The Stars Have Aligned, Hopefully

     Boy, I hope the stars really do align in 2020-2021!     

I got my planner for next year yesterday.  Brand-new planners have always made me a little light-headed with excitement.  There's something about all those blank pages, those clean and open squares and grids.  So much potential!

I remember the optimism I felt last year, when my 2019-2020 planner arrived.  It was right around this time of year last summer.  I pulled out the 2019-2020 school calendar and set to color-coding notable dates in the school-year: early dismissals, appointments, days off, vacations.  Oh my goodness, I remember thinking 2020 was going to be SO MUCH BETTER!!! than 2019 was.

And we all know how that worked out, don't we, Friends?

The theme of my 2019-2020 Pipsticks Planner was "Stay Golden." If you know your Robert Frost and your S.E. Hinton, you know that nothing gold[en] can stay.  All good things must come to an end.  

Also things that must come to an end are shit-shows like 2019-2020, if you want me to be absolutely blunt about it, and I think you do, otherwise, you wouldn't be reading this particular blog.  

So I had forgotten which Pipsticks planner I chose for 2020-2021, so when I opened that envelope yesterday and saw a silver-spangled blue cover with shades and the words "THE STARS HAVE ALIGNED," I took a sharp inhale and uttered let's hope so, Jacko.

I'm almost afraid to dive in and start filling in my 2020-2021 planner.  I did a real bang-up job of it in 2019-2020 with color codes, stickers, delightfully colored-in days for special occasions.  It was really amazing from August 2019 until Mid-March 2020 to open that planner up to the appropriate week, and see my plans in full color and festive stickers.  And then it all went to shit, didn't it?  

I'm not sure, but I wonder if part of my despair during the shut-down didn't have to do with watching each beautiful color-coded plan after March 13th turn to ash and get carried off in the wind.  It sounds silly, but plans are part of routines for me.  I am very routine-driven.  And each day on the calendar that did NOT go the way it was supposed to was a crumb of my routine that was shutting down.  And of course, there were more questions than answers, no income.  Dump truck loads of uncertainty.  

I sit here looking at "The Stars Have Aligned," and I'm wondering if maybe I hadn't ought to wait a little bit before I go planner-happy, filling in the squares and coloring in days off from school.  Maybe if I go into this next little stretch of time tragically underprepared, everything will go off as planned for all of us.  After all, I've really been working on being okay with focusing on the tasks at hand, right ahead of me, instead of spooling out Far Into The Future, ever since this pandemic hit.  

Maybe.  

On the other hand, it's either extremely hopeful or wildly insane to get out my stickers, markers, and colored pencils and set to recording.  To trust that maybe the stars really have aligned, and 2020-2021 is going to be Better. I think I'm gonna do it.  Get that planner all marked up.

After all, I feel like my personal brand is mostly "insanely hopeful."

So come on, Stars.  Don't let us down now!

Back-To-School?

If we have to school from home again in 2020-2021, I'm ready, Babies!   

The other day, we were over at a good friend's house, and he asked my daughter if she was looking forward to going back to school.  

"Not really," she said.

And I get it.  

She and I were in Target the other day.  Back-to-School was in the store.  Shiny new school unis, shiny new school supplies.  

This is the first year since 1983 that I have not felt pure, unadulterated joy at the sight of BTS.  In fact, I felt like I do every winter, when I've gone across the wool carpet in our family room and flipped the light switch.  I get zapped.  And two weeks into winter, every year, I get a little flinchy as I go through this process, walking across the carpet and flipping on the light.  So that feeling, with sorrow and dread stirred gently in.  That's how I felt the other day, seeing the Back-To-School displays at Target.  

Well, because I got attached to 2019-2020.  It started out with a lot of promise.  There was a lot to love about 2019-2020.  And then, four months ago to.day., and has it really only been 4 months?!, it all just went straight to hell.  Didn't even go on a ride in a hand-basket, either.  

You lived it, too, Friends.  I don't need to reminisce about how precious we were prior to 3:09 PM on March 13.  

I know things aren't going to be so precious come Back to School 2020.   

I think my daughter's a little bit afraid of getting attached to the ritual and routine, for fear it'll be ripped from us again come October, November.  I'm afraid myself of getting attached to the year, attached to my daughter's classroom, school events, friends, teachers... she's supposed to be in Third Grade this year.  It's the year she becomes an official Medium-Sized Kid.  That's something that should be magical.  I've looked forward to Third Grade (kind of- because who doesn't love a toothless little kindergartener?) since she went to school.  

I think we're both a little afraid of getting attached to Third Grade, wondering if there's a good chance it'll all get ripped away from us again.

I wonder if there'll ever be a time again when we can just take for granted the little thrill of excitement a display of new school supplies used to call up, and if we'll ever be able to take for granted again the routine and rhythm of a normal school-year.

Second Place Most Unique

I'm weirder than average, but not weird enough to be top-dog weird, apparently!

One time, I took my 1970 Big Bad Orange AMC Gremlin to a car show full of Mustangs, Camaros, Street Rods, Hot Rods, Rest-Mods, tractors, trucks...

I was the only Gremlin there.  And if you know anything at all about Gremlins, they're adorably weird little cars from the 70s.  Having one in Big Bad Orange REALLY sets a kid apart, I'll tell you.

I won a trophy, too, that day!  Second Place Most Unique.  My weird little orange car from the 70s won Second Place most unique.  Got beat by a motorcycle that looks like all the motorcycles you'll ever find on the road!

Not that I begrudge the motorcyclist who beat me for Most Unique at this show.  I don't.  I know that to a motorcycle owner, every motorcycle is a unique and beautiful chromed butterfly.  I like motorcycles! 

But Second Place Whatever is kind of the story of my whole damn life, if you want to know the God's-Honest Truth.  I feel sometimes like I might not be people's first choice for whatever, but I'll do all right enough.

I kind of thought I had being Unique down to an art, really.  Right down to my weird little orange car.  So yeah, I kind of took it personally when I got Second Place Most Unique, second to a motorcycle that seemed unique only in that it was one of few motorcycles at a show full of cars.  It was hard to keep it separate that the Second Place Most Unique was awarded to my car, not to me as a person.  It wasn't an indictment on my uniqueness as an individual on this planet.  For all I know, the owner of the motorcycle that beat my Gremlin could have been the most quotidian person on the planet.  A beige couch in a showroom of beige couches.  

And I am probably not that.  

I didn't used to want to be unique.  Unique meant a nice way of saying a someone or something was weird.  I didn't want to be weird.  I just wanted to fit in.  Of course I did.  I was a kid with big red hair, and a habit of getting lost in a dictionary or encyclopedia and spending hours alone in my room, pondering.  I always had an outsized vocabulary.  I always felt like I was mailed to the wrong address.

I just wanted to fit in.

The older I got, the more sharply I realized that fitting in was not an option for me, actually.  The red hair doesn't exactly make it easy for me to fit in, to blend in.  I see things from odd angle.  I still feel most of the time that I've been mailed to the wrong address.  

But the thing about fitting in, as we learned from Tetris, is that once you fit in, you disappear.  

So I learned to make peace with being Unique. But apparently I'm not too awfully unique.  I wouldn't win a unique contest.  I'm not unique for the sake of being unique, weird for the sake of being weird.  But I am me.  I'm unique enough.  

