Thank you, 2016: On creating space, letting go, and loving hard

The past six months have been some of the most challenging of my life. But unlike previous life-falling-apart moments where I bucked up and plodded forward, not actually dealing with the deep-down hurts and fears, this year I have allowed myself to intensely feel every kernel of despair and every pang of loss. Sounds terrible, right? It absolutely wasn't.

Every terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad thing that has happened to me this year has come with a gigantic lesson. Lessons that have been offered up before in my life, but that I didn't fully internalize, let alone allow to transform my thinking or behavior. THIS break up allowed me to realize that I deserve to be cherished for who I am and stop feeling like I am not enough. THIS family illness allowed me to realize that fear and love can coexist. THIS loss (my baby Nico) allowed me to truly appreciate how much comfort she gave me and to let go gracefully when she was ready. And, now, facing another feline illness, I am learning to leave space for uncertainty. Similar to the lesson with my Meme, someone can be very sick and not immediately be ripped from your world.

A couple of weeks ago, I made a list of goals for 2017. I want to enter it with hope and motivation to bring out my best self and appreciate the miracles around me. One of those goals was: LOVE HARD. Another was: SURRENDER. I'm not yet sure how I do both. Loving hard means getting attached. I am well versed in attachment; I struggle with the letting go. I know that balancing these two things is a practice. Each time I am faced with the opportunity to love or the need to let go, I will have to allow the circumstances and my heart to find that balance. Which leads to another of my goals: TRUST.

I've never been great at this one; I have good reason not to be. But allowing past hurts to make me fearful that everyone I love will leave or  that I will never find joy is not exactly helpful. I've done that for 41 years and it's just ushered in more disappointment and missed opportunities. So, at the end of the year that tried to kill me, I am going to take a different approach. I am going to thank it.

Thank you, 2016, for pushing me to my limit. For helping me to face my biggest fears. For teaching me how to feel again. For reminding me that no matter how bad the loss hurts, love is always worth it. Always.

Now get the F out of the way so I can party with 2017.

2016 is Trying to Kill Me

Just before the start of this year, I learned that my meme had advanced Alzheimer's. I spent the night before New Year's Eve in my bed with my snuggliest cat and felt the shit out of my feelings. 

The new year brought love. I told myself that was the universe's way of protecting, supporting me, showing me that it was all worth it. But by July the love had gone and I learned I needed to have stuff that was making me sick removed from my body. 

As I moved into September, I felt like I was healing. I started making peace with the failed relationship and forgiving the boy who broke my heart (though he'd disappeared into thin air so he'd never know). I started making inroads into a new potential career that I felt passionate about. The tides were turning. 

Until my 19-year-old cat started exhibiting subtle signs of illness. Loud purring which soon turned into labored breathing, eventually leading to a diagnosis of a lung mass. 

I've spent this evening sobbing and worrying and wondering how much time we have left. Ironically, the last person who left me didn't give me this luxury. But my baby Nico and I will have at least 24 hours, if not more, to make peace and say goodbye. As terrible as it is, I feel grateful. Because love. 

Process is Progress

Creativity is a process. There are thousands of books (many of which I own) that will tell you that. And while I’ve read these books...and my brain seems to understand the concept...when it comes to my own creative process, I don’t get it. I turn into the judgiest judge, hurling insults and curbing my creative flow.

Why is it taking me so long?

Or

Everyone else’s is more (interesting, polished, coherent) than mine…

Or

I wish I had natural talent….

The judgiest judge comes out most when it comes to writing. It’s something I’ve studied so a lot of rules for how to BE A GOOD WRITER live in my head. The rules feel like a lead blanket; they weigh me down and make me forget that writing is a creative venture and can be fun.

All this judgment got me thinking about my own creative process. I recently listened to an episode of Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast Revisionist History where he talked about the two different kinds of creators: those who put a piece into the world fully formed with what seems like minimal effort and those who labor over their art, refining and perfecting and not allowing others to gaze upon it until it is completely complete.

Strangely, but not surprisingly knowing myself, I straddle this line. I’m more of a spurt-of-inspiration-and-fully-formed kind of girl. But the time leading up to that involves days, weeks, sometimes years of turning ideas and words and images over and over in my mind until they reach full gestation. The problem with this is that, until recently, instead of realizing and accepting that this WAS my creative process, I viewed myself as lazy. A procrastinator. Unambitious. The judgment was so overwhelming that it made me incapable of creating anything at all. But the truth is that I was not honoring my process.

