Exactly Where We Need to Be

Turns out, I'm exactly where I need to be, right now, in this moment.

Friends, sometimes I really kick myself for not making different decisions when I was younger.  I sit and think that if I'd only had more forethought, planning, and follow-through back in the day, I could be so much farther along today than I am.  I could have earned the "Most Likely to Succeed" superlative that I won in my senior year of high school.

I've been drawn into several conversations lately, though, that have shifted my perspective.  Maybe I'm not going to beat myself up so much for being such a late bloomer.  

"Life is like this whirlpool of lessons, and we keep getting the opportunity to learn from them until we do learn from them," one of my dear friends said, sort of out of the blue, one day while we were visiting.  

And this came hours after I was talking on the phone to another friend.  I had pulled our coaching lab into the weeds, as I often do.  I had given her some backstory.  It just all kind of barfed out of me like if you go to a fair and eat deep-fried butter then go on the Gravitron.  And I apologized for hauling us off into the conversational jingle-weeds when we both had things we needed to accomplish that day, and she laughed and said,

"All those times you told me about, you've been exactly where you needed to be to learn the lessons you needed to learn in order to take you to where you were supposed to go next.  And all those lessons brought you right here, right now, which is exactly where you need to be."

All of a sudden, I felt quite peaceful.  More peaceful than I have felt in a long, long time.  I am exactly where I'm supposed to be.  I wouldn't be where I am right now, if I'd made any decision differently. I wouldn't have learned the lessons I've learned, which, while they sometimes hurt in the moment, are certainly coming in handy right now.   

I'm not the only one who's exactly where she needs to be right now, in this moment, Friends.  All of us are where we are because we've followed a path of lessons learned.  Some of those lessons we've had the opportunity to learn more than once, until we really get it.  

But we are all right exactly where we need to be right now.  We all have some lessons to learn, but we are all exactly in the right places to learn those lessons we need.  And when we do, we get to move on.

Do I Like Myself?

I guess I'm all right to be around, right now.

I have this guided journal I've been using, and the Big Question for the day was "Do you like yourself as you are now?  Not who you aspire to be.  The you right now."

I struggled to answer the question a little bit, to be honest.  I wiffle-waffled.  I don't dislike myself, per se, but I do have access to all my bloopers, outtakes, and thoughts.  And those make me far less likable to me.  

But on the other hand, I don't think I'd think myself is so bad if I cut myself the same slack that I cut other humans who are doing the best they can.  And I am doing the best I can.

That stipulation about "who I am no, not who I aspire to be" tripped me up, though.  That felt unnecessary.  I argued with the journal a little bit on that one, which is absolutely bonkers.  

I mean, I have a picture of who I aspire to be, and I live that.  What's wrong with aspiring to be the best version of yourself?  What's the matter with finding rough edges in yourself that you want to polish up?  I don't think there is.  

Even so, warts and all, I guess I'm pretty okay right now, in this moment.  I'm working on the rough spots and the ugly.  I see them.  I acknowledge them.  I accept them.  But I also embrace the challenge of aspiring to evolve.  Constantly, even.  

I'm still thinking over that journal question, though.  There are no right or wrong answers.  It's just a book that I can write in with a pen, so there's no interactivity or hyperlink to direct me to the next thing based on the way I answered.  Usually when I'm doing my guided journal, I'm okay with that.  It's a journey, not a destination, for the next 60 days.  But I'd really like to know where the journal was going with this one.  Is there going to be some kind of follow up at some interval of time?  Did I pass the test?  

I guess if you want to fall down some kind of rabbit-hole, Friends, give that question some thought.  Maybe sit down and scribble about it for a few minutes.  For my tastes, I'd argue that it should be two actual questions: "Who do you aspire to be?"  "Do you like yourself the way you are right now?"  And then you drill down on both those questions, if you have the extra time and your Sanka hasn't gotten cold.  (Is that still a thing?  Sanka?  It makes me laugh.)  You ask why.  "Why do I aspire to be...?"
"Why do I like or not like myself the way I am right now?" "What would it do for me if I achieved the version of myself to which I'm aspiring?... Why is that important?"  

"Do I even like this Sanka, or is it the Cremora that really does it for me?"  (I fell down a rabbit hole remembering what was in my grandparents' pantry when I was growing up.  Sanka and Cremora were staples.  Does anybody besides me remember these things?)