I don't need a trophy to prove that!  And neither does my weird little orange car!

The Week's Second-Runner-Up!

  Tuesday is seriously the week's Second Runner-Up!   
   

As a kid, I remember watching the Miss America Pageant every year.  This was back in the '80s, and for a little girl, that pageant was a visual delight of big hair and even bigger evening gowns.  Like half a hundred life-size Barbie Dolls on parade.

It was always so exciting when they'd narrow the field down to the top ten, and then the top five.

And then they'd announce the runners up.  Third and Fourth Runners-up probably have their own disappointments to contend with, but on the merciful side of looking, their baited breath gets to be let out a lot sooner. But they at least get their applause for being Third and Fourth Runners-Up.  

It must really stink to be First Runner-Up, because that applause isn't for you; in a top-five situation, when they announce the other four runners-up, you    know that applause isn't because you got First Runner-Up. It's because that bitch in the enormous sequined dress with the Dynasty shoulder pads Freakin' Won.   Yeah, if she falls and hits her head or gets caught posing or Playboy durning her reign, you'd get to wear the crown, but otherwise, you're a footnote.  

At least there's a pretty good chance, and some precedents that First Runners Up have ascended to Queen status.  

The one that I think of often is Second Runner-Up.  Too high up in the rankings to be a loser, too low to be a winner.  I don't think there's ever been a time when a Second Runner-Up winds up having the crown and sash passed to her on a technicality.  

Tuesday is the work week's Second Runner-Up, I have always thought.  Not obnoxious enough to unseat Monday from Most Complained About Day of the Week.  But compared to Friday and all its fun, Tuesday is never going to hold the title of Favorite Day of the Week, probably.  Wednesday gets to be Miss Congeniality, I'm pretty sure.   

Tuesday is usually fairly productive, because workers have shaken off the weekend wiggles on Monday.  Gotten all that out of their systems.  It lacks the excitement and anticipation Of Thursday.  Thursday is First Runner-Up, because I'm not sure if we all like it because of itself, or because Friday is the very next day.  Most people won't make eye contact with Tuesday.

Maybe Tuesday would feel like less of a smack in the middle of the pack loser of the weekly contest of popularity if she put on some sequins.  Maybe WE should put on the sequins on Tuesdays.  It won' t make Tuesday into Friday, but it'll give that day a little run for its money, for sure!  

Legacy

Listen, Journal- You're really asking some heavy questions lately!
   

I've never been one much for journaling, especially not the guided-journal variety.  Weird, I know.  But recently I got my hands on a Mindset journal from a Facebook Ad, and I look forward to working on my journal pages every day.

The other day, the Big Question of the Day was "How do you want to be remembered?  Why do you want this to be your legacy?"

The three things I chose were: 

My Sense of Humor

My Wisdom

My Heart

I want my Sense of humor to be part of my legacy because I think it's a great gift to be able to find the humor and laugh, and I think it is an even greater gift to lead the others to the laughter, especially in times of darkness and tense moments.  

I know the Wisdom is a weird bounce for me, given my propensity for negative self-talk.  But the thing of it is, I've learned a lot of lessons, and I've learned a lot of them the hard way.  I like to pass those lessons on, and if I can do that, at least those lessons could go on.  

And I want to be remembered for my Heart.  I love hard.  I laugh loud.  I worry about the people I love.  When I cry, it comes from my soul.  Sometimes, I love that I have a big heart on my sleeve, and others, I hate it.  But it's what I have.  Everything I do, whether it's perceived as good, bad, or indifferent, my heart was in the right place, and it was all in.  

Getting Out of My Own Way

This is how it looks when I don't get in my own way!  

At the beginning of June, I filled out my workout rotation calendar for the month and decided that I was going to go to the gym every single day, all thirty days.  

I've made bold plans like this one before, many times.  Things always get in the way.  A late night will derail the next day's workout.  Or I'll sleep in too long and ditch the gym.  Sometimes I catch a cold and opt not to exercise, because, you know, "when you're sick, rest is best!"  And do I ever milk "rest is best" when I have even a slight head-cold.  

I had planned on working out all the days in April and May this year, too.  That was during the thick of Pandemic Purgatory, and I had nowhere to go during those two months.  I almost had April in the bag, and then got in a funk and fell to the bottom of the Bell Jar that last week, so I missed fourteen days- the whole last week of April and the entire first week of May.  Nothing holding me back but stinkin' thinkin', honestly. 

Killed two month's perfection birds with one trip to the bottom of the Bell Jar, I did.  In the moment in those two weeks, I told myself I was burnt out and just needed time to heal myself mentally.  I wasn't sick.  I just felt drained and sad and depressed.  It felt kind of good, getting up at 5AM and just getting around for the day.  It was still cold at the end of April, the beginning of May, and there's something about being wrapped up in a warm sweater, drinking coffee and watching the sky turn pink in those earliest hours of the day.

Except I am convinced that those two weeks of being sedentary undid all the progress I'd clawed out for myself since December.  And mentally, I felt foggy, sluggish, as though I was swimming around in murky water.  I did feel a zillion times better when I started back up in the gym in May, which made me all the more irked with myself for the two-week staycation.

Hitting this goal is about more than just the workouts!  

June needed to be different in that I needed desperately not to fall victim to excuses.  So I scheduled myself for a workout a day.  I've scheduled myself solid for every day in a month before, lots of times, like I said.  But this time, I was DETERMINED to stick to it.  I don't think I've ever actually followed through like that before, at least, not in recent memory.  And I did it.

It kind of surprised me, though.  Usually when I set a goal, I do it already knowing I'm going to let myself down. You've seen how negative my self-talk can be, even with people looking, here on the blog.  I expect to fall short and fail. There were mornings that I dilly-dallied once I got down to the gym.  But I always started the DVD and saw it through to the end. 

I don't think it made a lick of difference in my appearance, but it did make a huge impact on my confidence.  I set a goal.  I followed through, and I accomplished it.  I got out of my own way!

I finally really understand "You never know what you can do until you try."

I know I won't be able to get 100% in July.  But I am already planning to get 30 workouts in during this month.  I feel like the best way to follow up hitting a big goal is to set another one, after all!  Maybe eventually, I'll get good at this!

Stronger Than This!

Maybe the days of demolishing one of these in under a week are behind me.

So about a month ago, we went to Sams Club for the first time Since, and while the husband was dashing around, selecting items his dentist office needed to reopen, my daughter and I had the cart for buying items for home.

For whatever reason, I pointed our cart to the Candy Aisle.  Most of the time, I can walk past that area of Sams with merely a wistful glance.  I know those aisles are full of things that are the nutritional equivalent of the guy who's a good-lookin' asshole: fun to be with for a moment, but just really bad, bad, bad for a gal's mental health, sense of self-worth, and overall general well-being.  And usually, I can resist because I KNOW there's nothing good about heeding the sugary siren call of the Candy Aisle.  It's just that on this particular day, I felt as though I'd somehow earned a stroll down through those shelves.

"Mommy," Zoe said as we headed down this path to perdition.  "I think this is a bad idea!"

