Things That Twist

For awhile, this blog was called Bendability. It was my cousin's idea during one of the times I decided I needed a "rebranding." I lived in Bend, and most of what I wrote about had to do with adaptability and making life up on the fly, which has always been status quo in my world.

I guess as I get older, the constant shifting and changing has less appeal to me. I earned the sarcastic nickname "Predictability" years ago because the only thing predictable about me was my inconsistency, according to certain people. Now I don't know what I am.

My life has adopted certain consistencies lately... a "normal" job, routine... early bedtimes, healthier meals. I've come to appreciate some of it. But I also think I have bought into a certain level of living hell in the name of peace and compromise. Doing the "adult" thing. If it was making me more financially solvent, I'd be less skeptical. But I can't say that it is, yet.

Just when I really thought I was ready for an all-American, girl-next-door lifestyle, things got shook again and I am back at ground zero and I can go any which way I want. I mean sure, there's this job thing to think about. And a kid who likes it where she is and probably appreciates any consistency I can throw her way. But then there's the rest of the world, and it ain't here.

I guess I've just been reminded in a very sudden and unexpected way that it's still up to me and the sky is the limit. All I have to do is decide what to be and go be it.

Things About Being Un-Afraid

There's this self-help guru out there on the interwebs named Tim Ferris, and other than having a stellar six pack and rocking a bald head almost as well as Bruce Willis, I am not sure what he exactly does that makes him so amazing, other than writing some pretty decentish things, which is something that I aspire to (along with a stellar six pack). But whatever it is that he is famous for, he's so good he only needs a website with his first name : https://tim.blog/ - also something I should aspire to, except http://liv.blog/ has a WAY cooler vibe than his. Anyway, Ferris - Tim, that is, has this thing he talks about called fearsetting. It's like goalsetting, except the un-side of it. Like, what you DON'T want to happen. When I stumbled across Tim's fearsetting TED talk, it occurred to me that I had actually been fearsetting in my own life for several years.

The first time that I remember consciously doing it was when I was in Uganda , trying to sleep in the searing heat under a mosquito net with tarantula sized holes in it. I was having a full-fledged panic attack. I couldn't breathe enough to gasp out the sobs that my soul was working up, and it wasn't the mosquitos or the tarantulas, since I am pretty sure there aren't any tarantulas in Uganda. It was as if I had suddenly realized, laying down to sleep, that I was, at a bare minimum, two days of travel away from my four little girls, without the resources or ability to get to them if something went wrong. I was a single mom, beyond poor, halfway around the world from my kids. The fear and doubt and guilt that raced through my mind that night was crippling. I couldn't escape it, so I faced it. Starting with the Worst Thing I Could Imagine, I looked each fear in the eye and asked myself what I would do. If one of my girls was hurt - how would I deal? I made a plan, who I could call, how I could get there. Then I faced the next fear, until I worked my way down the Worst Case Scenario List, making plans, until I had taken away all of the reasons to not go on with my trip and sleep soundly that night.

That, in an nutshell, is fearsetting. It's looking the most Terrible Thing You can Imagine in the face and asking yourself what you would do. Once you find an answer, the fear subsides. And there is always an answer.

On a daily basis we deal with anxiety about relationships and money and decisions, when the reality is that the thing that we are freaking out about is something we have probably already faced (which makes them rational fears, but fears nonetheless). When I panic about the risk of a being dumped or rejected or abandoned, I remember when I was, and I think about how I survived it, and how I would survive it better now. When I fear financial destitution, I reflect back on the moments of absolute poverty-stricken impossibility and how I got back on my feet by digging all of the quarters out of the couch cushions to buy gas to get to work. I wish I could say I was exaggerating.

I have never faced the loss of a child, or even a very close loved one, but I can imagine the disabling grief and when I am overwhelmed with the knowledge that their protection, especially as they launch into their own lives as adults, is out of my hands, I have to find peace in knowing I have the people around me to keep me together if something like that happened. And if I don't, I'd better get busy finding them.

Fears are really the things that keeps us from our goals. Fear of failure, fear of loss, fear of wasted time, energy, passion - those are my big things. I have never really had money to fear losing, and failure is such a ritual procedure for me that it doesn't scare me that much, but wasting one more day of this infinitely short life (yes, that's an oxymoron), scares the shit out of me. It's like FOMO (fear of missing out, for all you old people) on speed, because instead of missing out on like, the best Halloween party EVER, you're missing out on years of your life - or you gave them away like an idiot to some jerkface who didn't appreciate them.