To answer the question, though, in the context of it simply being a question in a book I bought and committed to answering every day, yeah, I'm okay with myself, just like I am right now.  But I look forward to being the person I aspire to be! 

How would YOU answer that question about yourself, Friends?

Keep On Looking Up

What a way to put things in perspective!

Friends, I'm always looking up.  It's kind of a Thing with me.  It can be a sunrise, sunset, or the deep and cloudless blue.  I also get lost in the clouds.  

Getting lost in the clouds or having one's head up in the sky is usually seen as a sign of scatter-brainedness.  I wouldn't be offended if you were to point that out in me.  I know I'm a little dissipated at times- instead of a fire-hose, my brainitude is more like a vaporizer.  Or maybe like one of those clouds my head gets lost in sometimes.  

I'm also always looking up at the stars.  If I'm outside at night, I'm looking up.

Lately, I've been doing a lot of Thinking with a Capital T, and it tapped me on the shoulder to think on why it is that I always seem to be looking up.

That's something we say when we want to encourage someone, isn't it?  "Keep your chin up."  When you do that, you look up.  And I naturally gravitate to keeping my chin up, to keep looking up.

Boyo boy, Friends, do I ever notice a difference when I don't.  If I let my chin rest on my chest too long, the back of my neck starts complaining, and if I'm not careful, I'll get a headache that goes from the base of my skull all the way to my trapezius muscles.  I learned what the sternocleidomastoid muscle is (give it a Goog) because for a while, I was getting these terrible shooting aching  pains that ran from the pointy part of my jaw down my neck and to the top of my collarbones.  It was during a time in my life when I'd raptly watch my feet as I'd walk, and nothing seemed sunny or positive.  

And no, it wasn't just last week.  

It was before we all had smartphones, in fact.  During the Motorola Razr years.  So my head wasn't always in a computer or smartphone, but I did always look down.  Try that, Friends.  Keep your chin looking down for a little bit, and notice how it makes you feel down, and you can't breathe very well.  And notice how much better it feels to have enough room for your fist or a grapefruit between your chin and your chest.  And then, if you really want to lean in to my mad little experiment, look up, and maybe not ridiculously so, but enough so you can see how much bigger than you and your problems and worries the sky is.  And it feels a little optimistic to just physically look up.

When I really start going down into a spiral, I have to take myself outside to Look Up.  It doesn't work right, looking at a ceiling.  It's too easy to start counting ceiling tiles or cracks in the same.  Noticing cobwebs, dust-boogers, and spots that could be leaking, possibly.  

I go outside and look up at the sky when I'm spiraling, because the sky is different every time I look up at it, yet completely familiar.  It takes my mind off whatever's sitting on my mind.  I start wondering who else might be looking up at the sky, and what's weighing on their mind.  And if I were sitting there with them, listening to what's on their mind, what would I do or say to help them feel like they weren't alone?  People show me all the time how very Not Alone I am. 

That's the thing about these dumb downward spirals.  They tell you things that aren't true.  They make you feel like you're in there, all by yourself, and that nobody cares whether you go down the drain you're circling.  Downward spirals tell you it's never going to get any better, that the best you can hope for is to just go down the drain and that's that.  

What the downward spirals don't take into consideration is that maybe instead of a drain, you're circling one of those waterslides that looks like a giant funnel, and once you get through the swirling and the darkness, you pop out into the sun and splash down into a pool and there's laughter and light, and if you're like me, some water up your nose.  But fun, too!

Looking at the sky, all different types of sky, gives me perspective.  Whether everything goes right or wrong, that sky is still going to be there.  

All I have to do is keep on looking up.

Phantom iCal Events

Genesee Community Days Carshow: How I wish we were here today!

It's supposed to be Community Days in Genesee.  My husband organizes that car show, and we have been planning on spending the entire day at it since last year's show wrapped.  Of course, the car show and Community Days were cancelled this year, back at the beginning of April, along with a lot of things this summer.