"Nah," I said.  "We'll be okay.  I'm not gonna go nuts or anything."

Right the, I tipped that bright yellow 24-bag box of Peanut M&Ms into the cart and scanned the barcode.

"Mommy!" Zoe said, her eyes as big as full-size Peppermint Patties.  "mmmmmWHAT are you doing?!"

"Mind your business," I said, and casually rolled us out of the Candy Aisle.

Zoe had a bag or two of those M&Ms.  Within a week, I had devoured the other 22 bags.  

On one level, it's funny, because for someone who can put away candy like I do, I don't show it too much.  I'm pretty much as average as it gets- slightly on the heavy side.  Chubby. 

However, what makes it Really Not Funny is that I work out every day.  Remember my post from yesterday?  I worked out 100% of the days in June.  I usually work out at least 80% of the days in any given month.  The thing of it is, I do NOT look like I work out at all.  I'm as average-looking as average-looking gets.  I am pre-obese, according to my smartass scales.  I have been called chubby.  

This isn't okay with me. 

And while I was in a Skills Lab with my Health Coach lab-partner last Saturday, we were laughing about my bad habit concerning Nutella, and these very damn M&Ms, when all of a sudden, she stopped laughing and said, in a very nurse-tone of voice (she's a nurse in her life outside coaching), "April-girl, you are stronger than that Nutella, you know.  You are stronger than whatever it is that makes you want to hide in the closet and eat a quart of Nutella and a retail box of Peanut M&Ms.  You are stronger than this."

Not many things stop me cold, but this did.  It stopped me in the moment, and it has given me reason to pause at many points throughout the days since Saturday.

I am stronger than this.

The M&Ms are long-gone from my house (but not my hips!).  The Nutella is still here.  And I've had moments where I really wanted a big spoon of it.  And I have thought, and said out loud to myself, 

I am stronger than this!

I am stronger than this.  

You know what?  I believe it this time, and I am going to live as though I'm stronger than whatever makes me want to eat all the sweets in sight.  I'm tired of being the "short, chubby girl."  With the work I put in at the gym, I think I've earned the right to look like the "short girl who could bench-press a Mercedes."  So that's who I'm going to start treating myself like.  And see where that takes me.  I think that girl would demand a little more respect from herself and others than I generally settle for.  

I.  Am.  Stronger.  Than.  THIS!

Like Haunting Something I Used To Know

I'm not at peace yet with "New Normal."

This morning, my daughter and I have appointments over at my husband's dentist office, and I'm dreading it.  Not because of all of that stuff about going to the dentist.  We're just going for cleanings and check-ups.  

It's because I haven't stepped foot in the building since before the Shutdown, at all.  I was always used to striding in as though I own the place, flittering around the waiting room if I wanted to, wandering in to my husband's office to update my phone and computer, and socialize with anybody I wanted to while there.  And my daughter was even more of a butterfly over at that place, seeing if she could befriend anyone after her appointments were over.

Now, we will not be striding in as though we own the place.  We have to sit in our Jeep and call to check in with the front desk.  Someone will come out and take our temperature and ask us a bunch of COVID related questions.  If we pass muster, we get escorted inside.  

And from there, we're taken right to our chairs in the hygiene department, and we have to stay in them until we're escorted from the building.  There will be no bee-bopping around for my social butterfly daughter.  We live in an endless game of "You've Got Cooties!" and we have to avoid, avoid, distance, and avoid, and since we have a particularly vested interest in this game, because it means our safety and the safety of our employees, and the livelihoods of us all, we have to do our part, whether we like it or not, whether we think it's the thing to do or a whole bunch of bullshit.

I hate this New Normal.  I didn't think of myself as a People Person in the days before Pandemic Purgatory, but I guess I really, really was.  I smiled at my fellow shoppers.  I'd strike up conversations with the people who were waiting in the same lines as me at restaurants.  All the little social interactions added up, and now that we're all behind masks and acting afraid of each other- even making eye-contact, I think, it all makes me want to come out of my house less.  Which I think is the very thing "they're" angling for us all to do, to be honest.  (Where's my tinfoil hat?!)

It isn't just the dentist's office that has me bothered.  I'm just particularly bothered by that one because I've been used to interacting with that place a certain way- as an extension of my home - for the last fifteen years.  I'm not the dentist, but that office is mine, too.  And when I've visited places I used to know before Quarantine that I have less of an attachment to, I've been extremely unsettled by the social distancing measures.  I think today is going to be a very hard day, going to something as quotidian and timeworn as a cleaning appointment at our very own dentist's office.

I don't know about you, Friends, but since we went Green (and it feels more like a lemongrass green.  Maybe a pea green, not a True Green), I feel like a ghost caught in a machine I used to know.  I'm half-unseen, unheard most of the time, but here I stand, bewildered at what the world is right now.  And I honestly don't want to get used to "New Normal" if this is "New Normal."  I'm hoping it's more of a "New Normal for Now," getting us through this moment in time and we can get a handle on this virus and how to deal with it, and this will all become just a story we tell here in a little bit.  

One Rainy Saturday Morning

Rainy Days and Mondays...don't really get me down at all, actually.

Saturday morning, when I got up at five, the sky was a dark and murky cobalt blue instead of the shimmery powder blue-teal-orange-pink of the sunrises I've been accustomed to being distracted by so early in the morning.  

It was raining.

It's been a while since I've woken up to a rainy morning.  And I can't remember when it was so dark when I woke up.  I could have almost mistaken Saturday morning for a wintry dark morning if it weren't for the sound of birds chirping in the rain.  Birds sound a little different in the rain.  There's kind of an echo effect to their song.  

It was kind of a refreshing change of pace, to be honest.  We've had so many sunny mornings for so long, I've forgotten when the last time we had a rainy early morning.

Back when we were in the thick of Quarantine, I remember musing on this very blog that I missed Mondays the Way They Used to Be.  In a Sea of Saturdays, a little Monday morning every few days was like a bracing lemon sorbet after a days-long gorge on hot fudge sundaes.  

Rainy Saturday morning was like the same thing, after days and days of stretching sun.  It felt like everything outside and in the air was getting cleaned off, watered, refreshed.

This spring changed everything.  Like the song says, rainy days and Mondays used to bring me down.  Now they're a welcome restart.

Too Too Much INTENSITY!!!!

Sometimes, I'm just a little too intense for my own good.

So I realized something a few days ago, and hold onto your pocket protectors, Pals, because I'm about to get real geeky on ya.  If my husband and I were defined by our similarities to species in the Star Trek universe, he would be a Vulcan (like Spock), and I would be a Klingon (L'Rell is the only one that quickly comes to mind in full Klingon Woman glory).

In case you aren't familiar with this particular dynamic, Vulcans like Spock achieve mastery over their emotions so that they really don't display emotions.  Klingons, the guys with the ridged foreheads and long black hair and angry demeanor are intense.  Like on a scale of one to ten, they're a fifteen.  Even when they're not angry, they look and SOUND angry.  

I've always wished I could be more Vulcan and less Klingon.  

Well, because I understand where the Klingons are coming from.  People think they're angry even when they're not, and they react in kind.  So, a Klingon could say, in their big, booming, enhanced indoor voices, "IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY OUTSIDE!" and the human nearby would not hear the words, but rather the manner in which they were conveyed and perhaps would tell the Klingon to calm the frak down.  (Look at that, I threw in Battlestar Galactica, too!)

