Just Not the Marrying Kind

That's what Math-Rat (the ex-husband) said to me, with a straight face, after 30 years of marriage.  He demanded to be set free of the marriage because, "whoops!  Just not the marrying kind, after all.  So sorry for the inconvenience."  Actually, he never ever, once, said he was sorry, so, let's not give him that much credit.

And, of course, he's living with, owns a house with, is in a long-term relationship with, a younger woman who has two children of her own.  He's not legally married, but he's married for all practical purposes.  Gosh, who saw that coming?  (sarcasm filter off)

I, on the other hand, was completely invested in that (dysfunctional and dangerous) marriage.  No, I was completely defined by it.  Heaven knows, there is plenty to explore there, about how and why I let that happen.  But that's not today's task.  I was so very married.  And then I wasn't.

And I'm still not.  What's up with that?  I realized the other day, in a strange epiphany while washing my hands, that I have chosen the single life.  It didn't just happen to me.  I have a feeling that walking this path is part of what I was put on this earth to do.  (I have a feeling that Math-Rat is in a relationship because he's avoiding figuring out the answer to that same question.  I try not to think about his path, but apparently I could try somewhat harder.)

Mark Twain famously posited that the most important two days in your life are the day you were born and the day you figure out why.  I have not quite had that second day, yet, but I think I'm getting there.  In the meantime, I know that I have so much personal work to do in order to become the person I imagine myself becoming, that I don't have time or energy to also be tending a relationship.  I think I would just step right back into putting the relationship and the other person first and I would get sidelined -again.  I don't want to participate in my own marginalization.

But, phrased more positively, I can live my most authentic life alone.  Once I climbed out of the cave of despair and fear that his leaving threw me into, it's really been pretty great.  I like coming home to the quiet.  I don't have to plan meals that someone else will eat, or plan events that someone else will like.  I choose what will make me happy, proud, safe.... whatever.

I guess it turns out that I'm not the marrying kind.

Which is not the same thing as saying that I have this whole thing figured out.  This is not a "look at my perfect life" mommy blog.  This is more like an "oh my lands, how do I get everything done and meet my own standards?" blog.

Staying Hopeful in a Hostile World

So, this happened.  I was just threatened and verbally assaulted for my political views.  I understand that my political and justice principles are not widely shared.  This does not surprise me.  I'm so far left of "Democrat" that - until recently, anyway- Democrat and Republican looked roughly the same from my perspective.  This is not a common worldview, and it annoys people because it's hard to understand.  I'm not always crazy about it myself, truth be told.

And, let's be clear.  I do not actually care what this person thinks about me.  I do think it's weird and unsettling that he felt entitled to express his opinions about me so personally and violently.  OK, I'm trying not to care.  Real-Andrea wants everyone to think she's nice, and funny, and smart, even if they don't always agree with her.

But here's the way more important thing.  In the face of this kind of hostility, how can I stay hopeful for change?  What's to keep me from answering back with equal hostility, because I definitely do have that ability in me?  What's to keep a person from just dropping out of the fray, frightened and wounded from the anger - the very focused and fear-inducing anger?

The answer seems like a spiritual one.  Faith communities are good at helping people locate hope when all seems lost.  And God bless them for that.  Seriously.  But I don't have - or want, right now- a faith community.  Too many other things come with that community support, things that I just can't have in my life right now.  So, how might a person such as myself find hope?

In some ways, the answer is the same: community.  We are in a strange new world - one where hostility has been unleashed.  One where ferocious racism, homophobia, anti-intellectualism, and sexism can be expressed with a disturbing sense of righteousness.   One where moral fitness to lead has been utterly abdicated.  We need each other in this madness.  We need to find each other and support each other, even if (when) we disagree about the details.

Hatred can not defeat hate.  Rather, love surrounds hatred and cuts off its oxygen.  I can not  -just bloody CAN NOT- love the people who are perpetrating these travesties of injustice on this country.  It's too much.  I have to leave that for better people.  But I can lead with love.  I can do what I do from love.  I can set about creating the culture I want to live in, which really is about love.

