Over the Wall and Back on Track

Well hello. 

So, about May…

Yeah. I kind of missed that month. 

At the end of April I hit a wall. Figuratively, not literally, thank goodness.  I did that one time in rage and I think I sprained a finger, so don’t hit a wall, people. Between working more, family stuff, friend stuff, life stuff, all the stuff, my words just got clogged. And as all good procrastinators know, the longer you put off something you meant to do, the harder it gets to do it, and the worse you feel about procrastinating, and then a vicious cycle of ugh takes over.

my wall

May tends to be a challenging month for me for a variety of reasons that I don’t feel like writing about again. Even sitting here typing about May, my hands keep freezing at the keyboard, my insides curl up with meh. I LOVE the outside during May, the flowers and birds and sunshine and rain and all the things.  My insides just won out this year when it came to writing.

Even with art, I hit a wall. Once I finished a gift for my parents’ 50^th wedding anniversary, I floundered about a bit. No project seemed right. No ideas really came. Even my attempts at sketching ideas felt meh.

Not everything fell apart. Everyone here still ate regular meals (with a not unreasonable number of foraging days), I found a better rug cleaner for my dog who anxiety or rage pees when we are not around, laundry is done and mostly put away. I did go to work regularly. I drove everyone where they needed to be all the times.  I have not missed a day of my home yoga practice since January 1 (will write about that another time). I threw a 50^th birthday party for my spouse and a graduation party for my miracle child. 

I bought nail polish.  That took weeks to get myself to do. The weird internal struggle is real, peoples. 

I couldn’t even post little inspirational quotes on the MRA page! You know, the one I created to actually make myself do the thing of trying to be encouraging and real and using the ugh of so much to maybe help folks bear their own ugh. I couldn’t even write a line on a page and post it. What the what??

Someday I will figure out what this kind of creative resistance is about, or why I can do one thing energetically and then crash or wander. 

But I have also realized that this is kind of just me. Facebook memories serve to remind me that I am always juggling things, always trying to make time, always trying to find energy, always affected by the weather…in the last 10 years, that has not changed a whole lot, and if I try hard to think back to before social media reminded me of things, I have to admit I probably operated the same way. 

Accepting that is key to addressing my own patterns and self-limiting beliefs (ie I never get anything done, I am a slug, etc). 

Now that I know I am done subbing for the year, it is time to regroup. Last week I floundered all week. Today it is time to get Movin’ Right Along again.  

The wall is always there, but I can keep climbing.  I still feel a deep responsibility to do SOMETHING during the time of medical reprieve we have been in for a couple of years now. I know to the depths of my core that this zen time can change in a heartbeat. Literally.  I have to use the time. So many of our friends are in such tough places right now. I have to use the time.

And at the same time—I have to figure out how to navigate a new season for my children (always a new season, it’s like getting shoes for a 13 year old boy, you finally find the right pair on sale and in the right size and two days later the kid has outgrown them. Urp. Yay, growth, but urp to the constant re-mapping of the way of things!). I have to figure out what I am supposed to be doing. Maybe it’s just to stay the course, to do the little things, to just do the next right thing? 

Whatever the case may be, I am done being paralyzed by the questions. I can do the next right thing. 

Today I get back on track. I will not edit this to death, or let it sit (like the little pencil sketch here) on my craft table for a month. Even my picture of a wall hit a wall. Doh. 

Movin’ right along…

Today is the day.

Also, now I am singing the Broadway Shrek. TODAY IS THE DAAAAAY…..

Hm.

Zen and Writing Down the New Year

So did you write down any resolutions this year?

New Year’s resolutions are SO last week, I know—but I love writing down goals, even if they are belatedly shared. I actually love writing down EVERYTHING.  Writing is the only way I can sort out my brain, which is why my few years of mostly silent was kind of alarming for me. The physical act of putting words on a page is very therapeutic.

One of the great gifts of using a bullet journal is that most of my random writing ends up in the journal and not all over my house…although full disclosure, the base of my laptop keyboard is currently set on top of 4 post it notes covered with flight information and hospital notes for this week’s appointments.  But I have far fewer scraps of paper now.

This year, led by the example of my sisters-- not some kind of cosmic sisters, I mean my actual sisters, at least the 4 who happened to be home when I stumbled into their goal setting session-- I wrote “18 for ‘18”—a list of 18 goals for the year.  The “18 for ‘18” caught my imagination. I still have a few slots open in case I get inspired (and I do have one big goal that I don’t want to announce, but I think I am going to write it down when I’m done writing here—when I achieve it I will share. I am determined to beat my brain at its own game)…but most of my goals are set.

Some are big. Some are creative. Some are professional. Some are improbable (will I master an inversion in yoga, like a legit head stand? Going to try!).  Some are scary. But just the act of writing things down helps my zen.  Setting goals helps my zen.  The feeling of getting a fresh start helps my zen. Writing all of these things in colorful felt tip pens brings my zen a whole new level of hooray.

I am trying to encourage my family to try to embrace the zen of writing things down, but right now I am still a voice crying out in the wilderness on that front, even though I got them nice colorful felt tip pens, too.

One of the things I have gained by writing things down is a dual sense of progress (hey, I have been exercising/praying/doing yoga/practicing gratitude  regularly for months!) and a sense of where I am still paralyzed (I am now 4 months past needing to set up certain annual appointments. One of my January goals is “make the darn appointments already”).  Putting the mayhem of my brain into some kind of order, even if that order reveals that I put off scheduling a haircut for 3 months, that order helps my sense of peace. Giving myself gold stars for the things I get done (a Happiness Project insight) gives me a sense of accomplishment. A “W” is a “W”, no matter how small ...from one of Dr. Seuss’s lesser known projects, Horton Keeps On Moving.