This week I hand built a skull out of clay. If I ever made anything with clay before it was in an elementary school art class. Now, at 41, I chose to sit in a studio with a bunch of artsy ladies and play with clay. And be really bad at it. Or at least feel really bad at it. The truth is, I am pretty uncomfortable doing most things I haven’t yet put my 10,000 hours into, and this was no exception.

The first step in working with clay is wedging. This is a process where you knead and throw the clay on the table in an effort to pull out the moisture and prepare it for sculpting. As I sat in the studio forming a primitive skull (think Jack Skellington), I found myself glancing across the table to compare my novice clay to that of my artsy compatriots. In doing that, I started to feel the lead blanket covering me. Why was I making this so hard?

I tried to think about times when I was able to go with the creative flow. When I didn’t think myself into a state of inaction. When I was able to play. I can sit down with a pile of magazines and craft paper and let them tell me how they want to be arranged. I can stand in front of the rainbow of beads at Michael’s and let them tell me which ones should come home with me. I do these things often and with ease. Remembering that allowed me to let go, at least a little, and play the crap out of that clay.

The metaphor of wedging is not lost on me. I can choose to look at the length of time it takes me to get through a creative project as laziness or procrastination (and there have been times when that has been the case, but those were usually shitty projects). Or I could think of it as pulling out the moisture so that my ideas are malleable and easily sculpted.Or percolating. No one wants a hastily brewed cup of coffee. Why should I give my creative process any less time than it deserves?

So here’s what I know about my process. When it’s a visual art (aka putting pretty images together), my thinking brain is mostly comfortable taking a back seat and letting spontaneous creation take place. When it’s an art form that I am either too comfortable with (e.g.writing. Because: RULES) or not comfortable at all with (e.g. sculpting. Because: I DON'T KNOW THE RULES), I need to wedge. There are many steps to my process and between each one is conscious or subconscious thinking, processing, synthesizing. While in the past I might have thought this was because I wasn’t good enough, now I know it’s because I'm gestating. And that might be the most important part of my process.

I'm fine

It turns out that if I don't have legitimate, have-to-be-out-of-the-house-at-a-certain-time plans, that I will not really move all day. Well, I move. From my bed to the couch, maybe to the porch, and eventually back to my bed. I might eat something. Listen to a podcast, watch Netflix...read a book. But this extreme level of rest is what it takes for this introverted-extrovert to recover from interaction with the world.

On legitimate plan days, I paddle like crazy, trying to stay afloat. And on the surface, I am fine. I get up when I need to. I shower. I go to work. Sometimes I even wash the dishes. Most days I find humor in the absurdity of life. But in the depths of my soul, I'm cracked and calloused. Raw and steeled off. Vulnerable and hard as nails. All at once. 

It doesn't feel good. 

And I need a ridiculous amount of sleep and staring to make it through. 

Maybe this is normal for a 41-year-old woman who is drained by her job, recently got dumped and then had surgery to remove rogue endometrial tissue from her abdomen. I thought the two weeks I was forced to lie around and not lift anything over 10 lbs would be enough to heal me. It wasn't. 

I've sobbed at my therapist. I've sobbed at a random male friend and tried to make him hug me. I've sobbed at my 19-year-old cat in my bed on those days when I can't really move. I am only just starting to feel like I've hit a tipping point. That enough of the pain has been released that I can possibly feel whole again. Someday. 

This is not to say that I don't feel joy. I do. I spend time with my nephew and my heart swells. I watch terrible tv and drink wine with Meredith and I know who my people are. Even at work, when I'm being drained by the minutia, I feel comfort in the bonds. 

And maybe this is fine right now. This is what it looks like. I don't feel like I'm faking it. I'm engaging with the world when I can. And when I can't I do what I have to to replenish reserves. And if that looks like moving from bed to couch to porch, then so be it. 

The truth is...

I'm a truther. I tend to want to have the clearest picture -- the Captial T truth --before I act. Which means, I don't act a lot. Particularly on the big questions in my life. I wait for signs to show me that I am on the "right" path.

When I started this blog, I was a writer who didn't write who felt like she should. I vowed that I was turning over a new virtual page because I had something to say dammit. But then I didn't say anything. For two years. 

I now understand that that wasn't the whole story. Just because you feel like should do something doesn't mean you are ready to do it. I also have a slow process. Some people go immediately from recognition/idea to huge-mother-fucking life change; I am not one of those people. I spend lots of time ostensibly doing "nothing" until one day "nothing" becomes a huge epiphany. And even then I move like molasses through the proper steps. 

