Tag Archives: Struggle

Finding the lesson

Posted on by

Thanks to Matt (the other one) for the guest blog post. Between the inconsistent internet in Nepal and traveling, I have had trouble keeping up with blogging so I really appreciated him stepping in. I especially want to say to Matt, thank you for speaking from your heart. It is hard to let yourself be vulnerable and write what you feel for the internet to see. It is like exposing your insides. It takes courage and authenticity. You did it very well. If I haven’t said it before, thank you for your support during that time in my life. I am not sure how I would have done it without you. And those were my favorite shorts, btw. I can’t believe I let you talk me into getting rid of them!!!!!

I am not sure what my motivation was for going to Nepal and altering my trip to Spain, I guess I just reacted to an opportunity that presented itself. But whatever the motivation was, I have absolutely no regrets about going. The experience increased my confidence in myself and my ability to handle most situations calmly and without worrying and for that alone, it would have been worth it. To go with no plan and just take life’s experiences as they happened was a very eye opening experience for someone who has always been a planner. It was totally spontaneous and joyful.

This post was going to be about all that I learned in Nepal. Yet just typing that last paragraph made me think about my former marriage. Maybe there is a lesson I am supposed to be learning that I haven’t seen yet. It is interesting, when we went to marriage therapy, my ex and I had to meet with the marriage therapist and we had to tell him our goals for therapy, i.e. what we hoped to get out of it. My ex’s goal was for me to be more spontaneous.  I think this trip shows that I have pretty much reached that goal. My goal was to have a partner, someone who would be honest with me about the good and the bad, letting me help in times of struggle and celebrate his successes in times of joy. Someone who wouldn’t just run away and check out like he did when things were hard, because he was too intimidated by my success to tell me of his troubles. That still holds true of what I want in a partner today. A partnership is about communicating the good and the bad to your mate, letting them see who you are, letting them stand beside you, supporting each other in all things, cheering each other on, encouraging each other. At least that is what a partnership means to me.

After typing all that, I was going to rewrite this post with its intended focus of all the great things I learned from my trip.  It is not quite 5 am here in Barcelona and it is pouring outside, I am a little sick and a little jet-lagged. And it just hit me that it is Nov 17. Five years ago on this day, a judge signed a decree and pronounced me a single woman after being happily married over half my life.

Letting go is hard. That is my lesson for today.

 

Take bigger steps…

Posted on by

I had that excellent falconry lesson and paragliding experience the other day.  Then I wrote a blog post about how great I was doing and the lessons I was learning.  Well just like with most lessons learned, it isn’t a linear process.

When I was in Spain, totally at rock bottom emotionally, Matt asked how I was doing and, in the absolute honesty he and I share between us, I said “It is one step forward, three steps back”.  His response was “take bigger steps forward”.  He always knows how the right thing to say to make me feel better and to make me laugh.  Then he said “come to Nepal”.  And as with most of his suggestions, he was right.  Nepal has been good for my soul.  I not only feel better physically, I feel stronger emotionally.  But it hasn’t been without challenges.  Here it is has been two steps forward one step back, so at least I am going forward.

Have you ever noticed how powerful words are?  I think it was in my last blog post that I talked about the tape that plays in my head (and every other human beings also).  That tape is made up of things that have been said to me over the course of my life.  From the initial words our parents used to show disapproval of something we said or did, from social groups of teenagers when identity is forming, to cruel words by a random stranger on the street. All of those words become the social norms that tell us we aren’t good enough, skinny enough, athletic enough, pretty enough, etc.  And even more damaging is when we get to the place where we say those words to ourselves.

Words are the most powerful force that human beings possess.  Because of that power, we should be careful what we do with them, both with other people and ourselves.  Ever since I left Ethiopia, I have had the “failure” tape cued up in my head. One of the personal “laws” I have always lived by, that was instilled in me as a child, is never quitting.  When I give someone my loyalty, I will stay with it until the bitter end, even at the expense of myself.  Enforcing boundaries is a constant struggle for me.  So Ethiopia felt like a failure.  It threw me into depression.  To snap out of it, I rushed off to Spain where I had one failure after another, from cycling to ordering tapas.  I kept trying to get out of my head but was pretty much in a death spiral.

