Look, over there!

My life feels meaningless; it has no direction anymore. Hardly anything to look forward to, except weight loss (as I restart Weight Watchers) - and even that depends on my ability to restrain myself from taking comfort in food - this is especially hard with Christmas cookies still showing up on our doorstep every other day due to extreme delays in the mail (on account of the exponentially increased volume caused by the pandemic, no doubt).

For the record, my weight loss journey this time around began with me weighing in at 168lbs (I'm 5'7") - doesn't sound like much of a problem, except I'm one of those people who just looks enormous unless I'm under 160, and still looks borderline "fat" unless I'm under 150. I lost 3 lbs this past week but it's so hard.

Not to mention my ankle injury (as well as the pandemic) prevents me from engaging in anywhere NEAR the level of physical activity I did before it happened. I was up to running 4 miles on the treadmill again just before it happened. Now I can't go to the gym safely because no one wears masks and running outdoors was always more challenging, but especially so with my ankle injury - cement is not nearly as forgiving as a treadmill.

I had surgery to "fix" it, but I was deluded to think it would ever be the same. It still hurts. I just have the ability to support my own weight on it; to flex it up and down and to land on it from a run or a jump again. Don't get me wrong, I'm incredibly grateful to have those abilities back; it's just that every single step or movement while I have weight on it is still painful, and so many movements still feel simply...mechanical. Not organic...it takes too conscious of an effort on my part to "operate" the foreign objects inside of me.

Every step I run, if I want to avoid overcompensating with my opposite side, I have to think to myself: "LEFT, right, LEFT, right..." I have to force myself to push up and forward with my left ankle; to absorb my weight coming down with my left ankle and knee. That's the really hard part still - my ankle doesn't want to flex quite enough to land on it properly. And so I continue to struggle, even six months after surgery and following 16 physical therapy sessions that I busted my ass to make the most of while I had the opportunity. (You want to feel like a baller in this shitty time of prolonged economic crisis? Meet your insurance deductible. It's an incredible feeling, once you get over the fact that you are now thousands of dollars in debt to your medical providers.)

It's coming up on a fucking YEAR since I've played a concert, and we're going to end up having missed at least one full season. I had to take a leave of absence from the symphony board; it's just more than I can bear to try to push forward with promoting it when we frankly don't have anything to promote right now.

The worst of it, all of it, I think, is just how these last few years culminating in this pandemic have (no pun intended) unmasked so many people I believed were decent, or - at least - had limits to how much crazy shit they would find permissible in a leader, a political party, their community, and themselves.

Everyone who bitches the longest and loudest about the series of inconsistent and not even strict enough, impossible-to-enforce-in-many-situations restrictions is, ironically, responsible for how long they have dragged on. And I'm furious and hopeless and desperate to make anyone, anyone at all, understand how out of control I feel. At work I feel I am just hanging by a thread before I lose it and get myself fired for going ALL THE WAY OFF on the people who smugly smile and say "I know" when I point to one of the countless fucking signs up that say masks are required to enter our building and continue to stand there, making no motion to put one on, and even leaning around the plexiglass barriers as though to make their point more emphatically; or one of the many people who pretend not to be able to understand me while I have my mask on, even after I've increased my volume, slowed down and enunciated every word to the very best of my ability for them, just to fuck with me. I probably sound crazy to those of you who've been isolating or at least not working with the public, but I assure you, it IS that bad. The effect this pandemic has had on the general public has been similar to the effect the holiday season normally has; it has brought out the best and the worst in people, and the worst is far more common...the Karens (as we in customer sevice like to call those customers who are unreasonable, rude, and demanding) have leveled up.

And I guess this is just all to say: I am not okay. I feel like I have been in a nightmare for the last 9 or 10 months in which I'm trying desperately to scream, but no sound will come out and no one in the crowd even notices me standing there. I have started having invasive thoughts; sort of like daydreams except they are horrifying, and go on for too long before I can pull myself out of them...I have to excuse myself at work to go to the bathroom and suppress my horror; my panicked self-loathing (how could I even think such a thing; the fact that the idea even came to me proves I am capable of such horrors; such evil deeds). At home, I just try to go to sleep, and sleep for as long as I can. The nightmares aren't as bad as these thoughts that come to me unbidden while I am awake.


And I keep wondering what it will take: socially, politically, economically, or otherwise, for people to really understand this: NONE OF THIS IS OKAY. How could I be? How can anyone? Why are we acting as though this is all business as usual?

