Self

Cheerful

By / November 19, 2010

Howard called me on the phone.
“Hi hon!” I answered.
“You sound cheerful.”
“Why so surprised?” I asked upon hearing his tone of voice. Then in one of those thought cascades which take milliseconds to occur but much longer to describe, I tried to think of the last time I’d had a truly cheerful day. I rapidly came to the conclusion that Howard’s surprised tone was entirely merited and then pondered that this is somewhat sad. The train of thought leeched some of the unexplained cheerfulness from me even though I tried to retain it.

Cheerfulness occurs when my emotional stores are full and I have energy to spare. I’ve been spending a lot from both of those accounts lately. I need to remember how to make deposits and start doing it more regularly.

Pleasantness found at book signing

By / November 15, 2010 / 2 Comments

I’ve been to many book signings. Often I am there as support crew for Howard. Sometimes I’m running a table and committing commerce. Many times the signings were attached to conventions. Most of these signings have been fairly high-energy events with significant attendance. Tonight was my first signing not attached to a convention where I was the one sitting behind the table. Crowded signings are interesting and exhausting. This one was quiet and pleasant, which was exactly what I needed.

I did not expect the event to be crowded. I certainly did not expect people to turn up looking for me. They didn’t with the one exception of Eric Stone who lives near the store. He was kind enough to stop by and say hello for a few minutes. Despite the lack of customer traffic, I enjoyed myself. I got to talk publishing and life with four other authors. I got to talk books and business with the store owners. I got to be Sandra instead of Mom for just a little while.

I did spend some time pondering the fate of Hold on to Your Horses as I sat there with my stack of books. The project is now two years old, which is middle age to old compared to the shelf life of most books. This is one of the advantages of being my own publisher. I can continue to promote the book for as long as I wish. It does not need to succeed financially right out of the gate. So I’ll probably continue as I have been, promoting it when opportunity presents. It is nice to not have to feel that new-book urgency. Hold Horses and I are comfortable with each other. If there are additional picture books in the future, then Hold Horses will ride along with those promotional opportunities as well. I still love the project and I am glad that I did it.

The rest of my week will not be spent on writer/author things. I’ll be working on book layout, online store maintenance, and mom stuff. I think it is going to be a good week with less hectic in it.

Anxiety, Sabbath, Things To Do, and Faith

By / November 14, 2010

I was talking with a friend about anxiety yesterday. He has a newly acquired panic disorder. I have waded through the murky waters of self-diagnosed anxiety disorder until I reached a place where it no longer qualifies as a disorder. I found my way through by using the geysers of anxieties as indicators of sub-surface emotional pressure. Then I stalked around in my own brain looking for where to dig for the things I was suppressing/repressing. It is an interesting thing, studying your own mind. I do it all the time. I react to things and part of my brain says “That’s interesting. Why did I do that?” I think this is one of the reasons I like Sir Terry Pratchett’s books about Tiffany Aching. They explore the concept of having second, third, and fourth thoughts where each layer considers the one before it.

The self-examination is often useful, like this morning when I was able to see that I was feeling upset and my conscious mind kept trying to create reasons to explain it. I changed clothes multiple times and was still dissatisfied with the end result, but my feelings had nothing to do with the clothes and everything to do with uncertainty about other things. Once I could see the problem for what it was, I was able to tell Howard. He hugged me and told me it will all be okay, which didn’t solve anything, but made me feel better. Feeling better did lead to some solutions.

Other times this looking at my own thoughts just adds extra layers of chaos to whatever experience I am trying to sort. At such times I wish my brain would just shut up.

I have not been doing a very good job of keeping the Sabbath as a day of rest. Lately it has been a day of household things I did not get to during the week which are now urgent. So Sunday has been a bit too full of laundry, dishes, and de-cluttering. It has also become a day full of To Do since I am arranging the church Christmas party and I have dozens of people to talk to, who are more readily available on Sunday when I know they are not at work. My Sunday refuge from To Do has been missing for months.

There are voices in my mind which tell me that this represents a failure on my part. These voices chatter and insinuate that the very fact that I am so busy also represents a failure. If I were just more capable I would get things done more efficiently. Alternately my hectic life represents my failure to estimate what I am capable of doing. I have failed to say no. I’ve failed to slow our lives down to a sane pace. The list of failures is long, and these voices will latch on to just about anything as evidence of failure.

It just now occurs to me that this flailing around to explain my sense of failure is rather like this morning’s upset. The feeling exists and my brain is trying to explain it. The feeling is coming from someplace deep that I can’t see through the cloud of distraction. I wonder what I have buried that I now need to dig up. I also wonder when I’ll find the time to go digging.

