The Flip Side of Do the Thing … and a Narrative Flipped

(my apologies for how long this got--but part of it is a musical interlude. that flipped my narrative ;) )

So after that last glorious list of all my personal gold stars—my virtual, wordy sticker chart – I realized that this is totally only half the story. Listening to Brene Brown’s Rising Strong while I painted my youngest’s room,  I have been working through the idea of how we engage with our own stories—that is, what are the stories we have crafted about our experiences? How much of those are informed by things that we honestly believe, but are not true? (a confabulation, which is one of my favorite words, although in a different usage).  I get caught in my own inner narrative of ugh so very often, even when it is more fantastical than factual; that is just what my brain does.

For years I have tried to make sense of my daughter’s medical nightmare through story. But what about ALL THE OTHER THINGS?

I talk a good zen game, but on the actual field of play…I am more of a Zen Fumbler. I have to be honest about that—I can say I am doing all the things, but I have to acknowledge all the time NOT doing all the things. 

Everyone was so kind after that last blog post…and then I felt the creeping wave of anxious dismay, the OH MY GOSH I MISREPRESENTED MYSELF AS HAVING MY PROVERBIAL ...stuff... TOGETHER! THIS IS SELF INDULGENT DRIVEL...nooooooooooooooooooo….

Sigh.

Enter Saturday, a train wreck kind of day here. The kind of day where yoga almost made me more stressed, where I felt very let down in a particular situation, where parenting my teen pretty much took away every gold star I ever cheerfully gave myself.  Ever. In the history of gold stars. All of them.  I glommed through a funk the entire day, a funk of frustration, exasperation, and disappointment.  I felt so stressed I washed my kitchen floor (a task left incomplete for a horrifying length of time)…got halfway through and realized I used the wrong cleaner. So I gave up. Woo. THAT kind of day.

I found it very, very hard to do anything at all, and the things I did try to do got screwed up. Whomp Whomp galore.

This, really, is the flip side of my Do the Thing, the reason I feel compelled to be like HEY, I GET A GOLD STAR FOR BEING BY OTHER HUMANS!, even though by all  normal accounts, that is ridiculous to put that in the list of achievements.  So often, I struggle to do any of the things, even little things, even stupid “how is that even an issue?” kind of things.

This story of Yay, I did stuff!  is incomplete and really a lot less helpful to me or anyone without the flip side. In Brene Brown’s work, she describes this less festive part as Act II…you can’t skip it to get to the resolution in Act III…you have to work through it.

This was a summer of many, many painful losses and challenges. A dear friend’s father passed away very suddenly (a man I have known since first grade)--the week before my friend's husband was due to have a long awaited kidney transplant (something we've worried and prayed about for years), a former student who my son had gone to elementary school with died in an accident, a beloved and mighty friend finished her fight against metastatic breast cancer—my friend I went to see in April on my second flight-- in those days of loss, I did no things except wander my house and cry.  Then we got to my G’s 14^th anniversary of her diagnosis, and I was a bit whomped by remembering the awfulness of those early days. Being in those moments of grief and worry takes all that I have and then some. I do no things.

I DO NO THINGS.

The lack of closure in my old job nags at me, and I waste a lot of mental energy ruminating over how to let that go, or how to address it.  Ruminating is never productive—but since I’m working so part time right now, my ruminating is on overdrive. I get wrapped up in that anxiety/hurt/anger and do no things.

Dave asked the other day what I was doing with the mayhem of contents I took out of our thirdborn’s room when I painted –I told him of my multiple unsuccessful attempts to get thirdborn to deal with the piles of little animal erasers and pretty rocks she has saved for a decade. He expressed understandable frustration (he is so tidy and organized, we are all his nemesises. Nemesi?)—“I know you get stuck,” he finally said…and I could not be mad. Ok, I was mad, a little, but I could not deny his accuracy. I do get stuck. Like in mud/molasses/cement/sap sticky stickfest.  I do some things, and then…get stuck. Then no things get done.

I aspire to do the things. Just…I often don’t.

My annoyance/frustration/stuckness the last few days is a recurring theme in my story, and it’s a part I gloss over sometimes because it rankles. Getting stuck, wallowing in frustration and exasperation, being incompetent at basic human skills, having a perpetual pile on my counter, being a mess, ruminating on every painful interaction, allowing self-loathing to resurface from its swamp inside my head—these are ALL the anti-zen!  Yet without acknowledging these things, these ugly, unpleasant things, the gold stars make no sense. But acknowledging them remains a pile of meh.

I can’t be a golden fake. And while I AM really glad about those things I did, I know that they are only gold stars because my natural proclivity seems to be towards crabby cactus. You can’t just “om” your way out of some things. The work to get up is slow and ugly and fraught with ugh.

Phoo.

Also, I have a self-portrait as a crabby cactus that I can’t upload. Yay, Monday.

So, a qualified yay for gold stars. Not because I am super awesome for making a phone call or getting on an airplane, but because they remind me when I am super stuck in my own messy self, I have done some things. I hope…nope, I PLAN to do them again. Acknowledging the flip side is critical though, and provides essential context, even if it is meh-tastic.  

**************

And here is where I planned to end, but I had to get milk and cheese sticks at Costco and put gas in the car…so I left this draft to conclude later.

On the way to the store, inexplicably through my Bluetooth audio  came two songs I have not heard in years (I can never figure out why random music comes out…usually really old iPod stuff, but only 2 or three songs, and they are always different from the last mysterious song playing—I was trying to listen to my Brene Brown book).  I stumbled into a legit improbable musical interlude to interrupt my fest of frustration. So …here is my mind blowing ride to Costco Playlist from Who Knows Where…these songs helped me with the not so awesome feelings that accompanied today’s blog.

The first—“You are More” by the band Tenth Avenue North…

There's a girl in the corner
With tear stains on her eyes
From the places she's wandered
And the shame she can't hide

She says, how did I get here?
I'm not who I once was.  (this is super true)
And I'm crippled by the fear
That I've fallen too far to love.

But don't you know who you are,
What's been done for you?
Yeah don't you know who you are?

You are more than the choices that you've made,
You are more than the sum of your past mistakes,
You are more than the problems you create,
You've been remade.  (egads)

Well she tries to believe it
That she's been given new life
But she can't shake the feeling
That it's not true tonight

She knows all the answers
And she's rehearsed all the lines (we call this rumination, sports fans)
And so she'll try to do better
But then she's too weak to try   (seriously?? Get out of my head!)

But don't you know who you are?

You are more than the choices that you've made,
You are more than the sum of your past mistakes,
You are more than the problems you create,
You've been remade….

(and onward)

Well then. I hit repeat so I could hear it again. And I sang along. Loudly.  The French horn part, if there had been one, I always sing the French horn part. Nurture v. nature?

Next song: Natasha Bedingfield’s “Unwritten” , at which point I think I yelled WHAT THE HECK? at my car Bluetooth thing and started to get mildly creeped out by musical messages from who knows where….

…Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

 WELL THEN.

Thanks, God, universe, songwriters who put into words things that help me know that even if I’m crabby and frustrated, my story is more than how much I suck sometimes (pardon my use of the vernacular). Shake it off, and start again.  Acknowledge the ugh—but don’t let it define me. I AM more than my frequent ugh moments. And with practice, I CAN let the sun illuminate the words that I cannot find...

Onward…even if it’s slow and ughly some days…onward. Together we can keep moving right along and figure out this life thing, gold stars, ughulous days and all.

Peace.

This took a turn I did not expect! Glad I did not hit publish this morning.  Probably good I did not just Do the Thing, right? ;) ha!