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The last three months

January 28, 2021 flippingpageslikemad

To my dedicated base of readers: happy holidays. I myself did not get to fully enjoy Thanksgiving, nor celebrate Chanukah, nor celebrate Christmas. New Year’s Eve, I was bedridden, recovering from a 3-week hospital stay. I’m not ashamed of why I was hospitalized, but at the same time I do not feel like going into it now on the wide-open internet, but I will say I physically suffered from being in the hospital. I pray you had a less-shitty (which is to say less 2020) holiday season and you got to see your people safely and that everyone was in good spirits and good health.

My illness (and two hospital stays) means that in addition to having been away from blogging (but you knew that), I’ve also been off from work for almost three months. For a fun thought experiment you can try at home, try taking the largest source of empowerment and self-worth from a person with anxiety. Hilarity does not ensue. I love my job and the people that work with me, and I am unmoored without them.

The anxiety over wanting to return to work was nothing new; I’ve had anxiety for at least four years! What’s new is that it faded. I don’t feel anxiety because I am resigned. I know there is nothing I can do or say to speed up the return process. What positive updates, you may say! Not quite. I am numb with how much has been taken from me or otherwise lost. I physically cannot give any more fucks. The fucks have run out. This also translates to not really wanting to talk to or see others. I feel a sense of connection to family and friends who have reached out to check on me, but I am hyper aware of people who knew I was sick and did not reach out. (That said, my phone entirely died during the hospital stay and I have zero record of anything sent to me most of December.)

Despite the many loved individuals reaching out to me, I’m struggling with feeling community-less. Part of this is covid.. there is no in-person group activity happening at all in my circle of friends. Of my two main communities, one community won’t let me back in just yet, and the other I chose to step back from in November. Can I still be the angry librarian if I’m not working in a library? (I hope so, because WordPress just auto-renewed for another year.) I chose to quit because pandemic hours meant I had to go in for one two-hour shift each week and it was too much effort to juggle, and I will be happy to work there again once our hours normalize. It feels so different walking in now, but some of that feeling is due to pandemic/masks/plexiglass screens. I know that I am still part of the community, even though technically my role has changed. Now, instead of fearing that I’m the last to know library goings on, I actually am the last to know.

And for the first time ever, I’m okay with being the last to know (or, gasp!, not knowing). I’ve disconnected. I don’t even feel the anxiety over politics (thanks, Obama) because we are on our way to making the country operate like a rational entity again. Oh, and, I haven’t read the Skimm since November. It’s a wonder what being uninformed can free a person from! I was by no means a news junkie, but even the one political email I opened per day was stressful as hell. I’ll dip my toes back into the water eventually, but for right now, I’ve eliminated or disassembled many of my triggers. Medication helps, too, so I should not pretend I’ve reached this non-anxious state alone.

In summary, the last 3 months of my life have been not great. I have struggled with how to talk and write about something I don’t want to talk or write about, and this is intentionally vague to support that effort. It goes without saying, but I wanted to emphasize again that last year was a terrible year for traditional community-building methods, and I still miss our old way of life. I entered the hospital (still) a nervous wreck about the pandemic and exposure, and left as a person who often forgets to bring a mask on the way to run errands. Cured, or broken? I write to again remind people to check on their squad. Just because things are “looking up” does not necessarily mean all people feel up. I write to remind others and also hold myself accountable, as many people have reached out to me and I feel guilty only texting them back because I don’t want to talk on the phone. I write to say that yes I am jubilant about Biden and Harris in the White House but even that joy isn’t enough to motivate me when I have absolutely nothing to do. Biden and Harris can’t be my workout buddies, nor can they decide whether I do instacart or go to the damn grocery store myself.

So please excuse me as I go prepare for my day (yes, it is 11:30am). I will shower, put on real pants and go to the holy land of Trader Joe’s. God willing they will have the fancy gluten free muffins and I will even allow myself a seltzer purchase (and maybe, too, I’ll take a peek at the greeting cards). This is truly the one thing I have to do today. Here’s hoping I can find the motivation to pull it off. Though honestly, I might do my taxes instead out of procrastination. Tonight I’m meeting one of my beautiful friends for a virtual chat as we watch Uncorked, a Netflix Party of 2.