We won't get there.  See above.  My version of the perfect culture is probably too "out there" for most people.  But that's ok.  If we change the story, leading with love, we'll prevent this strange march toward devastation that we seem to be on.

So, first, find your companions on the journey.  That's my task.

Living Off Balance

From time to time, I do a weirdly unhealthy thing.  My life gets so very off-balance that I literally lose my footing.  No metaphor.  I fall over.  Like, a lot.  It's the craziest thing.  I'm not an uncoordinated person when all is well.  Yet, I get to this place where I am moving too fast to keep up with myself.  It's particularly charming when I lose my balance in the middle of the street, which has happened.  It turns out I'm not alone.  Check out this post, Falling Off Things, from Fit is a Feminist Issue.

Here's the thing.  This morning I fell in my own bedroom.  There was no cat underfoot to trip me.  There was no naughty puppy jumping on me and knocking me tail over teakettle.  My slippers caught on the carpet, and I went down.  I was dressed for work, lacking only my shoes, and was grabbing things and running (literally) out the door.  I had to stay on the floor for quite a while before I felt ready to get up - and of course by then all the animals were sprawled around me, either in commiseration with their friend or plotting how to exact their revenge if I couldn't get up to feed them. So, when I got up, I was covered in fur from stressed out companion animals and had to start the whole getting-dressed process over.  Along with being painful, this is not what you could call an efficient way to get your morning underway.

The nerve-wracking thing is that the first place I look for "blame" is aging.  Perhaps I am becoming one of those little old ladies who doesn't have enough core strength to protect herself.  THAT would be unsettling. I have been working so hard to ensure that is not my story.  Admittedly, I had let things get wildly out of hand in the fitness department, so I'm nowhere near the elite fitness I have in mind.  Nowhere even in the same galaxy, but I don't feel fragile.

Instead, I really think it's the universe telling me quite literally - as in, with a blow to the knees- that I have to get centered.  For all the universe cares, I can stay this busy, but I have to get a grip.

To complicate matters, I like all the categories, if you will, of my life.  There is nothing that stands up and shouts "you can let this go!"  I love my job.  It makes me feel powerful to be able to take care of myself.  I love helping people extend their intellectual curiosity and supporting them as they solve the world's problems.   I'm besotted with my companion animals, and enjoy caring for them well.  I love my house.  It deserves better care than it gets, but I truly enjoy the process of making it mine.  I love cooking.  I love exercising.  I love my family and friends. 

Indeed, there are things I would love -need,even- to add to the mix.  Where did creativity and making beautiful things go?   Where did social justice work go?  Where did political engagement go?  Where did travel go?  Where did writing go?  I wish I could get my house back to a point where it could serve as a haven, a gathering place for political engagement, a social place.... but it's in such a state of flux and mess from the remodeling that it can not currently serve that purpose.

So, you see the problem.  How might one balance having a lot -everything, in fact- to do, with being centered and grounded?  I get the feeling that we're talking radical self-care here - on beyond getting a massage, although that's good, too.  I have to meditate, do yoga, somehow tend my spiritual side; there has to be calm in the eye of this storm.  I need to journal and explore the process of allowing myself to move forward, however imperfectly.  But the real thing is that I need to be fully present in each moment - and to do whatever it takes to make that possible. As Susan Tarshis says in her much more eloquent post, it's about "alertness without anxiety."  For me, it might be more about focus without grasping for total control of all life's details.

So, doing MORE is the answer?  How can that be right?  It's not the activity I need to let go of, perhaps.  It's the internal chatter of panic.

What's so hard about Sundays?

Sundays defeat me, and I don't know why.  I feel harassed by the state of the house, when ordinarily I like puttering and nesting.  I feel smothered by the constant attention from the animals which other days strikes me as sweet.  I feel aggravated by the undone work which during the week feels like a fun challenge.  I feel listless and tired when this could be my time to get fun things done.  My gardens feel tyrannical and shaming rather than fun.

Hard to believe THIS frustrates me!!!

Yikes. How did I get here?

