Lights Out

At this point, I feel like a prayer to these giants might help

We are getting the electrical panels for our solar installation today. The company rang our doorbell about 3 hours ago and told me it would be off for approximately 40 minutes. I had just popped tomatoes into the oven for roasting for soup for tonight. I just pulled them out of the cooling oven and placed them into our rapidly warming fridge. Guess we will be getting take out for dinner.

It’s a little crazy how much our lives have changed in the past 100 years. In 1925, about half of US homes had electricity. Now our entire lives are dominated by it. So consumed are we by our need for it that we are lost when it goes out. I’ve been wandering aimlessly around my house wondering what I can do. Laundry? Nope. Dinner prep? Nope. Make a smoothie? Nope? Vacuum? Nope. A storm is moving in and the house is dark, and I keep absentmindedly hitting light switches that can offer us no light. My husband told me I could use the shower, but then I reminded him I need to use a hair dryer right after that, so that is off the table too. At this point, I have determined I could read a book, do a puzzle, or take a nap, and I could only do the first two things if I found a flashlight. I am actually writing this blog post on the WordPress app on my phone, but will only be able to continue doing so as long as my phone battery holds out. I can always go for a drive to a locale with a functional power outlet, if I can open the heavy-as-sin garage door manually since the opener won’t work.

People lived for millennia without power to their domiciles, but I wouldn’t survive a day without it. I miss it already and it hasn’t even been half a day yet. I can’t decide if we should dial back our reliance on electricity or double our efforts to find ways to keep us powered all the time, even when the grid fails us. All I know for sure is that I would not want to go back in time. I would miss my ovens that require no firewood, my lamps that require no kerosene, and my refrigerator that requires no ice blocks.

If it’s this difficult for a Gen X-er to go a few hours without electricity, it would probably kill my Gen Z sons. I’m not sure how they would survive if they had to write out their homework by hand. At least I know Luke would curl up with a book. I think Joe would be on his phone until the battery ran out and then he would ask me to drive him around so he could chat with his friends while his phone charged.

Technology is a marvelous thing, until it isn’t. And then it leaves me wondering how on earth we would survive if things really went sideways and we had to abandon our modern conveniences. I mean, I try to picture myself pulling rugs out of my house and beating them with a broom while they hung on a clothesline, but I don’t see it. Let’s just hope the power gets turned back on before it comes to that.

Posted on 16/02/2022 by Me

Bucket List Item #4: Take A Welding Class

When we learned that our sons’ small, specialized high school had a welding shop and a ceramics studio, we were excited. I had long wanted to learn how to weld. I figured that until I could get my hands on a MIG welder, maybe the boys could take classes and learn. And they did. They took welding in summer sessions and made some really awesome items that are now our treasures. One summer, Luke fabricated this cool, elephant table for our outdoor space.

When we went to our gala fundraiser at Denver Academy and they auctioned off a four-hour welding class with the school’s material arts teacher, we knew we would have to bid on and win that item some time in the six years we would be at the school. After several years of being severely outbid, in 2019 we finally did it. We won a lesson. Life got in the way, however, and our gift certificate (with a one year expiration) did not get used. Thanks, Covid-19. This year, out of curiosity, I messaged the teacher and inquired if he might still be willing to let us have our lesson. He enthusiastically replied that he would love to do it. We were thrilled. So, yesterday morning we had our class.

We arrived at 9 a.m. with a huge Americano for our teacher because an apple will only get you so far at that time on a Saturday morning. He geared us up with safety goggles, ear plugs, gloves, and welding jackets, and we started with the plasma cutter. Loved that. I’m not sure there is anything more satisfying than watching the sparks fly as you rip through metal like it’s butter. After we’d liberated some small shapes with the plasma cutter, he taught us about the MIG welder and we worked on our welding skills. It was difficult for me to get the right speed, but I did eventually figure it out. We practiced welding random, found-pieces of metal from his shop. Then we went on to learn how to use the angle grinder to polish our metal pieces. That was pretty damn satisfying. Not gonna lie.

After learning the tools, we had about two hours to figure out what we wanted to build to take home. We had to design it, cut the metal, weld it, polish it, and determine how to hang in our limited time frame. Kris, the teacher, had a metal frame in his shop that someone had already created. He told us we were welcome to use it if we wanted. We decided to design a mountain scene that we could put inside the open frame. We did some planning drawings and got right to work. Steve cut the pieces with the plasma cutter while I used the angle grinder to polish the pieces he cut. With his job finished, Steve started welding our mountains to the frame. About that time, our son, Luke, showed up and he helped me speed up the grinding process. I had a lot of pieces to work on.

