Tag Archives: starting over

51 Steps

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IMAG0135I have been watching several of my friends struggle with the ending of long term relationships (LTR) and who are at the beginning of the recovery period when they are single, alone, and miserable.  I watch them as they are climbing out of their skin in the silence of their apartments after years of having partners and/or children around.  My heart goes out to them and I understand how they feel.  It wasn’t that long ago that I was exactly where they are. I didn’t think it would ever end short of jumping into another relationship. However, I find that in watching them, I realize I am truly at a different place and can see how far I have actually come. I am at a place that doesn’t require a relationship, a place where I can stand on my own, and I am happy alone or with other people.

Almost everyone I have known that has ended a LTR has gone through the same steps or stages.  Those steps or stages are probably categorized in some self-help book somewhere or in the DSM-V. Since I have already passed through the “self-help book” stage personally, I won’t go into categorizing each one of them, but it seems like there are a lot.  So I am just going to throw a number out there and say… 51.

Fifty-one is significant because it is how many steps I climb each day to get to my house (actually it is technically Matt’s house, but for the moment it is mine too). It is a metaphor for moving from a relatively unsafe place to a place of safety.  Each day, I go from the lack of safety of the street to the relatively safe place of a home in 51 steps.  The same is true after ending a relationship that you thought would last a lifetime.  At first, you are in the relatively unsafe, unknown place of being alone. And from there, you start climbing through each one of the steps or stages until finally, you are safe at home. You have found a place of belonging. Maybe that is with another person or maybe, like me, you have accepted and embrace being alone.

Emotionally, I am pretty sure I am somewhere between step 40-45. I have my personal life pretty well straightened out, I am still trying to piece together the last of the professional one. That is right, when your personal life falls apart through the ending of a relationship, it affects your professional life too. For me, that has manifested itself in an inability to write academically.  As a college professor whose career is dependent on academic publications, this is problematic.  So I am going through the step right now where I am, just a little a time, learning how to write academically again.  I just passed through the step where I had to relearn how to read. I have been amazed at how many of my friends who have let go of relationships have lost their ability to read for pleasure.  I am honestly just getting that back.  The next step is reading academic literature.  And then finally, getting back to some semblance of a publication schedule.

So for my friends who are on step 4-10, try to realize that soon, you will feel much better.  The climb is tough but worth it.  There are some things you can do to make it easier.  Everyone has to find his/her own coping strategies but here are my favorites:  learn to play, keep a journal, reward yourself for little things, dance even if it is alone in your living room, learn something new, push yourself physically, dress in colors (not black), if you live in an urban area take a bus ride, volunteer, join meetup.com and meet some cool people, find your spirituality (yoga, meditation, prayer, being out in nature), change your environment (I did this by rearranging my furniture).  There are a lot of others.  The important thing is don’t stay stuck too long. It is just like when your car is stuck, the longer you are in a rut and the deeper you bury yourself by spinning your wheels doing the same thing over and over, the harder it is to get out.

Start climbing.  51 steps to go…

This action cannot be undone. Are you sure you want to continue?

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kerry park

View of downtown Seattle from Kerry Park

I woke up this morning to the quintessential Seattle summer day.  Temperatures in the mid 60s F, no humidity, beautiful blue sky. It is the exact same kind of day as the day I moved here 6 years ago.  I spent some time this morning reflecting on that move.  Reflecting on what it felt like to leave my (adult) children and family back on the east coast, a job in which I excelled, a community of friends, a beautiful home, a life that I had thought was perfect, and the ruins of my marriage. I didn’t think I would ever be happy again.

northern cascades

Northern Cascades

When I first got to Seattle, all I wanted to do was go back home to a place where I understood the culture, job, everything…I just wanted my old life back, but that couldn’t happen.  I couldn’t go back in time, no matter how much I wished things were different. So I struggled to create a life here. I made friends, had some career success, explored new hobbies, and discovered the beauty and majesty of the PNW.   I carved a life for myself here and I didn’t realize it until recently when I gave everything up and now am on the precipice of changing it all again.

liberty bell

Liberty Bell Peak

When I woke up this morning, all I could think of is that I don’t want to leave.  I want my old apartment back, to go on daily walks with Tony, have coffee with my beautiful daughter, ride my bike, ski with my friends, write papers, go camping, and enjoy the place I live. For the last 6 years, I have only thought of this place as a temporary stopping point, and it has taken giving up everything and getting ready to leave to make me realize how much I actually love it here.  I don’t think I would have come to that understanding without having gone through the exercise of leaving.

Commitments have been made however, so there is no backing out now, nor would I want to.  I need to finish the “reboot” of my life which has only just begun. Right now, I have deleted the hard drive, now it is time to reinstall and update the software. That is an analogy to the changes that I need to be made so that I can come back to this place from a position of strength and continue the identity formation to become the woman I want to be.  I think Africa is going to do that for me.  At the very least, it is going to change me.