As much as this pound of caution has served me well throughout my life (super cocoon of safety!), it also keeps me confined (super cocoon of safety?). I judge myself for not being as quick to act as others. I dwell. I wait for the signs. 

A wise woman once taught me the power of both, and. I want to write, and I'm not ready. I love this person, and I know that they can't support me in the way I need. I know I have a higher purpose in this life, and I'm still figuring out what it is. All of these things are Capital T true. I can feel them all at once. And when they calibrate to the appropriate vibration, the atmosphere is ripe for action. 

So what if the truth is: there is no Captial T truth. There is my process. And that is true for me no matter what it looks like. Similarly, if it changes from nanosecond to nanosecond, it's still fucking true to me. And not in the Donald Trump I-believe-in-x-today-and-y-tomorrow way (and whatever it is it tremendous and Mexico's gonna pay for it). In the this-is-my-life-and-I-get-to-choose-how-I-feel way. My truth can be subtle and complicated and malleable. Because it's mine. 

I'm not enough

We all have a core wound. It probably happened before we had real memories. Or maybe it's one of our first. And, not surprisingly, it was likely somehow created by our parents' humanity. The mistakes they made because they were flawed and didn't totally understand themselves before bringing you into the world.

My parents were 16 when I was born. Suffice it to say, I have some gaping wounds. The core one is that I'm not not enough. That I have to prove my worth by being smart and funny and interesting in order to be loved. And if I am not these things, the people I love will leave. I've been working on healing this one for pretty much all of my adult life. Most days I can talk back to it. Tell it that it's full of shit. Take some deep breaths and move forward. But even when I can, I know there is a voice burrowed in my gut, waiting to prove me wrong.

I got dumped last week. After six months of falling deeply in love. In love to a degree that I didn't think I was capable of any more. I was in a relationship where I could be completely myself and he loved me for it. Until he didn't.

The truth is, I don't know if he still loves me or not. I know that he's battling some demons. My initial reaction was to hear that voice burrowed in my gut saying: I told you so. That's what happens when your worst fear comes true. You believe the voices. You are not enough.

So you call out of work for two days and cry bruises under your eyes. You stare at the ceiling and worry about him. You don't want to eat, so you don't. You process. You compare your story to the facts. And eventually you start to make enough sense on the nonsensical that your equilibrium returns.

The truth as I have come to understand it is that this is not about me. In the past, I've thought that was a bullshit excuse people used when they lost interest. And, I suppose, sometimes it is. But in this set of circumstances, I believe it. It fucking hurts, but I believe it. Because when someone chooses their own pain over you, you will never be enough for them. No matter how genuine and true and Stacie I was, he could not stay on our path.

I'm trying not to blame him for that. But who the fuck am I kidding? I'm pretty devastated. And when you're devastated, when you have rug pulled out from under you, when your hopes for the future are destroyed, you want to blame someone. Anyone. But just like the ones from my parents, this wound is born of humanity -- the very definition of which is equal parts beauty and pain. My heart knows this.

There is a part of me that knows this needed to happen. That I needed to have my worst fear come true to realize that I could survive it. I hate that the Universe works this way, but I have to accept it. She's not changing for me. I'm the one who has to change.

And I will. This wound will mostly heal, eventually. As the cheesy guided meditation I did on youtube told me the other night: a broken heart is an open heart. If nothing else, I am open to the lessons. I will take them with me as I navigate love in the future, whether it's with him or someone else. I will know that I AM enough.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

Why did I just have to close my door at work because I could not physically stand to listen to a conversation about who has the most rights to a communal conference room?
Why can't I just come to work, put my head down, get shit done and leave?
Why does it hurt my soul so fucking much?
Why, if I know deep down that there is something more for me, have I not figured out what it is?
Why, suddenly, is the comfort I felt in security and routine my biggest trigger?
Why am I so bored. ALL. THE. TIME?
Why don't I trust that I am smart, fun, interesting, creative (insert other random judgmental adjective here) ENOUGH?

The problem is totally me, right? 

I'm sick (in the head)

I'm having a sick-in-the-head weekend. It started yesterday morning at yoga, I put my mat down next to a self-important couple who talked about watching videos of people doing difficult yoga sequences at 3 a.m., and then showed off their headstands. I could have ignored them. I could have gone inside and gotten my Zen on. But instead I hated them. And that hatred then transformed into judgment of myself and all the other perfectly nice women and men who were there to enjoy yoga on the dock.

I reaped no benefits from that class. In fact, I kept my eyes closed most of the time so as not to look at the self-important assholes. And in the process I deprived myself of the gorgeous view. I was so annoyed by the sound of construction going on about 500 feet away that I couldn't even focus on the physical practice. I essentially did aggro yoga. Might as well have had a Linkin Park playlist running in the background.

