my inner bubble, fully convinced I knew who I was and where I was going. I was wrong, though. That false image of me burst eight years ago and, since then, I’ve undertaken the tedious process of observing my behavior, questioning it, ameliorating it, or at least acknowledging it on some level, and learning from it. I’ve also started noticing my surroundings more and paying greater attention to my senses, especially my intuition. Intuition helps you to see signs.
With the second appearance of the hummingbird moth today, my curiosity led me to read up on it. I learned that hummingbird moths are considered a lucky omen. A swarm of them is said to have been seen flying across the English Channel on the day of the Normandy landings in June of 1944. I also read:
“A moth represents tremendous change, but it also seeks the light. Thus, moth spiritual meaning is to trust the changes that are happening and that freedom and liberation are around the corner.” (Dictionary.tn)
So, there is my sign. I saw a hummingbird moth today, on two separate occasions in two different locations, during a time of tremendous change in my life when I find myself looking for the light. I’m going to consider this a good omen. I’ve been wondering since we left the boys at school a few weeks ago how I would get through the transition from stay-at-home parent to, as my friend, Kathy, prefers to label it, “lady of leisure”. This morning, I woke up still curious about my future plans. Then, a couple moths told me to trust the changes and know that freedom and liberation are here. All of a sudden I’m not so worried about what I will do next month or next year or next decade. Yeah. Life is different now, but different doesn’t have to mean bad. What if, and hear me out on this, what if my next twenty years are my best years? It could happen. I’ve been surprising before.
Oh. And I still don’t like bugs. But I’ve decided moths are more okay than the rest.
Before I jump into the activities and adventures we did and had in our ports of call, I thought I would clear up the notion of a Sea Day. Until I took my first cruise, the idea of days at sea with nothing to do troubled me. I thought I would be bored. I assumed days floating at sea would be a waste of time and money. Many of my friends who have said they would never take a cruise vacation claim the “wasted days at sea” as their reason. I get it. I felt the same way until I had a day when I had nothing to do, no one to answer to, nowhere to rush off to, and the freedom to do exactly and only what I felt like doing. How many days do adults get like that in their busy lives? Not many.
A day at sea allows you to truly relax. It does not mean you will lack for things to do. Many cruise ships are like floating theme parks with water slides and zip lines and climbing walls. Cruises on Celebrity are aimed more at an adult crowd, though, so their sea day amenities are more about pools, spa treatments, casino time, and fine dining, but the lack of children tearing through the passageways and screaming and splashing at the pool more than make up for that. Cruise directors load the day with potential activities for those who want more and are looking for distraction. There are lectures and art classes, wine tastings and friendly on-board competitions (passenger versus crew pool volleyball and putting tournaments, for example). There are movies and games and ship tours too. At night there are karaoke sing-offs, live music performances, theater shows, comedians, and plenty of opportunities for dancing. If none of that appeals, you can read a book or nap in a deck chair facing the sea or play cards or watch for sea life. We enjoyed searching for dolphin pods and seeing them race and jump and flip alongside the ship. If you get bored at sea, you have no one to blame but yourself.
A great place to watch for dolphinsToo pretty to eatChoices, choicesWine and cheese pairingDrinks on the Magic CarpetThe strait of Messina between Italy and SicilyDolphin!
One activity that costs extra but is well worth the investment is a behind-the-scenes ship tour.Our tour took us through the galleys and into the belly of the ship where food is stored. We learned about how the ship processes recyclables and waste, does epic amounts of laundry, plans their shopping, and stores the food for the journey. On our ship, there were 1500 people employed for food preparation and service alone. We learned about what cruise life is like for those who live on the ship and work in its service. We visited the engine room and learned about what powers the ship and keeps it running smoothly and on time. The final stop on the tour was to the bridge where we learned about what training the captain and officers undertake for their careers, as well as how they bring these huge ships into port. It was fascinating.
Part of the galley for one restaurantFood prep underwayWhere creme brulee is bornEnough wine for me, anywayA machine that fold sheetsThe bridge
When we finished our ship tour, we grabbed some lunch, gawked at the desserts, and then went to a wine tasting with premium wines and cheeses. After that, we sat on deck and enjoyed the view and the peace and each other’s company until it was time to dress for dinner and head to the Raw on 5 restaurant for Joe’s birthday dinner choice….sushi. We topped off our day with some silent disco because why not?
Martini optionsJoe’s 21st birthdaySushi and ceviche
If the notion of a sea day or two on a cruise, where your every need is catered to, vexes you, perhaps it’s time to reassess your priorities. Do you not deserve a day where you don’t have to cook, clean, or care for anything or anyone other than yourself? Have you not earned a day or two with no obligations and thoughtfully prepared, delicious meals served with whatever cocktail calls to you? Come on. Live a little. Become reacquainted with yourself. When the sea day is over and you wake the next morning to find yourself in another exotic port of call, rested and ready to explore, you realize this is why you took this vacation. You’ve let yourself go in the best way possible.
I have posted this quote from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland on here before and it is the intro portion on my Facebook bio.
Me in a nutshell
Tonight, though, I’m finally deciding to take my own advice for real. I have been thinking for quite some time now that I need to take a social media hiatus. To that end, I’ve decided to go dark on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for a month. I’m not walking away from the platforms forever, just long enough to give my life a good detox. It’s not even that I necessarily spend too much time on them. It’s just that the time I do spend on them often leaves me feeling negative or isolated or frustrated or annoyed. I don’t need the ads. I don’t need the opportunity for comparison. I don’t need the divisiveness or the unhelpful and unnecessary commentary. I feel like too much of my life and my headspace are being taken up, frankly, by crap that does not matter.