I'm alone quite a lot.  Surely I don't need more alone time.  And why Sundays and not Saturdays, if the house is the sole problem?  I'm quite sure that it's not that I dread going to work and regret the end of the weekend.  I like going to work; it's the weekend I'm less sure about.

It turns out I'm not the only one who feels this way.  A Swedish study found this to be a common phenomenon, at least across Europe - and they ruled out the "day before the return to work" theory.  These investigators seem to think that we created this day that is supposed to be special - a day of rest and spirituality, and when we assign specialness to an experience we doom it to failure.

But understanding it doesn't fix the problem.  I could turn Sundays into a spa day, but none of the spas are open. I absolutely need to get out of the house.  I should definitely not skip a workout.  I should find a yoga class; Ariana Yoga has a hatha yoga class.  I should go out for coffee.  This is the day I could grocery shop.  Meditating and writing are both helpful.

My office is somewhere off on the right on the second floor

The thing that does NOT help is going to work to get caught up.  Doing that just makes me feel like I'm avoiding the other pieces of my life.  It's not a good scenario.  And yet, I know that I have to go to work next weekend, because I've gotten myself boxed in.  Oh well,  I'll get where I'm going, I suppose.

A Dog and his Human

I'm a Labrador-lover.  This breed has a claim on my heart, and that's that.  Shamrock (a black Lab) was my first dog.  He died too soon, and taught me SO much.  And I learned after his death that I not only missed that particular dog, I missed dog.  I missed the dog lifestyle.

What on earth is that, you ask?  Fair enough.  I missed walking around the neighborhood with my dog.  I missed a dog in the back seat on Saturday errands.

I missed the excuse to go to nearby forest preserves and parks.  I missed not feeling quite so much like a nut when I talked out loud to myself; I could always pretend I was talking to the dog, after all.

So, I got Finnegan - the yellow Lab.  He was a 7 week old puppy when he came to his forever home, and we've been through the wringer, he and I.   There's a big difference between a puppy and a 2 year old dog, who's actually sick and has a fairly calm temperament to begin with.  Finnegan and Shamrock are nothing alike, when you get right down to it.

So, this dog lifestyle that's in my head as a perfect picture has nothing to do with the dog lifestyle I'm actually living.  The picture-perfect version is a well-trained dog, who never ever has accidents in the house, who goes in the kayak, who goes eagerly with me on road trips, who camps with me, who lets me sleep in on the weekends (how he might know it's the weekend.... well, this is the fantasy picture, after all!).  Oh, and a dog who is politely tired from all these activities and leaves me alone when I need to work or entertain or talk on the phone or....

Also, in this fantasy, my house is the perfect dog-house without crossing over into crazy animal-lover territory.  So, there would be cute dog beds in almost every room (keeps him off the furniture, in my fantasy), there would be cute dog toy boxes full of stimulating toys.  The back yard would have things for him to do, and a lovely fence so that he could play safely.  I would make all his food and store it in clever containers in the deep freeze (that I don't have).  There certainly would not be dog hair here, there, and everywhere.

As is usual for me, the actual situation is somewhat different.  He wakes me up at 5:30 in the morning.  I am a terrible grump at 5:30; I don't see this changing about myself anytime soon.  I sling on whatever clothes I can find for a quick 1/2 mile walk.  I sometimes feed him homemade food; more often, I rely on over-priced, ecologically burdensome, but well-rated commercial dog food.  We do a lot of things together, but not really enough, when you take his youth and energy level into consideration.  And my house and yard are really not dog friendly, so that needs work, too.

I more than half-worry that I should not have gotten such an active dog as a single person.  Is my crazy work schedule and busy life incompatible with living with a dog?  Is it fundamentally unkind to such a great dog?  He loves me, I know he does.  But am I doing right by him?  Because I am so crazy about him, though, those are the wrong questions -even they plague me.  The only right question is how to make sure he has a great life.