In the end, Kris helped us put a couple rubber stops on the back of the frame so the art piece would not cause damage to any surface it is mounted on. I have to say the whole process was a blast. It’s important to keep trying new things, to keep creating and taking risks, and to keep reaching for things you think might be your thing. And it’s best to do these things with people you love and work well with, so you can end up with something like this:

Not too bad for first time metal fabricators – Moonrise Over Mountains

Ever so grateful to Denver Academy and Kris Fritzsche for everything!

Posted on 13/02/2022 by Me 2

This One Time At The Olympics…

I am not normally a fan of the Olympics. I know. I know. What kind of person am I? But, seriously, I’ve just not really ever cared. I don’t mind watching (I don’t have much of a choice since everywhere you turn, there they are), but if they didn’t come around every two or four years or whatever, I would not be broken up over it. That said, there have been three athletes whose stories spoke to me.

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

First up is Ester Ledescká, the Czech skier/snowboarder. NBC did a human interest spot on her, and she blew my mind. It’s one thing to be a world class athlete, but it’s another thing entirely to be a female, world class athlete who competes in not one, but two, sports. And Ester doesn’t just compete. She wins gold medals…in two sports. It’s awesome. What really spoke to me about the interview with her was when she was discussing how many people had told her she shouldn’t try to compete in two sports. They told her it is better to focus on one. They told her that if she attempted to focus on two she would only accomplish being middling at two sports rather than potentially exceptional at one. They told her it couldn’t and shouldn’t be done. Ester, however, had a the audacity to ask a simple question when people told her it couldn’t be done. She asked them, “How do you know?” And she did it anyway. Damn. I thought about my own life and how many times I listened to naysayers, never once believing in myself enough to stand up for myself and tell them what I knew in my own heart: “I got this.” So often I backed off the courage of my convictions and figured others knew what was best for me. I was wrong. I think every young girl (and boy) should know Ester’s story. Ester is the embodiment of grit, a woman who knew what she wanted, fought for it, worked hard, and did what others said couldn’t be done. She kicks ass.

“We are at our most powerful the moment we no longer need to be powerful.” -Eric Micha’el Leventhal

The second outstanding athlete is Shaun White, of course. I have been a fan of Shaun’s since his first Olympic appearance in 2006 in Turin. Shaun White is a walking superlative. He’s a joy to watch, the rare combination of hard work, creativity, enthusiasm, confidence, finesse, and passion. He elevated snowboarding to an art form, constantly pushing himself (and others) to greater heights, literally and figuratively. At 35, he showed up solidly against competitors almost half his age. Yes. He landed in fourth place at his fifth Olympics, but who cares? He’s Shaun White, dammit. What struck me about what I saw of him after his final run, though, wasn’t his graciousness but his heart. After receiving an ovation upon completion of his final Olympic run, after accepting hugs and kind words from each of his fellow competitors, Shaun did something more extraordinary than all of his physical feats. He let the emotion of the day take over, and he cried, not a couple quickly wiped away man tears but actual, ugly-cry tears. I don’t think I have ever been more impressed by him than I was in that moment. He showed his humanity. In fairness, he has cried on camera at Olympic events before, but this meant more. This was a man openly weeping on television for the world to see because he was feeling all the feels. And me being where I am in my life cried right along with him. I’ve got tears just remembering it now. Shaun gave the sport of snowboarding a firm foundation and a heart, and he proved that you can be a man and feel your feelings and show them for all the world to see. And that is a bigger gift to the youth who follow in his footsteps than his Double McTwist 1260.