And guess what effect telling someone to calm the frak down has!  IT DOESN'T MAKE THEM CALM THE FRAK DOWN AT ALL, DOES IT?!  No!  It does not!  In fact, it probably lights a fire in them.  And after a few minutes of this type of exchange, even though the Klingon wasn't angry before, now it is Game.  On.  The Birds of Prey would be scrambled and the scimitars would be drawn.  And then it's an arms race between the Federation and the Klingons, because the Klingons are so angry and they love war.  And maybe they do.  

But as someone who skews more toward the Klingon temperament than human or definitely Vulcan, I wonder if the Klingons didn't start out not being such a war and killing enthusiasts.  Maybe they were just intense, and after thousands of star-years of their intensity being read as HOSTILE!!! they just got sick of it and said "okay, FINE, we're HOSTILE!!!" and it was off to the arms races.

I think that's how I got to where I am today.  Growing up, I could go from being excited or agitated about something else to having a full-on tantrum in moments.  It would start by me having a bad day at school, or being upset because I got a bad grade (for those keeping track at home, this was anything below a 92) or falling out with a friend, and coming home and telling about it.  I'm not really big on using a well-modulated voice when emotional as an adult, let alone when I was a kid.  So the message of what I was saying would get lost in the manner in which it was delivered (pertineer yelling), and I'd get called out for being sassy or angry or basically intense, and a tantrum would ensue, and I'd get the fly-swatter (I grew up in the 80s- we all had our asses whooped by fly swatters, belts, and willow switches), get sent to my room, and would enjoy an earlier bedtime for the next week or two.  

As an aside, I got sent to bed early so much as a kid that by the time I was in high school, I'd just take myself to bed by 9PM on school nights and most weekends.  Whatever.

Since I was little more than a kid when I met my husband, and he was only two and a half years ahead of me on the way out of being a kid, he definitely saw this dynamic I had going on at home.  I'd be intense, the intense tone of my voice would shout out the message of what I was trying to communicate to the point that an argument over my demeanor would ensue, the message would be lost, and I'd be punished and sent off to lick my wounds in the quiet of my own room without anything about my original message being addressed.  

If you think that dynamic didn't carry over to our relationship and our home, even after we both were adults, you'd be wrong.  Except I don't get the flyswatter or that kind of thing when my Klingon-esque ass is "intense" around my Vulcan, Spock-like husband.  Hell no.  If he ever would have tried to pull that shit on me, I would have ended up kicking him through an othertruckin' wall.  I'm little but Rage makes me stronger, as the cool kids say.

No.  What happens instead is that he hears the intensity in my voice rather than the message of my words, and he shuts the efffffff down.  Which naturally incites and inflames me.  Our therapist says this is stonewalling, and that he's really, really good at it.  I think he comes from a long line of champion stonewallers.  

So roll my original emotion from whatever got me in an intense state to begin with into the anger and inflammation kicked up by the stonewalling, and I look like Donald Duck when he gets good and mad, while the husband sits there, cool and composed in his chair, dismissively uttering "Go ahead.  Keep it up," and just stonewalling the fluck out of the situation until I reach critical mass exasperation and storm out, slamming every door I walk past.  

And now I'm mad, and he's mad- I guess, because I was yelling at him.  And still, I never did get to be heard around whatever it was that stirred up the intense emotions in me to begin with.

Figure in 20 years of this same pattern, and I've gotten, rightly or wrongly, so that I really don't expect anybody to hear me when something sets off a strong emotion.  Because after all, I'm too sensitive.  I let things get to me too easy.  The message of my words gets drowned out by the tone of my voice, so I just ruminate on the issues myself.  And pardon the Anglo-Saxon derivative here, but this is a fucking lonely way to live.  It makes a broad feel utterly unheard and totally unsupported.  

Also, without a sounding board, the same issues swirl around in my head for YEARS, which frustrates the husband.  "We've already talked about this hundreds of times!" he'll exasperatedly say, throwing up his hands and ending the conversation.  "Unless you have anything new to tell me, I've heard it all!  Enough!"

Yeah, well... he heard, but he never listened.  He never offered insight.  He'd get hung up on my manner instead of listening to my message.  I was the aggressor and the problem, and all he was trying to do is live a peaceful life.  

I've been working with a therapist for months now, and the thing I have consistently begged for is a way to be less intense, less quick to anger, less quick to let my voice raise. My fondest dream in the world is to be calm, cool, collected, not at all intense, able to just shut down any emotion.  Aloof like a Vulcan.  I feel like if I were more peaceful and serene, the way I interact with my husband and my family would be more peaceful and serene, instead of me feeling like I was mailed to the wrong address and have kept winding up at wrong addresses my whole life. 

Since anger is really a secondary emotion, I can't help but wonder if all along the Klingons have been misunderstood and lonely, and sad because they're misunderstood and lonely.  And maybe they kind of hate themselves because none of the other people in the universe really get them.  They all just want to make the Klingons the common enemy to work together fighting.  And the lonely and misunderstood and sorrow combine with their general propensity toward INTENSITY!!!! and it just comes off as angry.

If that's the Klingon experience, then I guess I get it, 100%.  And I'm wondering how I can master myself into being composed like a Vulcan, or maybe if I'd be better served saying screw it all and developing a taste for blood wine for when the Klingon Mothership swings by to take me home with them.

Critter Brain and Sweet, Sweet Self-Sabotage

This is what it looks like when Critter Brain is runnin' the show!

Friends, I do this thing where I do really well working out and eating, and I see a little victory on the scale or in the way my clothes fit, and guess what I do- 

If you guessed I reward myself by holing up in a closet with a giant tub of Nutella and a giant spoon, you, sirs and madams, would be correct!

Or if it isn't Nutella, it's like 4 bags of Peanut M&Ms.  Halloween candy.  Chocolate chips I bought to make something out of.  Marshmallow Fluff I bought in a moment of weakness.  Freakin' brown sugar straight from the bag.

Is this behavior really in line with the goals I work so hard to achieve?  No.  Is this normal?  Yes.

Yes, it is.  This is a thing humans do.

It's definitely self-sabotage, and while we think we sabotage ourselves because we lack willpower, that is not what's happening here at all.  Without getting too technical on you, we have three parts to our brain that work together to make us who we are.  One part of the brain is the part that loves to learn and grow and think higher-order thoughts.  This is called the Cortex, in case you'd like to give this a Goog one of these days.  Then there's the Limbic System, that supports emotion and behavior, among other things.  

But it's the third part of the brain that's driving here.  The brain-stem, the most primitive part of our brains.  This part of the brain is affectionately known as "Critter Brain."  Isn't that adorbs?

Well, ol' Critter Brain is all about keeping us safe.  And safe means status quo, even if status quo doesn't make us happy or let us grow.  And Critter Brain pops up after you've made some changes to make yourself better, and it looks like they're really going to pay off.  When you're sailing along toward success, coo-coo-katchoo, who shows up but good ol' Critter Brain, ready to do whatever it takes to keep you right where you are, or right back to where you started.

