Lately, when I take a good look in the mirror, the phrase that comes to mind more often than not is, “Dude, what happened?” Since I think I am still 25, that is, in fact, the exact expression. Sometimes it’s just “dude,” sometimes it’s a simpler, more inquisitive “huh” sound. But the confusion and questioning as I inventory my gray hairs and wrinkles is the same.
Where – and when -, exactly, did all these pinch points around my eyes and mouth develop? I barely noticed. Somewhere along the line time started running away from me…and just kept going! I remember when I was a kid and time stood still for days on end – long, aimless, completely boring days, especially during the sweltering summers of my childhood. I’d complain to my mom that I was bored and she’d tell me she could find me work to do around the house and, voila, I would instantly be cured of boredom and find myself somewhere else to be and something else to do. In hindsight, that was a pretty predictable outcome (my mom knew what she was doing!). These days I can’t remember the last time I had the occasion to be bored.
Needless to say, a fair bit of time has passed since I was a little girl and even since I was 25 (ho hum). I mean, literally, that was more than two decades ago. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to wrap my head around that.
What I do know, with absolute certainty, is that I have earned every one of these wrinkles. Sure, some probably came from poor sunscreen choices when I was a kid. But a lot came from standing on the precipice of a new adventure or from facing into the difficult stuff that inevitably comes up in a life and not turning away because it was too hard or painful or might cause me to break (or wrinkle). I have broken down and gotten myself back up enough times now that I guess I should know I have some serious years under my belt.
Though I may have the odd Botox dream (ha ha), in fact each wrinkle is a hard-earned badge of a memorable life. It’s the sign of time spent leaning in to all of the adventure, opportunity, and challenge that come with living fully. Not to mention the laughter. As Lori McKenna so pithily says in People Get Old, “Every line on your face tells a story somebody knows.” What a wonderful sentiment.
From heartache to adventure, hard work to achievement, sunny skies to skinned knees, those wrinkles are the story of your life written across the canvas of you. Live and lean into those lines.
Last year the holidays were tough. Omicron began picking up the pace somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and the idea of being together with friends and family, which had so recently seemed possible, was suddenly as far off as ever. Again. I was so sad to have to cancel all of our plans and to be returned to this place of fear and isolation. And, worse, once I got to that place, I couldn’t remember anything good at all that had happened in all of 2021. Surely it wasn’t all bad? Right?
I have written about the negativity bias (Utterly Imperfect and Always Seek the Sweet) before, and it’s truly fascinating how hard it is to find positive memories or thoughts when times are tough. Our family started a gratitude jar last Christmas as an antidote to the negativity that has really swallowed us whole for the last several years. The gratitude jar (I called it our Glad Tidings jar) partially forced us to make a conscious effort to be aware of our blessings, no matter how minute, and also created a steady supply of all the good things the year brought us, no matter the conditions or circumstances of the end of 2022. The glad tidings jar sat on our kitchen counter with a notepad and pen next to it all year. Anytime any family member was so moved they could add a little note.
In the end, this year was mostly, kinda, normal. We were able to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas with family in a way that was very reminiscent of pre-pandemic years (no masks, no distance, much laughter and noise and good food). The year also brought its fair share of hardship and health issues and loss. Life showed up in all its fragile beauty in 2022, as it always does.
I am happy to see that we have a full jar of notes about the blessings in our life. I am excited to look back and remember both the amazing things as well as the mundane that brought us joy and gratitude this year, from reprising international travel to finishing an entire school year uninterrupted to our first big snow storm to, simply, it’s June :-).
Here are a few random selections from the jar:
January – “Reading the Adventures of Tintin!”
February – “Sponge Bob the Musical”
June – “I am feeling thankful for having such a loving and supportive family.”
August/September – “COVID came…and left”
This is one new year’s tradition I can get behind and bring forward into 2023.
Oh my gosh, it’s been a long, long time since I have sat down to write. Even sitting here now, putting pen to paper, all I feel is resistance. I changed the order of the widgets shown on the website’s pages before I finally opened a blank document to start writing.
What happened? Nothing really. Or nothing specifically. A huge wave of inertia crashed over me and I could not write anymore. It’s been a dose of living outside the 4 walls of my home again and being legit busy (and oddly out-of-shape with the calendar juggle – or am I busier than I remember being before?). Added to that I started to feel like I have nothing to say that’s worth sharing. I took all these writing classes, started to overthink it, got frustrated (and distracted), and promptly stopped writing. And that’s kind of the story of my average Joe-ness. I get just so far with something, get bored or frustrated, and move onto something else (currently I have decided I will learn Spanish).