“Life is not about how many times you fall down. It’s about how many times you get back up.” ~Jaime Escalante

The final athlete who wowed me this week was Mikaela Shiffrin. After falls in her first two events, events where she is usually the one to beat, she was visibly shaken. She was angry at herself, disappointed in her performance, and all-too-aware she was letting people down. But she rode the chairlift to the top of the Super G course and stood at the gate to face her fears. I can’t even comprehend that level of bravery. After her first two events, she could have simply decided not to compete any further. She could have decided that maybe the universe was trying to tell her it wasn’t safe for her to compete. Oh, the voices of self-doubt she must have been battling as she took that ride to the top of the mountain. But she did it. 3…2…1…and she burst from the gate to ski 70 miles per hour down to the finish. And when she finished in 9th place, she wasn’t disappointed in herself. She was ebullient. She was smiling. The relief on her face was there for the world to see. She hadn’t raced that race because she had something to prove to others. She had raced because she had something to prove to herself. She showed up to that race for herself and, in doing so, told the fear in her heart and mind to go to hell. She is so strong. I’m not talking her physical strength (although, holy crap, yas queen, you go, girl). I’m referring to her mental strength, the strength to fall in front of the world and get back up and risk it all again. That is what the world needs to see more of. The strength to look fear in the face and do the scary thing anyway. Mikaela, you are my hero this week. I will always root for you. Not because you’re my Colorado mountain girl, but because you are wicked brave.

I guess my admiration for these athletes teaches me these three things. I need to believe in myself and follow what my heart tells me because it knows me best. I need to be willing to open up, to be vulnerable, and to feel my feelings when they arise. And I need to look fear in the face to make forward progress. This is the way.

Posted on 11/02/202212/02/2022 by Me 2

When Hard-Hearted Hannah Becomes Weepy Wendy

My family of origin called me Hard-Hearted Hannah because of my ability to contain my emotions. To be honest, that was self-preservation. I learned not to cry after repeatedly being told that if I did cry I would be given something real to cry about. As a rule, I tend to cry more often about happy or beautiful things than about sad things, and even then my “crying” consists of a few tears coming to my eyes and maybe then trickling down my face. But lately I think all my emotions are sitting just below my skin, and the slightest nick can free them to flow like blood from a shaving cut. I have had a few ugly, ugly cries this week. I feel raw all the time these days.

I don’t know if it is stress or anxiety or fear or gratitude or joy. I’m all over the place. I’m trying to think of this as a good thing. As if emotions that have long been buried are now coming to the surface and maybe once this passes I will be cleansed, at least for a while. That would be comforting to know.

But maybe this isn’t a one off. Maybe this is my new state of being. Maybe I know, at long last, I am in a safe place to experience and show my emotions and be myself. Or maybe I have grown in confidence or in self-love and acceptance. I’m not sure. It’s uncharted territory either way, and all the water works have me confused.

Perhaps I need to stop looking for answers and ride the eye-water wave. Maybe these tears are simply my inner self, filled with gratitude, pride, and joy about my personal growth, baptizing the new me.

Posted on 10/02/202211/02/2022 by Me

The Moth

There are a lot of stages to growth. It doesn’t happen easily or quickly. Sometimes it occurs in fits and starts. You make some progress, level off, and stay at that stage for a while until you feel the next wave of growth building to propel you forward again. Although, like most people, I have wanted growth to come more quickly, I now appreciate the process more. I used to be anxious or frustrated with the leveling off until I realized those periods of my life allowed me to recuperate and prepare for the next stretch. I think we’d all like to be like a super hero, maybe Superman. We just want to close ourselves off for a brief moment and then emerge fully transformed into our stronger, braver selves. It just doesn’t work that way. It takes 18 years for a child to physically mature into an adult. So why should we think our emotional growth should be an overnight transformation? Growth requires time, patience, and energy.

While thinking about this today, I was reminded of an episode from LOST. Charlie, a recovering drug addict, asks John Locke to hold his heroin stash. John agrees and tells him he will hold it until Charlie requests it three times. On the third time, Locke will relinquish the drugs. When Charlie asks Locke the second time, Locke points to a moth in a nearby cocoon. He shows Charlie a small hole at the top of the cocoon that the moth has worked to create. He could, Locke tells Charlie, make the hole bigger to help the moth out, but the struggle to escape is what strengthens the moth for its life journey. If Locke assists the moth, the moth might not be strong enough to survive on its own.

This is why the struggle is real and vitally important. Struggle increases our strength. It’s in the struggle that we gain the fortitude to grow on, to move to the next stage of development. The tears, the anxiety, the discomfort, the conflicts, the frustration are all part of process. I think about when my youngest was diagnosed with severe dyslexia. I would sit and listen to him as he worked with his tutor, and I would cringe. It was painful. It broke my heart to listen to him battle his way through readings. I wished I could snap my fingers and make it all go away for him. I couldn’t. In the end, the years Luke spent leaning into the discomfort led him to become the person he is now, ambitious, dedicated, and a diligent reader. If I had snapped my fingers and changed his situation for him, he would have only overcome the dyslexia, but perhaps not grown stronger and discovered how capable he truly is.