I think he would like to run with me.  I am not a runner, but it's something I'd like to conquer.  A slow jog would be fine, come to that.  If I could walk even just 1 mile at that early morning walk, doubling our distance, I think he would like that better than the short walk we're taking now -and it would be a nice bit of extra exercise for me.  If we could add another walk to our days, making three good walks daily, I think that would help.  We need to always be in a training class or an organized activity; it helps our relationship enormously if we are learning together.  We're going to do the Advanced Manners class until he easily passes his Canine Good Citizen test.  We're also going to do the outdoor group hiking class.  In the winter, we should do rally or nose-work classes.

We're headed into good weather, so I need to stop relying on the dog park so much and get out to parks and preserves more regularly.  I absolutely must develop a rainy day plan for us.  I need to take him with me to the pet food store and anywhere else that he can go (Lowes?  Home Depot?) 

He goes to daycare twice a week.  It's okay with me if that goes to three times a week in the deepest part of the winter.

But on the non-daycare days when I have to work, I either need a dog walker or I need to go home for a lunch-time walk-around.  Again, it will be good for me, better for my house, and better for my dog.  One of those days, I bet I could stay at home and work from home for the afternoon - at least sometimes.   On the weekends, we need to spend significant amounts of time together, that's all there is to it.



I must, I really must ensure that the house is safe and inviting for him.  Poisonous plants must be removed from the yard.  Remodeling clutter has to be picked up every single day, even if the workers are coming back tomorrow.  The yard needs to be tended, in any case.  If I can figure out a way to keep him safe, he can be out there with me while I work.  He has a toybox full of outdoor toys.  I also have agility equipment that we need to make better use of.  He needs a paddling pool.

And, on busy days, we can relax together in the evening.  We can sit by the firepit.  I can have wine, and he can have a bone.  We can sit in front of the fireplace in the winter. 

We can watch TV on nights when nothing else is possible.  If I read aloud to him, he can practice for the Library's kid-reading program.

We need to get back to short and sweet training sessions throughout the day.  5 minutes at a time, 3 or 4 times a day, would be great.

 In short, we're in this together, he and I.  Whether or not I have the energy, these things need to happen.

Opening up to possibility when you feel paralyzed

Publicly, and even with good friends, I laugh off my paralysis about making big decisions.  "I can over-think anything."  I pretend, without saying so explicitly, that my discomfort with big decisions is just the shadow side of being smart.  I think too much.

Well, THAT'S obnoxious.  This psychological deflection is because I am avoiding harder truths, but it's still obnoxious.

So I am publicly admitting that I do this rude thing and that I will stop.

For the rest of this reflection to make sense, you need to know a bit of the back story.  I stayed in a marriage that was abusive and emotionally crippling.  At first, I was afraid of what might be on the other side of ending the marriage; uncertainty kept me there.  Eventually, though, the abuse worked.  I was grateful to be in that dark marriage because I believed he was right about me.  I was entirely certain that I couldn't survive on the other side.  The thing about walking that path with an abuser is that he needs a strong opponent to feel strong himself.  Once I was no longer strong, I was used up.  Being discarded was inevitable.  And I lied about it - to myself and everyone else.  I spun a tale - quite an effective one, as it happens- that we were happy and healthy and having fun.  I desperately needed that to be the story.

I have feared big decisions and uncertainty for a long time -possibly always-  and apparently to the point where I will hide behind untruths to avoid confronting them.  Who is this crazy woman??  And of course, that fear led straight to the heap of woe that doesn't take a rocket scientist to predict.  Had he not left me, I would still be in that marriage, I am quite sure of it.  Generous, loving friends have tried to reframe what I did as loyalty.  I stayed because I am fundamentally a good person, the story goes.  Thank you, dear ones.  I love that you see me that way, but I stayed because I was paralyzed by uncertainty and fear.

Obviously then, there is no lack of evidence that paralysis rooted in uncertainty does not serve me.  And yet.... I am doing it again, and this time without the excuse of an abuser in my life.  This time, it's on me.  There is a nagging feeling and mounting external evidence that it's time for me to make more life changes, and I'm resisting.  Who's surprised?  This time, though, I have the advantage of knowing that I can survive disruption.  It took lots of people lots of effort, true enough, to get me through that first disruption.  But eventually I was strong enough to take over the work myself.  We're here now, and it's better than "there" ever was.