I am an absolute boss at coping. I lived in survival mode for years; I have learned to laugh through my pain and keep pushing forward to get through it to the other side, but this is different. I can't see the other side.

And sometimes the only reason I don't just take command of my life and end it is for the same reason I've always struggled with - I fear I will go to hell - but now I have another one: it would hurt the people who love me.

But I think about it, just about every day. I indulge myself in thinking of the answers to all the questions surrounding it: when, why, how. How can I prevent anyone from having to discover my body; how can I write how I feel for people in such a way that my goodbye letter to them is one that will bring them comfort and sustain them through the stages of their grief until they can move on, and forget about me in their day-to-day lives; remembering only occasionally, and/or when they choose to think of me.

And I've realized, in searching for these answers, that while I wouldn't want anyone to suffer greatly because of that choice on my part, that they would indeed more or less forget about me eventually, because I have no legacy.

I have no child, no book, no research, no life's work culminating in my having made a meaningful, memorable impact on society. My memory will die, if not before, with the deaths of those who knew me. And what will it have all been for then, anyway? What good can there be in dragging out this seemingly never-ending internal torment?

Heads up before you read this: I may often be the funny one to my friends, but I'm not here to be the funny one. I love making you all laugh...but I don't exist to be the comic relief and (some of you may have noticed by now) I have been rejecting that expectation (I realize not all of you have it, and for of those of you who may have it, I know it isn't malicious, but automatic) of me to do so. I've been making less of an effort for quite awhile now, at least in person...and the pandemic has greatly reduced the in-person time I have had with anyone in the first place.

You may find me making even less and less of an effort as I process my grief over the events of the last year and beyond, some of which I've avoided dealing with for a long time.

The following comic really resonated with me, and got me thinking:



Regarding this comic, specifically: it's not always a school kid bullying situation (as illustrated), either. The damage adults can do to one another is at least as bad (or arguably worse), and the expectations others who didn't go through it have of the person who was victimized to just "get over it" (and the social consequences imposed upon us when we don't) can be severe enough to cause even more damage.

I know that I am better off without a certain person in my life. But they didn't even have the decency to let me make a peaceful, graceful exit from theirs on my own terms. They had to have the last word; they had to be the one to push ME away, right to the very end; drawing me in again, gaslighting me with regard to years of exclusion and rejection, just to rub it in passive-agressively that I was specifically being excluded/rejected once again...and that I had fallen for it, once again.

And that, along with every other hurtful, manipulative or careless thing they said and did to me over the years, will be difficult for me to deal with for probably a very long time. Meanwhile, they will likely have forgotten my name within a year or two. I will become a distant memory that amuses them if and when they happen to think of me in passing - how naive I was; how well-meaning (and thus, easily manipulated) I was. They might occasionally remember me being the funny one. But thanks to them, the light in me that they once claimed gave them so much warmth, laughter and comfort will be flickering and struggling to stay aflame for quite awhile, I think. And in the meantime, I'm just not going to be putting any pressure on myself to be the life of the party (so to speak) anymore. While I have enjoyed and do enjoy entertaining others, it has at times come at great cost to myself...and it is not always an expense I can afford.

Boundaries are something it has taken me a long time to be able to establish for myself, and part of that learning experience has been that I can't wait for other people to be okay with me setting them. Part of setting them is understanding that some people won't like or respect my doing so, and being willing to walk away from those people if and when they challenge or violate my boundaries. In this case, life has established a necessary boundary for me, where I have failed repeatedly in the past to do so. Now it is up to me to defend it, and I will.

I spend too much time on Facebook, but here and there, I do see things that I find meaningful. Two sayings that different people have reposted on their pages have stuck in my mind, and I find myself thinking of them often; observing them and living them out. One is: "Children who need love the most will ask for it in the most unloving of ways", and "be the love you never received".

Since I haven't posted on here much in the last several years, some of you (if you're even still reading!) may not know that I now have two small children in my care. Their mother was a housekeeper at a hotel where we both worked, and I was her boss. She was my best, fastest working employee, and when an opportunity for promotion became available, I wrote her a letter of recommendation. She interviewed well, and got the job. When she was a housekeeper, she made less than a dollar above minimum wage per hour, and received section 8 housing, along with foodstamps and a daycare subsidy. She lived in project housing - cold, hard, carpetless floors, roaches in the walls, loud, aggressive neighbors. Though it was not a standard of living to which anyone should aspire, it was her own apartment, and she was making it. Barely.

