Monthly Archives: October 2013

Like the layers of an onion…

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I am always amazed when life lets me hear exactly what I need to hear exactly at the moment I need and am ready to hear it. I don’t know why that amazes me because it happens all the time.  For me, it happens when I feel like I have reached the bottom.  Maybe that is the only time in my life that I stop struggling and just let go trying to control everything and just allow myself to BE.  That is when I can hear what I need to hear.

It was funny, I had been stressing about filling up the next two weeks in Andalucía for the last two weeks. Nothing I tried to book worked, from my B&B reservations that got cancelled, to my debit card not working to book my train tickets, etc.  If all those frustrating things hadn’t happened, I would still be miserably stressing over how to fill up my days. Because of my frustration, I lamented that to Matt in a message a few days ago and he said, “come to Nepal” and I said, “if I can work the details out I will”. After all the frustration I had in Spain, I thought there was no way in hell I would be able to organize a trip to Nepal in 3 days, I hadn’t even been able to get a hotel room in Granada. Yet amazingly, all the plans just fell into place, like this was exactly what I was supposed to do at this moment.  Funny how that happens.

Now I sit here, all checked in for tomorrow’s early morning flight.  I have to admit, I am looking forward to seeing my friend even just for a couple of days.

I process things in a cyclical fashion, maybe we all do. It is like a spiral, where I go round and round with an issue, thinking I have got it solved, until it rears its head again. Only when I look at it closely, it isn’t quite the same, it is better than it was, just not finished yet. And it keeps spiraling around and around getting tighter and tighter, kind of like being caught in a whirlpool or a black hole, until all of a sudden, it is actually gone and isn’t an issue anymore.  In this case, my struggle has been with the same old thing that I have been whining about for months, maybe years… my attachment to the past and the way life “should” be.

And then, a couple of days ago, this is what someone told me about my “stuckness”:

Start with what is clogging you up, figure out what isn’t relevant to your life or is harmful to your well-being.  If it is still there, there is a reason.  Find it, learn that reason and then find another way to acquire that need and then get rid of what isn’t relevant. When that thing is out of your life, look again at what is holding you back.  Layer by layer, like the layers of an onion, peel away what is in your life by habit that serves you no purpose, refine what is left so you understand what’s their use. In the end it should get very slim.

Remember you are not letting go of the love or the lessons, only the attachment. Some people need to stay in your life, not because of your need but theirs.  Some people need to go, not because you don’t love them but because they aren’t good for you or you for them. Be gentle but strong, lovingly push them away, send them with good wishes and a prayer but walk away. By giving people their freedom and letting go of things you find your own freedom, even though it is the last thing you planned.

Yeah… that did it.  I felt like I had been shot from a proverbial cannon.  What hit me was that is what I have been doing ever since I started this journey when I started giving up all my stuff.  I have been methodically peeling away all the layers.  With each challenge I have faced, I am more and more exposed to the core of what I am.  There is nothing left to hide behind.  I have finally reached the really, really hard internal attachments that I still cling to.  And basically, I am stuck because I don’t really want to face them. I have been blaming the lack of home and physical possessions, but it isn’t the “stuff”… things like money and furniture… where I am stuck is my story and who I believe I am and the disconnect between that and who I want to be.

I knew this would be the hardest part.  And it is. It makes giving up my physical stuff from my apartment look like it was a walk in the park.  Yikes.  I will say it again, because I personally need the reminder, life is exactly as it should be.

Eat, Pray, Love

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I have never read the book Eat, Pray, Love.  I understand basically how it goes: girl gets divorced and travels around for a year (paid for by her publisher) and “finds herself” by going to Italy and nurturing her physical self, then to India to discover her spiritual self, and then to Indonesia where she meets the man of her dreams. It was immortalized in a film by Julia Roberts. I have never seen the film either. I just want to go on the record to say that I am not trying to recreate a novel that I haven’t read or a movie that I haven’t seen.  But I have changed my plans and am going to Nepal.

In what has been a series of events from when I first started planning my sabbatical to now, life has just unfolded and happened the way it has happened. I have no regrets in anything I have done. Life is an adventure and best savored fresh and hot in the moment. Whether I enjoyed the taste of it or not, it all was meant to be experienced and learning happened.  And with that said, it is time to stop traveling and take a break for a little while.

So I am going to meet my friend Matt in Kathmandu on Sunday morning and head to Pokhara.  I am not sure what he has planned for me and I am sure that whatever it is, it will make a good story and probably end up with me jumping off something while screaming my fool head off or ending up in a Nepalese jail somewhere. Whatever the challenge is, when Matt asks me if I want to do it, my answer is going to be yes, with no fanfare, I am just going to jump.  What I hope to gain from this change of plans is a chance to see what my friend loves about Nepal and its people.  I hope to blog about it and take wonderful pictures to capture a world that, for one of the people I respect most in life, gives him tremendous personal joy and meaning.

