to be honest, it's not okay

This morning Clara Hughes, Canadian hero for her dual-sport Olympic success and commitment to changing the conversation about mental health, posted this brilliant, brave, honest picture and caption on her social media streams:

Click to enlarge

It broke my heart. I like to see the broad, open smile Clara is famous for, even though the reason she is an advocate for mental health is because of her chronic battle with depression, even when she was one of the most elite athletes in the world (go ahead - tell me I'd finally get better if I exercised more). I want her to be well. I want to think that being well is possible, and that if I try hard enough maybe I can get (and stay) there myself. 

And then I read this. And I realised that even if I were 100% sparkling today, there's no way to guarantee I'd stay there. Clara's post also reminded me of something that Freckles said to me last week - that it doesn't help anyone, certainly not myself, when I pretend to be doing better than I am, when I post only happiness on Facebook, when I turn my phone off on days when I can't talk without crying. In short, when I lie. It doesn't help me, it feeds the stigma of mental illness, and it doesn't create a clean path for other people to be honest about their struggle. I said nobody wants to hear it. She said that wasn't the point. 

So, here's the thing. I'm better, but I'm not well. Some days I think I am, or that it's close enough that maybe I will be. I'm well aware of the good in life and how blessed I am - being loved, having adventures, having (at least in this moment) a home I love and food that nourishes. I know that. Knowing makes no difference. 

I see you, Clara. I see you. 

There are still days, like today, when the homeless man outside my favourite bookstore took one look at my face when I apologized for not being able to help and said "stay strong, Sister." 

There are days like today when just getting out of bed was touch and go but the shame of cancelling another meeting outweighed the desire to hide. 

There are days like today when trying to find something to give my sons for Christmas sent me down a rabbit hole of hopelessness and loss thinking of past Christmases, the years between that are littered with dead and dying traditions, the lack of connection, the reality of a Christmas after 11 months on medical leave, and the gaping void between the mom I want to be and the mom they got. 

There are days like today when trying on much-needed winter clothes left me heaving with self-loathing. 

There are days like today when I can't make words string themselves into logical sentences in a meeting or follow the conversation with a girlfriend at lunch. 

There are days like today when just seeing my sweetheart's incoming phone call is enough to make me cry throughout the entire call, and the vicious circle of his sadness at my tears. 

Tomorrow will be different. I suppose it's worth noting that 10 months ago I couldn't have faked my way through a meeting and lunch. So, there's that. That's the way it is right now. Better - sometimes much better - but not well, and sometimes worse. I truly love Christmas. It's extra disappointing (and unusual) to have my unruly brain tarnish this season. And, this year, or at least this night, that's just the way it is. 

dreaming

It has been too long. I have tried to write, and words couldn't come. There have been too many things that I didn't want to say; too many things that I couldn't say. And once again, I couldn't dream. 

And then, last week at my book club's Christmas book exchange, I came home with I Dreamed of Africa. As soon as it was unwrapped, I knew it needed to be mine. And then it was; that's the beauty of those kinds of gift exchanges. I have only just finished the prologue and chapter one, and it is mine - my dream, my story, me as a young girl growing up in Italy (irrelevant detail) and dreaming of a different home that calls to her. Its heat. Its vastness. Its colours. Its people. An ancient knowing and yearning and being known. 

I have only just begun it, and already I am remembering how to dream.  

Photo courtesy of Eirasi

my first job

It was, in so many ways, the perfect job for me. Just a few hours, really - Saturdays when there was nothing else for me to do in a town that specialised in nothing else to do, Tuesdays after school, and once in a blue moon an extra shift. Though, really, I was happy with my 12 hours a week, and happiest with my Saturday mornings, when my bosses took the morning off, and I had the whole priceless library to myself. 

For a  young and eager bibliophile, there is no better job than that of Library Page. Limited human interactions (particularly in a town where reading is low on the interests list), unlimited access to books, all kinds of peace and quiet. The best part was sorting the returned books - that was the best way to get my hands on the most popular books, the most sought after books, the books I would have to hide in my bag until I could secret them away under my pillow: Clan of the Cave Bear, Flowers in the Attic, assorted bodice ripping trashy romances.  I'd sign them out for myself, stash them so the boss wouldn't see and tell my mom what I was reading. Hide under my blanket at night with the imminent threat of either discovery or setting my polyester comforter on fire with my incandescent under-cover lamp. 

There was only one down side. One fly in my otherwise lovely ointment - the other Page. She worked the school nights I didn't. The library wasn't open on Friday evenings for some reason. We really had no valid reason to ever interact. She was a year ahead of me in school, and we certainly didn't have any friends in common, even in that minuscule town. But, years earlier she had taken an active dislike to me. The boy she'd liked (and who had eventually become her intermittent boyfriend) had lied about making out with me. The shameful irony was that I’d never even been kissed. And yet she believed his stomach-turning lie that I, in grade 7, had given him a blow job in the jolting, jarring, aluminum smelling interminable yellow bus ride home.