Ah! But here is the unexpected part that I’d like to think shows some growth – I am onto those old habits and I have decided to not, in fact, give up on writing (or Spanish!). This old dog can learn new tricks – and perseverance is the name of this long haul game called life.
I can’t say how often I will write or when I will next grab the time needed to wade through all the resistance and put pen to paper, but I wanted to say hi and I’m still out here and that I hope getting caught up in the messy confusion of life – and finding one’s way back! – resonates.
Adversity is like a strong wind. I don’t mean just that it holds us back from places we might otherwise go. It also tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that afterward we see ourselves as we really are and not merely as we might like to be.
I am borrowing from Matt Haig’s The Comfort Book for today’s Oxygen Mask Moment, as the end-of-school-year madness (and weeding my garden) absorb all of my “discretionary” time. Plus, it’s so, so good.
To the below I would add, it’s not only okay, it’s better. So much more genuine and real.
It’s okay to be broken.
It’s okay to wear the scars of experience.
It’s okay to be a mess.
It’s okay to be the teacup with the chip in it. That’s the one with a story.
It’s okay to be sentimental and whimsical and cry bittersweet tears at songs and movies you aren’t supposed to love.
It’s okay to like what you like.
It’s okay to like things for literally no other reason than because you like them and not because they are cool or clever or popular.
It’s okay to let people find you. You don’t have to spread yourself so thin you become invisible. You don’t have to always be the person reaching out. You can sometimes allow yourself to be reached. As the great writer Anne Lamott puts it: “Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island for boats to save; they just stand there shining.”
It’s okay not to make the most of every chunk of time.
I mentioned the book The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist in my last post, Sometimes Asking is Giving. As Ms. Twist explains, “What’s poor is [people’s] circumstances, not them, and the unlocking of a vehicle to change circumstances is a gift; the radical truth about money and life is sufficiency. If you clear away the mindset of scarcity, you will find the surprising truth of enough. When we recognize enough, when we have more than enough, that excess, that’s for others.”
I shared a quote about one’s attitude two weeks ago, and this is related. It’s a mindset shift, from scarcity to abundance. It changes everything in how we approach life, ourselves, and others. When you realize you have enough, that you are enough, you can give of yourself more. Does anyone else remember Sark? This particular quote about Enough is from her book Inspiration Sandwich, which was also the genesis of much hilarity about the complete and utter dump in the deep woods of Maine that my friend Jen and I lived in one summer, which we affectionately called the Magic Cottage thanks to Sark. It was magical all right, hornets and mice living in the walls and all. But that’s a story for another time.
“There is a distinction between sufficiency and true abundance; if you let go of trying to get more of what you don’t need, it frees up oceans of energy that’s all tied up in that chase to pay attention to what you already have. When you nourish and share it, you make a difference with what you have and it expands. What you appreciate, appreciates.”
I used to keep a journal, many, many journals, in fact, where I would write my deepest, darkest, (dumbest) thoughts and also my favorite quotes. This one from 1996 by Anonymous still rings true and is a good reminder:
The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.
Attitude to me is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do.
It is more important than appearances, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company, a church, a home.
The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.
We cannot change our past…we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way….we cannot change the inevitable.
The only thing we can do is play on the one strength we have, and that is our attitude…
I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.
And so it is with you…
We are in charge of our attitude.
Anonymous
For those of us who somehow navigated a pre-emoji world, a memory (that only works on a mobile or tablet and is remarkably challenging to accomplish thanks to auto-correct):
Have you ever trained for a marathon? I have not (and probably never will). My body starts to hurt around mile 3 and that’s that.
My husband is a marathoner, though, so I have an up-close window into the sport and I’ve learned some important things about life through the lens of marathon training that are relevant even if you aren’t a runner. Even if you’re thinking “marathon shmarathon, running 26 miles is nuts,” keep reading.
To be able to run 26.2 miles takes MONTHS of training, discipline, and dedication. At their peak training, marathoners are running 40, 50, 60 plus miles EACH WEEK. If you happen to live in New England, training for the Boston Marathon, which happens in April, requires running in truly atrocious weather (think freezing cold, ice, and snow).
