individuality

On clawing my way through life…

/ micahdl / 1 Comment

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“What is the one thing you wish people better understood about something in your life?”

I think one of the hardest things to explain to people is that I’m an extroverted introvert. Adding to the madness is that I’m a chronic people pleaser. So while I love helping people, I also can’t say no to them, and by the time I’m finished doing the thing that’s been asked of me, I hate people and want to crawl under a blanket for at least a week.

Since becoming a mother, my tolerance for groups and people in general has greatly diminished. Instead of just going about my days like I used to and then holing up when it all finally hit me, I have to actively think about what is going to happen not only today, but the days following. I have to make sure I’m not too over-zealous with my time around humans. That’s not to say I won’t go in public. I spend much of my “day off” at a coffee shop or in stores. Even when I’m most peopled out, I still find myself in a yoga class. It’s that I need to ensure I’m not cramming my days full of actual human interaction.

Every week, I have to look at my schedule and decide what is required and what can be forgone for the sake of my sanity. And all of this is because I’m constantly at the beck and call of a two year old (who will soon be joined by an infant sister and then their daddy is going to go ahead and deploy for several months. That oughta be interesting for me). She’s always touching me or climbing on me or  wanting “ups” or asking a question or showing me this trick or that thing. I can’t be certain, but I’m fairly sure she’s en extrovert through and through. She LOVES being around people. She’s constantly asking if her friends are coming over or if they’re going to be at the next place we’re heading to. Me? I’d be happy just sitting quietly and reading for a couple hours.

When I get overwhelmed with human interaction, it can come out in some pretty ugly ways. One of them is that I simply shut down. I start giving short, clipped answers to really benign questions. I seem a lot more upset than I really am. Then when I try to convince someone I’m not actually upset, I sound really insincere and bitchy…like I’m exceptionally pissed and am going to blow at any moment. I’m especially guilty of doing this to my poor husband who, upon returning to the house from a day at the hangar, is just looking for some human interaction himself. It’s just that I’m spent by then and all I want is to go to the bathroom or cook dinner in peace.

The other big way my introversion rears its ugly head is that I start clawing at my neck. I’ve definitely drawn blood a few times without knowing it. It’s a big reason I’m always wearing a necklace. It gives me something to fiddle with and hang on to that isn’t going to cause me bodily harm. I never actually knew I did this until a friend saw me clawing away at myself in an elevator in Las Vegas. She immediately got me and the rest of our party off the elevator and to a quiet hotel bar so I could calm down. I had no idea I was having an anxiety attack until she explained to me what she saw. She’s a doctor now. A really good doctor.

So yeah, it’s really hard to explain to people how much I love being around them, but when I’m done, I’m just done and that it has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of their company. Because I’m a people pleaser, I always want other people to be happy and comfortable, much of the time at my own expense. I love having people in my home. If I invite you over, I really really really want you to come. I want to share my space and my food with you. It’s just that the next day, I probably won’t want to talk to anyone so that I can recover and get ready for the next time I’m going to want to have people in my home. It’s exhausting to try to keep up with, I know.

Try living it.

On falling out of trees…

/ micahdl / 3 Comments

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I’ve been practicing yoga for a while now. Not a terribly long time, but for me (a person who chronically gives up on sports) it’s been something I’ve stuck with almost as long as I did cheerleading. It’s been about six years I think (I was a cheerleader for ten years).

Yoga has been something that really resonates with me on many levels. It’s deeply personal. It’s challenging. It’s athletic. It’s peaceful. It’s spiritual.

And because it’s all of that, it’s an incredibly balancing activity.

One of the things I’ve loved so much about yoga is that I’ve been able to find my favorite poses. I’ll do all of them (except Half Moon. That pose can suck it.) and I enjoy finding and practicing new ones, but the ones I always come back to and really love are leg balances, specifically Tree and Dancer. I feel fancy and free and capable when I do them. I love photos I have of me doing them .

I did yoga throughout my first pregnancy and I was able to successfully hold Tree up until the week before I gave birth. I was giant and clumsy and felt insane doing things as simple as Down Dog, but when I did Tree? I felt powerful again. It felt good to be able to hold such a challenging pose while in such a challenging physical state. It was awesome.