Slowly but surely I’m finding ways to pass my time as I enter week 3 of the attempt to reenter work. This month has been nowhere near as hard as being in the hospital, so I can’t hyperbolize, but I’m definitely not responding to the situation well. Send mail, send texts, even send thoughts and prayers. Anything is better than nothing!

be a better human, books, community, empathy, home, strangers, talking

If you look

May 30, 2020May 31, 2020 flippingpageslikemad

I exited a conversation with my best friend this week. We were chatting about how sickened we are that Minneapolis police murdered a nonviolent black man, George Floyd. I do not know how anyone under any conditions feels justified in taking another human life, much less when that individual is not threatening their own, much less begging for air. She lamented how depressing it is that humanity isn’t getting any better, that we don’t learn from history and continue being awful to one another. The conversation was too big and heavy for me to deal with during the work day. I felt my panic rising. Because that sense of futility, of hopelessness that nothing is getting better–those are my deep fears. Neither of us want to live in the type of place where police exercise deadly force without a threat to their lives. My brain grabbed for that one essay/chapter of a book where someone smarter than me addresses this concept and how it is a fallacy, but I came up short of the title. I tossed out a “think of the big picture” comment about how even though it feels that nothing is improving, I believe, as horrifying and terrible as every new racist murder is, overall the country is getting better.

It’s getting better because we are looking. This country was built on ugliness, on the trade, subjugation, brutalization and exploitation of enslaved people. Exploiting and murdering people of color is a truly evil and despicable part of this nation’s history, and though I don’t claim to be an expert, I know that race-based violence was far more mainstream and accepted the farther back you look. Now, we have the technology to record and share abuses of power with the world. Yes, racism is alive and well, but now we can expose it to the light of public opinion and demand change.

We are connected in our reactions (horror, mourning, rage) and our actions (signing petitions/calling/emailing the DA to demand that the people who perpetrated and who allowed the perpetration of this murder to be held accountable. Though I don’t condone destruction, I understand why Minneapolis is burning in protest. This is a reckoning.

What I didn’t have the time or the emotional energy to remind my BFF is that, as MLK made famous, the moral arc of history bends towards justice. This is not to say that the arc is a straight, ever-upward line. There are setbacks and tough times, and race-based violence has certainly increased since 2016. But systemic racism hasn’t gone anywhere, hasn’t decreased or increased. It is invisible. It is only there if we look. People choosing to stand up and mobilize on behalf of decency and good and refusing to tolerate bigotry and hate and inequality.. that’s how we bend the arc towards justice. Critical mass engagement.

I believe in reading about other experiences than my own, so here is a lengthy list of books about racial literacy!

I didn’t set out to write about this. I wanted to write about this amazing book I read called Kiss the Ground. Without getting too into the weeds, (is dad humor acceptable now that I’ve changed the subject?) it dealt with soil’s role in the carbon cycle, and it made me want to start a small farm and harvest it with my hands. I wanted to write about how nature is healing during the corona shutdown. I wanted to share a laugh at the “nature is healing / we are the virus” photos online. In case I haven’t been clear up to this point, I very much believe that we are the virus. We are the problem human-to-human, and human-to-environment. Our consumer- and profit-driven culture is killing the planet (specifically the heavy use of chemicals/factory farming and the omnipresence of plastics).

In this way, I have been so grateful for this insular time. (Yes, I am aware that being grateful for the pandemic is a privilege and acknowledge that I have an income and a yet-able-ish body.) I have barely driven my car, eliminating my guilt over burning fossil fuels. I have supported local businesses rather than monoliths. (At this point I almost entirely avoid Amazon, because this amount of money is sickening, crisis or not, when you consider how these companies pay SO little in taxes and how so many Americans are literally going hungry right now.) It isn’t easy to have our culture completely halted, and there’s that nagging fear that any time we leave our houses we will contract and spread a fatal disease, but the Earth is benefitting from this break from our fossil fuel addiction. This shutdown has disrupted our resource-guzzling autopilot.

Because yes, it is inconvenient and scary and uncomfortable being forced to stay at home and stop production/socializing/life as usual. But the air is clearing. Mount Everest is visible from 120 miles away whereas usually pollution obscures the view. This time is an amazing opportunity for clarity, for stillness. For observation and for recharging. But this clarity can only move those who look. When the world resumes again, we have the opportunity and responsibility to rebuild. I, for one, do not want to resume life as usual. I want something better. The status quo does not work for the critical mass.

Yes, there is a lot of turbulence right now, and it’s true that anger and violence in and of themselves don’t solve anything. But we have to take stock. We have to look at the problems we’ve been keeping in the dark. To recognize inequity, imbalance and their resulting rage. People in power can’t keep exercising ultimate control over other people, and they can’t keep exploiting the Earth’s natural resources. We can come out of this recentered, with a more inclusive, sustainable, equitable and engaged populace. I am appalled at how our government has responded to this crisis, and at how my fellow Americans are willing and eager to tolerate or perpetrate racist hate. If we look around, we must recognize that our country is not as great as we thought. We have to do better, in so many ways. If we look, we have to recognize that all people want and are made of the same stuff.