So, am I happy that my personal growth story is taking so damn long? No. No I am not. But am I grateful to still be plugging along? Absolutely. I can look back and see where I was. I know I’ve made progress. So, I will keep working at it, stopping to take a break as necessary, knowing that every bit of the process is important and will, in the end, lead me exactly where I am meant to be.

Posted on 10/02/2022 by Me

Fear, Superpower, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Shakespeare

After a long, heartfelt, open discussion last night, I am feeling much better today. Sometimes, you have to face your fears, speak your mind, listen carefully, and breathe through the discomfort of it all to reach a better place. I woke up this morning a little anxious because it’s hard when you’ve opened up and been vulnerable. It’s difficult to know if others were able to see and feel your heart. As the day progressed, though, I became more and more relaxed as a realization sunk in. I’ve spent my entire life giving other people power over me. It started when I was young and I gave up my power because it was a survival strategy. Then I was older and still operating under the rules of that previous paradigm, wanting people to like me, wanting to be fair to everyone else, wanting to be the “good girl” I was told I should be. I stayed in that good girl bubble for a long, long, long time. And then it hit me today. People only have power over me because I have continued to give it away. I can be both a good person and a person who holds her own power. I can help people with love and compassion and not be a doormat. I can listen to and hear people and still speak my truth. I can be and do those things because that is my superpower. So today is a good day because I finally realized I am a goddam superhero.

Now, not everyone is going to get me or like me or agree with my previous statement, and that is okay. Some people may even puke in their mouth a little bit when they read this. And that too is okay. I am not for everyone. But the people in my tribe know my heart and benefit from my light, and those can’t or don’t want to see my goodness may never. And that also is just fine. Whether or not others see my goodness doesn’t determine whether or not it exists. It does. It is always there even when others deny it. As long as I know it, as long as I feel it, as long as I try my hardest every day to be decent and kind while respecting my own choices and gifts and goals, nothing else can touch me. I will make mistakes. I will upset people. I will land in some awkward situations. No doubt. But none of that detracts from who I am. It only proves I am human. But now I am a human with an invisible but powerful cape.

All of this reminds me immediately of Eleanor Roosevelt. She was a brilliant woman. During her lifetime, she dispensed a great deal of wisdom. Here are a few of my favorite quotes:

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

“Do what you feel in your heart to be right — for you’ll be criticized anyway.”

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

“When you have decided what you believe, what you feel must be done, have the courage to stand alone and be counted.”

And the final quote is the one that inspired this blog, Live Now and Zen:

“Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. And today? Today is a gift. That is why we call it the present.”

So, put yourself out there. Be vulnerable. Don’t let anyone dim your shine. Own your shit, but own your brilliance too. And if you won’t listen to me, listen to Eleanor Roosevelt or even Shakespeare, who penned in Hamlet:

“This above all: to thine own self be true.”

Go get ’em, Tiger. Or, as my sister says, TOWANDA!

Posted on 09/02/2022 by Me 2

Like Howard Beale, I Literally Cannot Anymore

Today I feel like the world’s biggest phony. I try to blog about situations that might resonate with others or that might be inspiring or hopeful. I know I don’t always succeed at this. Sometimes I can tell, based on the replies I am getting, that people can see right through me. They know I am writing all this bullshit as a means to make myself feel better or to inspire myself to make difficult changes while inside I am crumbling like a saltine squeezed in someone’s palm. Some of you know I’m faking positivity (fake it til you make it?) and others of you, based upon which posts you might have read, may feel I’m living a pretty damn good life, devoid of acrimony.

The truth is that I am lost. Thanks to tons of therapy, I am no longer lost about where I came from or why I am the way I am. I long ago got the sobering answers to those questions, and I work daily to slay those demons and move on. And, honestly, I feel pretty good about that. I no longer hate myself. I no longer see only my bad qualities. I know they are still there and I acknowledge them; it’s just that I see the other side too now. I see why I am worth my carbon matter, and I accept that as reality even when others don’t seem to see the good in me.