So I face that fear, the fear of wasting time, and I look at all of the things that I have brought with me from the "wasted" years. Four AMAZING kids. Skillz. Mad skillz. Insight. Compassion. Empathy. Humility. A complete Battlestar Gallactica DVD set. So how wasted were those years? Look where they brought me! To a place I would never be otherwise, with people I might never have known. The fear subsides and I look forward to the next adventure. I pray that it is one that will last, but if it isn't, I know I will have gained even more.

So that's where I am at. Eating fear for breakfast along with pain and failure and stomping off all of the negative vibes. Or at least most days I am. Why we, as humans, and especially me, are so intent on finding the things to worry about when we have such good things to be doing, cookies to eat and dogs to pet and just, LIFE! But we, me especially, have to bog the good things down with the what ifs. And what if things were just fine? What if we had nothing to fear because we always have a way out? I say these things to remind myself that even the Worst Things can, and will be survived, so I might as well enjoy all of the Best Things that surround me every day.

Things That Lift

There's this sensation, at the end of the pack test, or any good ruck, when you take your pack off and you feel so light that you might float away. It's similar to the instant right after you deliver a baby where the pain was so intense that the sudden absence of it is almost euphoric.

I opened my eyes yesterday morning and I had that same sensation. It was like 20 years of weight had lifted off of my chest and all I felt was light and free. I smiled. Directly after waking up. Before coffee. With no one beside me except a Very Fuzzy Wiener Dog, I smiled. I think I might have even giggled.

I've been in a weird state of suspended animation for a few days. I am on one hand unwilling to connect with any deep, painful emotions that are lying in the subterranean depths of my soul because I have decided that The Thing in my life that just ended will not cost me one more tear. But I am also relentlessly happy. I don't feel sad. I am afraid to look deeply, but even when I peek past my superficial giddiness, I don't sense a looming darkness that has been there for some time, if I'm honest. Maybe even years.

I don't remember the last time that I felt this way. I am not certain I ever have. There has never been a moment in my life where I have no emotional or psychological obligatory tie to any other person (other than my kids, of course) and holy heck, it feels amazing. I owe no man nothin'.

Every choice I make, anything I decide to do, is for my own benefit. It's not to make anyone else happy. I can clean my house or not. Wash my hair or not. I can eat what I want, wear what I want, watch what I want, sleep if I want, or not. I don't have to worry about how somebody else is sleeping, or what might annoy them or make them react. I honestly don't give a rat's ass what anybody else wants or needs right now, and I like it.

I've lived, voluntarily, for the last three years on a minefield of fragile and destructive egg shells. Every move I made was potentially disastrous, and I don't think I had any idea how much it was weighing me down. I rolled onto that battlefield freshly wounded from a dense forest of psychological games and damage, so one tense struggle turned easily into another one, and if I danced Just So, the pain was less than before, so I was grateful. But the dance was exhausting. And now it's done. The woods and the trenches are behind me and I'm declaring an armistice for my heart.

Life's kind of been a fog for me the last week or so, partially due to a gnarly head cold and partially due to Certain Events, and I know the fog will eventually lift and I'll probably have some more vivid emotions to deal with. I am planning for that. But right now, I've got it on cruise control and everything feels ok, even in the rain and mist and dismal gray that I normally hate. Maybe I've always hated it because of the storm inside. I haven't even needed a drink lately. I know this buzz will wear off, but dang, it feels good for now.

Things That Sting

Three times now, you told me you don't want me. Twice, you changed your mind. You won't get that luxury again. Sure, I did this to myself. I wanted you to come back. I wanted you to want me. I wanted to be with you. I wanted US, and I was committed.

As I go through and delete all of the pictures of us today, it's funny how each one is associated with a negative memory. The context of when you would dump me next, or some critical thing you said, or just a heavy, nagging sense that I wasn't enough around you. There's good memories too. Great ones. Real, deep laughter and love. True love. I truly loved you. I believe you did me, as well, in your own limited way.

But not enough. Not enough to commit to me. To this. Too messy. Too complicated. No way forward, that you can see. One of us needs glasses because it looked okay up ahead to me. But that's good. I don't need somebody who doesn't want me. I'm too much to be not enough, you know?

I wish you well in your journey, wherever it takes you. I won't even try to imagine that because it hurts too much, whichever outcome. I hope you find what you're looking for. Or I hope you can at least figure out what you're looking for. I thought I had. I am grateful for the growing that being with you caused in me. I had to learn a lot of patience. I had to learn a lot of self-denial. I had to learn self control in new levels so I didn't scare you off, and that was good for me. I had to learn to curb passive-aggressive manipulation habits because you had no patience for them. I had to learn to be less emotional because you couldn't handle it. I had to learn to listen - all the way - before speaking (still working on this one). I learned the beauty of sitting quietly. I learned the value of protecting my down time. I learned that it is possible to give up too much for someone you love. I learned the hard way that it doesn't matter if you give it all, you can't change somebody else's heart.