IMG_9597So leaving today is bittersweet.  I will miss this place but at the same time will have a great adventure. The learning, growth, and change that has happened to me in Seattle will happen again in Africa.  I have a feeling at the end of next year, when I get ready to leave Africa, I am going to feel the same as I do right now, I won’t want to leave.

IMG_9594Seattle, farewell for now.  I leave you with a cheesy movie line… I’ll be back.

All changes are more or less tinged with melancholy, for what we are leaving behind is part of ourselves. ~Amelia Barr

The Great Equalizer

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I can’t believe how fast the summer has gone.  All of a sudden, I only have on week left in Seattle, then a week in eastern Washington before I fly to the east coast to see my family in Maine and North Carolina.  And then I leave the country. Where did the time go?

I have been surprised by the responses to this blog.  I get emails and messages on a weekly basis from people both known and unknown to me. One of the common threads in all of them is to thank me for sharing my story and then to tell me how courageous I am.  I always chuckle at that. If I give off the impression of courage, it must be because my terror isn’t coming across via the interwebz.

One reader told me that she always thought that people who are more well-traveled or intelligent than she was are unapproachable, that surely they have never been insecure or vulnerable.  She told me she would try not to carry on a conversation with people like that because she might be seen as a “dunce”.  All I could think of when reading her letter is that she is depriving all those people of the unique beauty and life perspective that she alone has.  Because all of us, every single human being, has a unique story, outlook on life, pearl of wisdom, etc.  And the only way to figure out who will connect to us is to risk vulnerability and share our stories.

I spent the last week doing professional development for teachers in a very rural place.  In that time, I had the privilege to have dinner with three other women.  The only thing we all had in common was that we were all teachers and we were all within 15 years apart in age.  We came from very different backgrounds, ethnicity, lifestyles, etc. We spent four hours sharing our stories of joy, heartbreak, betrayal, mistakes, success.  We laughed at the unpredictable nature of life and the blessings that come from unexpected places.  It was wonderful and I have a greater appreciation for each of these women because I understand their struggles, the risks they have taken, the overwhelming courage they have shown to carve the lives they wanted for themselves.  They were spectacular.  I look forward to seeing them again.

When I first started writing this blog, I debated making it personal. I was just going to make it a travel blog.  Then I realized that if someone wanted to travel to a place and find generic details they could just use Wikipedia or Lonely Planet.  Those details mean nothing without the emotion and insight of my travels attached to them.   Sharing those personal details are difficult for me, I struggle every time I hit the Publish button.  But I always come to the same conclusion, let the readers take away what they need. If there is nothing there, they they can delete.  Simple.

When I started, I figured I would be the only one reading this blog.  So to have a reader tell me that one of the things they have learned from reading it is that “human emotion is the great equalizer.  We all laugh, cry, feel joy, get scared no matter how smart, wise, famous, or wealthy we are.”  If putting my feelings out there in this blog helped one person get to the understanding that all of us have a commonality of human emotions, then the discomfort of pushing the Publish button and letting myself be vulnerable is worth it.

Many people write and ask me for advice.  For someone whose life has been so out of control for so long, I still am amazed that anyone would want my advice.  People ask me how to get the courage to try new things, how to take risks, how to make decisions without worrying, and how to handle when someone laughs at you. Well here is what I know so far that worked for me:

1. Although hiding would feel good and safe, fear is where the fun starts. Changing my life started with facing my fears, one at a time.  You have to do something you think you can’t do. Anything, just try something new.  And then do it again. You gain confidence as you experience success.

2. Keep a journal.  We have to believe our thoughts are important enough to write down. I keep a handwritten journal, I have kept it for the last 7 years.  Those journals contain all my fears, desires, thanks, joy, anger, my crazy moments…all of it.  Sometimes I have typed my handwritten thoughts out, like in this blog for example, but that isn’t the same as keeping a journal for just myself.  I have to believe that my thoughts are important, even if no one else ever reads them.

3. Get laughed at.  One of the things I know about confident people is that they realize that getting laughed at doesn’t matter.  My amazingly confident son is a great example.  He would be at the mall on an escalator and just not get off and fall. He did it on purpose just to get a reaction out of people.  The trick is to laugh at yourself with people as they are laughing at you. You have to OWN it, whatever you did that made them laugh at you. It is all about confidence. One of my favorite TED videos: The shared experience of aburdity.  My advice: be absurd and own it.