It's one of those events that takes a lot of planning and lead-up, and the week before is a Frenzy.  The day of is an early morning requiring lots of ice-water packed and brought from home and enough sunscreen to get us through the day with bi-hourly reapplications.  I always register thousands of steps on my FitBit on Community Days.  I always dread it a little bit in the lead-up, but once I'm there and we're all set up and the cars start rolling in, I love every minute.  

Some of the people who bring cars to the car show are friends going way back to when we started into the classic car community.  We used to meet up for cruises at Fezz's Diner in Coudersport.  Some people, I see only at this car show, and we pick right up talking where we left off the year before.  

I'm infamous at this car show because one year we brought two of our cars, and my husband had me driving the one that has manual transmission because the other car we were bringing was his pride and joy, a white-knight of an AMX that is the nicest car we have.  (I have to take my shoes off before I get in this car, because I am basically Pigpen, and this car has won awards at the American Motors show).  He didn't want me driving that car, and I didn't want the pressure.  So I drove the stickshift Spirit AMX.  He drove behind me  It was a drizzly day that year, and the show-field grass was wet and the ground was soft and everybody was standing around as we drove in.  When I drive stick, I get flustered easy, early, and often.  

So I spun out getting to my parking spot.  Dirt, grass, mud, and sod flew all over the hood and windshield of the White Knight AMX.  Everybody saw.  Everybody had a good laugh.  Heck, I laughed.  Shane laughed, even though I could see he was irked, having spent the whole day before, washing the cars meticulously.  I tried to laugh and act like "so what?!" but I did get a microfiber cloth and the spray bottle of water to try to clean up the mess I'd made of his pride and joy.

It's funny now, looking back.  A lot of people thought it was funny that day.  I was mortified, though.  I beat myself up over that for the whole rest of the day.  I still do, even though I also appreciate the humor.

The important thing is that memories are made at that car show and at Community Days as a whole.  And it isn't happening this year.  It's still in iCal, and yesterday and this morning, I got an alert that they're going all weekend.  Except they're not.  They're phantoms.  Ghosts of memories that will never be made. And it's really for real.  Last night, we met a dear friend and her girls at the park that Community Days is held in.  That should have been buzzing with activity and people and the band last night.  Instead, it was a low-key night at the park.  I bet today will be a low-key kind of day there.

I wish we were at that car show.  I wish Community Days were still happening.  It's going to be quite a low-key kind of summer.  On one hand, that's good.  We've all wished to be less committed to everything.  Now that we've got that wish, though, and phantom iCal events start popping up, it does make a gal wonder about how the show would have gone this year, and wonder about all the stories she isn't going to hear and all the memories she isn't going to make.  

Here's to brighter community days and packed car shows Next Year, Friends.

It Isn't Always Sunny in Aprildelphia

Keepin' it real can be really, really ugly sometimes, and also waterproof makeup is a lie.

Well, Friends, there was a time when I was told that I am a big phony because all I did was post "happy, perfect shit" on Facebook.  I don't think that person is in a position to know what I post on Facebook anymore, but I would have to respectfully disagree with them.

Yesterday, I had a very rough day.  We all have ups and downs and I never expected anything different for myself, especially as I work to release everything I've been carrying around for far too long.  And that's a picture of me from yesterday afternoon, between meltdowns.  

Getting rid and growing involves spending some time sitting with some very uncomfortable emotions.  I like to laugh and smile and joke around.  In fact, I would prefer to add a glossy giggle to pretty much any uncomfortable situation instead of sitting here letting the ugly be ugly.  Usually, I can so that.  

The thing I find when I sit with ugly feelings is that I start noticing other ugly things, like that comment from that non-friend about how I only ever posted "happy, perfect shit" on Facebook.  That has stuck with me and made me mad for years, ever since it was said, for a few reasons.  

First of all, my knee-jerk reaction is a good old-fashioned schoolyard "Nuh-uh!"

But when I put a little thought into it, I have to say, "well, maybe so, but..."  Maybe so, but I hopped on the Book of Faces in 2008.  June.  We were attending a good friend's wedding, and one of my goodest good friends from high school and his partner were telling me I should just go ahead and get a Facebook account already.  I had resisted anything social media back then- MySpace, Friendster, all of it.  The closest I was at that point was I had been a member of the FIRM Believers and I'd spend time on their forums, learning about fitness and the latest gossip on when the next Body Sculpting System was going to drop.  That was the extent of my social media.