I learned that sometimes, the things we need to move us forward can be really, really hard and excruciatingly painful and lonely. I thought I had learned that earlier in life, but it feels like I am learning it all over again, fresh and new. I also learned that I can survive things that I feel like I won't.

I am sad. I am sorry for you. For us. For the loss. For the wasted investment. I only hope that some part of if can carry forward into each of our lives separately and make us happier in the end. If I'm honest, right now I want you to suffer, but deep down that's not really true.

I won't say you're a good person. I think you're selfish and broken. Like most of us. Maybe just a bit more. I won't say you're a bad person either. You're just a person like the rest of us and now you're not even a special one to me. You just are.

I will say that I loved you as hard as I knew how. I saw your depth and your strength. And I saw your need for growth and I loved those things.

I know I shouldn't call it a waste. I know that it all happens for a reason. I know that in the end, it's for the best. I know all the things. But it feels like a waste. Like a big, fat, sad waste. But that's life. We buy in. We win. We lose. I gotta believe at some point the buying in is gonna win for me, but not this time. I'm too old for this middle school bullshit. I'm too old for the shame of an ex-boyfriend or another random face in the family pictures. This sucks.

The last time you ended it, I wrote something titled Why The Worst Boyfriend Ever Was the Hardest One to Lose. I never shared it, but here is part of it, edited to remove all the reasons why you were the Worst Ever, those will stay private for the time being... but the rest of it is still painfully true, and I am setting it all out here to remind myself, this time, why I won't look back.

I am learning a lot about control these days. Mostly, about the lack thereof that I have in every aspect of life except, like the stoic philosophers were so keen to point out, what goes on between my own two ears. 

I’ve been wrestling all night, every night, with one of the most intense and long-lived hurts that I have ever experienced. After all the random weirdness in my life, it feels strange to say that I am having such a terrible time recovering from a relationship that was far from ideal. But I think it was the lack of perfection that has been so hard to let go of. I fell for someone that was hard to love, and I loved the challenge.

I has made me aware that no amount of hard work, self-confrontation or dedication can change the mind or will of another person, and no amount of performance on my part can convince someone to love me. Not that I was perfect, far from it. He brought out ugly parts of me that I thought were dead and buried ages ago. Need for control and contact, even the green-eyed monster of jealousy… There were days when I was with him that I didn’t even like myself. But I took those challenges and tackled them. 

At the end of the day, I just wasn’t what he wanted, and it wasn’t a matter of me being worthy (even though I am) or him being an asshole (although he might be), the bottom line is, he gets to decide and there is nothing. I. can. do. Enter the pain. Enter the sense of helplessness. Hopelessness. 

I jumped into this, and he never promised me a rose garden. I moved, I switched up my life on a shaky, hopeless romantic feeling that there was something we needed in each other. I still don’t think I was wrong. I still think he is. But it doesn’t matter. I gambled and I lost, hard. He’s moving on to find what he really wants, now that he’s better, healthier, and he’s “got his shit together,” whatever that means. My shit has never been more all over the place and that’s because he and I measure “together” by different standards. “Together” in his world is financial and material success, “Together” in my world is an unconditional us. I know it’s out there for me, he’s just not a part of it. 

Things That Surprise Me

If you want to hear about The Surprise of My Life, check out my new website, www.thedismalnitch.com. You'll be glad you did.

Things That Shake Me

https://youtu.be/xoFlHMG6Wfo

I want you to listen to this. Quinn Christopherson wrote this based on his experience living as a woman for 25 years and then being suddenly thrust into a male world that confirmed the terrible experiences he faced in his previous life.

I want you to set aside the transgender discussion for another day, and imagine a world where people interacted with you not based on what they take in when looking at you: your face, your breasts, your hair, your voice, your ass - but based on what your mind holds, what your soul delivers.

I am an advocate for largely traditional gender roles. I do believe we were created with different strengths for good reasons. I am a proponent of stay-at-home moms and provider fathers. I believe biologically we have specific designations for caring and conquering that society can't mitigate or mute, for all of their trying. Not that men don't care and women don't conquer, but we are engineered for and driven by different strategies.

I also believe that any human should be able to do whatever they are capable of doing fully. I have been a firefighter in both the structure and wildland world but I removed myself from that active role when my physical performance could compromise the safety of myself or others. I am not against women doing whatever they are able do, or men for that matter, in non-traditional roles if they do it well. I have met some super stay-at-home dads that would put my mothering skills to shame and I have met women that can outperform 90% of the men I know on the fireline. 

