the #bestlife backlash

I read a piece on CBC this week that articulated fully something that's been bouncing around in my brain for a while. Given the post's popularity on Facebook, I'm guessing I'm not the only person it spoke to. There's really two parts - the surging trend of quasi-inspiring #bestlife fitness, travel, dream job social media streams, blogs etc. and the self-editing nature of social media (Facebook in particular) that ensures we only ever see each other's highlight reels and never the struggles, drudgery or pedestrian magic of the rest of life.

I wrote about one edge of the problem in 2015, but it's continued to deepen and shift and fester since then. Let's be honest. I'm part of the problem. My home is a gallery of pinsta-gramish fauxspiration seasonally available at HomeSense: my hallway is lined with photos and art collected on my journeys (and a stunning mask my son brought me from Costa Rica), my dining room yells inspiration to grow, even my new shower curtain drips with #BESTLIFE urgency - adventure, explore, dare, freedom, wander .... 

My other blog is peserved for sun-drenched moments far from my Westcoast home, and posts pining for the same. On Instagram and Pinterest I like, pin and share cutely designed mojo-boosting mottos. I am a part of the #BestLife social media pressure squad. I've attempted to paint on a smile and ended up creating a creepy clown nightmare.  

Some of it makes me smile. Sometimes it has the intended effect of reminding me to choose what I want my life to be instead of letting my life happen by default. Sometimes, but honestly not that often.

I follow endless twitter feeds and Instagram accounts by people who have made the leap to full-time travel and berate myself that I'm not doing the same. I look at my quest list and pick only the low-hanging fruit, then chastise myself for not 'really going for it.'

My #dreamlife goals have turned into pressure and robbed me of joy in my current life. Which, truth be told, is pretty dreamy itself. Yet for months I've acted as though there's something wrong with all of it because I'm living it here and not under palm trees. because I'm not as fit as I was a year ago, because ... because ... because. Basically I've operated as though the only life that matters is an idealized #bestlife.

This exhausting striving has also tarnished the joyful memories of my time in Jamaica. I have been telling myself that those 6 months were the best my life was going to get - the best I was going to get - and it's all downhill now. Or that I can do that again but only at the cost of this life - this love, this home, this work.

Honestly, I'm over it. Which is not to stay I don't still have those goals, but they are not the ONLY acceptable life. I'm ready at last to be grateful for this life. 

for miss lady

I went to my first writing group this week. For the last month I've been actively letting go of things that no longer serve me and being curious about things that might move me in the direction I want to go. And, since it's been more than 14 months since I was gainfully employed, moving forward is getting to be a bit of an urgent matter. So, I attended a writing group. 

It was interesting. I'm not sure that I'll go back regularly, but for $20 it was a nice evening out with other creative women. The reason I wasn't over-awed was just because most of the evening was free-writing from prompts, which is something I already do a lot of on my own. That said, it was neat to hear what some of the other women wrote and to share a little of what I came up with. 

As it happens, I was chatting before the group with Miss Lady and she was even more excited about the writing group than I was. And, as is her tendency, she said "maybe the homework will be for you to blog every day!" Hope springs eternal for Miss Lady. In fact, my goal was to get writing in a more profitable medium, but ... baby steps. 

So, with a couple of great Miss Lady conversations running through my head, and my on-the-spot mantra for the night of "Looking forward. Letting go. Cutting anchor ties. Sailboats. Hot air balloons. I am not a stone," here's one shareable thing I wrote: 

When I grow up ... 

When I grow up I'm going to stop needing you so much. Look forward more than back. Stop caring what certain women think or what the gossips say. 

When I grow up I'm going to be less mad/sad/angry/suppressed. I'm going to say what there is to say without malice but also without censorship. They said I'd start doing that when I turned 40 and now I'm almost 50 and finally see the light. 

Not caring is the greatest gift I can give myself. Or perhaps it's more caring about the right things - joy, my own voice, what I know to be true for me. Caring less who likes me and my words. 

Apparently words scare the boys away. That's okay. I don't want a boy. I want a man. 

When I grow up I'll know that growing up is not so much doing what I want but being who I want. 

Strong

Tall

Vibrant

Delphinium 

Me

There are no shrinking violets in this garden. 