None of my friends in real life were FIRM Believers, though, and the siren call of social media hooked me.  I signed up for my Facebook Account that very night, in my room at the Sheraton in Tysons Corners.  And right away I noticed that Facebook could be a bit of a dramarama. So I decided that I'd be aggressively positive, for the most part.  That was my mission, anyway.  My Timehops from my Early Days of Social Meeds shows that I wasn't ALWAYS Poppy the Troll!

Another rebuttal I'd have to this "you only post happy shit" shit-person is that you know what, in the same way that if you're talking to me in real life, I let the four-letter words fly with frequency and a certain pizzazz that makes pearl-clutchers clutch their precious pearls and just singes the virgin ears of people with virgin ears to burn, when I'm writing, I'm a lot more judicious about the trucker-mouth.  Because speaking is in the moment, but with writing, there's a bit of a delay, and so I self-censor, because as much as I am a proponent for liberating the Anglo-Saxon derivatives in the English Language, and as much as I adore their guttural bluntness, they do look a little harsh all typed out in print.  

In that spirit, I figured that if I was taking time to post something on Facebook, I'd try to put a positive spin on it, because I have the time, and I didn't want to be branded one of those social media drama queens, just using my wall (it was a wall back then!) as a stand-in for a journal where I'd barf out all my frustrations.  

Come to think of it, my shit-person Happy Shit critic had the staunchest propensity to use her wall, my wall, the walls of friends to barf out whatever drama was going on in her life at the time, and there. was. much!

I didn't want to be like that.  I wanted people to smile when they'd see my name in their newsfeed.  Because that's how I am when I go out in public.  And to this day, I still think of Facebook as something of an extension of being in public.  I would not walk into your place of business or my daughter's school or your home or probably not even walk down the street shouting about how pissed off I am about politics or current events or even be Debbie Downer all the time.  I try.  I have my moments.  I definitely wallow in woe-is-me moments on the Book of Faces, and I have certainly hopped up on my soapbox, megaphone in hand.  I try to keep that to a minimum, though.  

These days, especially since Pandemic Purgatory, I've been a little more forthright with sharing my less than sunny moments.  It isn't always sunny in Aprildelphia, after all.  And I've struggled.  I am struggling.  The very nature of Pandemic Purgatory shut us off from being able to go places where I would have otherwise straightened my shoulders, put on a little lipstick, and wore a smile until I kind of meant it.  I really do believe that getting out and getting out of one's head for a bit, even if you have to "fake it 'til you make it" with a smile DOES do the soul some good, because at least it keeps you from wallowing and being around other people gives you some perspective.  We couldn't do that while we were in Pandemic Purgatory, and even now, our opportunities to interact with each other are curtailed from what they'd be in normal times.  

So I started sharing my struggle with myself on Facebook, on this blog.  And I have gotten some flack in my private messages for over-sharing.  Not a lot.  But I've gotten some.  That's okay.  I am sure that sometimes the things I post make people uncomfortable.  Guess what.  I'm uncomfortable living them.  And I am completely honest in that I need a little support, I think.  I need some perspective that it isn't always going to be like this, or that I'm not alone.  And if by sharing the way I do, it helps someone else feel supported or gain a different perspective, or feel not so alone... or help them realize that they're not weird... if it inspires them to seek help for themselves the way I am getting help for myself, then I feel like I served a purpose.  I helped someone.  And the inbox-critics can pipe down, I guess.  

So.  I guess whether you think I'm a Social Media Whiner, or a Fakebooker, I'm going to keep on keepin' on, just like I am.  Good, Bad, and Ugly.  

But I especially thank those of you who are my friends and who cheer me on.  You mean more than you'll ever know, and I am cheering you on from where I am, too.  

It isn't always sunny in Aprildelphia, but I know that it cannot rain forever.  I look forward to when the rain stops.  In the meantime, I am going to keep on plodding along.

Thank you for being here.

Let It Go

I'm not sure who I'll be without the extra weight I carry, but I can't wait to meet me.

Friends, there has been something that has hung over me for decades and made me feel as though sometimes I'm treading water with a big heavy backpack on my back and another person standing on my shoulders.  I work so hard to keep my head above the water, and I think I do a pretty good job.  Sometimes I can even forget about the heavy backpack or the shoulder-stander.  But I still carry them with me.  I have, for all this time, after all.