4. Go to a bar, restaurant, park or coffee shop (anywhere in public) by yourself. Yes, in public, alone. After a lifetime of being married and having kids and lots of friends, I didn’t know how to be alone in public.  So I just stayed inside all the time.  Finally, I realized I needed to get out because I was sad and lonely.  When I first started dining alone, I would bring a book, sit at the bar, get a beverage and a nice meal and read.  Now I can go anywhere alone, it doesn’t bother me at all. I love to sit and watch people.  I remember those first times, it was scary.  So here is the tip, if you are sad and lonely at home, go be sad and lonely out in a park where you are in the sunshine and there are people around.  Watch people. Just sit, put a book in your hands and pretend to read, and watch people.  You will realize they are just as insecure as you are.  Or go and actually read or write in your journal, but get outside your house.

5. Tell someone something you don’t want them to know.  Start with someone you trust. When  I am getting to know someone, I always ask them two questions, one of those questions is “what don’t you want me to know about you?”.  If that person can risk and tell me something that they think is a dark secret, the thing that they think would make me want to reject them, then I am interested in knowing them.  Because it means I can risk the same back with them and that I don’t have to hide who I am.  People who can’t do that with me are the superficial people I keep on the outer circle of my friends. I know them, I see them at parties or gatherings, but they aren’t someone I am going to be invested in keeping up a relationship with.  I learned this lesson the hard way, by giving my trust to someone who was superficial.  It was the worst mistake I have ever made.

If you want to be inspired to risk vulnerability, watch The Power of Vulnerability.  Yeah…I know, I have a slight TED video addiction.

You need a bigger sample size…

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I have a minor in statistics so I understand the value of a large sample size to filter out anomalies in data.  With data on finances or school statistics, that is easy to see.  But it is harder to realize that that same thing applies to people and experiences.

This building a new identity in my 40’s is tough stuff.  Identity formation is the development of our personality.  A lot of people believe that it is finite, that it develops during your teens and then stays fixed. I don’t believe that.  I believe it is always evolving and is effected by lots of factors like our biology, culture, people who love us, people who have harmed us and which we have caused harm to, our actions (both good and bad), experiences we have had, and choices made all of which form who we are at this moment (source: Palmer, P.J., The heart of a teacher: Identity and integrity in teaching).  It is a continual process which happens throughout our lives.  Our identity is what defines the characteristics which other people recognize in us and establishes our reputation. It both gives us a sense of uniqueness from others yet also defines groups we identify with.

When I was married, my identity was as a wife, mother, teacher, learner, sister, daughter…the interesting thing is that all those things define a life of being lived for others.  There was no point where others ended and I began, I put everyone else before myself always.  My whole life was solely defined by doing things for others.  One of the things I have come to realize since my divorce is that my ex didn’t really love me, he loved the idea of me. He loved the things I could offer his life, but he didn’t really even know who I am.  But that might be my fault, I didn’t really have a “me” at that time.  When my marriage ended, with my children grown, one of the hardest questions I have faced is How do I want myself to be defined? Who do I want to be now?

One of the things I have been privileged to do since my divorce is to participate in great activities with lots of amazing and diverse people. Adventure defines a major part of who I am today. I was struck by that on my travels when I met a bunch of adventurous people in their 20’s and 30’s at a wedding I went to. In one of those surreal moments of my life, after telling them about my travels this summer and my upcoming sabbatical in Africa, one of these beautiful, adventurous, dynamic people said “I want to be like you”.  I had to laugh because I was thinking I wanted to be as unrestrained and adventurous as she was.  Her comment gave me food for thought and a change in perspective of how I view myself.

I love it when that happens, a perspective shift.  That is one of the benefits of meeting new people and having new adventures.  It gives me a chance to see how other people view me and my behavior. It gives me a glimpse to see their perceptions of the identity I have created. It provides opportunities to see what is working or not.  So with both activities and people, sometimes what I need is a bigger sample size… I think that is the benefit of traveling and meeting new people.  I see things from different perspectives, I learn new ideas and ways of thinking, I push the boundaries of my beliefs about self and others.  I open my mind to new opportunities.

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Kelsey and Chris make a beautiful couple

I have been privileged in the past few weeks to meet many really exceptional people.  From the two guys I picked up hitchhiking in Yosemite after they had been backpacking for a week, reconnecting with people from my former life, meeting the wonderful wedding guests of my friends Chris and Kelsey,  and interacting with the amazing people I am getting ready to meet at 24 Hours of Booty in Indianapolis this week, I have been blessed with opportunities for growth and enrichment.  All of them have impacted my life and helped me understand even more emphatically that I am on the right path for my life.

If you are finding yourself stuck and know you want to make changes in your life, there is only one way to do that, you have to increase your sample size.  You have to do things differently, new experiences, new people.  It really is the path to self-exploration and growth.

Thanks to all for the gift of the time you have spent with me in the last few weeks. Your time is really the most valuable thing you have to give.  And thanks for helping me increase my sample size.