We can’t keep looking away from the problems in our country (same goes for the plethora of human rights violations around the world). Our government and industry have the power to create new jobs dedicated to sustainability and we the people have the power to elect leaders who have the powerless’ best interest at heart. Leaders who care about tomorrow and not just about profits today. Now is the time to reach out and help. To talk to people, even if they are hard conversations. To come together and demand change with this new clarity. If you look, there are plenty of people who share your fears, beliefs and hopes. Find them. Shine your light with them.

*not on facebook. Facebook doesn’t count.

be a better human, home, kindness, let it go, meditation, strangers, talking

Called Out/Tuning In

April 17, 2020 flippingpageslikemad

Today, something fun happened. On my lunch break, I made a sandwich, perilously close to the start time of meditation. I debated not “going” to meditation. Instead, I reasoned that being three minutes late and eating a sandwich did not bar me from virtual attendance where I would have my camera and audio muted, so I shuffled back to the computer, finished eating and closed my eyes.

Not long after, the gentleman who guides the meditation paused from his regularly scheduled broadcasting about breathing and addressed the group. Two people had their sound turned on, and he asked everyone to check that it wasn’t their own. Barbara and Aaron did not check. He asked them by name to silence their computers. Another few moments went by, and Barbara still did not check! “Barbara, please silence your computer!” he implored again. And again.

And I loved it.

Now, before you think I am picking on Barbara, or you want to give her the benefit of the doubt (maybe she had stepped away from the computer), no. The default was not to display video or audio (because only one person needs to be talking, and it is awkward to display yourself on camera when all you are doing is closing your eyes), but Barbara had enabled both. I watched her keep her eyes closed despite the guide speaking her name. Eventually she fumbled with the phone and after a bit of phone-fumble-breeze sounds, then a view of her ceiling fan, she was gone.

Nay, it is indeed human to make technological mistakes. Though it is rude to not consider your impact on those around you (especially in a silent setting), this Babs thing made me chuckle more than anything! I appreciated the person in charge for his quick action to resolve the issue. He knew that everyone was in the session to tune out as much noise as possible, and didn’t want to let any extra in on his watch. He defended the peace! Non-judgmentally, directly, and quickly!

I’ve been in many meditation sessions where this is not the case. Even the best teachers may not recognize or know how to handle the conflict of one participant causing a distraction/disruption. And maybe it is easier in the virtual class, because all are equally muted, contrary to, how is someone supposed to police the volume of another’s breathing? (However, one could argue *cough, I would argue* that when an instructor says to breathe quietly, the person taking giant lion breaths and sighing forcefully is knowingly being a dick.)

Or maybe it’s just quieter right now! Ordinarily a cough or other auditory distraction will pull me out of precious silence, out of focus, and make me mad. The bonus of workout/meditation classes from home is that no one has to hear anyone but the instructor. Everyone is free to do their own thing (but should all be paying attention, if this is a work video call ;). In theory, this applies to work, personal life and projects too. Less noise = fewer distractions = more focus. I have a task to complete, and if I need to call or email someone to complete it, I can, but otherwise, it’s all me. Obviously, some days it’s easy to get out of my own way, and sometimes it’s incredibly not. Yes, in the case of meditation, the Equitable Mute was threatened, defended, and ultimately upheld. (Justice!) BUT: what if the loud exhaler is me? What if the loud background noise is coming from inside my head?

Several of my close friends deal with anxiety too. A few of the ones who identify as introverts are having a really tough time with self-isolation. One told me, “okay, yes, I like to recharge away from people, but… now I’m fully charged! What am I supposed to do?” Another is struggling with boundaries; as much as she resented interacting with unpleasant people at work, she has to defend a new boundary of people calling and emailing her nonstop because they can now. Yet another told me she was cutting back on watching the news. THE NEWS! During a pandemic! Where the conspiracy theories, political vitriol, and uninformed opinions are flying all around!

There is such thing as too much information!

I’m typically the last to know everything, and I have been keeping more current with news since rules and standards are changing by the day and I don’t want to get turned away from the grocery store. But no way will I watch the news. A) I don’t like certain people’s voices, and those people are often featured. B) having more information is not going to improve any aspect of my life. Ultimately, I choose to tune out the theories and focus on the facts (what to wear/do when out in public), seeking information that will serve me. As long as I get the bottom line/know the safety regulations, I am tuning the rest out. I donate to charities, I purchased gifts and stamps from the USPS, and I sign the petitions about absentee ballots, incarcerated populations’ release and whatever I can mentally handle.