And it does this by making you do things that sabotage your efforts to be better.  For me, it's overindulging on all the sugar.  All of it.  Apparently my Critter Brain is afraid we'll die if I can wear jeans that are a single-digit size again.  

Critter Brain doesn't just like to keep us safe from weight-loss success.  Critter Brain also doesn't cotton much to us bettering ourselves professionally or in other personal development-type ways.  Procrastinate much?  No follow-through on ideas or opportunities?  That's Critter Brain.  

So to calm that guy down, you have to acknowledge it.  Remember Critter Brain's trying to keep you safe, even if "Safe" sucks.  So you say "Thank you, CB for keeping us safe this far.  Let me take this one and show you it's all gonna be okay."  It takes practice.  You've got to go gradually to get Critter Brain to stand down.  But when you approach your Critter Brain with compassion, empathy, and kindness, it relaxes, and you can sidestep the roadblocks to success that it keeps throwing down to keep you safe.  It helps keep Critter Brain on its leash.

And don't beat yourself up if you tussle with Critter Brain and Critter Brain wins every so often.  You wouldn't be the first person in the world to ever hole up in a closet with a big tub of sugary fatness and a giant spatula....

You Can Knock-Knock Me Over...

...I...will...get...back up AGAIN!!!

One of my favorite kid-movies of recent is Trolls.  It's about a buoyant pink troll princess named Poppy who's trying to save her friends and family from a trollier species called Bergins.  The Bergins eat trolls because they think it makes them happy.  

Poppy has a can-do attitude and kind of goes headlong into her quest with more of a wishlist instead of a plan.  She sings this song about not giving up today, while all sorts of calamities befall her.  

You can knock-knock me over, 

knock-knock me over...

...But...

I... will... get... back up AGAIN!

  When I first heard that song, it was like the mothership calling me home and playing my own personal anthem on the mothership eight-track player.  I've always imagined motherships with eight-track players and those groovy, crazy Seventies pinstriping and paint-jobs.  And that song seemed like the song that's been in my soul all this time, and I just didn't know enough to let it out.  

I've taken a bit of a detour these last few months.  There have been times I have been very close to giving in to the despair.  Like when the spider bites Poppy and wraps her up in the spider-web and it looks like it's lights out for our plucky heroine.  But.  I have got back up again.  

Next time it happens, and there will be a next time, I WILL get back up again.  

The thing of it is, without this gnarly Bergin of a year that 2019 and 2020 have been, I wouldn't have been moved to come out of my safe little troll-cave and head off on this new quest.  I'm not trying to save my people so much.  I mean my people aren't in imminent danger of being eaten by big, fugly Bergins. 

I do worry about what the fallout from Everything That's Happened So Far is going to do to us all, though, Friends.  So there's that.  And while I'm no pink Troll Princess named Poppy, I did notice striking similarities between me and her- a penchant for scrapbooking, a way with words, aggressive positivity.  

And when everything looked like it was going unimaginably wrong, it hit her hard, and she drained of all her color and fire and glitter.  Just like I did. 

And Branch and her friends loved her back to herself.  Just like mine have.  (thank you)  She was re-energized and had renewed focus for taking on her quest, befriending the enemy and changing even their lives for the better.

But we've all kind of been through it this year, haven't we?  And we're all still standing.  So this thing about how you can knock-knock me over, but I will get back up again isn't unique to me.  YOU'RE getting up again from being knock-knocked over, too!

This Bergin of a year can knock-knock us over, Friends, but 

WE WILL GET BACK UP AGAIN!!!  Yes we will!

April Blake, Big Fat Fake!

I feel as qualified to do the things I do as this lawn dart is to be a microphone... or a lawn dart!

There's this thing called Impostor Syndrome, and it makes a person doubt their qualifications and accomplishments and feel like they're going to be exposed as a fraud.  

In my head, my whole name should be "April Blake, Big Fat Fake!"  

Well, it's because I'm certain that I'm not good enough, smart enough, or gosh darn it, qualified enough to do any of the things I do.  Writing, being a mom, driving probably, definitely school board member, friend, cook-at-home-type person, life coaching, editing, bookkeeper, public speaker...

Everything I do, I feel like I'm wildly unqualified and just messing it all up. 

In fact, if there's one thing I feel patently qualified for, it's being the poster girl for Impostor Syndrome.  

The thing is, we all have Impostor Syndrome from time to time.  Even when it comes to things we were trained for, and we kind of know we're good at.  Because this is just how human nature is.  We have access to our own outtakes and blooper reels and self-doubt, while only getting to see everyone else's highlights.  

There's a time all of us SHOULD feel like impostors.  I mean, I totally deserve to feel like an impostor if I were trying to be a dentist.  I didn't go to school for that!  I don't have a license!  Also, I have been invited not to come to work anymore at the dentist's office like three... four times!  Patently unqualified for that line of work, I am.  That's not me being mean to me.  That is the truth.

It's hard to shake the feeling that you're a fake, though, isn't it?

The important thing to remember, all of us, when we're feeling like frauds and big fat fakes, is to remember that just because you're having feelings doesn't mean they're facts.  You FEEL like a fraud.  Unless you're trying to do a job that has actual, concrete qualifications that you have to have and YOU DON'T have them, the feelings you're feeling are just that.  Feelings.  And they'll pass.

You've got this!  I, too, probably got this!

Hurt

I will let you down... I will make you hurt.

I had a free-association writing assignment last week for therapy, in which I needed to write stream-of-conscious around something we’re working on, and see what comes up.  There's been something I relive over and over again, on a continuous loop, and we're trying to break the loop.

  

I’m not sure I really nailed the assignment.  S-O-C was never a favorite writing exercise of mine.  It’s too messy.

But the thing that kept coming up is that I kept hearing “Hurt” in my head as I wrote.  Nine Inch Nails did the original, and Johnny Cash covered it.  Both versions are fantastic, and if you’re not familiar with the song, give it a listen.  

There are particular lines in that song that have been on repeat in my head for decades.  The first time I heard the song, it stopped me in my tracks and brought up discomfort I wasn’t quite okay sitting with yet:  

You can have it all

My empire of dirt

I will let you down

I will make you hurt...

If I could start again

A million miles away

I would keep myself

I would find a way

I let a friend down once, or more accurately, a lot of onces over a length of time.  And I lost a friend.  I can’t get them back or apologize for being such a cowardly and ignorant shit-bird garbage-person when they needed me most. There is no making amends for this.

This changed the way I am friends with people.  I am always on guard.  I'm always looking and listening for some indication that something's Wrong.  I cannot let myself miss a warning sign or a red flag, so when I’m around people, friends, I’m always at least a Threat Level Orange on their behalf.  If something’s really wrong and they’re thinking thoughts, I’ve got to catch it.  Try not to let them down.

The closer the friend, the higher the alert I'm on around them.

It reads as clingy, I think.  Neurotic.  I check more often than I should, probably, if someone's okay.  I really try to let people know how much they matter to me.  I am so afraid of letting my friends down, making them hurt, that I get to be Too Much Friend, I think, and there were a lot of years I put myself in kind of a dome and just kept everyone at a bit more of a distance.  If I'm not a close friend, my way of thinking went, and goes a little, I won't smother you with friendsiness, and also, maybe I won't let you down. 