Another hidden agenda item for me that has made me give up my original goal of heading to Andalucía is that I want to go to a yoga/meditation workshop in Nepal. Not because of any Eat, Pray, Love ideas. I am searching for inner peace and the ability to let go of resentments. I have had some success at that in the past, mediation and yoga have kept me centered throughout my divorce and the subsequent abuse and manipulation by my therapist.  But for some reason, since this spring when I gave up my apartment, I have struggled to maintain any kind of consistent practice.  Maybe because of the inconsistency in living arrangements or the moving around from place to place.  But that, along with all the other life upheavals in the past few months, has been effecting my physical and emotional well-being. It has been too much all at once.  I am ready to change that.  I am hoping to increase my knowledge of meditation and yoga practice so that I can manage more effectively on my own regardless of where I am or what life brings me.

So, this is my last full day in my beautiful sunny apartment in central Madrid.  What a beautiful, fascinating and lovely place. I highly recommend it as a place to spend a lovely, relaxing vacation.  I debated what to do today and finally I decided… nothing.  I am going to get the big camera out walk around and take photographs.  This afternoon, I am going to find some lovely tapas bar and have my last gorge on amazing ham, seafood, and Spanish wine. Then tomorrow I am going to move to a hotel near the airport for my early morning flight on Friday to Nepal.

When I get back from Nepal, I will spend 4 lovely days in Barcelona before flying back to North Carolina to spend Thanksgiving with my son and daughter-in-law and the two most amazingly intelligent and beautiful granddaughters ever. Then a trip to Maine to visit with some friends from high school who I haven’t seen in 30 years (yikes!) and a visit with my wonderful Maine family before flying back to Seattle for a travel time-out.  I need to spend some time skiing with my friends, enjoying happy hours with Tony and Marisa, supervising Keri’s dissertation, laughing with Maurea, and just refilling my soul with some continuity and familiarity.

The traveling has given me clarity on where my greatest needs are.  I need to be exercising daily, meditating, doing yoga, spending time on my bike and skis which bring me joy, spending time with my friends who make me feel loved and supported, writing and reading for my research, and going back to therapy.  Yes, I said it.  I, the person who distrusts the mental health care profession more than anyone on the planet, am going back to therapy.  I realize there are some things in my life that I am ready to make peace with and that can’t happen without some help. Finding a therapist will be an interesting challenge.

Then, maybe this spring, I will be ready to travel some more.  But right now, I need a break.

A new day

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P1060676

Port de Sollar, Majorca

I left Mallorca and flew to Madrid.  All of a sudden, instead of being surrounded by British, Irish, Scottish, and German tourists, I have been plunged into the heart of Spain where very little English is spoken.  In fact, I think I spent the entire day yesterday without hearing English spoken at all.  I read Spanish pretty well, as long as I don’t try to open my mouth.  The only place I got into trouble was in the supermarket when the clerk was trying to get me to give him a penny to even up my total. He was talking so fast that by the time I figured out what he wanted, he was just giving me my change and was obviously frustrated with me.

IMG_2197Instead of staying in a hotel, I used airbnb.com to find an apartment in central Madrid.  Lovely one bedroom overlooking a pedestrian only side street. In the US, many people put shutters on their houses for decoration.  In Europe the shutters actually work and serve purposes.  They keep the sun out, but more importantly, they are a noise barrier against the street noises.  It definitely can get loud at night. Even as I write this at 9 am from my apartment which is technically on the 4th floor, but actually the 5th floor and you have to climb 7 flights of stairs to get to it, I can hear the Spanish men who are opening their shops below and they are in a heated discussion about something. I love their passion.  They are passionate about everything.  It is wonderful.

Poseidon

Poseidon

Yesterday I went to the Prado museum and today went to the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza.  I honestly was so overwhelmed.  There was a Velasquez exhibit at the Prado as the temporary collection which was incredible.  It was amazing to see this huge body of work from an artist who lived centuries ago.  I kept wondering how fast this person painted because he had hundreds of works.  And they aren’t small either. There were many paintings that graced the royal palace and took up entire walls.  How with the “technology” he had to work with then, such as making his own paints, did he ever have time to paint all that?  In the regular collection at the Prado and the MTB hang masterpieces of not only Velasquez but also Goya, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Botticelli, Monet, Gauguin, Degas and many many more.  Works that span 1000 years that were commissioned by kings and churches.  Amazing works of art that depict the faces and emotions of people long dead as they faced the common struggles that all humans face.