Environmental factors were huge in bringing my anxiety down to a controllable level. In my case the disorder was triggered by long-term financial stress followed by a large financial blow. The anxiety was greatly relieved when we were able to make solid steps toward restoring our finances. My current emotional struggles will be greatly relieved when I am able to reduce the length and weight of my average daily To Do list. I think this is coming. I’m working toward it even though I’m a little afraid to believe that I am capable of accomplishing it. Success is hard to see through the chaff cloud of small failure thoughts.

Link was supposed to give a talk in church today. I remembered this fact after I settled myself on the bench and opened the program to see his name there. We scrambled all week to accomplish the work for three Scout Merit Badges. I also had “write talk” on my To Do list for him. But once the badges were done he and I both collapsed into puddles of relief and forgot the talk. I hauled Link into the foyer in a panic, ready to coach him on giving an impromptu testimony. Howard solved the problem more sensibly by walking up to the bishopric and saying that Link wasn’t ready, could he talk next week? This is how Link and I came to be sitting in my office right after church, writing down his talk for next week.

He put together a good set of thoughts with appropriate authoritative references. I tried to help him think of personal experiences that he could also share, but Link came up dry. He was confident that prayer works, but couldn’t give any specific instances of when it did. I looked at my son and realized that he was displaying the essence of child-like faith: belief based on a feeling of rightness without visible evidence. I pointed this out to him and it made him glad.

I think I need to wield more faith in my own life. I need to use it to cut through the clouds of self-doubting chaff. I need to have faith in myself and in my own capabilities, even when I can’t see any reason for it. I need to have faith that the same processes which have helped me dig up my buried troubles will work again. I need to have faith in the inspired messages I have received. Because just as Howard told me this morning that everything will be okay, so has God been telling me over and over that I have no need to fear. Faith can be my sword and my light in dark places. Or perhaps faith is a lighted staff like the one Gandalf used when he confronted the Balrog and said “You shall not pass!” I can just see myself barring the way, defending my Sabbath from my list of Things To Do. Alternately it may be as simple as the realization that Sarah makes in Labyrinth “You have no power over me” where upon all the noisy voices slink away in silence.

I do not always have power to solve problems in the physical world, but I have great power inside my own head. I can beat back the fearful thoughts, the worries. I can turn my life into a joyful place despite the unending list of things To Do. It is not a single epic battle, more like a siege, but I can still triumph. Now where is my sword? I’ve got stuff to do.

Scattered thoughts

By / November 5, 2010

Some days I stare at this white box on my screen and describing the day is hard. This is not because the day was full of exciting events, usually the opposite. My day was full of small busy things which completely filled my brain and left very little space for arranging thoughts into a pretty pattern. I had many thoughts today. My mind was much occupied while my hands and arms assembled 50 boxed sets and put them in packages. It was similarly occupied while I loaded those packages into our van and then unloaded them at the post office.

I thought much about several internet brouhahas which stirred up my circles of acquaintance. I though gratefully about the arrival of necessary miracles. I looked at the countries on the shipping forms and was amazed once again that people thousands of miles away will buy things from us. I thought about my kids, their needs and the things I need to keep track of on their behalf. I thought about Doctor Who. This last, primarily because I re-watched some episodes while packing boxes. Packing while watching was a little slower but much more enjoyable.

I intended to write when the work was all done, but my thoughts are scattered everywhere and I think I am too tired to collect them. Also, typing reminds me that my fingers are sore from building boxes. So I will do my project writing on a more collected day.

Small Good Things

By / October 28, 2010

My van brakes no longer make a horrible creaking noise every time I stop. I paid for this particular happiness with a significant pile of money, but we’ll be launching our holiday sales push next week and hopefully that will bring in enough to cover it. (And Howard’s car battery, and Patch’s Xray. Some months are unexpectedly expensive.)

Gleek started a Polynesian dance class. She gets to learn hula as well as Maori and Tahitian dances. She likes it because many of the dances include props that swing or make noise. I like it because it is a studio run in a woman’s garage and is very welcoming to people of any heritage. I don’t expect that Gleek will want to make a career out of Polynesian dance (a career which would be hampered by her Caucasian appearance) I just want her to have a chance to learn skills she enjoys. So far so good.

Link had his first band concert. They played two songs, which we are informed by the band teacher, is pretty impressive considering they’ve only learned 5 notes so far. Link announced proudly once the concert was over “There was only one squeak!” Practice is paying off I guess.