It isn’t really a good way to live.  I don’t think it’s fair for anyone.  Intellectually, I know that I won't be able to change what happened in the past by smothering innocent people in the present with my neurotic friendship.  And probably if I were on the flipside of being friends with me, I'd take like six huge steps back.  

This is where it's coming from, though. I'm really working on this.  It's hard work, and there are days I just burst into tears from overwhelm, from embarrassment.  Something will trigger me, and I can't shake the feeling that I missed a sign, and something terrible happened to someone I love.  And I will wish I could be just maybe a little more normal, a lot more aloof, back under that kind of dome that kept everyone at a bit more of a distance.

Because I feel like if you're my friend, if you depend on me for anything, I will let you down.  I will make you hurt. 

A Reason, A Season, or A Lifetime?

It is a privilege knowing you, whether it be for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.  

Back in college, one of the very first emails I got was from a high school friend who was attending a different university than I was.  It was a forward, in a time when forwarded email messages were like the memes we share on Facebook today.  Something would resonate, and we'd hit "Forward."

Man, those days seem like fodder for weeks of posts.  The nostalgia is hitting hard lately, knowing that it has been two decades since I GRADUATED from college.  Wow!

But back to this forwarded message.  It was about friendship, and how people come into our lives: A Reason, A Season, or A Lifetime.

People who are brought to us for a Reason don't stay long.  They are brought to us to serve a purpose.  You share a common thread that lasts a little while, and then it ends.  One or the other of us is going through something intense, maybe, and the other is there to help or teach us.  Or you're meant to work on a project or a job together, and when that project or job ends, you both move on, and become people you each used to know.  

The people who are in our lives for a Season are around a little longer.  Like high school or college friends.  The friends you have when you're all newly married and living in a certain place.  The friends you make at the park when your kids are little, or the parents of your kids' friends.  Fellow PTA moms and dads.  You're in the same season of life.  There's lots of common ground, and it's convenient to get together, because you're always showing up at the same places.  And then people get divorced or move away.  The kids grow up.  You graduate from school.  The season changes, and you grow apart.

And then there are the people who are your Lifetime friends.  Lifetime friends can come into your life at any time.  They might start out as Reasons or Seasons and they stick.  They're your Tribe.  They become like family.  You can go days, months, or years without talking and next time you see each other, it is as though no time has passed, and you pick your conversation right up where you left off.  Or, you make the effort to see your Lifetime friends regularly.  They're the ones you call when everything's gone wrong.  They know you at your best and your worst and can tell you so.  These people are ride-or-die, and you treasure each other.

I took this email to heart as much as a seventeen year-old can, who believed that every friend from high school was going to be a Lifetime friend.  I think the message was an oversimplification of how it really works, but I think the bones are good.  People leave your life, but they can come back in unexpected ways, at unexpected times.  

On myself, I've been working hard on making peace with being left behind in some people's lives because I was just there for a reason.  I've been trying to come to terms that we live many different seasons simultaneously, yet they begin and end at different times, sometimes unexpectedly.  And I've really been trying to reflect on and appreciate my Lifetime Friends-who they are, how we got to be Lifetime Friends; and I've been trying to control the burning in my lungs that I feel when I think of losing any of them.  

Also, I think I've really been taking stock of whether or not I'm worthy to be a Lifetime Friend.  Does anybody ever get that lung-burning panic at the thought of losing me from their life the way I do when I think of growing apart from my Lifetime Friends?  I even have a hard time moving on from most people for whom I've been a Reason or a Season, to be honest.  I have a big heart and I love hard and I get a little heartbroken when people float out of my life.  I always wonder if I've done something wrong.  

I wonder sometimes what I bring to the Table of Friendship.  Because sometimes it seems like people have an easy time letting me go.  Maybe that's just me, hurting my own feelings.  It probably is.  But in case I was ever a shit-bag human being and a friendship ended because of it, I try to reconstruct and post-mortem the hell out of that friendship.  

I think this is coming from a feeling of standing at the point where a whole bunch of tectonic plates of seasons converge in my life.  Fortyish seems to be a place in everybody's life where seasons and the ground shift.  Things fall away and new drops in.  It's change.  And change makes me a little jittery.  

When things change, there's always a moment of reckoning.

So here I am, Friends.  We don't know what Tomorrow brings.  But know this:

Whether for you I am a Reason, a Season, or a Lifetime, it is an honor and a privilege to be in your life and walk this little stretch of the Journey with you, and I will hold you in my heart forever.

This Is Not A Zero-Sum Game

Just because you're being lifted up doesn't mean I have to feel put down!

I used to have this friend who would get all cagey when someone else was having an exceptionally good day.  She absolutely hated to see someone having a better day than she was having.  

She firmly believed that if someone was having a good day, it meant she had to have a bad one.  If someone near her got a compliment, it meant she was being put down.

For her, life is a zero-sum game.  If one person wins, someone else, HAS to lose.  

I bet you don't have to imagine how uncomfortable things could be when it was just the two of us, sitting at a table having lunch. 

I think that being in a zero-sum mindset comes from a place of scarcity, and people who think that Life Itself is a zero-sum game have experienced a lot of things that validate that mindset for them.  Maybe for them, someone really has to lose, in order for them to win.  

But it doesn't have to be that way.   

The thing is, while there are plenty of zero-sum games in this life, Life Itself is not one of them.  There's enough Good to go around for everyone.  We aren't even all playing the same minigames Life has to offer.  So why can't we all win?  

Eventually, with this friend I used to have, the tension got to be exhausting.  We had a very high school-esque falling out and I haven't talked to her in years.  They say you become like the people you surround yourself with, and in this case, all her good qualities were outweighed by the jealousy.  Not just of me, but of everyone having a better day than she was having, or of anyone who got compliments, because she read a compliment for someone else as a dig at her.  Anyone who was having a better experience being them than she was having, being her. She wouldn't accept that we could both have good days, and I wasn't willing to mope around so she'd be happy.  Life is too short.

Don't compare your life or your experience to others if it makes you all strung-out, Friends.  Comparison is the thief of joy.  If you let it consume you, so is competition, when you're competing against someone's whole life and circumstances.  

Anyway, I hope we all have a good day today.  It's Monday.  A fresh start to the week.  At least every day isn't still feeling like Saturday.  That IS a win for all of us.

Collect Words Like They're Money

Words are like currency, for Charlotte the spider and April the writer.

Although the book and all subsequent movies about Charlotte's Web make me cry, there's one thing about all of it that has always inspired me.  Maybe a couple things.  

First, Charlotte was a devoted friend to Wilbur.  And at the end of my life, I hope that at least for someone, I am remembered as being as devoted a friend to them as Charlotte was to Wilbur.

And then, there's the way that Charlotte would send Templeton out looking for words.  She collected those words like they were dollar bills.  That's what I've always done.  

I laugh when friends tell me "You know too many words!"  I agree, although I don't think it's "too many."  

The same way having a wealth of dollars gives you more options than when you don't have a wealth of dollars, having a wealth of words to know and share gives you more options than when you have a limited vocabulary.  