Rembrandt

Rembrandt

That is the thing about great art…it captures that instant of emotion.  A scene, even without people, that uses light to give the viewer an image or a second of a glimpse into time, and it takes your breath away.  Good photography is the same, it captures pure emotion, either within the faces of the people in the picture or in the hearts of the viewer.  Great art just takes the artist longer to capture that essence.  They didn’t have digital back in antiquity, they didn’t even have an art store to buy supplies but had to make their own.  It took months of scraping canvases, painting and repainting to get it right.  Masterpieces.

A House Among the Roses ~Monet

A House Among the Roses ~Monet

The past two days, I have been honored to stand in the same room with these paintings.  I grew up in a middle class household in a small town in rural interior Maine.  In my life, I never thought I would be privileged enough to be able to see works of art such these. I think of all the people who will never get to step inside a museum, who might see art from the web or a book, but never have the opportunity to travel to place where their senses are bombarded with piece after piece of some of the most amazing works of art of the planet.   And from a photo, there is no way one can grasp the texture of the brushstrokes, or the essence of the painting. I ended up being moved to tears at the privilege of seeing these amazing works with my own eyes.

P1060827I am also fortunate to have the experience I get to have.  There are so many people who will never get to hear to tolling of bells to greet the day, or hear only a language different from their own spoken, where they have to figure out how to negotiate without words, or try to figure out where they are on a foreign street in an unfamiliar city, to be immersed in a culture that is foreign to realize how much we really are all the same.  Human.

IMG_2213Even on streets of Madrid with a different language and culture, emotion comes through unmistakably.  Laughter, friendship, joy, grief, sadness, anger…all are displayed everywhere.  The love of parent for a child, a young couple newly married, friends meeting for tapas. Unmistakable.  Poverty also knows no cultural barriers, beggars, prostitutes, pick-pockets look the same in every culture.  Just like great art shows emotion, we can also see it if we just take time to look around at our fellow man.  Human beings are fragile, life is to be cherished for the gift that it is.

I am thankful for everything that has happened in my life that has pushed me to this place right now. I am thankful that I had the courage to try again.  I truly have the best life ever and I appreciate it every day.

2566_615415764933_1729704_n patrickAnd happy birthday to my wonderful son. I am too young to be the mother of a 32 year old. I love you Patrick.

It is not the change we fear, it is the unknown

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Traveling by oneself is a tremendous opportunity for growth.  It is also ridiculously scary, a little lonely, yet absolutely rewarding.  I remember two weeks ago, in Seattle, I was terrified and almost paralyzed over trying to figure out how to get all my stuff in a carry-on bag and instead having to check a bag because of my bike gear.  I was scared and didn’t want to leave my friends and the safety of the known, even though I was floundering in that situation and not making any progress with moving forward in my life.  And traveling is stressful, even though it is a good thing. It is stressful even when you are traveling with a tour group, your family and friends, even just in your own country.  Traveling by yourself, in a country where you don’t speak the language, with no reservations, no hotels, not even any itinerary, with no one with you to help you negotiate things adds a whole different layer of stress. What ends up happening, if you allow it to, is the stress of it can overwhelm you and suck the fun right out of what you are trying to do.  At that point, somewhere, you have to step back and just let it all go.

Two weeks ago, leaving Seattle with no plans and no agenda, I was totally stressed out.  I displaced the aggression from that stress on those around me, on the people that love me the most. We have all done it, rolled our stress onto those around us.  As we get overwhelmed and internalize, it is like a dam holding water back, when the emotional pressure gets too great, it will come out.  And it flows downhill to those relationships we know where our fear of losing them is the lowest, to the people we trust will be there and won’t leave us. Controlling the stress rollover and being open and honest with my fears and emotions is probably one of the things I could work on that would help my relationships the most.  Thankfully, most of my friends know me and know my intentions and what my fears are.  When I roll my stress onto them they come back at me in ways that relieve that stress, with humor and love. I owe them.

562331_10101391105869703_83408613_nSo here I sit, four more weeks to go. I have lost about 5 pounds from the physical activity here in Mallorca.  I am tan and rested. I am leaving Mallorca tomorrow for the unknown of Madrid. No friends around to help me figure things out or relieve my stress. I have been sitting here in a lovely coffee shop, with a view of the beach and the Mediterranean Sea, trying to make reservations while worrying about what to do with the bike gear I have and the checked bag I will be carrying around.  Shipping the bike gear back to the US from Spain is problematic because things don’t get there and it is about three times more expensive than just checking an extra bag. It isn’t worth it for the convenience of moving around the country with a lighter load.  One of the lessons I have learned from this trip is not to try to combine activities. If I come for a cycling holiday, that is all it needs to be.  Adding on 4 weeks of just casually roaming around Europe is an entirely different bag of clothes, literally.