I doubt there is a man that could relate to the lyrics of this song, and when I heard Christopherson tell his story, it broke my heart. It broke my heart because last week I sat in an office with a man who "listened" to me share my passion about the Veterans Service Organization and shooting team that I work with, and this man immediately converted the talk into one about my "brother's vision." Because he couldn't accept my voice. I am a woman. He kept offering his support of what my brother and the other men were doing, and offered to pray for me when I left his office. It ripped me apart inside. He's not a bad man. This is just normal for him, it's normal for most of the world I live in, and what really killed me, is the realization that it's normal for me and it barely phases me anymore.

I was raised being told that college, the workforce, etc, were "no place for women." I grew up believing I had one option. I took that option, and while I wouldn't change anything, it makes me angry that I didn't know better. I didn't know that I could chase my own passions and do anything I was capable of. Obviously my world has changed since then, or I have migrated toward a larger and broader world. But those ideals are still alive and well.

I am grateful that my children have grown believing that they can do it all, anything they're physically qualified for. Anything they work hard for. I am proud to know that they will never settle to only serve the vision of their male counterparts. I know that they run into the same faceless judgement, passed over because they have less  hair on their arms or don't look like a sawyer should look. But I know they are smart and resilient enough to push back and stake their claim on life.

We live in a time where women have more voice than ever, and when I have considered traveling back in time, there is no spot in history that I would trade places with. But we still have room to grow. Especially in our small, backwater towns, like the Alaska where Christopherson was raised, where education and growth and expansion still loom as threats to a ritual lifestyle of repression and entropy. I am still interrupted. My opinions are still second guessed. I am still occasionally told that I can't do things.

I am tired of people trying to erase me. It's my dream, it's my passion. I love my brother and back him and his vision up 100%, and he the same does for me. I will be a relentless and passionate supporter of the man that takes me as his partner in life. I love that. But he will be mine as well. I don't believe in the male privilege complaint, but I do believe that men who are not raised to respect and cherish the intelligent soul of women are deadly to our species. Men who cannot see us as intellectual and spiritual equals, and even physical equals in context, hold back the whole human race, just like women who emasculate and deface the strength of manhood do.

We are different, we are equal. Harnessing that perfect fit together makes us powerful. Why would one horse want the other tied behind the wagon instead of pulling alongside, or even pulling a relief shift? Where you lack, I compensate, and you do the same for me. It's how we're made. Erase one and you weaken the other.

Things That Don’t Measure Up

I’ve never been enough. 

I’ve chased my heart in circles trying to understand how it works that I have never been enough in a relationship. 

I’m starting to understand that it isn’t that I am not enough, it is that I attract people who lack so much that I can’t be enough for both of us. In fact, it might be my fullness as a person that draws them in, and it’s enough to get us pretty far down the road. 

I’m pretty good at loving without conditions. I’ve had enough broken hearts to make me resilient, so I bounce back quickly from small hurts. My mistakes have made me humble enough to own my shit in a conflict. My lonely times have given me enough bottled up love and affection and care to meet some of the greatest needs. 

I am self reliant enough that I have the liberty to love by choice and commit my whole heart, knowing I can survive anything. I am confident enough that I can find value even in unlikely places and love regardless of outside opinions and without fear of protecting an image. 

But I’m not Weak ENOUGH to fulfill their need for power and control. I’m not needy ENOUGH to accommodate their unrealistic want for shallow ideals or superficial algorithms for success. And I’m not desperate ENOUGH to allow their lack of compassion and kindness to thrive. I’m not enough of many things. 

Knowing all of this doesn’t make rejection hurt less. I hurt for the loneliness I face and the failure of another love. I hurt for the lack in them that won’t allow me or any other woman to be “enough.”

I know I’m strong enough to get through it, even when I feel like I can’t. 

I just pray that somebody who is as full as me comes along so that we can be enough together, wanting for nothing. Between the two of us we’ll have all the tools and strength to solve any problem and meet any need. ❤️

Things About Investing

Warren Buffet says that if you aren't willing to own a stock for ten years, you probably shouldn't even own it for ten minutes.

I've been reading a lot about investing in stocks, which from everything I have gathered, the only real way to really get ahead in the stock market is to buy and hold for an awfully long time

Before now, the stock market loomed in my mind like a giant, evil nemesis of All That Is Good in the world, partially because of my childhood obsession with the Great Depression and partially because I had to somehow feel OK about the fact that I would never have a single dime to even consider investing. But as I get older, the more I learn and the more "discretionary" dollars I have to tuck away for the future, the more stocks become a socially respectable form of gambling in my mind, and I have always said I would really like gambling if I ever got into it.