Do I sometimes forget myself and throw down a five-dollar word to someone who doesn't have a word-wallet as fat as mine?  All the time.  All the time!  And then hopefully they're comfortable enough with me to say "what's that word mean?" and then they'll have a five-dollar word for their word-wallet, too!  Or, if they're not that comfortable around me, I always hope that if I do toss out a word they don't know, that they'll ask Siri later on.  Either way, they get to learn a new five-dollar word and I get to keep my knowledge of it.

That's the really cool thing about words as currency.  I can share my big words and still have them, and the person I share the big words with gets to have them.  So instead of spending a word and having it leave my word-wallet and go into someone else's, we're doubling the word money!

So the way I built up my outsized vocabulary over the years- and we're talking decades at this point, is that every time I'd learn a new word, I'd collect it like it was money.  I still do this.  Sometimes I make flashcards of new words, so there's a literal physical thing I can refer to.  I also use the word a lot.  Practice makes a new word part of you.  It's practical experience.  

Sometimes, I do get made fun of for having a big vocabulary.  I get weird looks, using big words.  It's okay.  I used to be self-conscious about this, too.  It hurt to be called a nerd and a bookworm.  I didn't want to be the nerdy girl or the bookworm girl.  I wanted to be the pretty girl, the cool girl, the girl people wanted to be around.  And then somewhere along the way, I realized that I wasn't going to be everybody's flavor, no matter what I did, and knowing and using big words (as well as big ideas, big statements, big love) that's who I am.  And the people who are okay with all that are my tribe and we'll find each other.  

And I will use my big words and write my love for them in spiderwebs, and droplets of morning dew, and I will write it in the very stars themselves.

Reframing "Perfect"

The sunrise isn't quite as interesting in a perfect morning sky.

The other morning, I noticed that the sky was on fire with the colors of the sunrise, and I ran outside to get a snap.  This happened a lot earlier this spring.  The sky was good and dramatic.  And then, at least from my vantage point at 5AM, recently the sky has been more toned-down.  There's still the gradient from blue to turquoise to pink to orange to gold, but it isn't quite as arresting to look at.

Those clouds make all the difference in a sunrise.

Well, usually, we talk about the cloudless sky being a perfect blue sky.  There's even a saying in aviation, a kind of well-wishing sign-off, "Blue Skies and Tailwinds."  Perfect Blue is kind of the goal, the thing we hope for.

But Perfect isn't all that interesting.  Let's back up to the sunrise.  In this picture, you can see the underlying gold in the sky, and you can see the powdery blue peeking through the gray.  But look at those clouds and their unfiltered salmon rosiness.  The perfect blue sky doesn't light up with unfiltered salmon-colored rosiness.  

We see clouds as imperfections, but Nature uses clouds as a screen to broadcast the light and all that is most beautiful.  

The imperfections and flaws in a cloudy sky at sunrise or sunset are what makes each one unique and indescribably beautiful.  

It makes a kid wonder if it's possible that the things we see as flaws in ourselves are really just screens for Nature to shine a light on and turn into something uniquely us, and indescribably beautiful.

A Different Kind of Purgatory

Peonies in Purgatory

So it's been a few weeks since my part of Pennsylvania went Green, and I've got to say, it feels like going to an amusement park that you used to visit when you were a kid, and you remember it as being really, really fun, but now there's a little grass starting to poke up through the pavement, and the paint is chipping on the fanciful mid-century fiberglass decorations, and the mascots' costumes are grubby and threadbare, and half the rides are broken down.  And the gift-shop has the feel more of a museum than a place where you choose and pay for souvenirs.

It's familiar, and yet, you kind of wish you hadn't even come at all, because it ain't the same, and you're left feeling some type of way about it.

That's how Green feels, or as I can't stop myself from thinking of it: Post-Pandemic-Purgatory Purgatory.  A different kind of Purgatory.  A Purgatory that's maybe a little bit harder on the soul than Pandemic Purgatory was.

Here we are, almost two-thirds of the way through June now, and it just doesn't feel like summertime.  The temperatures have caught up, finally.  There's a win.  The weather has been quite decent.  But there isn't a whole lot to do.  The aforementioned amusement parks, when they open, will be quite a different experience.  We're still doing the mask thing, and I'm not going to lie.  A trip to Sams Club a couple warm weekends ago proved oppressive with a mask on.  I hoof it around a store, and it was a little bit warm in the store, as well as outside, and I did feel for people who have been saying all along that they can't breathe in masks.  It takes getting used to, and I could do it easily working in the air conditioning at the dentist's office, sitting chairside handing instruments to the doctor.  Pushing a loaded cart around a warehouse store whilst wearing a mask does add a new dimension of misery to the whole process.  

And speaking of masks, there's this whole politic that has oozed in surrounding masks.  You get your people who give you the meanest stink-eye if they're wearing a mask and you're not.  Then you have your people who refuse to wear masks anywhere, under any conditions who look at you like you're a stupid sheeple for wearing a mask.  There's still another set of people who technically wear a mask, but it's just pulled up over their mouth, leaving their nose exposed and THIS DOESN'T DO ANY GOOD AT ALL!!!

We've been to our first sit-down restaurant experience since we went Green.  I was both thankful for being able to sit down in a restaurant and eat, but I was also just put off by the whole thing where you couldn't sit on the benches outside to wait for your table.  They're running at half-capacity, distancing diners.  The servers wear masks.  Disposable menus.  Everybody was going out of their way to make it feel less weird.  Other diners (those who are Of A Certain Age and are the same ones who'll give you stinkeye for not wearing a mask) were giving the servers and hosts and anyone who'd listen hassle about all of it- not being able to sit on the benches outside to wait to be escorted into the restaurant, and then that the menu's limited right now.  And then it took too long for their food to reach them. 

Meanwhile, the restaurant staff had an air about them that they hate all of this too, and that it's total bullshit, but they're just doing what they have to do to be allowed to be open, and isn't it a victory to even be open right now, even if it isn't quite as convenient or fun?  And restaurant brothers and sisters, I can't speak for all of healthcare, but your dental compatriots feel your frustration, too.  

This is Post-Pandemic-Purgatory Purgatory.  We want to be out and about, we want everybody else to protect us, but we want to bitch-bitch-bitch about it if those measures affect us in any way, shape, or form.  

And while Summer hasn't been cancelled, per se, all the things we might look forward to about summer have been.  County fairs, rallies, festivals, fireworks (although every dog everywhere gave a big awoooo! in celebration of that one!), conventions, shows...  Amusement parks are going to be all weird this year.  Malls might open, but it looks like all the stores inside them could have fallen victim to COVID.  

When we've been out and about, trying to piece our lives back together after All of This, I feel shabby for being so ungrateful.  But it doesn't feel at all like summertime.  There is no air of celebration in the air. I can't even scrape together enough heart to look forward to Fall with a bit of anticipation.  We got my daughter's Third Grade Backpack from Justice (the dot-com - I had a coupon!) as we usually do this time of year.  To be prepared.  But I don't feel that little spark of elation at the thought of a Brand New School Year.  I had that last year, and it bit us.  School shut down early.  I just keep wondering when the second shoe falls.  Just when we get good and settled into a schoolyear routine, and get all happy about being back, and feeling like we really have our stuff together?  Like around Halloween, say?  Another two-or-three or more-week shutdown?