As I head off into the unknown, I can feel the fear churning in my gut.  How will I maneuver around Madrid to get to the apartment I rented?  I have the public transportation schedule but have these bags. The place I rented is in a pedestrian only area so a cab is problematic and exorbitant. Where will I go after I leave Madrid?  How will I get there?  ARRRGGGGHHHH…..after a while, the questions just overwhelm me and it is in that overwhelmed state that I have to deal with it on my own, in a way that is constructive. That is where the real learning is happening for me. It doesn’t come from having a perfectly planned trip. The learning happens when my gut is churning with the fear of the unknown, when I have to negotiate and make decisions in the moment without just being able to rest in the comfort and safety of what I know. And it isn’t easy. It is however, priceless.

When I started reflecting on that, I realized that in Mallorca, I negotiated public transportation in Spanish just fine.  Only once did I get off the bus at the wrong stop.  When I did and realized it, I took it as a sign that I needed to see what that unexpected neighborhood had to offer.  I ended up in a neighborhood with no English speakers and had to order my lunch in Spanish. I had a lovely lunch, then I got on the bus again and got off at the right stop.  No problem.  So what am I worrying about now?  The reality is there is no reason to worry.  Ultimately, I am going to drag my backpack and my checked bag onto the public transportation system in Madrid and hope I don’t get robbed.  Simple.  I either will make it to where I am trying to go or I will make it somewhere else.  Either I will have all my belongings with me or I won’t.  That is the part that makes it an adventure.

Transition times of our lives are rough. Everyone thinks that making a change is scary.  It isn’t the change, it is the unknown that the change will bring.  In order to get to the place where the fear isn’t taking over, I have to embrace the very unknown that is the source of the fear. Which means letting go of worry and expectations for what might happen.  What will happen will happen. Worrying about it just takes away from the joy I get to experience right now.

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. ~Helen Keller

The girl who wrote a blog…

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Have you ever climbed stairs?  When I used to work out with my favorite trainer, he loved to make me work out on this stair machine at the gym.  I hated that machine.  I would climb and climb and never go anywhere, I would just be profoundly sweaty in the end, even after just about 3 minutes.  Even though externally I didn’t get anywhere, internally, I gained lot in terms of fitness (thanks Chip). Stairs are hard work. It takes a lot of effort.  Making huge changes like developing a new identity, or even small ones requires steps and those steps feel like climbing a staircase, and it is hard.  I sweat and breathe hard and want to stop and take a break, but just like on that stair machine, if I stop, I go right back down to the bottom.

I read this great blog last night.  It was called Life Divided by Zero. All I could think of is how smart and creative the author is and I wondered, where to hell is she now??  Because none of those words felt consistent with how I am behaving. I have been going down the stairs, or at the very least trying to rest on the step I have gained without going further.

I have realized that I am trying to make a huge change and transition in my life.  There are steps to doing that.  Steps require climbing.  I climbed to the top of step one which was figuring out who I wanted to be and pictured it, visualizing my life as I want it to be.  Then, I made a mistake, I stayed comfortably on that step, magically just waiting for my life to be transformed.  Yeah, it doesn’t work that easily. When I reread the words I had written that “I had to let go of all I am in order to become who I want to be”, it hit me.  I need to climb to the next step.  I know who I want to be and I can visualize it.

Step two, I have to figure out what is holding me back. When I went through my physical stuff last spring, I allowed myself a set amount of space (8 boxes) and then I picked up each thing I owned and asked myself a question: Is this important enough to go in one of those 8 boxes?  From the answer to that question I made three piles: the things I was sure I wanted to keep, the things I was sure I wanted to discard that weren’t working for me anymore, and the things I wasn’t sure of. Then I packed what I wanted to keep, discarded those items that didn’t work, and did a second culling of the “not sure of” pile. It was the hardest thing I have ever done.

Just like when I got rid of my physical stuff, I have to go through my internal self. What are the internal and external barriers to becoming the person I want to be? What am I still clinging to in my old life, why am I clinging to it, what purpose is it still serving me?  I have to examine my internal beliefs, attitudes, self-talk, memories, and all the things that are barriers to moving on.  It isn’t just giving up stuff, it is giving up resting in the dysfunction I have been living with in order to keep from doing the work needed to become who I want to be.

This step is even harder than the step where I gave up all my physical stuff.  This step requires going through all that emotional baggage I carry around with me packed up nice and tight in my internal Sampsonite. I have to open it up, expose it, and go through the mental exercise of examining each piece and separating it those same three piles: those things which work for me, those things which I need to let go of, and those things which I am not certain of.  Then letting go of that which I am sure isn’t working and then going through another cull and really getting to the minutiae of the parts that I am not certain of.