I’m not checking out, or sticking my head in the sand as if this isn’t happening, but choosing where to look for what types of information. I’m also trying to send out more than I take in (mostly in the form of mood-boosting things like letters and phone calls). This tuning out of non-essential information is helping me to pare down and tune in to the essentials: what I need and how to connect with/be “there” for my friends and family. A wise lady recently told me that this pandemic situation is all about who you are in a room by yourself, and I’m determined to enjoy the company.

anxiety, family, home, librarians, meditation, writing

Time to Re/build a Habit

March 29, 2020March 29, 2020 flippingpageslikemad

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I resist writing even though it is beneficial to do. Now, though, as the world is seemingly falling apart, I might try harder. Even before I would write this blog today, I spent 30 minutes on hold for Apple Care to change my password in order to update my iOS (non-essential but on to-do list for literal years), I went to the grocery store (carefully) and I made tapioca pudding. Scraping the bottom of the to-do barrel just to put off writing. I do not understand (but greatly respect) how people do this as a career.

In the interest of maintaining my sanity and eating my peas, I need to actively recognize that there are some things I don’t want to do, that feel like a hassle, and I have to do them anyway. This is ridiculous, because I really LIKE writing, but sometimes it just feels tiresome to talk about myself and my life and my thoughts and maybe my handwriting isn’t great that day and blechhh. I prefer to blog and share entertaining anecdotes or stories.

I don’t have any current stories right now. This upsets me. The library has been closed for a full week, though we are answering emails/phone calls, and people are in various states of panic and sadness. My heart goes out to the college kids who can’t return to campus for the rest of the year and have to endure professors attempting online instruction. I am not jealous of people with school-age children going stir crazy with cabin fever, but I am happy to hear parents acknowledge that teaching is HARD and teachers are UNDERPAID. And, these safety precautions aren’t going anywhere in the near future. I understand that people are sad when events they looked forward to are canceled. There is a grief in not being able to throw your small child a birthday party, not being able to attend a concert three months away, or a milestone college reunion. Some people have to cancel their weddings upcoming soon, and women who give birth right now are not permitted to have their partners with them. I really wanted to celebrate my mom’s 70th birthday with her family and friends, but that is not happening. These things range from heartbreaking to a shame to a small price to pay in order not to contract or spread this virus.

The anxiety also makes sense to me. Anxiety over the turbulent rule changes, the closures of restaurants and businesses, anxiety over possibly catching or spreading deadly disease. Anxiety over making rent/bill payments after losing non-salaried work. For the general anxiety, I would say follow the rules suggested by health professionals and limit the information intake (aka only look at news updates once per day at a designated time, or only read articles if tv news stresses you out too much). Essentially, control what you can control. For the money anxiety, figure that shit out! You can’t control the fact that you’re out of work, but you can sure as hell sign up for unemployment or look for other work that doesn’t compromise your health.

All that said, I’m lucky. I have a salaried job that I can do from home. My office was ramping up for at least a week ahead of time getting us set up with the technology to feel like we were in the office. I don’t have school age children, and I am mobile enough at least in theory to take walks and exercise in my home. I have a car and so don’t have to deal with public transportation being germ-ridden or closed. My biggest complaints to date are that I miss my coworkers and my fancy desk chair & I’m eating too much/moving too little.

I try to have anecdotes for the blog, which I like sharing, but even in personal writing for just myself, I drag my feet. One of my professors in college preached to us the virtues of her own daily morning ritual: to fill a page. I thought it was silly; what could possibly be so different from the day before? How is that interesting to write, much less read???

When I avoid journaling, I tell myself that what I’m thinking and going through is repetitive; I’ve been here before and flipping back a few pages reveals similar themes and patterns. Why bother writing it down? I talk to my friends and my therapist about my inner world, and I write in my journal when I have something particularly weighty on my mind. Why make it a daily habit?

And maybe this is a “duh” moment for you, but I never really put together that daily journaling is the meditation of writing. Writing every day to assess the quality of my mind seems to me like an affirmation that my thoughts/feelings have power and that I should pay more attention to them AND an outlet for them so I can clear the ones that don’t serve me. After all, just because my thoughts are boring and repetitive, they’re still swirling around in my head, and my motto is better out than in! Since I have been trying to meditate every day (to mild success) I am working journaling into my as-often-as-possible routine too.