This is Post-Pandemic-Purgatory Purgatory.  

And I have to ask myself: What did we learn, any of us, from the Springtime Shutdown?  Was there anything?  I have all kinds of thoughts on that one.  And I don't think I'd oughtta give them voice right now.  It's too soon.  But I will say that if you're thinking about reading or re-reading 1984 right now, either do, because you will recognize a lot in there right now, and it will add another layer of urgency and menace to an already menacing book.  Or don't, because you'll recognize a lot in there right now, and it will add just too much menace to a menacing story in menacing times.  Might not be able to get to sleep at night.  

I hate not being grateful for Green.  Back in March, at the beginning of the shut-down, I would have given my eyeteeth for Green right then.  Far more fell victim to COVID and the shut-down and the fallout than health.  I hate being so pessimistic about it, but The Great Pause does not appear to have been the Great Reset the more optimistic of us hoped it would be at the time.  I think it's brought out the worst in us so far, if you're asking what I think.  And I don't know what to do about that.  

Hunker down and wait it out from behind a mask, I guess.

Oh, The Lies I Tell Myself!

Sometimes, I don't really "got this!"

Friends, I have a confession to make.  Sometimes I tell myself lies.  Sometimes the lies I tell myself are fairly benign, and they help me get through something.  For instance, I'll tell myself "I've got this!" in a stressful or intense situation.  Spoiler alert: I don't always really "got this."  But that's my way of faking it 'til I make it.  

Or, I'll be upset about something.  It'll be really pickin' at my heart, and I'll tell myself that it really isn't that big of a deal.  Eventually, I start believing that, and I move on and walk away.

But I've told myself some other lies that maybe aren't so good, and I'm starting to see this practice is no longer serving me, if it ever did in the first place.  

If you're in the mood for some entertainment, get yourself some Junior Mints and a coffee beverage appropriate for whatever time of day you're reading this post, and settle in for the Top Ten Lies I Tell Myself!

Top Ten Lies I Tell Myself (But Shouldn't)

1.  I hate people.

 

Actually, no.  I don't hate people, as it turns out.  I really, really love to be around people.  I'm not necessarily into huge noisy chaotic crowds for fun-n-excitement, but I do like to be around people.  The trick is to know when to remove myself from all the people and take some time to myself to have some quiet and recharging.

2.  People hate me.

 

I used to tell myself that people hate me, which probably fed into why I told myself that I hate people  SOME people have hated me in the past, and I took it to heart.  I figured if those people hated me, all the people must hate me, and so if I hate them right back first, I win, because I rejected them before they had a chance to reject me, so there!  But yeah, turns out, People don't hate me.  Just a select few poor souls who probably also hate terrible things like sunshine and laughter.

3.  I'm not a hugger.

Well, okay, so I didn't used to be a hugger, but I've softened since Zoe came along.  The world is full of huggers, the huggers aren't going away, and you know what, a little hug every now and then is rad.  Some people make it weird and creepy, which gives me an opportunity to make things Even Weirder and Creepier, and usually that takes care of that problem!  

4.  I'm a pain in the ass.

 

There might actually be a little truth to this one, if I'm being totally honest, after all, Friends.  I can be persistent and stubborn.  I tend toward being clingy and needy and insecure.  A little (or a lot) neurotic.  Aggressively positive when I think a situation warrants it.  I ask a lot of question.  Pain in the ass qualities.  But it isn't always a bad thing to be a pain in the ass, I guess.  

5.  I shouldn't take up so much space.

 

Sometimes I feel like I take up too much space in other people's lives.  I tell myself that people resent every moment I ask them to spend with me. And I'm sure that there are some people who would agree with me, but I keep getting invited places and people keep accepting my invites, so maybe those for whom I take up too much space just aren't meant to be in my tribe.

6.  I need to tone myself down.

I have a big personality.  If you tell me to "Be April," you'll get 1000 watts or more.  Outsized sense of humor.  I'm quite opinionated and straightforward.  Aggressively optimistic.  I know a lot of things and love to share the knowledge.  I'm a flirt.  I know this and I own this.  99% of people I come across think nothing of this.  But I can tell when I've worn thin with someone, or when someone would prefer the 6-watt version of me.  Quiet, reserved, a little mousy, just Less. Easier to disappear into the background.  I have to be the 6-watt version of myself in order to get along with some people.  SOME people.  And quite honestly, if I have to dull myself down from a one-kilowatt beacon down to a 6-watt nightlight bulb, screw those SOME people.  Screw them running.  In the 6-watt dark where they need to be in order for their little bubbles in the world to be safe for them.

7.  I'm annoying AF.

I know annoyance when I see it, and it doesn't take me seeing much of it to knock me off my footing.  I don't like to annoy people.  So it's just like the need to tone myself down.  There are SOME people who I annoy.  I can tell.  Not ALL people find me annoying.  So I'm not everybody's flavor.  One person's "annoying" is another person's "delightfully bubbly," I guess.   

8.  I missed my chance and it's all downhill from here.

I often feel like I flew high, lit low.  I had dreams, aspirations, ambitions, and drive when I was younger.  Yet, here I am.  And as a 40+ woman, I feel like maybe I should be throwing in the towel, putting on the muumuu, sinking into a rocking chair, and fading into the wallpaper.  It's all downhill from here, isn't it?  Only if I want it to be.  For fox sake, I can still turn cartwheels.  And I don't throw out my back or break my hips when I do it.  I've taken up a new career path.   I don't think I look half bad for my age, and I haven't even talked to my dermatologist about Botox or Juvederm or a facelift yet.  How about I tell you when it's all downhill, because I acknowledge I have highs and lows, but my star is still trending upwards.  

9.  Others' time is more valuable or important than my time.

 

 

This is one of the most maddening, frustrating lies I've told myself for YEARS.  Letting my time be disrespected because I don't see myself as worthy of enforcing any time-boundaries I ought to have.  Because remember, I've told myself that I'm annoying AF, I'm too much, I'm a pain in the ass, and that I don't have anything to offer in return, so I need to be super-grateful and super-obsequious when anyone is willing to share any of their time with me.  They're being charitable!  The least I could do is bend over backwards to accommodate that!

 

10.  I am expendable.  

I told myself for years that if I were to disappear tomorrow, nobody would miss me.  I don't offer the world anything that anyone else can't offer.  I don't see myself as very remarkable or special.  Seriously. Anybody could do what I do. This has been my internal monologue for so long that it feels odder to me to notice the people I've become aware of who WOULD notice if I were to disappear tomorrow and realize that they see something cool that I bring to the mix.  I've only realized in the last few weeks that maybe I'm not as expendable as I have always told myself I am.  It is a very strange feeling, but I think I could get used to it!

 

So yeah, I have told myself a lot of lies over the years.  These are just the top ten I could think of today.  Sometimes, I tell myself lies like "I've got this!" so that I really WILL "Got this!"  A fake it 'til I make it kind of deal-e-oh.  That isn't so bad.  That helps me be stronger and better.  

Believing these Top Ten Lies I've Told Myself, though- letting this type of lie get into your head can really do a number on a person.  It can make you feel worthless, angry, ugly, rotten.  It's time to break out of this poor mindset, and I'm working on it!