When I grow up I hope you'll grow with me. I hope you'll challenge my fear and celebrate my honesty. When I grow up I'd like to grow old with you. Scratch that - let's never grow old. 

of bosom friends and concrete beds

Not everyone is blessed to meet their Diana Barry before even starting grade school. Not everyone is blessed to have their bosom friend grow with them through learning to write and to ride horses, through mean girls and school bus crushes, through divorces and motherhood and unspeakable joys and inarticulable losses. Not everyone has a Shiney. But I am so blessed. And I do.

Today I received from Shiney a bag of the most perfect presents (the best part of which was an afternoon doing basically nothing with her and her family), and tucked amongst the treasures was this excerpt.

I wish I'd written it. The words ring in my head and heart like hammers. On tomorrow's list of things to do is finding the book these words come from:

So I am not a broken heart.

I am not the weight I lost or miles or ran and I am not the way I slept on my doorstep under the bare sky in smell of tears and whiskey because my apartment was empty and if I were to be this empty I wanted something solid to sleep on. Like concrete.

I am not this year and I am not your fault.
I am muscles building cells, a little every day, because they broke that day,
but bones are stronger once they heal and I am smiling to the bus driver and replacing my groceries once a week and I am not sitting for hours in the shower anymore.

I am the way a life unfolds and blooms and seasons come and go and I am the way the spring always finds a way to turn even the coldest winter into a field of green and flowers and new life.

I am not your fault.

By Charlotte Eriksson, from Empty Roads & Broken Bottles; in search for The Great Perhaps

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. 

the ear-worm circles of hell

I often suffer from ear-worms - those unshakable partial stuck-tunes that swirl around and around in your head turning a song you may once have enjoyed into a form of mental torture. For the record, and before you read further and I infect you, I do know a fairly reliable antidote: sing "Oh Canada" or "Happy Birthday" all the way through. These songs are familiar and automatic enough to replace the stuck tune, but not catchy enough to get stuck themselves. 

This insight into ear worms started yesterday, as I yet again argued with Alanis Morissette that it was not, in fact, at all ironic when it rains on someone's wedding day. Arguing, and a superior definition of "irony," of course, did nothing to stop the 4 known phrases of that song from continuing to replay ad nauseum. Which got me thinking. 

I am prone to ear-worms because I love music. I often think in music, and my mom and I both have a tendency to burst in to song if you say certain opening phrases to us. For example, if you start a sentence with "up on a hill" you are likely to get "was a lonely goat herd" sung at you before you can finish your sentence. Music is fun. It's enlivening. It's a keen mood booster (except when it's not - it's also great for wallowing a la Whitney Houston's "Didn't We Almost Have it All"). I love music. But I like to move from song to song, and to have them leave when the party is over. 

And so, as 1995 Alanis was so tenaciously abusing a literary term last night, I wondered - if ear-worms are a form of torture, which circle of hell would different songs inhabit? Clearly "Isn't it Ironic" is the absolute worst, but what other songs are catchy enough to get stuck in a loop and drive one to the verge of insanity? 

Here, for your judging ease, is my matrix of ear worm assessment:

Tenacity = a song's stickiness. If it has a catchy hook, simple rhymes, obvious melody or harmony, it will score high in tenacity. 

Inanity = a song's lyrical IQ. A really stupid song is a really annoying song. If a song has a great message/story, it's probably less annoying to have it stuck in your head. Maybe it makes you think or feel. However, a song like, say, "Wake me up before you go-go" (although I LOVE WHAM! I ALWAYS HAVE AND I ALWAYS WILL. I WILL NOT APOLOGIZE!) is just silly and fluffy and full of nonsense that for some reason my brain clings to. 

Repetition = "Tub Thumping" - need I say more? Because repetition is one way our brains build memories, repetitive songs have an increased likelihood of being remembered and of becoming ear worms. Repetition could also apply to how often a song is heard - say a jingle in a radio ad or a TV theme song. Whatever the source of the repetition, it makes ear worms both more likely and more annoying (see also inanity) 

To play on Dante's circles of hell I had planned to list the 9 most egregious songs in order, but really it changes from day to day and from ear worm to ear worm. And because it's the Christmas season there would be some seasonal influences on the list as well that might not be there in June (does anyone actually like "Deck the Halls" or "The 12 Days of Christmas" or "The Little Drummer Boy"? Talk about inane and repetitive!). So I'll settle for the example I've already given, and be grateful that Miss Morissette has since moved on.  

Now isn't that nice.