So imagine my surprise and my distress when, this past Sunday, I couldn’t hold that pose worth a damn. It was all I could do not to cry. I’d spent the entire week practicing acceptance of the political state of this country so I just didn’t have it in me to further extend that acceptance to my yoga practice or myself. I was spent. I dropped my foot from my inner thigh to my calf and finally down to my toes and my heart just broke.

My mat is one of few sacred spaces I enjoy in my life. I only invite onto my mat that which I choose and that usually means it must be beneficial to me, whether that be spiritually, mentally, or physically.

On Sunday, I invited all the wrong things. I invited judgment and negativity and defeat. None of those things serve a purpose in yoga, nor do they serve a purpose in my life.

So now what am I supposed to do? Well, I’m certainly not willing to accept defeat. Not even a little bit. I will accept that it wasn’t my best practice and that’s fine. But it’s time for me to dust myself off and get back to work. It’s time to inhale the positive and exhale the negative. I’m ready to clean off my mat, clear my mind, and get back to the business of life and love.

There is a time and place for sadness, but as with all things, it is only seasonal. And for me, I need sadness to be a rather short season. I can’t let it linger lest it think it can take up residence in my heart and my soul. Rather, I am choosing to accept that I was defeated, but that I can phoenix the hell out of myself and my Tree.

It’s time to rise up.

On learning to change…

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I’d probably never use the word “addict” to describe myself. Even at my worst (which was when I was in my early-20s), when I was engaging in seriously questionable behavior and activities, I never would have said I was an addict. I say this because while I have a very malleable personality, when I’m doing doing something, I’m just done. There’s no weaning process. I just quit doing the thing.

But I am definitely addicted to my phone. It’s literally the first thing I look at every morning. I’m not even that important a person! It’s not like I have some high-powered corporate job where universes may have imploded overnight so I must immediately jump to action. No. I’m a stay-at-home-mom and a writer. If something implodes in my world, I’ve either done it myself or I’ve been watching it coming for some time.

I find myself checking my phone for new texts or Facebook updates or emails without even thinking about it. I’ll be looking at my phone, set it down, and pick it up three second later thinking, “Um, didn’t I just do this?” It’s embarassing. I’ll admit it.

And because I’m so easily persuaded (please don’t even dare me to a drinking game. I will take you on and I will win, but it will be at great personal loss…to my digestive tract), I read things on the interwebs and get emotionally invested in them. Sometimes that’s fine; most times it’s not.

So when, after the most recent election, I opted to take a hiatus from Facebook, I felt remarkably good. I wasn’t getting worked up about seriously stupid things. I didn’t feel the need to rant. I wasn’t compelled to lay waste to certain (very ridiculous and obviously  hyperbolic, but somehow still believed by the masses) false claims. I disengaged and I suddenly felt happier.

It was kind of like how I’ve felt when I’ve spent a week eating nothing but Taco Bell and Totino’s party pizzas and then I eat a damn vegetable for the first time and all of a sudden, I don’t feel like I’m tetering on the edge of my own demise. I want to get out and do things. I want to be active. I want to have real conversations with people I really care about. I want to get out of bed and do something more than watch 30Rock for the fifty-seventh time this year.

But then I go back and I end up pulling that oh-so-obviously-an-addict stunt. “Just one little hit.” And oh god, it feels so good. That burn, the fire in my gut, the tension in my neck. I know that ultimately it’s not going to be good for me, but dammit, I’m going to say my piece!

And the cycle starts all over again.

After this election cycle, I’m really starting to re-think how I engage on social media, if at all. Even in just the last three days, I’m finding it so much more productive to have real, geniune conversations with people that, while we may disagree on certain issues, I care about. It’s about being willing to educate (rather than yell) and be educated (rather than roll my eyes and snark).

So I’m hopeful that I can stay away from my phone (and specifically from Facebook) for a little longer this time. I’m hopeful that I’ll spend all this free time researching and developing my own thoughts while engaging with others. And I’m really hopeful that I won’t feel the draw back to whatever it was that made my feel so good a week ago.