Not coincidentally, this happened when I received a gift from my cousin. She, a practicing clinical psychologist, published her own journal to help people write, reflect and grow. So if you need to build a new routine now that everything in life is drastically different, I recommend it–I like the open-ended prompts and the focus on being present. Check it out!

If you are struggling this week, reach out to your loved ones. Reach out even if you aren’t! And now that we have a little more alone time, maybe look inward too. Grab a pen and paper of some kind and see what happens. Of course, you may just write me a letter bitching about this whole situation, and that would be fine. I love mail 🙂

anxiety, home, stuff

Never Moving Again

October 31, 2019 flippingpageslikemad

Due to a confluence of factors, I haven’t written in forever. First and foremost of the obstacles is twofold; I moved, and I currently have not purchased an internet service as a social experiment. The moving itself was excruciatingly drawn out, lapsed two weekends where I was committed to other things with no time to physically relocate items, and coincided with some heavy relational stuff (annoying, pesky emotions, ugh). My cat children were FREAKED out and though it took them at least a week to get used to the new place and stop being so on edge, it took me even longer.

As for the internet, I know you’re judging and saying to yourself that this is a thing I need in my home. Admittedly, it is inconvenient not to be able to watch Netflix in my home. However, I am looking at a computer screen all day, so I’m making do with my data plan for what I need to accomplish online and my actual hobbies (writing letters, reading/audiobooks, and – new one! – essential oils). It is completely okay. At least, for now, when it is still passably warm to sit outside on campus on my lunch break and watch The Good Place. It is inevitable (especially since I am never moving again) that I’ll get it installed, but it’s an experiment in the meantime.

And yeah, now that I have been in there a month and a half and everything has its place and I’m used to the light in the mornings and the weird sounds the doors make, my place is perfect. Of course there are minor improvements I want to make, but this apartment is MINE and only mine, for the first time ever. That is crazy! This time last year, I could only have dreamed this, and I am grateful and excited that it is real and here. Stability, here I come! Independence! Other positive nouns!

This dwelling is lovely and perfect, and because it is great and the move was torturous, I never want to move again.

Ever.

Moving is the worst! Touching EVERYTHING I own, which is not a ton because I am only one person, but yet still somehow neverending, the packing, the unpacking, the lifting of all the heavy items, the inevitable shoddy packing that leads to something unessential breaking…. That was all too much already, but I also had no furniture, so whenever I found one item I wanted, I needed to acquire a vehicle and a human to help me obtain that one item. Rinse and repeat, for every single piece of furniture I needed. I am blessed to have amazing friends, two of whom live a neighborly distance away, and they were fantastic. I still felt guilty asking them to take their time to help me, and I felt sad that there is no reliable, caring human man around to help me with what I need. Acquiring what I needed sparked HIGH anxiety and an EXTREME sense of aloneness. Every single time.

Ok, so clearly NEVER is an exaggeration. But it was all so heavy! And I didn’t help myself out with the timing. The first weekend after I got the keys, I worked all weekend, at our yearly event that is one of my favorite days of the whole year (yay!). After that shift (TMI alert) I went to Urgent Care for a UTI (OUCH). The next weekend, my best friend visited for a musical festival we bought tickets to in the first quarter of the year and were hugely looking forward to (yay!). That weekend, since it was on the beach, I wore flip flops, and ended up getting plantar fascitis (OUCH OUCH OUCH).

The two mental health days I took during this time were true to their names. I was going to lose my mind, and my body was protesting how hard it was working. My feet literally gave up and just told me to lay low for a while. Driving to purchase a couch and loveseat on what would come to be the day I learned to measure the doorway for any potential furniture acquisitions, with aching feet and a desire to have somewhere for me, my cats and our guests to sit, the song “One Foot” by Walk the Moon played on the radio. Kismet!

I only had one working foot at the time! But all I had to do was put one foot in front of the other. It was a good reminder. I got through the day due to A+ friendos who helped me lift the love seat and didn’t (verbally or in my presence, though I wouldn’t blame them 🙂 judge me or criticize when the couch would not fit through the doorway.

Long story short, I love my friends and my loveseat, and someone from Freecycle got a free, gently used couch.

Moving is hard, and the metaphors are too easy. Confronting/facing every item in my possession and figuring out if it is serving me/if it can stay. Taking inventory and doing the heavy lifting, at least until I am a devoted minimalist and don’t have any possessions (unlikely based on so many facts).

“Never moving again” does sound lazy, though. And I will, I know, because not moving for too long means not growing/changing/advancing. For now, I appreciate the ability to sit tight, think/reflect/find a partner (and I promise, write more) about the big stuff, and nurture my tiny roots in this place. I’ll get to the movement, right after I put my feet up.