So I came to Nepal at Matt’s suggestion.  I made it here, negotiated travel between two foreign countries on my own, had a successful falconry lesson and paragliding session, and was feeling pretty confident and better than I had in weeks. Things were looking up. Then, two things happened.  One was a comment someone made and the other was that I went to yoga.  The comment came from someone behind me while hiking in a group down an embankment into a riverbed. The path was very slippery.  The person in the back, speaking to the person in front of her about the slippery path said “I would hate to have to try to get a tourist out of here if they got hurt.  Can you imagine something happening to someone like Robin?” Ouch.  That started the not athletic, uncoordinated, old lady tape playing in my head.  And of course, about 2 minutes later I slipped and fell on my ass, unhurt.

Then, I went to yoga.  I used to be pretty good at yoga but it is amazing how much a year off of regular practice will do to you. And the yoga here is very different.  The teacher was great and I left the class happy, centered and ready to face the day.  But before the day was out my own judgment of my performance was in full swing.  Matt was leaving the next day for Shirkot so messaged me to ask me what time I wanted to eat dinner.  By then, I was all in my own head and couldn’t even imagine he would want to hang out with an athletically challenged, ugly, fat old lady.  *CUE DRAMATIC MUSIC*.  Dear heavens, sometimes I have to wonder about myself.

So I meet my friend for dinner.  If you haven’t realized it yet, Matt is good at everything he does.  His lovely girlfriend Amanda and I were trying to think of something he isn’t good at and we couldn’t.  He is amazingly athletic, ridiculously smart, not ugly, funny, compassionate, and has to be the most non-judgmental person I have ever known in my whole life.  During dinner, he said I seemed sad. Since I refuse to be anything but honest with him, by the time we ate dinner, I was crying and had told him how pathetic I was.  I had even regressed all the way to hating traveling and wanting to go home and wanting my life back.  I mean, all the way back to before I moved to Washington.  Matt didn’t judge, didn’t roll his eyes, didn’t even crack a smile at how dramatic I was being.  He just let me get all the poison out.  Then he made me laugh and reminded me about the last existential crisis I had when we went skiing one day last year.

Later that evening, nice and emotionally cleansed, I started thinking about all the adventures we have had together.  From kayaking, skiing, paragliding, rock climbing, hiking, camping, riding on a motorcycle in Nepal (YIKES), wine tasting, and a hundred other things.  We have had epic discussions on life, love, family, education, and just about everything you can think of.  And then it hit me.  In all that time, he has never judged me on how much I weigh, how slow I am at learning something like rolling a boat or tying a knot, or criticized any of my opinions of things even when they didn’t agree with his. He has never been frustrated at how slowly I hike or when I need to take a break.  He has never been embarrassed by my physical appearance.  There was the time Matt wanted to go out for brunch after kayaking but I didn’t have a ponytail holder so tried to beg off and he wouldn’t hear of it.  When my hair dried in the sunshine, it was crazy medusa hair.  He looked up at me and said “your hair is so awesome”.  I looked like Albert Einstein.  He has never been anything but encouraging. Here is this person, athletic, smart, funny…and he just wants to hang out and encourages me. He only gets sad when I won’t try.  So if he doesn’t have the “Robin’s not good enough” tape playing in his head, why do I?

So while he has been gone the past couple of days, I took a page from his book.  I decided I would treat myself like Matt treats me. Yesterday, I hiked up to the Peace Pagoda.  The path was moderate, but I was definitely sweating by the time I reached the top.  I just went at my own pace, I didn’t beat myself up about how fast or slow I was going.  Guidebook says it should take about an hour, I made it in 45 minutes with no pressure.  Today, I got up at dawn and hiked up Sarangkot which is about twice as steep and twice as far.  Again, I didn’t beat myself up, just kept hiking and enjoying the moment.  Made it before the clouds set in, took some great pictures and sat up at the top meditating and then wrote in my journal.  I had planned to take a cab down, but it was too beautiful a day so I hiked back down too.  It made me feel so good that tomorrow, after yoga, I am going to do it again.