As fun as that doesn’t sound, for my husband (and clearly thousands of others), the allure of the storied, challenge-of-a- world-class Boston Marathon is like a gravitational pull. He ran it a couple of times in college, but a major injury in his 20s sidelined him from distance running. He has been a reliable fan ever since. When we were still dating, we spent an April afternoon sitting on the curb at the marathon halfway mark eating sub sandwiches and cheering for the runners. That was my first marathon, and every year since we look forward to Marathon Monday.
Because the Boston Marathon is more than a long run. For elite runners, it is a world-class race. For charity runners, who have dedicated months of their lives to raise money for their charity and to train for this superhuman athletic endeavor, it’s the challenge of a lifetime. Many of these runners have compelling, sometimes earth-shattering stories about why they are running or who they are running for. For the locals, it’s a rite of spring, a community-gathering on a massive scale with a festival-like atmosphere. Friends and neighbors emerge from the hibernation of a long winter, joining together along the race course to rally the runners toward the finish line.
Profiles of Boston Marathon Charity Runners for Mass General Hospital at the hospital’s Coffee Central
Over the almost 20 years that we have been cheering on the sidelines, my husband has mentioned wistfully that he wished he could run Boston again. In late 2019 he decided to give it a shot. He trained as a charity runner, but just before his peak run in March 2020 the COVID-19 lockdowns began. The Boston Marathon was cancelled for the first time in its history. That fall, the Boston Athletic Association offered a “virtual” marathon. So he trained for that, running five 5.24 mile loops around our neighborhood. He finished, and many neighbors and friends came out to cheer (from a distance), but it wasn’t the official course with the Boylston Street finish and, it turns out, it’s not really the same.
So he trained some more. He ran a different marathon in the fall of 2021 to attempt to qualify for Boston, but hit the wall at mile 22 and could not keep his pace. He was determined to run the Boston Marathon in April 2022, though, so he found another charity with marathon bibs and committed to raising money for them.
This time he decided that to avoid hitting the wall, he would train with more miles than ever. He ran over 350 miles by his peak run. He ran in ski goggles in the snow. He ran in small loops near the house in case the weather turned too treacherous to continue. His nutrition was fully dialed in.
And now April 18 is on Monday. There’s a flutter in my chest just thinking about it. We have both dreamed about this day, he to finally cross the finish line on Boylston Street one more time, me to cheer him along the course where we have cheered for so many.
I caught myself a couple months ago projecting narratives about Marathon Monday, from the weather to the crowds to the smile on my husband’s face. I noticed myself weaving this tale of glory and triumph about April 18 and realized what a good fiction writer I could be. I mean, how could I know what the weather in Boston would be like in April!?!? That’s a fools errand within days of the event let alone a month ahead of time. If you want a lesson in things you cannot control, New England weather is a good one.
But Monday is supposed to be a perfect day for marathoning, 55 degrees and partly sunny. It should be perfect.
And I still got the story wrong.
Long story short, after complaining for a couple weeks about his ankle feeling funny, my husband was diagnosed two weeks ago with a large blood clot in his leg. He went from running 50 to 60 miles a week to lying on the couch with his leg propped up on a pillow, sleepy from a high dose of blood thinners. No marathon. (And, no, it’s nothing to do with COVID.)
So this is the lesson, or one of them: the race was always going to end. It’s the culminating achievement of months of training, but there is the day after and the day after that. And ultimately, hopefully, that’s what you are training for – the long game, life.
The truth is, the structure and rigor of marathon training kept my husband emotionally and physically fit throughout the rollercoaster ride of these two long pandemic years. It got him out of the office and outside during a time when it was particularly easy to lose track of the days let alone when you last left the couch. The deadline of this particular marathon forced him to figure out what was wrong with his ankle quickly. In another context, it would have been easy to assume it was nothing, which could have been truly catastrophic.
Of course these last two weeks have been a doozy of emotions. That marathoner’s rigor runs hard up against controlling outcomes if you are just disciplined enough. But life has a funny habit of getting in the way of our plans. So we find ourselves holding both grief and gratitude in the palms of our hands. It’s that old tenet of both/and. It’s both extreme gratitude for the clot being found with medication to stabilize it. AND, it’s deep grief and disappointment over getting so close to this marathon yet again, coupled with the worry and processing of the actual diagnosis. Life is full of unexpected twists and turns, disappointments and challenges. Ultimately, I guess, what else would we be training for than to have muscles to flex, resiliency ones and physical ones, when we need them most?
Good luck to all the runners on Monday! We will be basking in the vibe of the event and cheering hard at the halfway mark – and likely shedding a couple tears as well. Both.