If I want to be the girl with the guts and courage who could write this blog, if I really want to BE her and not just talk about being her, and if I really want the life I have visualized, I have to go through the internal work.  Change only comes with the internal processing to make the internal consistent with the external.  This is gonna suck.

Ginger sheep

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I see the world very differently from a bike than I do in a car.  It seems more up close and personal.  The feeling of the wind in my face, the smells, the sounds…it just allows me to appreciate wherever I am with all of my senses.  Cars tend to be isolating little worlds all unto themselves.  Scenery flies by like it is on TV.  On a bike, it is all real and raw.

coastlineFor the past 6 days, I have been on a cycling “holiday” in Majorca. I am not sure what I thought a cycling holiday would mean. Because I was unsure about riding in a new place by myself where I didn’t speak the primary language, I booked two weeks with a cycling company that advertised cycling holidays and training camps. I guess I thought they would spend a couple of days riding around with us, giving us a map and some tips on what to do or not to do to stay safe and within the bounds of local authority, some advice for coffee shops, scenic views, places to eat, etc.  I thought that they would have some organized training rides for the serious cyclists along with a more “do it yourself” version that just included suggested routes and stops for coffee/pictures.

It isn’t quite like that. There are definitely organized rides, all of which have been too difficult for me. People train for those BEFORE coming to training camp. Unfortunately, I didn’t do that.  So I have struggled a bit, felt like an abject failure at times on big climbs, felt some success at descending, and generally feel more fit today than I did 6 days ago.  5 more days to go…  The company, Stephen Roche Cycling Holidays & Training Camps, their ride leaders and management have all been very professional.  They want me to be successful and to enjoy my trip.  The problem is that as they are pushing me to “enjoy” by doing more physically on the bike, and I have felt a little pressure to perform and it has taken away from my fun of riding a bike.  What is hard is that, while I recognize how good it has been for me physically, I needed a jump start and in fact I wanted that to be part of my sabbatical plan, but it hasn’t been as good for me mentally.  Yesterday, there was a time that I hated being on a bike and all I wanted was to have it end.  My love for riding would be bad thing to trade for a little physical endurance that I could get from just hiring a private cycling coach.

Sunset

Sunset

For me, this is a holiday and what do people do on holiday?  They see beautiful places they wouldn’t have seen, they take a bunch of pictures, eat different foods, and get to talk to people from other places.  I prefer to do that from a bike, hence “cycling holiday”.  So far, I have been so into my own head of how badly I have sucked on the bike that I haven’t done any of those things.  I haven’t even collected one person’s story. I have been too self-absorbed in trying to climb hills, complaining about the bad food, and looking at the view of the wheel of the person in front of me pulling me along.

What is sad about that is that there have been some amazing people here who have fantastic stories.  I have listened to them at dinner but not engaged them in getting them to tell me the details of their stories.  I have just been content to catch bits and pieces as I have been (metaphorically) “licking my wounds” each day.  What a shame and an opportunity lost.  And that has been my problem with this training camp, for me, the cycling is second, the people are first.  But that isn’t why people come here.  They come here for the cycling first and the people second.  They might bring their spouse or mate who doesn’t cycle, but their primary purpose for coming here is to get better and increase their cycling skills.

Ginger sheep

Ginger sheep

For me the best part has been cycling around tiny country roads that are about as wide as the multi-use trail in Seattle. It definitely gets your heart started when you get passed by a car and there is another coming in the other direction on a road that is as wide as the Burke-Gilman trail.  I love cycling through the countryside and hearing the bells on the sheep as they wander through the pastures. There were even orange/red sheep (gingers)…I didn’t even know that sheep could be colors other than black or white!  Then one of our ride leaders told us it was what they dip the sheep in to keep insects at bay that makes them orange.  It was still cool seeing ginger sheep!

Baked goods

Baked goods

I love seeing the almond trees and the beautiful old Spanish homes. I bet it would be stunning in the spring when the trees are all in bloom. The small towns are amazing, tiny cobblestone streets, people chatting and doing business, lovely cafes with incredible assortments of baked goods.  Of course, most of the time I have been ready to vomit by the time we stopped for coffee so I haven’t eaten much of them, but they look delicious. There have been scenic vistas which take your breath away.

After returning yesterday, I went to a café on the beach and had a glass of wine and got my Hemingway on and wrote in my journal. I was trying to get my head back in the cycling game after being totally demoralized by my performance.  While I was there a tour bus went by filled with people about my age.  Tour buses are great, they let you see a lot of things really quickly.  But for me, they are like cars, great for transportation yet isolating little worlds of their own that let the occupants watch the world yet divorced from really being in the world. They aren’t for me. I would rather huff and puff my way up a climb at 7 kph while joggers pass me and see the world by bike.