So for two days now, whenever the tape even starts with what I can’t do, I tell myself to try…just try.  Maybe I can’t do it, but I will do a little more tomorrow until I can. It doesn’t matter how fast I do it or how well. I just have to try.  I am going reprogram my brain with powerful words that don’t allow for fear-based thinking. I am trying to develop an identity that has no place for emotionally poisoning and physically limiting words.

Note:  Not sure why, either wordpress or the network here, but I am not having any success at uploading photos.  I will try to add some tomorrow.

Like the layers of an onion…

Posted on by

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.

The girl who wrote a blog…

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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.

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

Posted on by

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.

Please do not feed the troll…

Posted on by

Our dreams do not necessarily have to be fulfilled in order for us to be happy. Nurturing hopes is meaningful in and of itself. It is worth working toward them, regardless of the outcome. When we make this shift away from results, we will find greater courage to act on our aspirations for the world. We will find our nobility of heart.  ~Karmapa

P1010641

Troll Under the Bridge, Seattle WA

Yesterday, I got trolled. It has happened before, I have my own personal troll who not only knows me, he knows what my triggers are and he likes to push them.  This troll directly targeted me and specifically mentioned this blog. For a little while, I let it get to me.  The problem with trolls is their goal is to get a rise out of you so if you respond to them, you are giving them what they want. It is called “feeding the troll”. Yesterday, I reacted and fed the troll. I wasn’t very nice in my response to him. Next time, instead of responding, I will let the forum moderator deal with him from the beginning.

The troll in fact, did me a favor.  I was pretty distraught about it for awhile yesterday.  I kept trying to fight my distress by asking myself the question: why would I allow my energy to get wrapped up in the words of someone who has no integrity? Trolling is an act of cowardice. It is someone hiding behind the anonymity of the internet for the purpose of causing distress and I was the specific target of this person. Why would I give that my emotion or my time? Lesson learned. My modus operandi in life, if I have something to say, I either need to have the integrity to say it without hiding who I am or I just need to shut up. It isn’t very hard to figure out where I stand on things, all someone has to do is ask me. However yesterday, my line of thought wasn’t working, I was projecting my own core values onto the situation and that was the wrong way for me to try to think my way out of my distress.

Then I realized a very simple truth, trolls exist where there is good discussion happening.  And the forum I was using is one of the best for stimulating interesting discussion. The troll had hit me hard by insinuating that, from reading my “journal”, he believed that I would agree with what he was saying.  “One thing that I hear people tell others who are in pain or experiencing change and loss is the remark ‘it’s going to be OK’. I think this is said in consolation but I think it’s also misleading and naive. It’s not going to be ok, for many people it didn’t work out or as luck would have it, life didn’t present those opportunities or just persisted circling the drain. Sometimes for reasons beyond our control or influence. Looking at your journal, I think you would agree, it will be OK if like anything else, you make the effort to problem solve, sacrifice, work hard, and accept that life often is sour grapes, loss, pain, and very arbitrary.”

I felt a little sad for the troll and his outlook on life, he doesn’t seem like a very happy person. But his unhappiness helped me clarify my beliefs a little better, so thank you Mr. Troll.  I believe that, yes, life has some sour grapes, loss, pain, and can seem arbitrary, but I don’t believe life IS any of those things. Life has balance, there can be no joy without sorrow, there can be no light without darkness, and there can be no wine without sour grapes.  There can be no great conversation or shifts in perspective if we only have conversations with people that agree with us. Yin-yang.  Life, with all its good and bad, is full, rich, sweet, abundant and wonderful.

And I truly believe that life is going to be okay. I don’t believe my life it is necessarily going to work out the way I wanted, but I believe it is exactly as it should be right now at this moment.  No matter how bad, how impossible something is to overcome, or how egregiously people have hurt me, I just have to nourish my hopes and stay on this side of the ground. I have to love those that are in my life in the moment that they are with me, so that when when they aren’t there, I remember that love.  I have to nourish my mind with new experiences and learning so that I have more than one way of doing things, that helps me from being “stuck“.  I have to nourish my soul by doing that which I think I can’t, even if I try and fail, until I find a measure of success. I have to live life with all my senses, emotions, and in the moment that I have.  It might be the only moment I am given.  That is the only way I know how to do it.