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On living in glitter…

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When my husband and I started thinking about decor and a theme for our first daughter’s nursery/bedroom, we knew we wanted something smart and clever that wasn’t too girly. We came up with books and “girl power” quotes. I scoured the interwebs and Pinterest and queried friends for their favorites. There were a LOT to choose from. I had to narrow down something like 200 quotes to ten. Not an easy task.

Each quote means something special to me. So today I’ll choose just one to talk about.

“She is a dreamer, a doer, a thinker. She sees possibility everywhere.” 

This one means a lot to me. I think it’s because it’s the kind of person I always hope and try to be. I want to see the good in everything. I try to see every silver lining (sometimes it’s hard…those are the ones I call “aluminum linings”. They’re dull and not as fancy as silver, but they still sparkle if you look at them in the right light).

I’ve been accused of living in a Pollyanna world. That doesn’t bother me one little bit. I’ve found it’s a lot easier to look for the good in things, to see the bright side, to hope for the best, than it is to be crabby and whiny and upset. It makes more sense to me to dream, do, and think about how to make the world a better place than it does to bitch and moan and wallow.

I want my daughter’s to live in a near-constant state of wonder. I want their lives to be filled with some kind of magical combination of Disney and Christmas all mashed together. But I can’t do that for them. They’re going to have to figure out how that works for them, how they can find the magic in the everyday. All I can do is show them how I find it.

I find it in things like glitter and cupcakes and sunshine. And when it’s gloomy and grey, I find it in hot tea, a good movie, and a warm blanket. I find magic in singing along like I’m the lead singer in a band and we’re at a sold out concert. It’s in my Colorado green chili and my spaghetti sauce (both of which have brought me to tears because I’m so excited to make and share it). I find it in a turbulence-free flight.

It’s in whatever I choose to find it in. But those are my choices. My daughters are going to have to find their own magic. And I can’t wait to see where they find it.

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On things that define me…

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It’s far enough past Halloween that I don’t feel (too) guilty for writing about Christmas. Traditionally speaking, I don’t let myself listen to Christmas music until the day after Thanksgiving. Every holiday deserves it’s own space and, for some reason, waiting until after Thanksgiving makes Christmas seem even more special to me.

But this morning, I went ahead and listened to the Christmas playlist I’ve been working on for a few weeks. And I don’t feel one bit of bad about it.

If someone were to ask me what my favorite kind of music is, I’d have to say Christmas music. It’s a genre. I’m deciding that. Apparently, when I was quite small, it was the only type of music that would put me to sleep. It’s no wonder it feels so relaxing and homey to me. There are few Christmas songs I don’t know all the words to. I wish I had my piano set up right now. I miss playing the piano, but I really miss playing Christmas music.

I’ve been thinking a lot about things I want to accomplish in my personal life. I always said I wanted to write for Vanity Fair, but those odds are so very slim.  Singing is the only thing in my life other than writing that has so completely consumed me. But I don’t really play any instrument well and I’m a pretty terrbile songwriter, so I usually just end up singing karaoke whenever I get the chance. I’ve been able to sing BGVs on a number of albums thanks to a producer I know in Denver. And my best friend in the whole wide world is a real live rock star and let me sing a BGV or two at her first show in Nashville. But I’ve never even considered the idea of doing my own thing.

Until a couple weeks ago.

I was driving home form Richmond and turned on some Christmas music (hey, it was cold and foggy and looked like it could snow and I had a hot cup of coffee in the car. The elements were almost entirely there). I decided that I’d give myself the chance to record a Christmas album for my 40th birthday. It’s a few years off, which is good, because our family is about to move literally to the other side of the world for a few years and (shockingly) recording music costs money that I need to work for and save up. But I’m going to do it. I have a few things in mind, but I have no idea what it’s going to cost, how to go about asking people to help me, or even how to arrange a song (not to mention get the rights to). I literally have zero marketable skills when it comes to music. I can read music and find a harmony more quickly than most people I know and I can hold a hell of a tune. But I’m no musician.

Despite all of that, this is something I’m determined to do. I want something tangible that I can give to my daughters some day, something that is real and meaningful and completely me.