I arrived home, wolfed down my leftovers from spontaneous North Hampton dinner, and decided to take a nap. I told myself that it was my boyfriend's mattress' fault. The springs dig into my rib cage. So I settled in for a 10 a.m. nap.  I slept til 2. Got up, stared blankly at the TV, and conked out for another two hours. That was entire day and evening. Napping like a cat, In and out of consciousness. Telling myself my body must need the insane amount of sleep I was allowing it. Then, worried that I wouldn't sleep through the night, I took a quarter of a trazadone (since that's all my body can handle) and went to bed for real.

I woke up Sunday morning just as tired. I meditated. I finished re-reading The Four Agreements. I read the terrible news about another mass shooting. I went back to sleep at 10:30 am. When I woke up again at noon, I had the weird sparkles in my field of vision that are indicative of an ocular migraine. It was then that I realized that this Snow White act was most likely hormone induced. What I was experiencing was not just exhaustion...it was PMS. It was depression.

I've dealt with this combo since I was 12. But as I've gotten older and more self-aware, it's ironically become harder to decipher. It used to come with extreme sadness and lack of rationality so it was hard to miss. I'm a grown-ass woman now with almost 20 years of therapy under her belt, so those extremes happen less often. It's amusing to me that without them I just think: Those mattress springs really did a number on me. It took nearly 24 hours for me to be all: DUDE, THIS IS WHAT YOUR DEPRESSION LOOKS LIKE NOW.

The good news is that instead of judging myself for all the things I planned to do this weekend but didn't, I accepted it. A couple of hours ago I took a shower. I did it to feel better, in hopes that maybe it would motivate me to be productive. I did feel better, but still not productive. And that's ok. Instead of getting mad at myself, I put on a nightgown, grabbed a book and sat on the porch where, after reading for 45 minutes, I decided that the most helpful thing for me to do was blog it out.

Because I allowed myself this space, I will feel better tomorrow. I know this from experience. These lows are time limited. When I process them and understand what is going on with my body and mind, I can move forward with clarity. And I have this in writing so when it happens again next month, I'll have proof.

I'm too sensitive

When I was a kid, there was a gypsy moth caterpillar infestation in Massachusetts. I remember them covering the blacktop at my nursery school. And they terrified me. To the point where I got pleasure from stepping on them and watching their green, gooey guts ooze on to the cement. That was the only time in my life I've ever willingly, knowingly hurt another living thing.

A few weeks ago a carpenter ant crawled on to my boyfriend's bed and my heart hurt when he smacked it with a book. Then I made him switch sides with me so I didn't have to sleep on the dead ant remnants.

I think this aversion to hurting living things comes from my own highly sensitive nature. I look at that ant invading our sleeping space and I think about his little ant family and how sad they will be when he doesn't come home. Because: crazy person.

But I've been on the side of that ant family -- wondering where my loved one went and what I did to make them go away . I don't which came first -- the sensitivity or the constant hurt. But they surely fed each other. The person who hurt me most was my dad. He disappeared. He'd often reappear months or years later, full of apologies and promises to do better. He would for a while, then he'd disappear again.

This made me feel extremely unimportant. Like I wasn't special enough to keep the attention of the person I was supposed to matter most to. The pattern absolutely gutted me. Every. Fucking. Time. As a 40-year-old woman, I have laid in my bed and sobbed just thinking about times when my dad disappointed me. And, not surprisingly, this experience has colored my relationships with men.

In my 20s, I stuck to what I knew and dated men just like my dad. Did they love me? Would they stay? The push and pull was normal to me. It's what all the relationships I observed as a kid looked like. My grandparents. My mom and my stepfather. They all had this tension. By the time I hit 30, I was over it. I did a 180 and dated only the safest of the safe.

Now, at 40, I'm trying to find balance with someone who has just the right amount of unpredictability to keep me engaged, but is also committed and kind. I've felt really safe. Until last night when something trivial triggered those feelings that I wasn't special enough to keep the attention of the person who's supposed to love me the most. I told him I was hurting and he ignored me. And now I am convinced that he's going to disappear.

It's a slippery slope. And completely irrational. But I am so damaged that it's where I go. I honestly don't know if I'm overreacting or being "too sensitive;" I very well could be. But the feelings are real as fuck. There's a boulder on my chest and a tornado in my belly as I wait to find out if he still loves me. And for the first time in years, I am allowing the uncertainty to wash over me.