The Mundane

Posted on by
IMG_0915

Part of the field that they cut

I keep getting lots of questions about day to day life and I want to take a post to tell you what my life is like now.  To give you an idea, while I was working on lesson plans in my apartment while the deluge of rain, thunder, and lightening was happening, I watched three Ethiopian men cut an entire field of grass around one of the buildings on campus with a sickle. It took several days.  It is a big enough area that I would have wanted a riding lawn mower or tractor and it could have been done in an hour.  The concept of time is just a different thing here than it is in the U.S.

Dryer controls

Dryer controls

I live in a two bedroom apartment (see pictures below) that I share with an Ethiopian teacher, Dawit.  It is pretty minimal by U.S. standards, but it is comparable to an apartment I had when I was in college.  There are challenges here in construction standards.  There are no OSHA regulations.  You will see workers hundreds of feet up in the air on construction projects with scaffolding made from eucalyptus branches.  They aren’t wearing harnesses or taking any safety measures. It is very dangerous.  The building standards are also nonexistent.  I have open wiring in my bathroom near the shower. And I had to laugh in the kitchen when, although there is space for the refrigerator, they neglected to put a power source so the refrigerator is in the living room where there is a plug.  The kitchen has a cooktop and I have a convection microwave for baking but the directions for it are in Dutch so I stick with microwaving when I need to heat something up.  The communal washer/dryer for the complex is also in Dutch so I just randomly push some buttons until it works and hope for the best.

IMG_0935

Breakfast foods

When I get up in the morning, Dawit and I might go for a run or I might do some yoga.  Running three miles at 8300 ft altitude is definitely good for my body and my lungs.   After my workout, I stretch and then have some breakfast which usually consists of a hunk of bread with honey or peanut butter and a piece of fruit.  When I need a pick-me-up, I switch to the Ethiopian version of Nutella in place of the honey or peanut butter.  Lunch is noodles or rice with some vegetables.  Dinner is whatever someone cooks which may be Ethiopian food or western food or we might go out to eat.  We eat a lot of pasta.  My favorite thing so far has been the shiro.  The local beer and wine isn’t too bad either.

P1050797

Abandoned horses

I have pretty much become a vegetarian.  When you see the meat hanging in the shops, just out in the air with no refrigeration or sanitation, it is really hard to think about eating it.  I see goat herders corralling goats for slaughter and I saw a group of pigs today rooting through the trash when I was out on my run.   I think one of the things I am having the most difficulty with is the way animals are treated.  When a farm animal has served its usefulness, they are abandoned on a street to starve.  I have watched these horses that were left on a street just obediently stay there day after day and get skinnier each day.  I know that one day, I will go by and one will be laying there dead. The worst part is that there are hundreds of abandoned animals such as that.  I have seen them kill a rat at the produce stand where I was shopping and that same day, we walked by a dead human body on the side of the road.  Ethiopia is 173rd out of 187 countries on the Human Development Index.  There are lots of challenges here.

Dawit’s way of looking at life and his understanding of Ethiopian culture is helping me adjust.  He reminds me a lot of Matt.  Dawit is the chemistry and biology teacher and we work on lesson plans together.  He was born in Ethiopia, then migrated to Ghana before being educated in the states but has now come back to Ethiopia to work.  School starts next week.  Dawit gave me the best compliment I have received in Ethiopia.  When I offered him a rain jacket to wear, he told me I was very open with sharing my resources.  I told him that it was just “stuff” and wasn’t important and that he was welcome to use anything of mine he needed.  He told me I had an “African soul”.   I thought that was pretty cool and I am getting a pulse on what that really means to be able to write a blog post about it someday.

I typed this out on my computer in my apartment so that I could go to the internet café and post it because our internet line was cut in one of the construction projects and the government hasn’t fixed it yet (it has been several weeks).  Of course, I had to wait for the deluge of rain to stop before making the dash down the road.  They keep telling me that the rainy season will end in 3 weeks… I don’t believe them.

Cheers to everyone and know that I am well.   Following are my apartment pictures.

IMG_0928

Apartment from outside. I live in a unit on the bottom floor

IMG_0969 IMG_0970IMG_0954 IMG_0955 IMG_0967IMG_0957 IMG_0956

The next 50 years…

Posted on by

Song for the day:  Tom Petty’s  “Learning to Fly”
I’m learning to fly, but I ain’t got wings.  Coming down, is the hardest thing.
I’m learning to fly, around the clouds.  But what goes up, must come down.