I suppose that as the self-righteous good girl I must have seemed like quite the imaginary conquest, though he rarely had even spoken to me. Two years later his best friend, her cousin, spread a similar rumour about me. On some level it was nice to even be noticed. I tried not to take the bus after that first lie. I tried, when possible, to catch a ride home with my mom instead.

We moved in to town the next year, but the lie moved with me, followed me four years later to the library stacks. A lie that seems so ridiculous and silly today haunted me throughout high school - even after the liars dropped out. For some reason, this girl clung to the lie, she became its ghoul. She left warning notes in my communciation cubby, dropped by when she knew the librarian wouldn't be there just to make sure I was still scared. 

I was. She was from what I'd been taught was a bad family. I don't know if that's what we still call them, but, that's what we called them then. She was tough, which in my mind meant she must also be stupid, and I frequently wondered how she'd gotten the other Page job. It was a terrible thing to be in my happy place, and to have it spoiled. In truth, it might only have been one threatening note - one time having her follow me through the stacks as I tried to get away from her, tried to make her stop. 

It might have been only one warning, but for a sensitive girl who just wanted to be alone with her books, once was enough. 

---

Today's Prompt:

1. Tell a story about a time you got drunk before you were legally able to do so.

2. Tell a story set at your first job.

seeing red

The little bull sits under the cork tree and sniffs a flower. He is an icon of childhood, and of peace and contentment. He bucks the trend, breaks expectations, cherishes peace, fails to respond to the stimuli a bull is supposed to respond to. He is the anti-hero.

Ferdinand is lauded for his commitment to peace and contentment. But he’s also one of the few strong images children have of the upside of introverts. As a society, we reward extroverts. We tell our children not to be shy, to ignore their innate instincts about who to trust. We watch them grow and tell them to go, butt heads, snort and play with the other kids. But, I’m for Ferdinand. For the kid who sits quietly pleased with his own company. Bravo, little bull. Bravo.

"... When he got to the middle of the ring he saw the flowers in all the lovely ladies' hair and he just sat down quietly and smelled.

He wouldn't fight and be fierce no matter what they did. He just sat and smelled. And the Banderilleros were mad and the Picadores were madder and the Matador was so mad he cried because he couldn't show off with his cape and sword. So they had to take Ferdinand home.

And for all I know he is sitting there still, under his favorite cork tree, smelling the flowers just quietly.

He is very happy."

dear 16 year old me

There's a video making the rounds on Facebook right now, and after avoiding it for a few days, the right person posted it and I clicked to view. It was not what I expected - titled 'Dear 16 year old me,' I expected the message to be universal things we all wish we knew when we were young and invincible and maybe not so wise as we'd like to have been. 

The message that is delivered is a powerful and important one - melanoma is a killer of children, teens and young adults. Like all cancers, it's ruthless and devastating. And like many cancers, there are many things we can do to protect ourselves, especially in our teen years. My heart goes out to the people whose lives have been touched by melanoma. 

And yet, there are dozens of other messages I wish I could deliver to 16 year old me. And to so many of the 16 year olds I meet:

1. "It gets better / this too shall pass / it came to pass, it didn't come to stay" - they are cliches now, but I wish I'd known when I was 16 that the things that hurt me the most would one day be things I have to work at to remember. 
2. "Forgive them for they know not what they do" - I heard this at least once a year at church, cried out as Jesus hung on the cross, but it never occurred to me that this was a model of behaviour and not just a something only God himself could do. Little tiny hurts lingered and festered and drained me of connection. In a small town, there was no room to nurse all those supposed slights, and I'd have had a much fuller social life then if I'd let go a little more. 
3. "You're gorgeous and healthy - don't let them tell you different" - when I was 16 a doctor told me I was obese. I was 5' 9" and 170 pounds, and a doctor told me I was obese. Oh, and depressed. Those two labels have haunted me. They cling to me like the stickiest of dime store price tags. It doesn't matter that the doctor was eventually charged with ... malpractice? fraud? ... it doesn't matter. Some expert told me I was those things. And I've remained those things through all of life and weights highs and lows. 
4. "That chocolate-bar-a-day habit you can get away with now is going to bite you in the ass in 20 years. You're young - you walk to school. You play basketball and ride your bike. Someday you will have a desk job and a sedentary life style and will have to break that habit. It's easier if you just don't start it." 
5. "You are not your label. You are not JUST your label. You are smart, yes. But you are also creative. And athletic. And so many things you don't know you are yet. You will travel. You will be a mom. You will do things you can't imagine. And you will be up to all of it."

I suppose there is something in the ignorance of youth that is an important part of the growing experience. We need our lack of knowing in order to work our muscles. Birds and reptiles have to fight their way out of their eggs to gain strength. Butterflies have to emerge from their cocoons to be fully developed. Maybe being an unknowing teen is the human way of experiencing that process. But still ... I wish I'd known that what happened in a miniscule backwoods town meant more about that town than it did about me.

K - Known.

I have struggled with this post all day. And even part of last night. There are two issues - how do I link the topic of being 'known' to the theme of advent, and how do I write about the experience of being known when I'm feeling so not-that.

At a girls' pyjama party tonight I mention my dilemma and someone said two things - 'what do you mean by known' and 'the day isn't over yet.' Solid points, both of them.