It’s been a while. It appears that I needed a break.
I’ll be honest: I’ve been stuck. Stuck in ALL. THE. WAYS. Overthinking. Underthinking. Autopilot. Inertia. Consumed by busyness. Servant to my “to do” list. Distracted by news headlines (I rarely sit still long enough to read the whole article). The general volume of inputs is overwhelming, luring me in until I squander my limited down time (one quick check of my phone or email and a wormhole opens up and consumes me – SO. MANY. SHINY. OBJECTS).
Also, my old friend self-doubt has been visiting. Literally the only visitors not disallowed during these social distance months have been the gremlins of my mind – clearly a mistake! I recently learned that self-doubt, apathy (depression), and anxiety (not good enough) are well-known for causing creative slumps, like writer’s block. When those more negative mindsets take over, a whole lot of nothing happens. Call it what you will, I can assure you that a whole lot of nothing has definitely been happening.
Inertia + depression + shiny objects(distractions) + life responsibilities (the true, legit stuff that needs attention) = stuck.
During this fallow period, I haven’t been fighting it (much). Typically I beat myself up for lacking productivity, wonder what is wrong with me, what I have to complain about, what my contribution to the world is. My inner voice is JUDG-Y. Like majorly judgy. And also a bit dramatic and prone to catastrophizing: “You Could Feel Like This FOREVER;” “Woman Retreats to Home in March 2020, Never Emerges;” “Why Does Everyone Else Handle It Better? You Aren’t Even Trying. You Have Made Nothing of Yourself. No One Wants to Hear What You Have to Say Anyway. Indulgent. Worthless.” You get the idea. Super not helpful.
This time, especially during the depression phase, I simply let go. Simply may not be quite the right word for it – listlessly is probably more accurate. I totally lost the plot there for a little bit. I had truly (and mercifully) forgotten how debilitating depression is. But, thanks to COVID Christmas round 2 (is it really just 2?), I now remember. I don’t want to talk about COVID anything so just trust me when I say that that little Omicron-wrapped holiday care package did my head in.
So how did I get unstuck? It was a splash of honoring it and allowing myself to wallow coupled with knowing what it takes to get myself going again (and time). I implemented all the tools in my anxiety/depression toolbox – get outside, get exercise, feel the feels, take time for myself, breathe (often and deeply), try not prognosticate or narrate my very sad story, connect with sympathetic and wise friends, recognize what is and is not in my control, and try to tame that judgy ass inner voice. At first, the sadness still crashed over my head and (briefly) swept me away. If you too were like, “well, crap, here we go again” for most of December, I hear you. I’ve had to work extra hard to put my oxygen mask on these last several months, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.
Fresh air + exercise + deep breathing + being heard + space + time = unstuck
The empowering part of this episode of reality is that, bit by bit, I clawed my way back. Every path has a puddle or two, and I army crawled right on through the mud (after a good wallow).
By the time late January/early February rolled around, I was starting to feel more grounded. I kept finding nuggets of hope and slowly they grew bigger. A friend proposed the notion of a new year filled with “renewal and reanimation of abiding commitments.” She suggested that I write for 30 minutes a day, a goal that seemed entirely doable. Stephen King once said something along the lines of, “if you show up to write every day, when inspiration comes it will know where to find you.” And so I await inspiration’s arrival.
Today is day 11 of my new/old effort to carve out time for myself before the day gets away from me. Every day I set aside 45 minutes with no distractions: 15 minutes of yoga and 30 minutes of writing. The first few writing sessions produced complete garbage – totally aimless, useless nothings. I thought I was probably permanently broken (inner voice still judgy). I also noticed as soon as I sat still for two seconds how much of my time I allow to be buried under busy (and headlines and other distractions).
After a couple of days of yoga and undistracted writing/sitting/pondering, ideas started to form, and then sentences, and then full paragraphs (not Pulitzer-worthy, but also not utter crap). This subtle but real shift in my daily life helped me reclaim headspace. When I feel frenzied and uncertain, caught up in “doing” mode, I approach life more defensively and am more timid and reactive, like an anchorless ship being batted around by the waves. By carving out distraction-free time for myself, I feel more grounded, content, and sharp, which in turn is empowering and leads to more proactive, purpose- and passion-driven choices. Doom scrolling: not an effective use of my time. Connecting with friends, thinking about big issues, walking peacefully in the woods: really inspiring. More than just the acts of stretching and writing, I have been reminded that creativity and inspiration take root when we slow down and allow curiosity and wonder, passion and purpose, to lead the way, even just for 30 minutes.