I also realize, in writing down calendars and notes about my day, where outside circumstances feed my anxiety. Schedule chaos at work creates a particular set of challenges for my brain.  Unexpected small annoyances get in my head—like how can ShopRite be out of bananas? Literally ONE SAD SOFT BUNCH LEFT??  Sick kids, needing to reschedule very stressful hospital appointments, car problems—all of these normal life things can throw me off my A-game pretty fast, a paradigm I am working hard to shift this year.  Jotting down notes about my day helps me see where my goals are challenged by my sometimes lack of skill in dealing with small adversities. I see how far I still have to go.

 I know that some of this is a product of the Tsunami of Adversity we rode out for years. But I know in 2018 I do not need to be a prisoner to past ways of dealing with things. And writing down goals, habits, resolutions, gratitude, and ongoing progress/paralysis points creates a path towards freedom.

Writing everything down, even in extremely abbreviated form (no long form journal entries—teeny bullet points at best) helps me be more aware of everything, really, instead of being overwhelmed by a sea of swirling stresses. Anxiety thrives in that particular figurative oceanic habitat, and I want to create a different environment for my brain where possible—and work through the moments where anxiety fed by circumstance or otherwise rears its ugly head. 

Starting to keep a bullet journal for my schedule and to-do lists was a goal I made in September, and one that is now a habit. I hope to use this in the New Year to keep track of my progress on my “18 for ‘18”, and to understand why sometimes my progress is at best negligible, or even a weird backflop.

How do you keep track of goals/resolutions? Does any kind of tracking system work for you? If you live with anxiety or generalized ugh, have you found any particular writing strategies helpful?

Next Tuesday I will explain the bullet journal a bit more—this Friday I will continue the Happiness Project conversation. 

Now I have to go put a gold star in my journal because I blogged. J Yay!

Me, the Big Rock, and Mount Yikes--Movin' Right Along--Again

She Bloggeth!

Ok, so that is a little melodramatic, but subtlety has never been a strength of mine. My loud face gets me in so much trouble at faculty meetings, I legit have to stare at my notes whenever any person is talking—because even if I say NOTHING, my stupid loud face says all the things that one should never say at any meeting. 

But I digress. I haven’t even started, and I am digressing…this does not bode well.

BUT—I am determined. Words are both powerful on their own, and empowering, and my inability to write ANYTHING after telling our family story two or three years ago alarms me.

Our penchant for falling into statistically improbable bad stuff just finally caught up with me, I guess, and I lost all my words.  For the last twelve and a half years I have been pushing a Big Rock around. Sometimes I can really get it rolling. Sometimes I end up squished under it for a bit (ok, for years at a time,  2004-2006, and then for a couple of months in the summers of 2008,9,10, then 2011-2013, then June 2014, then three months of 2016…*cough).

 Recently, I just got stuck. Kind of like this:

Obviously I did not fill the last few years with art lessons.

And by recently, I mean for like, two or three years. Maybe longer.

Last year my Survivor Kid had whooping cough, technically “pertussis-like syndrome” since she had been vaccinated—hers was a “mild case”.

On a couple of occasions last winter/spring we thought we were going to lose her.  Like, in my kitchen. Mild my fat fanny. I can’t imagine how horrifying the full blown version is…

For whatever reason, that particular pitfall on Mount Yikes really derailed me.  We had made it through brain tumor hell AND high water and a stupid regular illness FOR WHICH SHE HAD BEEN VACCINATED could make my kid choke and turn blue in front of us?  The ER doc who finally gave us a diagnosis was remarkably understanding about why the two psycho onco parents in front of her were in full blown HELL NO mode.

mom note: the whooping cough booster seems to last about 5 years, so...you all might want to check on that. And just because one HAS whooping cough does not mean they are now perpetually immune. Fricka Fracka...
Even a year later, Survivor Kid’s little sister still gets twitchy any time Survivor Kid coughs.

This situation put about 4 tons more on the Big Rock, and added 15k elevation to Mount Yikes.  Mount Yikes was already pretty steep, school was tough, work was tough, life was life. Everyone has tough. That is what life is…we certainly have zero monopoly on Mount Yikes…

….And then we lost some of our long time BT and NF friends in the fall. I still don’t have words for that. So I shall just speak that dark moment, that moment that flattened me for a month, and try to keep pushing up the hill.

Since early fall I have been working through things, really focusing on exercise, and yoga (remarkably helpful, even 20 minute “Yoga for The Ridiculously Inflexible” videos that I do at home, by myself, where only the dog can laugh at me.  I talked to a doctor, and got some help getting my personal chemistry back in place.  I am trying to read things that will help or inspire me—even if I haven’t OPENED Full Catastrophe Living, it’s waiting here to be read.  I am talking to God. I am making an effort to connect more with other people, because I kind of moved into a bit of a cave on Mount Yikes during the last few years.

It is a work.

But I will do it.  And – well here I am. Writing something while both of my girls are at their new schools, doing great. My son—at his school, doing great (no random broken bones in January this year, well, not for him, just for third born. But we managed it.)   I am planning a two day getaway with Dave for the summer, it’s been two years and we need to just have a couple of days near the ocean, just being. 

The work is working. The Big Rock is slowly moving.

I still have trouble reading my words about Survivor Kid and all our family went through. We still live with the late effects of that journey every minute of every day. I read things I wrote years ago, in our life “Before Brain Tumors”, and I almost can’t believe that I wrote them.  Nothing like being at a youth group thing and realize folks are acting out a funny skit you wrote 42,000 years ago.  I used to be really sharp and funny, not just scary.   And you know what, I can work back there again. This is a first step.  Not perfect. I am trying (as always!) not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.  Let's do this.

Big Rock has gotten mossy from sitting in one place for so long.  So let’s get moving.