Facebook has done some good for my life over the years. I’ve reconnected (even if a bit superficially) with some truly genuine people. I’ve used it to check up on and check in on friends who live at a distance. It’s been a good place to store memories of things I’ve done and places I’ve gone. If I scroll back through photos I posted, Facebook is a flip book of my life over the past 14 years. Back in those early days, Facebook was fun. Sadly, it has changed since then, but then so have I.
What at last led me to the conclusion that it may be time for me to take a vacation from the site was, oddly enough, an episode of South Park that I watched last night. Stan doesn’t want a Facebook account, but his friends create one for him. The next thing he knows, he has hundreds of thousands of followers. His girlfriend, Wendy, is mad at him for a comment another female made on a photo of him in a bunny costume. (That person turns out to be his grandmother’s friend who is 92.) His dad keeps bugging him to be his Facebook friend and to “poke” his grandmother. Remember pokes? Ugh. Sick of the whole thing, Stan decides to delete his account, but his profile has become more powerful than its user and it can’t be deleted. There’s a scene reminiscent of the movie Tron where Stan is now actually in the Facebook realm and there he runs into the profiles of family and friends. They keep saying things like “Grandma likes Teddy’s photo” and “Teddy thinks Stan’s bunny costume is fantastic.” And that is when the insanity of Facebook really hit me. This is what we’ve become.
In lieu of actual human interaction, we’ve become a nation of people who show our support and friendship with a thumbs up or a heart. Instead of getting together over coffee and sharing photos of our trips, we post them online for the world to gawk at. Rather than calling someone to catch up or writing a card or even sending an email, we hop online and try to validate each other’s existences with quick comments, funny memes, and likes. We also use Facebook to leave unnecessary, snarky opinions on each other’s posts as if this type of hit-and-run commentary is actually useful dialogue. It is not surprising to me at all that Gen Z is the most depressed and anxious generation yet. They may not use Facebook, but Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat serve the same purpose, a giant popularity contest and yardstick against which to compare themselves. Imagine the psychological damage when you discover others don’t find you interesting or likable at a time when you are still discovering who you are.
I am going to keep on using WordPress because I am still on my blog-every-day-for-100-days timeline, and I will keep Snapchat because I only use that to send silly selfies to my son at college. My other social media apps will be temporarily deleted from my phone so the temptation to open them is gone. I have no idea what this detox will do to me. I’ve been a fairly regular social media user for years. I’m hoping that by sometime mid-next week I will find my brain focusing a little better and my productivity at home increasing. If I am able to be more mindful and rediscover my inner peace, it will definitely be a win. I’ll let you know on June 5th.
“It’s amazing to me how much you can say when you don’t know what you’re talking about.” ~ Phoebe Bridgers
Don’t throw these from a glass house
True story in fifteen words: I was most confident about who I was when I didn’t know who I was.
At that time, my only operational mode was filtered through a mindset of internal superiority. It wasn’t that I felt superior to anyone. Truth was I felt superior to no one. No. One. I protected my fragile sense of self by drawing distinctions between others and who I believed myself to be. Once I learned more about myself, though, once I was at last able to see the cracks in my unconsciously crafted facade, everything changed. I knew my structure was vulnerable, so I started treading more carefully after a thought popped into my head. I recognized that I should not believe everything I think about others or about myself. I started questioning more and being certain less. I accepted that I lived in an enormous glass house, and from this precarious position stone throwing might be ill-advised.
I am still not consistently able to catch my hypocrisy or haughtiness in the moment, but it doesn’t take me more than a few minutes to get to a more open headspace, to recognize where I took a wrong turn, and to embark on a more authentic and honest path with myself and others. This often requires apologizing for a conclusion I jumped to, admitting I made an error, and then pointing out how the comment I made arose from my insecurities. This was difficult at first, but with practice it is becoming much easier. As a side benefit, it allows those in my circle the opportunity to get to know the real me. Like an unboxed refrigerator in a discount warehouse, I’m a little dinged up but in decent working order. There is nothing broken about me. I just had to accept that it’s not my flaws that define me.
I am working to embody the Ted Lasso school of thought: be curious, not judgmental. When I feel that judgment coming up, I am more equipped now to stop myself and be curious about my thoughts and why they jumped straight to negativity and derision. I know the demons that sabotage my better self and throw me into judging mode: shame, guilt, fear, and ego. When I go from zero to judgment faster than a Tesla in ludicrous mode, one of those dastardly devils is behind it. But now that I know my triggers, I’m quicker to catch myself and say, “Whoa there, Nelly. That is wholly unnecessary.” I am able to remind myself that I am safe now, the judgment that secured my ego and made me so damn confident about everything without having reason to be is no longer a necessary survival strategy. If I make a hasty choice or assumption, there is no need to project negative emotions onto someone else to cover up my error. I simply made a miscalculation due to the muscle memory of judgment that kept my fragile ego in bubble wrap for decades. It happens a lot when you’re recovering from a fear-based world view. It’s astounding how a little self-kindness and compassion dosed out accordingly can reduce the adverse effects of fear-based living.
I am able now to give myself and others more grace. We’re all human. We all have baggage that directs our behavior. The path to freeing yourself of judgment is facing that baggage, inspecting it carefully, understanding why you’re carrying it around, and then setting it down. I am grateful to those who bravely and in plain view undertook this journey away from fear-based functioning before me. Glennon Doyle, Kristin Neff, Anne Lamott, and Brené Brown saved me from living the entirety of my life in a glass house I inherited but in which I never wanted to live.
Don’t believe everything you think. Sometimes you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Live Now and Zen 