Words that got me through it:
The Comfort Book by Matt Haig
Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May
And, let’s be real: I did not magically find more time in the day. There is only a finite amount of time in a day and my life responsibilities haven’t changed. I carve me time out of sleep. Coffee is also a passion, though, so I guess it’s a win-win? Feels like it for now.
That’s where I find myself these days: broken-brained, busy, and spinning in my tracks. I have all sorts of great ideas peppering my little brain at inconvenient times like halfway through a swim or as I am careening down the highway. As soon as I stop swimming or driving, the flash of brilliance has been overtaken by whatever it is I can’t forget to do or a child with a story to tell or a phone call or text message interrupting my attempt to hold onto my thoughts. Needless to say, I am really, truly brilliant, but you’ll have to just trust me because I can’t remember why.
Ah, life….you prankster.
Today I am stopping the whir for just a minute and compelling myself to slow down, sit in a chair, and show up. To the practice quiet. To calm the frenzied busy-ness in my head. To pause, clear the cobwebs, and set aside the do list. To breathe, long and deep. To finally stop dancing around my laptop as it sits folded closed on my desk and to write no matter how it turns out. To just get started.
Pause. Breathe. Come back to the present.
It can be so hard to stay in the present. We tend to project to the future (planning or looking forward to or setting expectations of what will be) or perseverate backward (replaying past events and conversations, comparing what is with what was (or what we thought it would be)). Both directions can provide useful intel, but dwelling there in the land of should, should have and could have isn’t healthy or productive. This type of thinking tends to be laden with judgy reproach and expectations. Meanwhile, while we are consumed sitting there thinking about it, actual life is passing us on by.
Dogs are masters of living in the moment. Generally speaking, they are known to live in the here and now; they are loyal and honest; they don’t hold grudges; and they love with reckless abandon. Of course, I am chuckling to myself as I write this, because my dog is all of those things except that he has serious FOMO. He looks over his shoulder at what we just passed and I egg him along to join me in the present where, I remind him, walking is a forward motion. He is a miniature reminder and example of what it looks like to live looking over your shoulder and attempting to backtrack: to the dog you just passed but didn’t sniff, or the acorn you wish you had picked up; to live consumed by the narrative of the things you wish you had said, ruminating about how life would be different if only X, projecting forward into the notion that once you get that raise or promotion or title or vacation then you will be happy.
Maybe.
But chasing extraordinary moments in pursuit of happiness is exhausting and often leaves you empty. The extraordinary is this life, right as it is happening now, in tiny little daily moments where you notice. Like when you notice your dog’s imperfections (and your own) and it makes you smile. Not because it’s extraordinary or exceptional – in fact it’s probably the exact opposite – but just because this is it folks. This is all we got.
Don’t get me wrong, there are absolutely forgettable moments. My days are not filled with perpetual delirious happiness, positivity, gratitude and good vibes. Some days I choose to be miffed at the world and some days the world seems to be miffed at me. But often neither lasts too long. I tend to find joy in the mundane, whether by disposition or conscious practice I am not sure. But I know for a fact that there is almost always some miracle of living out there to delight, typically forcing a deep breath and opening up a new perspective.
Dr. Edith Eva Eger, a Holocaust survivor, writes in her profound and moving memoir The Choice: Embrace the Possible, “Many of us experience feeling trapped in our minds. Our thoughts and beliefs determine, and often limit, how we feel, what we do and what we think is possible. I am here to tell you that the worst prison is not the one the Nazis put me in. The worst prison is the one I built for myself.” How can this be, I wonder? She lived through hell, horror and suffering beyond comprehension. She talks about living after with survivor’s guilt and how for a long time she turned her back from her past and (understandably) ran from it.
At some point she realized, though, that no matter how much time she spent beating herself up about the past, about what could have been different if only and why, it would never change.
[I have the choice] “to accept myself as I am: human, imperfect. To be responsible for my own happiness. To forgive my flaws and reclaim my innocence. To finally stop running from the past and do everything possible in my power to redeem it and then let it go. I can make the choice all of us can make. There is a life I can save: it is mine. The one I am living right now, this precious moment.”
Everything is temporary: pain, pleasure; past, future. But, the present, well, you’re always in it.
Put Your Own Oxygen Mask on First 