But I am struggling. A lot. I enjoyed my peaceful weekend, came home filled with optimism about my plans and ideas for writing and my plans and ideas for getting better sleep and more exercise and eating better, and the minute I walked back into the door of my home I was right back into my struggles because nothing at home has been addressed. All the things I want to achieve or do for myself can only happen if there are changes at home, and there have been none. So today I am feeling deflated and hopeless. Today I want to sell something, take the money, get in my car, and run away. Except that I don’t really want to do that because I would miss my people. What I want is to snap my fingers and have all the negativity in my life evaporate so I can pick up from there and move forward. That isn’t going to happen.

Hard conversations need to be had and hard work needs to be done, but no one wants to talk or work. We’re going along in this bubble where we’re pretending everything is fine and everyone’s needs are being met, but that isn’t true in either case.

I come from a family of defensive fighters. We explode. When there was tension in my family of origin, it was resolved with a blowup. The tension would build, someone would need to release steam, and then there would be nasty, no-holds-barred, critical exchanges where all participants were hurling hurtful and unnecessary blows in an attempt to win an argument or make a point that could be neither won or made. There was often door slamming and item chucking as well. None of this was very healthy. Then, I married into a family of stuffers. In my new family, nothing negative or difficult is discussed. Everything is stuffed deep down or swept under the rug. This means that conversations that need to be had to set boundaries, resolve disagreements in viewpoint, and determine appropriate paths forward are simply not conducted. The result is that everyone is anxious. Everyone is talking, which is great, but nothing of importance or consequence is being said because everyone is afraid. It’s verboten, not part of the family dynamic. This is untenable as well. And as a result of my family affiliations, I am now adept at being both a venter and a stuffer. Oh boy.

The older I get, the more I think that what needs to be taught in preschools, kindergartens, grade schools, and high schools across this country (as well as in homes and churches) is communication. We need to teach kids early how to communicate their needs, how to listen to others, how to compromise, and how to support others while protecting the boundaries they need to feel safe. A large portion of this teaching needs to be done by having adults model these behaviors, but we can’t model something we don’t know how to do. This can be witnessed in our current political environment. We’ve become an entire nation of selfish toddlers, unwilling to discuss our feelings in a civil manner, grumpy that we aren’t getting our way, and cruel to others to make ourselves feel better about the shortfalls we perceive in fairness. I’m not saying communication is the only or most important thing that should be taught to our youth (and our grown ups), but it needs to be addressed one way or another because we are all struggling and no one wants to go to that dark, vulnerable place of admitting our fears and needs. No one wants to sit and listen. People want to point fingers, blame, name call, and live in their self-righteous bubble. This is ruining our families, our social groups, our churches, our schools, our government, and our society in general. We hide behind screens, spewing hate, and then go on about our lives because we’ve normalized cruelty and bullying and eliminated common courtesy, patience, and empathy. We live in unkind soundbites and talking points. And this has only been exacerbated by our isolation during this pandemic.

I know I have fallen short in all the good behaviors I’ve listed above. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be sitting in my house feeling misunderstood, ignored, taken for granted, and overwhelmed. I can’t live like this anymore. Like the Howard Beale character in the 1976 film, Network, I want to stand in my living room and yell, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore.”

I’m finished stuffing my feelings and playing nice and pretending everything is great when I am losing my mind. I don’t want to revert to the patterns of my childhood and explode and say hateful things. The time to resolve things civilly is now. I am going to start by opening up in my own house. Maybe if we all decide to undertake some of the difficult conversations we’ve been avoiding having, perhaps we would open a release valve and vent some of the explosive gas currently expanding our national dissatisfaction. Maybe not. But I believe it’s worth a shot.

Posted on 08/02/202210/02/2022 by Me

Talk To The Hand

I am in the final fifty minutes of my time away and wishing I could have the rest of the day in this adorable cottage to sit and write, but alas check out times are a thing. Sigh. After I leave here, I am meeting a friend on Pearl Street for some coffee at my favorite local spot. Then I might spend some time wandering up and down the mall to see what has changed. I haven’t been on Pearl Street for dining, shopping, or people watching for ages. I am long overdue.