1. When I say being known, I mean being really gotten, understood and heard by someone. I mean having someone see, acknowledge, and accept me, warts and all. I had a small moment of that experience last night on a date - L'Homme figured that in my past people had said things about my appearance that still stung, and that I couldn't hold that against him. He was right on both counts, and in him saying that, I saw something about myself that I'd never seen before. But that insight didn't leave me with the experience of being known because I didn't feel like it's okay that those earlier hurts still sting. I know the value of true empathy, and I cherish it.

2. In a room full of amazing women at tonight's party, women who really have heard my stories, who have been with me through ups and downs, and who have shared their ups and downs with me, I could have felt like being 100% myself would be okay. But for some reason I didn't get there.

In my Master's thesis of oh-so-long ago, I argued that an integral part of someone integrating a trauma into their identity and moving forward from that moment instead of being stuck in psychic limbo is the experience of being heard and believed. And for me that just hasn't been there this weekend. All of the people I've mentioned care about me in their way. But never have I felt like it's 100% okay for me to just be, warts and all. Maybe that's my fault. Maybe I don't let people see me clearly enough. But the yearning is still there.

I'm tired now, and even writing this post feels like a Herculean task. To try and make the leap from 'Known/Unknown' to 'Advent/Christmas' feels nigh on impossible. And so for tonight I will leave you with this, the ultimate Christmas acceptance

'It's not bad at all, really. It just needs a little love':

The Heart Knows

Sometimes I want to say more than I feel capable of translating from feeling into words. This is one of those days. I want to share with you what I'm learning, and ... I'm fumbling. How do I say what it was like yesterday to have a stranger look me in the eye and tell me what I thought no one saw? What do I tell a friend who stopped by for dinner and reset my groove? I don't have the words.

I'm  slowly and steadily, catching up with the loving, vivacious, fun woman I sometimes forget lives and breathes inside me.

But I have the knowledge that there are people who know and see and accept and cherish me, hairy warts and all. And when I shush my chattering mind and listen to my heart, those people are easy to recognise.

With Gratitude for the Generosity of Being Seen

When it seems like nobody knows you, it's easy to feel like a cipher in the world. Invisible - despite size (and sometimes because of it). Despite bright clothing and a constant quest for the footlights. Despite a sparkling wit, or attempts to same.

But if just one person is able to look at you. And to hear what you haven't said. Or to see what you thought was hidden. If an off-hand comment reveals a life-time of truth stretching out in both directions. Then, well, then the you-shaped void walking around in the world fills suddenly with soil and sunshine and becomes a garden brimming with light and life.

I have someone in my life (several someone's, in fact - I am truly blessed) who has consistently seen me for some time. Reliably. Frustratingly so. Often when I don't see myself. I hope he knows what a gift that is. And that I too see him.

This is for him.




There are places I remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all
But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you

And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more

That's What He Said

I had an unexpected and always welcome call the other night with someone who knows me better, deeper, wider, and stronger than most. Someone who has the unerring ability to simultaneously make me laugh, cry and think. And who has perfect aim when it comes to putting his finger directly on my most tender spot and making it throb.

He said one thing in this particular conversation that has resounded in my head: "What are you talking about?" he said when I expressed doubt about being able to handle everything that sits before me, "You've always been able to handle everything you take on - more than anyone else I know."

I'm not sure why that brought me to tears. Or why it's been echoing since our conversation. Maybe just because of the gap between how he sees me and how I see myself. Or maybe because there's always a small piece of me that wonders why, if he thinks so highly of me, he's there and I'm here. But mostly I wonder why I don't see what he sees. I suppose partly it's because I know I can handle it all, I just get tired of doing it on my own.

But there's something else too ... and I wish I could see clearly what that is. It all makes me think of my old friend Pooh bear. Only I don't know in this case if I'm the one with very little brain. Or the very timid friend. And I don't know which one he is either. But I do know that I'm blessed with friends who believe in me when I run out. And that sometimes that's enough to keep me going.

Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. “Pooh,” he whispered.
“Yes, Piglet?”
“Nothing,” said Piglet, taking Pooh’s paw, “I just wanted to be sure of you.”

Living a Life I Love

*NOTE: September 8, 2009* I've just imported this and about 17 other posts from an older blog that was private - basically I wanted a support system for creating the things I really want in my life. Only only letting a few people know what I wanted didn't work. So here they are, in all their glory, edited to reflect what I REALLY want.*

This blog is my way of sharing about my promises to myself on the journey of creating a life I love. There are specific things I am committed to creating in my own life, and I'll be tracking my progress towards those goals here.

The basic element of a structure for fulfillment is really a journey: I am at A and want to get to B. The structure outlines the various ways in which I can get from A to B. You know you have a great structure for fulfillment when it is fun & inspiring & when you can see multiple avenues that would have you get where you want to go. So where do I want to go?

• Lose 37 pounds
• Support BB2 in getting a job
• Double SCW Ink income
• Return to teaching
• Be lit up about my relationship (a.k.a. Love the one I'm with)
• Discover & support whatever BB1 wants
• Publish one item every month