Then she had the nerve to work hard, be good at her job, and get a promotion and a raise. She became the executive housekeeper at a different hotel within our company, and then...she lost everything else. She had to move to Columbia, where rent is higher, and pay full price for it. Her daycare subsidy dropped to almost nothing and she soon lost her food stamps. With no safety net, she found herself falling head first into the gap between "poor enough to receive assistance" and "not yet financially secure enough to make it with no help at all". I saw the eviction notice on her refridgerator in April.

We became roommates in May. Her two smallest children, ages 2 and 3, came with her. Since then, we've been co-parenting with varying degrees of success. The ongoing nature of this has been very challenging for me at times, and I can only imagine how much more so it is for the kids' mom; my roommate. The kids have not had a whole lot of stability - they've moved several times already in their short lives, been through several daycares; the 3-year-old's father has been in prison since before she was born and she has never met him, so the 2-year-old's father is the only father she knows, and he is a selfish, childish, angry, verbally abusive individual who consistently makes and breaks promises to them. As their mother works long hours and is exhausted by the time she picks them up, they find themselves competing for her attention, constantly. When they moved in, they had MAJOR behavioral issues. Still do, really, but it just seems so much better now by comparison that it feels weird to say it.

At first, I found myself endlessly angry and frustrated with the way these kids acted. They were so disrespectful, even to their own mother! I was shocked and enraged by the way they felt entitled to talk to her and treat her (and myself!), and at such young ages! Then I realized that indignation and expecting a scolding to shame them into good behavior was ridiculous. They didn't know any better! With no standard having ever been set for their behavior, they had no idea what they were supposed to be striving for. As I began reading articles about parenting and child psychology, certain things became more clear to me. All they cared about was getting their needs and desires met, by whatever means necessary. They'd learned that the louder and longer they could scream and cry and whine, the more likely whatever their demand was would be met, because eventually their mom would just give in to get a break from it. So the battle of wills was loud and relentless, every single day.

I began to identify their needs and look for ways not just to meet them, but for the kids to express what they are, and for effective and polite ways for them to ask us for what they want, as well as how to deal with disappointment when the answer to a request is no. My roommate, realizing she had my full support in any effort to change their behavior, began to make more of an effort to do so, and I backed her up. Things were pretty ugly for awhile - lots of screaming and crying (more so than now, and there's still quite a lot of it) and whining and rebellion. But then, suddenly...things were better. Not a lot, but enough to be noticeable. And they have continued to improve ever since, with minor setbacks here and there.

Today, as I sit here in (near) silence, I am thankful for the opportunity to be involved in these kids' lives in the way that I am. I am grateful for the opportunity to soothe their screams and cries - for the realization that it's almost never about the object for which they are whining, screaming, and crying, but a much greater sense of disappointment and dissatisfaction with their lives. I'm grateful every time I pick Brianna up off of the floor when she's thrashing around there or doing the limp-noodle thing and refusing to stand up and go to wherever she's being told to, to wrap my arms around her and pull her legs to the side of mine and feel her stop kicking, stop screaming, and sink into me, realizing I understand how big and overwhelming her anger and sadness is for her.

I'm grateful to have helped Ian find a way to deal with disappointment at not getting to play with his mom's phone, or eat a food he's allergic to (there are so many!), or whatever else, by suggesting over and over again whenever the answer was no to whatever he wanted, that we read a book instead. I'm grateful every time he's crying and I ask him "what else can we do?", or sometimes before I can even ask, he calms himself down and then tells me: "I need to read a book!"

I'm so happy when he crawls up into my lap and snuggles into my chest and Brianna sits down alongside me and we read together with my arms around both of them and the book in front. I love it when they do something I taught them how to do and I get to tell them how proud I am of them.

It both breaks my heart and fills in those cracks with gratitude whenever I get a glimpse into what is truly driving their anger around those with whom you would think they would feel safest. Like when Brianna said, out of the blue, in her carseat in the back of my van: "My daddy yells at me a lot." And I got the opportunity to say: "I know, baby. But you know it's not about you...you know it's not your fault, right?" and she sighed and said with heaviness no child should have to bear: "I know", and then, after a minute: "I love you, Julie."

I don't want biological children. I don't want to go through all I would have to in order to be pregnant and give birth, and I don't want to be solely responsible for bringing anyone into this world. I'm not even sure I would ever adopt. But this - temporary, and yet indefinite; almost, and yet not quite - parenthood, has proven to be a rich blessing. I've been given the opportunity to love the children who need it the most but ask for it in the most unloving of ways; to be the love I never received. When I get to meet their needs, ease their fears, calm their rages, comfort them in their sadness...it feels like I am making something right in the world that wasn't before, and not just for them. For anyone who has ever been handed more than their fair share of heartbreak, and at far too young of an age.