The few hundred bucks that I have invested into stocks since Novemberof '18 are at this point showing an 80% average gain - and while that average ebbs and flows, I get as giddy as my a Stecker at a barn sale when some stock I am mildly interested in takes a wild nosedive and is ripe for the picking. It's like a scavenger hunt, based half on gut instinct and half on the advice of scathing wall street commentators from both sides, and I like it. I pick stocks that make sense to me, products and programs that I understand or use. I bought Facebook even though I was counseled not to, since "it has nowhere to go" and it's already made me some money. My new pet is Tesla, which is bottomed out at the moment and waiting for a few hopeless romantics to jump on board and maybe be part of a big future.

I think smart investing holds a lot of parallels to relationships. We jump in based on gut instinct disguised as a crush, and fueled by the approval of our peers and family, or if we're rebels, the disapproval. But so many of us like to take the little gains we make and cash out fast, thinking we know so much and we can just upgrade to an even better earner, or when things start to dip we panic and cut losses and run. Not many of us buy and hold any more.

The stock market is rife with short termers buying and selling for a quick turn-around profit, but what about the guys like Buffet who buy at the bottom and sit on it for decades? That's my plan, with stocks, and with life, given the opportunity. It's good to avoid reckless investments into things that have no potential, but there's no way to foresee a dud every single time.

I've done my share of investing both emotionally and financially in things that I believed firmly would pay off exponentially in the long run, and some of those things have just deflated right out from under me. Maybe Tesla will too.

The biggest challenge with both stocks and relationships is knowing when it's really time to get out, whether it's been ten minutes or ten years -when you have maximized the potential of your investment and it's time to move on. Maybe there's a stock out there worth hanging on to until the bitter end when you're ready to cash it in and go basejumping in Australia - or pay your nursing home bill. I dunno. I'm just an infant in this money world but I like it, and so far it seems like I might be better at picking my stocks than I am at picking my relationships. But I'll keep gambling...

PS, if you want to play the roulette with me, go here:

https://share.robinhood.com/livias3

Things About Strength

It always starts the same way. 
He’s mesmerized by my energy, infatuated with my color, my power... 

all the things that make me strong and beautiful. 

Then after he has me for awhile the power begins to threaten him, 
or intimidate him... and 

like a Jenga tower, 

                                              he carefully, 

     strategically 

removes one block 

                    at a time 

with well placed destruction 

     until finally,

 the tower of me collapses

 and he says 

“see, I always knew you were unstable.” 

                           I need to know how 
to keep all my pieces 

and never let them be taken again.

Things About the Dark

I woke up in the early hours of the morning, gripped by a black terror. Some dream woke me up. It was innocent enough. I was meeting his new girlfriend. She was younger than me. She had little kids. I was trying to open the wine and suddenly overcome by absolute panic. It woke me up. My jaw was clenched in pain and a vice gripped my skull.

It's like most nights lately. And early mornings. I never get any sleep past 0600, which is ok. My days have been more productive. I try to fill them with things to keep the pain at bay. I am working on avoiding the things that numb the pain but then I find myself numbing myself to the numbing. I pick up my phone a billion times a day and stare at it, finding absolutely nothing I was looking for. Not that I know what I am looking for. I've grown a hatred for the little machine.

I won't say I'm ok, because I am not. I will be, at some point. I have ok moments. I can laugh sometimes, with friends. I can eat, sometimes. The only thing that feels good to me is physical pain, so the gym has actually become my salvation. There's something cathartic about struggling to breathe and wearing myself out to the point that I am too tired to feel anything, so it's really a new kind of numbing, but maybe it's healthier. IDK.

I keep thinking about reaching out to a counselor, or a friend, but choices I have made have left me fairly isolated in this tell-all town and I don't want to talk to anyone. I can hear the questions of every therapist I've talked to and they're the same ones I ask myself over and over while I lay, sleepless in the dark. I know the answers. I don't need to pay someone to hash through that shit again.

Is what you lost really what you wanted anyway? Do you think you are just in love with the idea of being in love? What is so terrible about being alone? What is the Worst Thing That Can Happen? This. This is it. I can't honestly think of anything worse. But I failed to plan for this. I blinded myself to the possibility of every endless day on this side of the Worst Thing That Can Happen.

I know that I will be all right. I know that I am learning each day, new things. Last week I battled through ages-old bitterness to a new level of pain in understanding my ownership in the outcome of my life right now. I did this. Me. I made this bed and here I will lie, facing the consequences of all of my choices - every sparse moment of sleep riddled with nightmares.

I believe I will love again. I have faith this isn't the end of my story, somehow. But it's mechanical faith. It's not feeling faith. Part of me feels dead, but the sting is still so intense that these days lack the relief of death. I ride waves of hurt toward a plateau of peace, but just when I land there, a new wave crashes over me.