It's almost like they're a part of me.

The thing is, I think this isn't mine to carry around any more, and I don't want to.  My therapist and I are going to be working on helping me release all this heavy stuff, this darkness.  It's going to mean I spend some time in some uncomfortable feelings. I have a plan for journaling through them.  I will be practicing self-care as I go through this journey.

I am hopeful.  But I'm also a little scared.  Nervous.  Carrying this extra weight around in my heart and my mind has been part of who I am for so long that I don't know who I'll be without it.  As awful as it sounds, I've gotten a little bit comfortable with it.  What happens when it's all peeled away?

I have certainly carried it around for longer than I should have, longer than I needed to, and it's time to let it go.  I'm going to spend time in some messy feelings and hit some rocky spots, and at the end of all this, when it's just a story I tell, I will have grown into someone better.  So.  Here's to it, Friends.

Recovering Perfectoholic

How much more difficult can I make this thing?

Friends, despite outward appearances, especially if you were to drop in at my house without prior warning, I am a perfectionist going way back.  

Actually, if you look at the state of my habitat where I live, this makes a lot of sense, if you understand perfectionism.  

See, I *want* things to be done perfectly, and I look around and get overwhelmed at all there is to do, and I get even more overwhelmed when I think of doing it all perfectly, so it would pass a white-glove inspection, that I get all paralyzed and don't even start at all, because if it isn't perfect, why bother?  

Or, in the interest of it being Perfect, I will over-engineer the everlovin' HECK out of something- a project, a story, a blog post... and half the time, it becomes a non-starter, because I get hung up on making each little detail Perfect.

And grades.  Whoa, Nellie.  If you knew me in school, you'll remember that one of my biggest and most distinguishing features was that I'd be irritated with myself for any grade less than 100%, but I'd especially cry big tears and be worthless for the rest of a day when I'd get less than a 90%.  College made things a little different, because instead of numbers, they used letters, but I still knew an A was an A.  I just chose a major in which I knew I'd never earn an A, so at least I was able to let go of that drive for Perfection in chasing a 4.0.  It was never going to happen.  But if I got less than an A- in a writing class, it made me question Everything.

The only time in my life that I really, actually took a fukitol attitude was graduate school.  It was both maddening but possibly a little liberating. But it wasn't really me.

I think the tendency to be a Perfectaholic is hardwired into my DNA.  I am fairly certain that I get it from both sides of my family.  I always thought of being a Perfectionist as a badge of honor.  A virtue.  If something was worth doing, it was worth doing Right.  Perfect!

But that's a fool's errand, chasing Perfection.  If I thought that if I achieved Perfection, the perfect thing I did would be above reproach, I was wrong.  Perfect is in the eye of the beholder, and one person's perfect is someone else's pile of crap.  There is no such thing as being above reproach.  

I cringe when I think back on all the little cards or presents I had the idea of making and gifting to my loved ones, but I was so wrapped up in making sure it was Perfect, and I had all my over-engineering into it that I like to do, that I'd fizzle out shortly after getting started, and the card or present would never get made, and that sentiment would never get to be expressed.  

My Perfectaholism made me lose the opportunity to let someone know I cared about them.  "Perfect" is in the eye of the beholder, but done is Done.  

Because I was a Perfectaholic, I was too afraid to even start things that could have meant a lot to someone else, or even to myself.  I was too overwhelmed to take the first steps in reducing some of the chaos in my home because I wanted it Perfect.  I missed out on getting to have people over, because the house looked like crap.  I've never been able to relax when I go anywhere, because it's always running through my mind that if I were home right now, I could be cleaning.  Spoiler alert, though- even when I was at home, I wouldn't clean, because the hardest part to that is getting started, in my opinion.  

So I'm working on it.  I'm working on recovering from Perfectoholism and embracing the "done is Done" mindset.  Letting go of judgment, embracing the imperfect and unpredictable.  Just like anything else, it's a fumble toward Progress.  It's a journey made of lots of little steps. I backslide and regress, but in the end, I think I'll be far happier and healthier if I can recover from being a perfectionist.  

Life certainly would be far easier if I can stop trying to make it so perfectly difficult!