As I was whining about my cycling performance, one of my Lounge friends, who recently had a heart attack, reminded me of something that I hope I don’t forget very often.  “Life is a gift.  Live it.” ~Don4. This day might be the only one I have left.  I should be savoring it, sucking the very marrow out of the bones of life.  That is what our time on the earth is for.

Here are some photos if you are interested

Majorca bound

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Here I sit at my gate for my final flight to Spain.  I didn’t think I was going to be able to do it.  Flying across the Atlantic, being in a German airport, it was just a few weeks ago that I did both of those things and cried most of the way. Here I am again. It brought back the waves of emotion I felt after leaving Africa.

A lot of people haven’t been able to understand what my problem has been. And I get it, they look at me as having this fabulous holiday to play. Well let me tell you, as someone who has suffered from and been able to manage PTSD symptoms for most of her life, any traumatic event fires all my emotional neurons. And before my readers poo poo what I am saying, everyone has experienced it.  It is that day of getting emotional and being an ass to everyone before you realize that it was the anniversary date of your partner telling you that she/he wanted a divorce, and when you realized it, you went AH HA…that is why I have been being such an ass. You didn’t even realize the latent emotions that were affecting you or why you couldn’t control them. It is that feeling of remembering exactly where you were and how you felt, even what the weather was like on 9-11-2001.  Or the emotions that are brought on from a smell from childhood, maybe the pumpkin cookies your mom used to make. Or maybe it is fall leaves blowing across a road that triggers it.

If we think that memories of things don’t trigger emotions and that sometimes we don’t realize what is happening, then we are fooling ourselves, because being human means that it is has happened to you at some time.  People who have long term PTSD symptoms feel that feeling magnified and intensified many times over and every traumatic event is a trigger.  We learn to deal, sometimes we deal with things better than others  Having support is key even when we don’t want to tell someone what is wrong (thanks Matt for messaging me all the way from Nepal when I was on the way to the airport.  You are the best.).  And what really sucks is telling people what is wrong and no one understanding how you feel.  They just wondered why I wasn’t all excited for the great adventure.

So I have been struggling. I know I am going to have a wonderful experience in Spain, but I didn’t want to get on that plane. Every fiber of my being was shouting at me to turn around and find a safe place to hide. But here I am. I am looking forward to riding tomorrow and getting all my emotion out in pushing myself physically on a bike tomorrow. I am nervous about riding a bike that isn’t mine, I have only rode steel and this is a carbon fiber bike.  I am not sure what to expect. But regardless…I am going to ride the hell out of that bike.

So that was just an update.  Hopefully by tomorrow or at least by Wednesday, I will have beautiful pictures from Majorca.  Cheers everyone. I am doing it, even though it is very challenging.  I am here, I am flying on planes and I will have some epic bike rides.  One day at a time, one second at a time.

What’s life without the crazy? ~OEH

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P1060122I went on a bike ride the other day with a friend.  After being off the bike since July except for a couple of rides, I have lost all my base fitness that I had this spring so I am fat, slow, and can’t climb for anything.  Tomorrow, I am leaving for Spain to ride with a bunch of men who either ride all the time or are professional cyclists. I am going to get my ass handed to me every day for 12 days.  And I paid to do it.  What to hell was I thinking?

After I finish cycling, I am spending the next 3 weeks going somewhere in Spain, but I am not sure where yet.  I am basically just going to figure it out as I go. For the past two days, I have been trying to squish my clothes in a carry-on so I won’t have to check a bag, but my cycling gear takes up too much room.  I have been a basket case of stress over it. I have 4 hours until my friend Marisa comes to pick me up to figure it out because I have to store the stuff that I am not taking with me.  So basically, I am taking the two bags that I have been complaining about all summer and trying to cull it down to half the size of either one of them. And that will be all the gear and the clothes I have for 5 weeks in Spain.  Yeah.  I am pretty sure I have totally lost my mind.  But, as my friend reminded me of recently, what is life without the crazy?

I like crazy.  It makes people interesting.  All of my friends are a touch crazy.  If they weren’t, I wouldn’t hang around them.  They have passion, take risks, fail and try again.  They are open, vulnerable, and courageous. They care about the world around them and the people in it. When having a conversation about being 50 years old and trying to establish an identity apart from wife/mother/teacher, a friend asked me a profound question: Who do you want to be?  My answer is: I want to be like them.

P1060183I want to be the person who rides her bike to work everyday, regardless of weather, because it is good for my mind, body and the environment.  I want to be the badass skier who will ski through trees, down chutes, thigh deep in powder and laugh the whole time I am doing it. I want to be the person that can jump of a cliff with a paragliding wing and fly, sailing up with thermals, looking down in wonder on the world below.  I want to be the person who will climb up a rock face and get stuck at a hard part and, instead of giving up, hang in the harness until I see the route and climb it.  I want to be the person that isn’t afraid to push my body in physical performance. I want to be a woman who looks out a nature and never takes for granted the beauty I see all around me, regardless of where I am. And I want to be able to take a decent photograph someday.