A year ago, I could never have imagined doing this. Now, I can't imagine what my life would have been like if I hadn't done it. They challenge me to be more patient, more forgiving, more available, more compassionate, more optimistic, and more thankful, every single day, for every gift in my life.

I'm not ready to not be 29 anymore! I can hardly believe that when I wake up tomorrow, I'll be 30 years old. Feels weird.

I hate it when you're making something and you suddenly realize you're missing one important ingredient. I do not feel like going out in this cold weather to buy one goddamn onion, but I can't finish my salsa without it, and I already opened everything else so now I'm committed.

For anyone who wants it, here is my salsa recipe. Actually, it's not really a recipe because I just sort of guess at amounts of stuff until it looks like it did the last time I made it and I'm terrible at keeping track of how much of each thing I've put in...so maybe I should call it an ingredient list, instead. In any case:

1 12 oz. bag of frozen corn (you can use fresh sweet corn but you definitely taste the sweetness and I don't think it's as good)
1 15 oz. can of black beans (drained)
8 oz. of diced tomatoes
1 big white onion or two small ones, diced
1 can of hot Rotel
Lime juice (just keep adding it until the mixture is kind of liquidy)
Cilantro...sprinkle it all over the top, stir it, and repeat twice (or until you can see the cilantro throughout the mixture).
1/4 cup white vinegar

Put it in a crock pot on low for about an hour and a half. I like it better after it's been refridgerated awhile.

I was going through some old stuff online today and found this...it brought tears to my eyes. A few days ago, a friend of mine remarked that I am a very strong person. I don't always feel like it, but maybe it's true.

Julie,
You and I have been through a lot together. In high school I always admired your strength as a person. It's truly a blessing to be able to have had a friend like you through all these years. I hope that you and yours have a wonderful Christmas.

All my love,
Tony

A few days ago, my phone informed me that it would need to take thirty minutes to do some updates. I didn't see any options for getting around this, so I set the time it was supposed to take place for sometime in the middle of the night and let it happen.

Since then, all of my display settings look different and I can't figure out how to change them to the way they were. I'm not sure there is a way. This is all simply a back story, though, so I can tell you how what happened tonight happened.

I was texting a friend, asking her if Applebee's sounded good for dinner. With the two kids under age 2, it's difficult for us to go out to dinner, so when we have dinner together, I usually just pick something up and bring it over. The thing is, even though I thought I had deleted her old phone number, I guess I didn't, and my phone reset the default number to call and text to that old phone number. So I texted a stranger, and they texted me back:

"Applebees? They have good burgers."

Me: "That is actually what my friend and I decided to eat for dinner - burgers from there. I apologize for the earlier text. Somehow when I went to text my friend it sent it to her old number. Have a good night!"

Stranger: "No problem! I accidentally deleted all my contacts a few days ago, so I wasn't sure if you were a wrong number or not. Enjoy your weekend!"

Me: "You as well!"

Stranger: "Also, you don't have to answer back, but thank you for not using text talk. Fight the good fight for grammar, dear heart."



I randomly text a wrong number and they just happen to be a fellow grammar nerd! This made my night.

"Can a man be brave when he is afraid?"
-"That is the only time a man can be brave."

-George R.R. Martin, "A Game of Thrones"

Some things are more important than pride. There is this instinctive fear of caring more, giving more...but sometimes I do those things regardless of whether anybody knows it or not. So really, why should I have ever cared what anyone thought of me for owning it? That has never helped me. There's the idea of "saving face", I guess, but all that does is isolate people when they are their most vulnerable. I'm done with that. I may be afraid sometimes, but when I choose to see fear as an opportunity to be brave, instead of viewing it as a weakness, it actually becomes a source of strength.

Recently I decided not to hide or downplay my capacity for love. I am capable of loving people on many levels and I have loved one person for years who does not even know how to love me back. I have forgiven years of hurts without ever having even been asked for that forgiveness. I didn't do it because they deserved it. I did it because it felt right for me to choose to love instead of hate.

I will pour out my love and compassion freely as I choose to, without a single look back. The handful of people I've encountered who have looked down on me for it should not and will no longer be allowed to determine how much I will give to anyone else.

I realized a few days ago that when I stop measuring my worth by whether and how much other people love me and instead decide to measure it by how much love I have to give, I am very content.

...coming soon, to a laundry room table near you!

Can't I think someone else's kid is cute without wanting to dedicate the next several decades of my life to raising one of my own?