There is nothing about this life, right now, right here, that I want. Nothing. Not this place or time or any of it. Maybe I will look back at some point and see the value of these days. But right now I would give anything to skip ahead to a space without this pain.

The crazy thing is that I thought I was stronger than this. I thought I was resilient. I thought I was level enough to handle whatever outcome, and here I sit, completely destroyed. I don't want to be here. I want to be tough and hopeful. My head pounds with the weight of all of it.

Things That Are a Workout

Going to the gym is really, really hard for me.

Not because of the workout, although that part is sucky too. In fact, just squeezing into yoga pants and tying my shoes feels like a workout most days, but lifting weights and numbing my brain on cardio equipment isn't the worst part.

I don't mind the gym when it's empty, which is why 2 AM workouts might be ideal for me, especially on nights I can't sleep anyway, but we've been going lately in the mid-afternoon, and I don't know if it's the furloughed federal employees, millennials that crawled out of their mom's basements, or a running start class at the community college, but there are always so many youngish people at the gym in the middle of the day. And I hate it.

I am digging deep into my twisted psyche to understand why I hate it, because it's ridiculous. I've been closing my eyes, and doing that mental exercise where you take the thing that is bothering you and don't try to ignore it, or kill it, but you examine it lovingly to find out why it's bothering you, but I just find myself swirling farther into anxiety and gym-loathing.

It's a weird mixture of "all those people are looking at me, judging me" and "all those people take themselves so seriously and actually look ridiculous," which is me judging them and probably the reason that I assume they are judging me. I can't touch a weight or pedal a bike without this sense of panic that the people who seem to be hovering around me like a cloud of condescension are evaluating my leg positioning and grip style, ready with a thousand helpful "pointers" about how I am doing it wrong. I have no idea what right looks like, so I know I am not judging them on how they're doing their shit, I just can't figure out why nobody is laughing at themselves when they try not to fart on the incline sit-up board.

They're all so busy making huffing sounds and looking in mirrors and it makes me feel so... something really awful that I can't even identify, as though I had endured some gym-centric trauma in my past that I can't seem to recall.

Every cell in my body wants to retreat to a corner where there are no mirrors and face away from everyone, but then I am worried they will be judging my butt in yoga pants, even with my shirt pulled down to my knees.

It's a real-live anxiety thing for me. I should be getting cardio credits for my elevated heart rate the minute I walk into a crowded (in Colville that's 5 people) gym. I want to die. WHAT IS MY PROBLEM?

The crazy part is I have yet to run into a single person at the gym that I know or care about impressing, but I am completely self-conscious about being watched or noticed at all. I try to turn my headphones up loud and drown out all of the panting, grunting people around me but it doesn't seem to help. All the girls are hotter than me and all the guys are watching the hotter girls and I feel like the whole thing is a like a flock of peacocks strutting around making obnoxious mating sounds and I am like an out-of-place prairie dog feeling like I came to the wrong party. 

It has been pointed out to me that I had a similar mental resistance to financial issues but have more or less pushed through and (pretend) to feel more comfortable with the decisions I am making about my money. It has been suggested that I will have a similar break through at the gym, and I hope to God so because it's getting worse.

I know I am frustrated that in the almost two months of fairly regular short workouts and yoga, mixed with a lot of walking on my trip and some time on the ski hill falling down since we got home, I have only gotten progressively more sore and tired and yes, even gained weight. I am trusting that I will have a break through there as well, but I'll admit my faith is shaky right now.

I also know I have a long history with narcissistic males "teaching" me how I needed to workout, telling me what I was doing wrong and going into great detail about their extensive knowledge of physical fitness and how clear it was that I had no idea what I was doing, which might have been true, but didn't feel great coming from the same men who lamented not knowing me back when I was "really hot" and thin, but were committed to helping me get there again, for the sake of our relationship and with the hope they could be more attracted to me (PSA: Don't marry guys like that. You're welcome). So sweet.

So I have some beef with the gym. And very limited knowledge and exposure, save some quick-and-dirty lessons that I was given in order to teach weight class for P.E. as a highschool substitute. I know I have SO much to learn, but I also know I am super resistant to most benevolent teachers.

I want to go to the gym with somebody who can also make fun of themselves in the mirror and laugh when they get really bad vertigo getting off the treadmill. I want to go with somebody who doesn't take it so seriously and knows they're as ridiculous as I am. I want to get healthy and strong but I don't want to have panic attacks doing it. I want to figure out how to enjoy it.

I am open to suggestions here, or psychological evaluations, hypnosis, lobotomy...  sign me up. I want to get into it like normal people. Maybe a personal trainer? I tried a few cross-fit type classes and it wasn't much better - even more personal attention and forced interactions. But maybe I should try it again.