I want to be the person who can sit and listen to another’s pain without trying to fix it, to just be present for people.  I want to have a home where people can come, put their feet up, rest and feel at home and welcomed. It is funny, I cooked for Matt‘s roommates the other day.  I haven’t cooked like that in a while.  They invited their friends over, there was all this beautiful food sitting on the table, bottles of good Spanish wine, and amazing conversation.  Eating and making food is such a social activity.  Having lived by myself for so long now, eating by myself, I just appreciate those moments to feel part of a community, to listen to great conversation and ideas from creative and intelligent people, and to laugh.

So off I go to Spain.  My hope is to push the boundaries of my physical performance cycling. Then to traipse around the country meeting people, hearing their stories, laughing, sharing tapas, and drinking some fine Spanish wine.  And hopefully, in all of that, taking some beautiful photos.

my pictureThere is no great lesson in this post. Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit”. What I am realizing through writing this is, regardless of checked bags or carry-on, all the things I am doing are consistent with the person I want be.  In order to establish an identity, I have to do behaviors that actually are consistent with the talk.  Who do I want to be?  I am her.

“It is easier to live through someone else than to complete yourself. The freedom to lead and plan your own life is frightening if you have never faced it before. It is frightening when a woman finally realizes that there is no answer to the question ‘who am I’ except the voice inside herself.” ― Betty Friedan

Stop being a sissy-pants

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“At times the world may seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe that there is much more good in it than bad.  All you have to do is look hard enough, and what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events may in fact be the first steps of a journey.”  ~Lemony Snicket

Me & The Luddite

Me & The Luddite

I love having older brothers. I am the youngest of seven siblings. I have 3 brothers and 3 sisters.  My dad remarried when I was an older teen so I also have four lovely step-sisters but I don’t know them as well.  Last week, my brother phoned me after his wife told him about my blog (my brother is a bit of a Luddite who eschews technology).  He called to be supportive and his first attempt at that was to tell me to stop being a sissy-pants.  When I started laughing, he clarified with “or I just wanted to call and make you laugh”.

I liked candles

I liked candles

My family has the best sense of humor ever.  I can’t sit in a room with them and come out with my sides not aching from laughing so hard. And laughter really is the best medicine.  I don’t know where I would be without them because through everything, I know my family is there for me.  Those roots run deep.  We have had our fights. My brothers burned my hair off when I was a little girl by making some concoction in the kitchen while they were babysitting and trying to get me to eat it by putting a candle in it.  That didn’t end so well for me.  My sister and I traded fisticuffs over the use of the bathroom in the morning before school.  But no matter how angry we might get with each other, no matter how long we go without speaking to each other, I know that at any moment if I was in trouble and really needed them, they would be there for me, to pick me up and dust me off when I get knocked down.

Youngest 5

Payback for calling me a sissy-pants.  I could have posted a much much dorkier picture

After talking with my brother awhile, he reminded me that this sabbatical was an adventure and that there was no wrong way to do it. When I told him that one of the things I was really struggling with was having nowhere that was my own, that I was tired of packing and repacking a suitcase, of not having anywhere to just feel like myself, he again told me not to be a sissy-pants. He reminded me that the challenges were what made the best stories and they are also where the deep learning happens.  He reminded me to focus on what I am learning instead of focusing only on what I am frustrated with and to write down those lessons.

I have been learning about the possessions that I truly miss and the ones that were superficial and I know I can live without once this sabbatical is over and I do have a house again.  I have been learning about what is really important in life…people and experiences.  And most importantly, I have been learning how to focus on myself and about what it really means to take care of myself since I don’t have a home to hide out in.  I have to keep myself out in the world which means I can’t afford to slack off, I have do the things that I know keep me centered, it isn’t an option anymore. This is probably the most important lesson I have needed to learn for much of my life, how to take care of myself before taking care of everyone else.  I think at the end of this year that is the biggest gift I will have from this experience.

Life now is really just me and a couple of bags of clothes.  When talking to my brother that fact hit me, not as an esoteric concept but finally in full brutal reality.  Realizing that all the other extraneous stuff of my life has been stripped away, it was one of those moments where I wanted to say “DOH, of course that would be hard”.  Once I had that epiphany, it has been a whole lot easier to accept everything and to just flow with it. It has made it easier to accept of the circumstances in which I am living, which by my own admission was my choice, I don’t want to give anyone the idea that I am blaming anyone else.  This was a choice and I haven’t been so sure it was the right one until now.  I guess I have finally reached the point where I accept that I am on an adventure, not a vacation, and it isn’t supposed to be comfortable.