I never said I was doing this right,  I just said I was doing it.  Yesterday, I needed a reality check. Thanks Carl, Panos and Dawit for helping me have a shift in perspective.

Sometimes, I need a good swift kick in the pants to wake me up. I have spent a week in the doom and gloom of the “woe is me” phenomena.  What if I made a mistake in coming here?  What if the situation doesn’t change, how am I going to do my job?  What if…what if…what if…   Carl, thank you for giving me the first perspective shift with that one sentence:  I am here now, so instead of complaining, what can I do to change the problems?  Yes, I know that I can’t change everything and I need to stop letting that be a limiting factor.  The question I need to ask myself is what CAN I do instead of dwelling on what I believe can’t happen.   Believing in what can’t happen is the limiting thought we all have at times, and it is the thing we need to fight more than any other human behavior.

It was once believed it was impossible for a human being to break the 4 minute mile in running, until one man did it. Within a year after the first man did it, over a hundred others had done it also.   As human beings, we are only limited by what we believe is impossible.  I have to believe that all things are possible.

The second perspective shift I had was when someone else told me that I “am part of the 50 year plan”. I need to stop thinking that I am going to save the world tomorrow.  I am one piece of a puzzle that fits together, hopefully effecting change in the next 50 years.  It is a process and I am just one cog in the process.  My business is STEM education.  The practical applications of STEM disciplines (engineering, applied math, technology, etc) are a major key to improving the quality of human life in basic services such as clean water, sanitation, energy, shelter, infrastructure, food production and communications.  I believe that we have a collective responsibility to improve the lives of people around the world in respect to these basic services and key to that provision is educating a generation of students capable of providing solutions in their own countries.  That is how I can effect change.  Now I just need to do that without whining.

Interesting thing about the 50 year plan:  I will turn 50 years old in a couple of weeks. So I will never see the 50 year plan come to fruition, I just have to believe that actions I take will actually make a difference.   In 50 more years, my two beautiful granddaughters will be my age. What kind of world will they get to live in?  And how can my actions today make it better for them when they are 50?

I get so irritated with myself for not being able to stop playing the tape in my head. Here is how my tape goes: “I miss my grandchildren and I miss enjoying firsthand what wonderful parents my son and daughter-in-law are.  I miss my beautiful effervescent daughter and all she adds to my daily life. I miss my amazing friends and the strength they give me every day to do the things I do.  I miss my bike.  I miss the freedom and independence of having a car to go wherever and whenever I want to. I miss being able to hang out on the internet all hours of the day”.  Okay…there is my pity party… now … get over it Robin. Shut the tape off.  The third perspective shift I am going to give myself right now.  Here it goes:   I have had the most amazing life anyone could ask for.  I have been able to travel to every inhabited continent on the planet.  I have had an incredible career that has allowed me to make a difference in so many peoples’ lives.  I have the two most remarkable children on the planet and they are both now in relationships with loving partners who are as wonderful as they are.  On top of all that, I am blessed with these two intelligent, loving, beautiful grandchildren that astonish me every time I am around them.  I have a loving family and supportive friends.  So WHAT TO HELL AM I COMPLAINING ABOUT????  I need to do the job I came here to do and know that all those things will be there when I get back.

When I focus on the negative aspects of life and my situation, I am a pretty miserable person. When I take the time to notice and give thanks for the positive things in life, I am a happy person.  So today I have a choice: miserable or happy, what is it going to be?

Today, my goal is to take pictures of the beauty I see around me.  There are a lot of things that are horrific, but there even more things that are beautiful.  Today is a day to focus on the beauty of Addis Ababa.  No complaining.  One day at a time.  Breathe, be aware, smile, and own it.  50 more years…

The practical side:

Practically speaking, I would say our greatest need is for a generator so that we could have consistent power.  Second most important is means of communication, both snail-mail and internet.  I am going to research the cost of a post-office box for the school and I am trying to find out how to get satellite internet.  I see satellite dishes everywhere and there has to be a reason for that.  But of course satellite dishes require power so we are back to our greatest need of a generator.