Right now, I am forcing myself to go out of sheer discipline and commitment, and some times when it's emptier aren't so bad. But sometimes are really bad. Tonight I am going to a Zumba class with some friends and I am looking forward to being able to be ridiculous with them. Because there's no other way to do Zumba - it's impossible to take yourself seriously at Zumba unless you're Beyonce.

100% me at the gym.

Things to Sleep On

OK.

Here we go into the third week of January and so far, of all the new habits that I am supposed to be forming, the only one that is sticking is the gym, and only because a Certain Individual challenged me (by accidentally pushing a button on his Apple Watch) to a fitness competition which I CAN NOT lose. But hey, one habit forming is better than none. I have been doing more reading... and a titch more writing, maybe this week will be the trendsetter for one of those. I will work on it.

I spent a lot of time last week that would have been well used reading some of my six-foot shelf of unread books or writing the next bestselling novel,  researching mattresses instead. I have decided that after 6 years of blaming poor fitness habits, being overweight, bad genes and a variety of other innocent scapegoats for my chronic back pain, that it's actually the relatively expensive mattress that I bought on an ill-informed whim 6 years ago to help with, you guessed it, chronic back pain. My bed is nice, but there are two things wrong with it: 1) It is as soft as a sea of marshmallows and 2) it's a queen size.

What could possibly be wrong with a sea of marshmallows, you ask? Nothing, unless it is a queen-sized sea of marshmallows which you are trying to share with a Certain Individual who finds his sense of self dead center in a bed, either for fear of falling out or relinquishing space to Anyone Else (namely me). He says it's about cuddling. I say it's about a space-scarcity mentality, and spend my nights gripping the uber-squishy edge of my 1/8th of the mattress, all muscles clenched in an effort to not fall onto to floor. So my back hurts. Or maybe the mattress and the Individual are just more innocent scapegoats, but either way, I need something bigger and harder. AAAnd that's what she said.

ANYWAY,  I've been looking/shopping/researching/testing mattresses for a couple of weeks, and the only thing I decided for sure was that there are far too many options. Even after ruling out a foam bed of any type and knowing I wanted innerspring, there were still too many possibilities. I ran into a serious case of decision paralysis after spending hours combing through online reviews, consumer reports, Facebook polls and reading the mattress propaganda shopped heavily to me on Instagram ads the second the slightest thought of a mattress flitted through my brain. I heard a lot of good feedback about SleepNumber, but I don't like the idea of one more electronically controlled thing in my room, and my current bed is a Tempurpedic (also popular, but expensive), which is wonderful, but this model is too soft. I filtered all of the input down to a handful of major brands based on overall reviews/price combinations: Avocado Green, Saatva and Simmons Beautyrest. Hard core Insta marketing and the hipster-esque image of Avocado Green spoke to me, moreso than the matronly tradition of a Beautyrest, but as far as price point, long term durability, and the best broad-spectrum comfort for a side sleeper with back issues and a bedhog partner, I kept coming back to the Saatva.

Lucky for me, my sister in law just bought a new bed from Saatva, which started the whole thought process, since I got to sleep on her old bed (a Beautyrest, which I liked) when I stayed at their house in D.C., and I also got to help usher in the new mattress via the company's free "white glove delivery," where two nice young men carefully squished the king-sized masterpiece up her barely queen-sized stairway, into the bedroom, unwrapped it and vanished along with all of the trappings of mattress delivery, the whole while a small dog with certain paranoid tendencies told them loudly that they weren't allowed in her mom's bedroom.

So after numbing my brain with 600,000 mattress options and at least as many opinions, I hit the SIL up for her three-week report on the new bed. She told me that my brother insists it's just like the old bed, only bigger, which sounds exactly like something my brother would say, but for her part, she was happy with it. Being one of the only first-hand, recent-experience testimonials, and because it was impossible to find any bad reviews on the mattress that she had purchased, and because a Certain Individual was absolutely done giving input on the matter, I decided to follow suit and ordered from the same company.

I will report back in few weeks about whether A) the back pain is any better B) the whole bed-switching process results in any new drama and C) whether the mattress and/or company is really as good as they sound. I mean, the pictures look amazing, and if you know me, you'll know that it's irrationally important to me that the mattress no one will ever see looks as good as it feels. In the meantime, if you are mattress shopping, I have all the latest info.

Things About Being an Influencer

I'm learning a lot lately about gratitude. What it is, once you get all up into the ugliness and the light of gratefulness shows you the silver linings. I'm learning that gratitude doesn't mean no pain, and it doesn't mean perfection. It just means being able to have faith that there's something good in everything that happens.