Because if there’s one thing they’re going to know about me, it’s that I’m basically a lunatic elf hopped up on peppermint when it comes to Christmas.

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On all the things I’ve done…

/ micahdl / 1 Comment

brave-91Day 2 of my adventure in writing every day. Today’s prompt is about as exciting to me as yesterday’s (which is to say, not very). “When was the last time you did something brave? What happened?”

I honestly can’t remember the *last* time I was brave. I haven’t done much in the way of exciting or noteworthy in the last several months. Ouch. That sort of sucks to write.

But I have a lot of experiences to glean from when it comes to being brave throughout my life. I’ve lived in another country (okay, it was Canada and it was for college, but it was still another country and I had to use different monies and learn new lingo, some of which I still use to this day). I moved out of the safety of my parent’s rent-free home when I was young (much younger than either of my siblings did). I  have quit toxic jobs without anything else lined up. I have gone back to university when I felt like I was too old and too broke and I successfully completed my courses in the time I allowed myself. I have ended a damaging marriage. I have bought and sold a dream home. I have run several half-marathons. I have moved to a new state and lived in a new place for the first time in 33 years. I have gotten re-married to the love of my life while people questioned my motivations and balked at my happiness (because it all happened so quickly). I have openly and unabashedly claimed to be a Christian, a liberal, a supporter of #blacklivesmatter, a friend to the LGBTQ community (*gasp* even so far as to say YES, they deserve the same rights I have) – all at fairly significant personal loss. I have given birth – vaginally and unmedicated. I have opened up about my struggles with post-partum depression. I have gotten pregnant again. I have said YES to moving to a very-much foreign country for the next three years in order to give my husband the career checks he needs and wants and to give our daughters the chance of a lifetime.

I’ve talked ad nauseum about all of these things. I could continue to talk about all of them (especially the marathons, divorce, marriage, and childbirth). But I’m not going to.

I think what’s making me feel the most brave right now is that I’m willing to demand of myself the time and space that I need. I need to take time to read and write. I need to turn off the television and immerse myself in life again. It feels oddly brave. My free time is very limited so what if I choose the wrong book to read and it ends up being a total waste of time? Will I still have gained something from that? I certainly won’t miss anything if I turn off Netflix. For a while, it felt like the bravest thing I could do was to let go and just be okay with messes and inactivity. I’m a champion at over-scheduling my life so when I gave that all up, it was hard and it felt really brave. And I got used to it. So now maybe it feels brave to start taking back all those things I pushed aside for the last 2+ years.

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On remembering to shower….

/ micahdl / 5 Comments

self-care

I’ve been spending a lot of time recently thinking about self care. It’s a term that I’ve only really heard of since becoming a mother, which is silly because everyone needs some amount of personal care at all stages of his or her life. I think it’s just that before I was a mother, I never really thought about it because I had (what now seems like) unending time to do whatever I felt like doing, whenever I wanted to do it.

Now it’s becoming a rather critical part of my routine. At least, it should be. This week, I’ve tried to be more intentional with the ways that I care for myself. This week’s challenge has been to shower ever day. I can’t even believe that’s a thing I have to remind myself to do. But it is. I don’t go to an office and I don’t really even see people every day, so there’s sort of no point. And then there’s that pesky toddler that lives with me. She requires so much of my time and attention that it sometimes feels impossible to do things to care for myself. I’m lucky I eat breakfast most days.

So how has it gone so far? Not great. I showered on Monday. It is now Wednesday and I have yet to shower. But I think part of the point of this is that I’m at least aware of what I need to do, what I should do, and what I haven’t done. I’m not yet at the point in my life that I can redefine myself as anything but a mother. I’m still growing human #2 and I have to get her out into the world and a year or two into her life before I can really start he arduous process of redefining who I am. I’m okay with that. I’m comfortable with the fact that – for now – I am simply Mommy. It’s a stage of my life. And like all stages, this one will pass (or wane, really) and my children will start to be far more independent and I’ll have the chance to look at who or what I want to be next.

For right now, I try to remember to shower. I try to drink a cup of hot tea or cider with my husband in the evening. I try to keep the house tidy. These are the ways I care of myself within my current construct. And that feels good.