I have spent some time this morning reflecting on the mental work I’ve done while I’ve been here. When I am somewhere safe, quiet, and private, that is when I do my most meaningful processing. It seems to be the only way I can reach a calm mental plane. So the first thing I have to do when I get home is establish a place like this for myself, somewhere I can hide for a few minutes when I need to regroup, take a deep breath, and get to a better head space before responding or reacting. The second thing I need to do is a deep dive into my plans for my writing. Do I continue blogging with a focused goal to grow readership or do I work on a larger project, whatever that is? I also plan to set up some routines around exercise and rest. I’ve let things get out of control and I’ve spent too long doing for others before taking care of myself. That has to end. The way I’ve been surviving? Not sustainable in the long term. I realize that now. To get to the point where I can do that, though, I need to do some housecleaning, both mental and physical. I need to eliminate from my circle of influence people who are not good for me and I need to eliminate from my life many of the things. Yes, things. I need to pare down. I have a lot to take care of, to fuss about, to attend to. I need to dispense with things that are weighing me down. This means my husband will be taking some trips to the thrift store. (I’d say I would do it, but the back of my car is still full of things to take there and they have been there for four month already. True story.)

I have my plan of attack. I have peace in my heart after some long overdue time to focus and center. And now I can hit the ground running. I’m not feeling lost anymore. I’m feeling empowered. And that is what time alone does for an introvert. I am ready to take a long hard look at my goings on each day and figure out where I can cut back. I’m ready to tell other people that I will get to what they want when I get to it, and that may be after my work out or meditation, and not a minute sooner. I am ready to help my youngest finish off his senior year and launch so I can start the next phase of my life. The first four decades of my life were devoted to achieving things I thought I was supposed to achieve (college degrees, husband, children, a home, etc.). The next decade was about managing all the things I thought I was supposed to achieve. Now I am at the place where I am free to decide what I still want, what I don’t need, and where I would like to go. It’s exciting. Not going to lie.

I don’t plan on slowing down any time soon. I am retiring from full-time parenting, not life. I simply plan on putting my hand up to stop the insanity as it approaches. I don’t have room for that in my life anymore.

Posted on 06/02/2022 by Me 2

Escape From Reality: The Me-Time Tour

To get their needs met, most people require a little “me” time. This looks different for everyone. For some, it might include time with friends. For some, it might require solitude. Others might find their peace through travel. For me, it often requires a little of both of the last two items. I am midway through my Escape From Reality: The Me-Time Tour. I have taken this particular tour once before. I’m staying in Boulder, where I attended the University of Colorado approximately four hundred years ago. At the foot of the Flatirons lies Chautauqua, a park, auditorium, dining hall, and collection of quaint cottages where people are welcome to relax, experience culture and nature, and simply enjoy a quieter pace. How is it going, you ask? Writing time on the sofa with a cozy blanket is how it is going. In other words, I am relaxed for the first time in over a month.

Very meta this photo of me writing this blog

The cottages at Chautauqua offer everything a writer needs…solitude, beautiful surroundings, quiet, comfort, and no television. There is WiFi because it is helpful, especially if you are a writer, but other than that the distractions are minimal unless you count the squirrels running across the roof. Time here allows me to unwind, silence the noise in my brain, and determine where I need to place more attention when I return home and what I need to jettison to usher in a calmer, steadier existence. The last time I visited here was September 2020 after full-time lockdown with my family had me frazzled.

I suppose I could get the same calming results if I stayed at a hotel, but this place holds special memories for me. I love hiking in the Flatirons. I love the park here. And, seriously, how cute are these little cottages? In a place like this, approximately 420 square feet, I am reminded of how little I need to be comfortable and relaxed. Our home is massive compared to this space, but I could totally live in one of these cottages and be content. Not sure where my husband would live. He might need to be in the cottage next door because I am well beyond the days of happily sharing a full-size bed with another human being.

Cozy place for resting, requisite stuffed dog already in place

I had three main objectives when I came here. First, I wanted to have enough time to write some extra blog posts. Writing every day can prove challenging. It isn’t that I can’t find something to say each day. Heaven knows there is enough insanity in my head to spill onto pages for days and days. It’s just that sometimes the days get away from me, and I don’t like having to resort to a photo-and-haiku post (although those can be fun too) because I have run out of time to function as a rational person. So having a few extra posts stashed for days when I simply cannot has become crucial. Second, I wanted to work on a vision board. I’ve been trying to figure out where other people’s wishes for my life end and where mine begin. To live intentionally in a direction that makes sense for me, that is my goal. I figured creating a visual reminder for myself, a map of sorts, might help keep me on my own best track. Finally, I wanted to do some journaling and planning. I wanted to check in with myself and determine what my priorities are right now. I know I need to set up some boundaries in my life so I can keep my tank from running on empty. I also need to diffuse some mental land mines others have left for me. But getting to the bottom of problems like these requires ample time without distractions, and I am not getting that right now at home.