We live in a world of competition and comparison. Never has this been more of a cultural force than with the advent of social media and the instantaneous flaunting of airbrushed, filtered and doctored beauty and strength. We are bombarded with images of what life should be, making us critical of our own pathway and the complicated beauty that surrounds us. 

There's an entire industry built around these so-called "social media influencers," beautiful people living their "best lives" surrounded by products and places that are paying for the exposure. What a great gig. I'd like to get beautiful and have a job like that, get paid to just be awesome and do awesome things, but when I think about how and what and who those people are "influencing," I am not so sure they're as big as they think they are, no matter what their follower count looks like. 

I have a love-hate relationship with social media, and the fact that a lot of my work revolves around Facebook and Instagram audiences sometimes makes me feel a little panicky inside, like there's no escape, especially when I measure myself against the perceived success of a lot of people I have never met. The hate side is compounded by the holier-than-thou sneer I feel from a lot of people who "aren't on Facebook" or some other such aloofness to the shallow happenings in cyberspace. I am not always there because I want to be, and to be honest, some days it's a lot more vulnerability than I care for, but I know two things: I need to keep building and I need to keep being real - vulnerability is my gig, and I am grateful. 

Some comments and scorn from people, even ones close to me, have caused me to shut down for periods of time, hiding in my darkened place of shame because my flaws are to glaring to be exposed. The funny part is, the largest part of that scorn doesn't happen online. Most of my biggest critics are live and in the flesh and too good for social media, judging me for daring to publish my inadequacies for the whole world. But the best social media influencers don't get hung up on their flaws, and that's what I am aspiring toward.

Recently, our community lost a great man. Tim wasn't the Sexiest Man Alive and he didn't live on a yacht in Trinidad, but as far as social media influencers go, I can't think of a better role model. Tim retired a couple of years ago from a lifetime of community service as a law enforcement officer, only to find out shortly after his last shift that he had terminal cancer. Tim used his last couple of years in the best way possible, and if anybody lived their "best life," Tim and Barb beat all those pseudo-celebrities to the punch, hands down. 

These are the last couple of posts that Tim was able to share. I miss his morning greetings. 💔

Tim became a presence on Facebook, in his last few months, every day that he could find the energy and strength he would send out a message of hope and joy, and most of all, gratitude, to the community. To us, the rag-tag band of Facebook followers that were lucky enough to know him, Tim delivered warmth and love and in his final days, we watched an outpouring back onto his Facebook page from all the people that he had touched that was overwhelming. Tim is maybe one of the few people who really understood the power that social media can have when used the right way. Or maybe he didn't understand, he just found a good way to spill some love around the community. But if there was every a good reason, or a good way, to be on Facebook, Tim figured it out. 

Tim was a guy who spent his whole life using his brains and brawn to help other people, and as he felt his strength slowly slipping away, he found another way to give to the people around him. Never a complaint, while he endured what was probably overwhelming pain, Tim only had light to give. He modeled gratitude that wasn't hindered by the pain he was in. Far too young to leave this world, he faced his end with only encouragement for the rest of us. This is how social media should influence us. Not the bikini bodies and the gourmet meals and the polished fake perfection that we've bought into. 

Tim and his Facebook world are one of the reasons I will remain a staunch defender of social media, in spite of its downfalls. The connections that I have built that I otherwise never would have are some of the most powerful in my life. I knew Tim from my work on the ambulance, but I grew to know who he really was in his last few months on Facebook. Tim encouraged me to keep sharing my pictures and posts, saying he was living vicariously through me, while perfectly healthy, active people were mocking my posts, Tim was getting a kick out of all of my imperfect adventures. Cousins that I now count as friends never shared a meaningful conversation with me until we stumbled across each other and our mutual struggles through Facebook messenger. Friends I have made on social media from around the world have opened up professional and personal opportunities for me ... Say what you will about it, but there is community in the cyber world. It's no substitute for the real deal, maybe, but in our jet-setting age, how precious to have a community you carry with you as you globetrot. 

We don't live in rural pastoral villages with generations of the same families intermarrying like it used to be - well, most of us don't (ahem, Stevens County...). We live in constantly shifting and changing family structures and geographic locations and professional scenes, it's the nature of our world now, and it calls for a new kind of connection. 

I am grateful for social media, and I am grateful for the opportunity to develop my own niche of influencing and enjoy the value, however flawed that I might bring to one person in my vulnerability. I am grateful for Tim and the role model he was, and I intend to mirror his gratitude and positivity in my own online world. There's no need for anything else, really. People complain about how fake or flawed social media is, but it's only as fake as we let it be. Tim made Facebook a real and beautiful neighborhood to live in. I want to be like Tim.