My favorite quote is by Theodore Roosevelt.  It is the “Man in the Arena” quote:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Brene Brown, in an interview with Oprah, said there are two things you need to have to go into the arena.  You need someone to be there to pick you up and dust you off when you get your butt kicked, because you will get your butt kicked.  And the second thing is, you need absolute clarity of values.  Because if you go into the arena and you value courage, then you can choose courage or you can choose comfort but you cannot have both.  If you choose courage and you have conviction, even if you fail and get your butt kicked and get pushed to the ground in the arena, you will still know why you are there.

Family vacation

Family vacation

So today, I have both of those things.  I have family and friends who I know will be there to pick me up and dust me off when I get kicked to the ground.  And I have absolute clarity of values.  I value courage over all other virtues.  In six days, I leave to go cycling in Spain where I am sure I will get my butt kicked.  Today I say:  Bring it on.

PS:  I have spent the days since my last blog doing pretty well, getting enough sleep, eating right, exercising, spending time with friends and I am feeling much better.  Not perfect, but better.  Centered and more like my typically exuberant self.  Thanks everyone for all the kind words and support.

You don’t have to tell the whole story, but it is important to tell people how you feel.

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I have this crazy belief that in order to solve a problem, I first have to admit that I have a problem.  As long as I am in denial, I can keep ignoring it.  When I can be brutally honest with myself and acknowledge it, then I can start thinking about solutions. But that is just me and the way I deal with things, I am not projecting that as advice to anyone else.  So far in my life, it seems to be working for me.

Since I came back from Africa, I have been experiencing situational depression. I have always been sympathetic to mental health issues, but this has given me even greater respect for those who are suffering from depression.  With my passionate Italian/Irish heritage, I would rather be my batshit-crazy emotional self than to have to deal with this soul-sucking emptiness day after day where I try to joke around and appear normal so no one will realize that I am struggling to cope with the simplest tasks like showering.

I think one of the worst parts of mental illness is the secrecy and stigma.  Talking about it, normalizing it, is one of the healthiest ways to deal with it, get support, and ultimately overcome it.  And at some point in our lives, we all go through it.  It isn’t just something that happens to other people.  Just like we get physically ill from time to time, we also go through low periods mentally.  Our mental health is as important and deserves as much respect as our physical health.

So now, I have named my demon. Just like when a person has the flu, there are things I can do to get healthy. What are my challenges and what can I do to overcome them and be well?

For me, I had to consider when it started.  Sometime, mid to late summer, I got overwhelmed by too many life changes.  Giving up my things, being homeless, living out of suitcases, relying on the goodwill of other people for places to stay and basic life necessities like a shower, travelling, etc.  All of it just started to add up and wear on me.  I am a person who appreciates time alone and it just seemed like I constantly had to be around other people or in their homes and there just wasn’t any place to just be myself.

Fly-swatter wands

Fly-swatter wand

Brooklyn & Charlotte

Brooklyn & Charlotte

Because of that, I wasn’t ready to take on the challenge of Ethiopia, so I left Africa, and came back to Seattle.  On hindsight, it might have been wiser to just go to the east coast and stay with my son and play with my granddaughters.  There is nothing like some time on a backyard swingset or playing pretend as fairies to perk up your mental health, especially when it involves fly-swatter wands.

Instead, I came back to Seattle and all I have really wanted to do is get a place of my own and feel normal again.  But of course, that isn’t what I did.  Sometimes I have to wonder, can I ever take the easy road in life?  Just once?  Instead, I booked a five week trip to Spain.  The plan is to go to Mallorca and cycle for a couple of weeks, then to go traipse around southern Spain from Madrid, Seville, Granada, Cordoba until ending up in Barcelona.  After that, I come back to the U.S. to play fairy with Brooklyn & Charlotte.  Sounds great right?  My problem is, I am not sure I have the capacity to get all the details done to make it happen, I am not sure I can get on the plane, I am not even sure I can get out of bed.

After beating myself up over not being able to snap out of it, I realized I had to admit I had a problem to myself and my friends and then go about solving it. I also had to stop the negative self-talk (thanks Jeff).  So for the first time, yesterday, as I was walking back to where I am staying from the grocery store, I was feeling sad and empty and I just allowed it.  I didn’t try to make it wrong and fix it, I just acknowledge the emptiness, and gave myself permission to feel that way.  And guess what?  I felt better.

So today, my goals are to exercise go for a run, shower, eat healthy, work some on my grant that is due next week, show Jeff the KinectMath software, do some rearranging of the suitcases (AGAIN), finish my Spain reservations, and to not get upset with myself if none of that happens. One day at a time and then nine days from now, we will see if I can get on a plane and go to Europe.