I have been feeling for months as if I was coming to a tipping point, a point from which I would either springboard forward into a period of exponential personal growth or slump back into my lockdown hole of mindlessness and go back to full-time life on the Animal Crossing island. I want to go forward so badly, but first I need to dig deep and find the courage to do it. And that is what this weekend is about, self-reflection and goal setting. It is about making a plan for growth and pointing myself in the right direction. I’m thinking I need two weekends like this a year. Maybe three. Possibly four, but no more than five. I think. That’s reasonable, right?

Posted on 05/02/2022 by Me

From Darkness To Light, or Here Comes The Sun

I love listening to music. I like it so much that it is difficult for me to listen to books or podcasts because there is no time for them. When I am in my car driving to one of my gazillion errands or wearing headphones while doing work around the house, music is what keeps me going. It transports me. And I need to be transported out of my busy, monkey mind most days.

For most of my life, I have liked music other people consider dark. Maybe even too dark. I like depressing lyrics, songs about heartbreak, music that makes me feel part of a bigger whole. When a friend told me that she loved “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves, I mentally rolled my eyes. I just can’t get behind that. I never really thought much about my proclivity towards dark, brooding bands with melancholy and depressive lyrics until other people pointed it out as something odd. It didn’t feel odd to me. It simply was what I liked. Recently, though, I realized sad songs are what I relate to. They make sense to me. I can inhabit them because they seem to reflect my experiences. Happy songs? Well, I just haven’t lived from that walking-on-sunshine place yet. But play me a song about a broken relationship, a girlfriend in a coma, or some serious self-loathing, and I can meet you there.

Here are some miserable (but great) song lyrics that have resonated with me, so you can see what I mean:

“I never thought about love when I thought about home.” ~The National, “Bloodbuzz Ohio“

“I know I’m unloveable, you don’t have to tell me…I wear black on the outside ’cause black is how I feel on the inside.” ~The Smiths, “Unloveable“

“And at once I knew, I was not magnificent.” Bon Iver, “Holocene“

“Going out of my mind, never getting what I wanted, getting what I needed, I left myself behind.” CHVRCHES, “Get Out”

“Take a good look at my face, you’ll see my smile looks out of place, if you look closer it’s easy to trace the tracks of my tears.” Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, “The Tracks of My Tears”

“Start asking for forgiveness in advance, for all the future thing I will destroy. That way I can ruin everything.” Julien Baker, “Hardline”

“The best of us can find happiness in misery.” Fall Out Boy, “I Don’t Care”

Depressing, right? There are a lot of songs about misery and pain. They are easy to find. When I first started getting into music in middle school, I gravitated towards gloomy songs because it was easier to sing along with something that resonated with me than something that felt shallow to me. I know dark doesn’t directly translate to deep or anything, but with dark you are in the ballpark. Or, at least, that is what I would tell myself; the mournful songs mean I’ve lived sadness and delved into the depths of human misery. That’s kind of deep, right?

Over the past few years, I have noticed I’ve begun to find some positive, happy songs that suck the depression right out of me. I think this is a good sign. I suspect it means I am growing, and my outlook is changing. I’m not sure I will ever walk away from my depressing songs because they are part of me still but, if I can get to a place where happy songs reflect my inner life as much as gloomy ones, I’m on the right path.

And, to end on a positive note because I am heading in a positive direction, enjoy some of these lyrics from a song that inspires me in all the best ways:

“I used to lay low, hiding in the shadows, so don’t give me dark days, I already had those. I’m just trying to figure out how to be myself right now. I don’t wanna lay low, hiding in the shadows. So I wake up, I get out of bed. Stay up, stay out of my head ’cause it’s dangerous and I don’t wanna lose my mind, no. I just wanna shine like the sun when it comes up, run the city from the rooftops ’cause today’s gonna be my day. I just wanna climb to the top of a mountain, standing tall when I’m howlin’ ’cause today’s gonna be my day.” Fitz and the Tantrums, “I Just Wanna Shine”

Suck on that, misery!

Posted on 04/02/202204/02/2022 by Me

Live Now and Zen

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