I also know a little about how I got through that disruption; I now have a skillset of a sort.  I took baby steps.  Absurdly small steps sometimes.  But forward motion is forward motion; even small steps set a trajectory.  My job right now is just to take a step forward, not to have all the answers.  Nine years ago, I could not have envisioned this marvelous life I now have.  Literally, I did not have the tools to even imagine the changes I have experienced.  I knew barely enough to take baby steps away from terror and pain.  This time,  all I have to do is take steps from the marvelous vaguely toward the more marvelous.  Even I - fearing uncertainty as I do- understand that this moves takes less courage than the first one.  Baby steps.

You can't lifehack your way through this

I admit to a small (former) fascination with life hacks.  Maybe there is some little trick that, if I just do that one little thing, my life smooths out and becomes the picture I have in my head.  At the very least, it is pleasing to get more done in the same amount of time, or to have a little bit of technology relieve me of some burden.  My life-plan depends on getting things done efficiently - or at the very least staying out of my own way.  Life hacks seem like a good way of avoiding unnecessary effort, drama, and inefficiency.  But I'm coming to the conclusion that they are just an avoidance behavior.

At first I mis-identified the problem as definition drift, almost to the point of meaningless-ness.  Oh, that problem exists, right enough.  The term life hack originally meant using technology in some clever new way to solve a problem.  Then it came to mean using anything to save time or solve a problem.  Now it seems to mean just any little trick at all; these used to be known as good ideas.  I quote here from Urban Dictionary:

A: "Did you know that if you take a shampoo bottle, pour some shampoo on your hand, and mush it into your head when you're in the shower, your hair will smell better? Lol, my favorite life hack!"
B: "Shut up." 

Then I considered the possibility that there was a shaming quality to the suggestions.  Check these google results for "life hack" out.

"20 life hacks to solve problems you never thought about"  Isn't that just another way of saying "a solution without a problem"?

"40 things you've been doing wrong all your life" Isn't that just another way of saying "you're too stupid to have figured out the things I've known all along"?

I don't need to feel worse, or to waste my time solving non-problems, true.  But there's more to my aggravation than pique at a tone of voice or imprecise use of the language.  We've got ourselves a bigger problem.  Life hacks are purely external. Hang the clothes this way rather than that.  Store the cups in the cupboards that way rather than this.  OK, fine.   But here are the goals I set for myself when my life first took this turn into single living: (copying and pasting from my 400-page annual plan.  We'll talk about THAT another day!!)

Replace shame with power.  Invent your world.  Surround yourself with color, sounds, and work that nourish you.  I want to be able to say, truthfully,

·         I am safe

·         I am grounded

·         I am balanced

·         I am worthy

·         I am healthy

·         I surround myself with beauty

·         I am grace-full with my friends and family

·         I make a difference

·         I am thriving.

     Ummm.... wow.  Those are some important tasks, Miss Missy, and that's not even all of them. And they involve considerable internal work, in addition to the external.    Prior to the external, most likely.  You can't life hack your way through this stuff.  Just as an example.... until I can consider the possibility that I am worthy of being healthy, it probably doesn't matter if I pack my gym bag the night before or sleep in my gym clothes rather than pajamas.  I won't go to the gym.  I'll find something else to do; I just know it.  The problem with life hacks is that they have us focused on the trivial.  That's what we do when the essential scares us, which is pretty much the definition of avoidance behavior.

I     Here's the real problem.  I get it that feelings of being worthy, and grounded, and balanced require the long game.  In the meantime, though, my cardiovascular health-requirements are the same as anyone else's.  I need to exercise, even while feeling unworthy.  I need to act as though I am balanced, even though I am spectacularly not - otherwise I will never set appropriate boundaries.  Where are the life hacks for that??  Once again, it seems that I will have to figure this thing out myself.

      But first, I am going to rearrange the cups in the cupboard. Couldn't hurt.  Might help.