I’m up to 12,000 words on my book project. I’m not using word count as a measure of completion. The book will be however long it needs to be. But watching the number of words increase is satisfying.

Kiki has begun managing her own homework without me. She’s planning her schedule and getting things done without my intervention. This is worlds better than in September when she would melt into a puddle and I would scrape her up and convince her to keep going. “It feels really good.” She said. “It feels…”
“Grown up?” I asked.
“Yeah. Grown up.”
“You know, managing your own things and getting stuff done even when you don’t want to is kind of one of the definitions of being grown up.”
Kiki laughed.

Howard finished scripting for the current Schlock book. He wrestled with scripts all day yesterday and could not get them the way that he wanted. Today he realized what was wrong and they all cascaded into place. I laughed out loud when I read them. I’m looking forward to putting this together as a book.

I made dinner and everyone ate it without complaining.

I found a love seat cover on clearance which will make my front room couch stop being an embarrassing eyesore.

Patch has become very self-sufficient with his reading. He picks his own books and reads them. We had him moved up to chapter books in the home reading program at his request. One of his sadnesses right now is that he does not have very much homework to do. Patch has also been writing stories, some of which I really love. I may ask his permission to post one later.

Space of calm

By / October 20, 2010

I’ve never been to a therapist. This is not because I am superhuman in my ability to process emotions. I have simply been extraordinarily blessed to have people in my life who know how to help me as I sort things. On Monday one of these wonderful people spotted and poked into a pocket of emotion that I’d been hiding from everyone, most especially myself. Her question prompted me to admit out loud that the last two months have been really hard on me. No matter how my life compares to others, despite the fact that I chose my challenges, no matter how I think I should feel, the truth of the matter is that my emotional experience since August has been a hard one. Only now that things are beginning to settle am I able to sort my experiences.

Reorganizing a room always makes a mess before it looks better. Reorganizing a brain is no different. So yesterday and today were messy. My friend helped me pull out my sad thoughts. Another friend helped me examine them. Then prayer and inspiration helped me get rid of the clutter and find new places for the things I still need. The process was good. I’m glad I went through it, but I am also glad that today’s primary theme was calmness. An organized room feels much more spacious than a messy one. My brain and heart have more room in them today.

Tasks and Priorities

By / October 17, 2010

Church is a contemplative time for me. I do my best to listen to the lessons and talks, but my mind often wanders about doing the mental equivalent of picking up clutter and putting it away. Today I spent most of church sitting with my planner open in my lap. As my mind tidied up, I wrote notes and my to do lists for this week got ever longer. When I noticed this phenomenon, I was temped to snap my planner shut. In the end I realized that it was better to have the to dos pinned neatly to a page than to have them floating loose in my brain as clutter.

The topic for Sunday School was living a life of faith in Christ. The topic led one recently divorce mother to ask for advice as to how to devote her life to Christ when her days are full of laundry, carpooling, and making kids practice the violin. Her question zipped into the middle of my newly tidy mind and bounced around. It is a very good question, one I have had to resolve for myself on multiple occasions. How does my life, as I am currently living it, fit with what I believe about eternity? This question remains the same no matter how many times I ask it of myself, but my answers change as my life shifts.

At the moment my life is a combination of mundane tasks and frightening challenges. It is easier to see where the challenges fit into the larger picture of my life. I am learning new things, growing in ways that are sometimes painful. Since the challenges are frightening, I seek more for divine guidance to make sure that my steps are headed the right direction. The challenges are daunting, but it is very clear to me that they are important. The mundane tasks are different. They simply exist and often oppress me. This is when the question comes in handy, because it forces me to look closely at my mundane things. I have to look for connections and hidden eternal purposes. All of the cooking, homework help, and carpooling I do for my kids is truly aimed at helping them grow. Nothing could be more eternally important than that. The cleaning I do provides order and space for happiness to reside. Some of my most mundane chores have vital eternal purposes if I just take the time to look for them. When I am aware of those connections and purposes, then my daily tasks can become acts of devotion and love.

Of course the actual practice of this theory is somewhat more difficult. My brain never seems to be able to hold it for very long, which is why I have to re-ask the question and discover it all again. Then I go back to the lists that I carefully compiled during church and I shift things around. Now the task order more closely represents what is important in my life right now. If I can just keep that up, then my life will be just what it should be.

As good as I can be today

By / October 12, 2010

I was catching up on last night’s episode of Dancing with the Stars when Jennifer Grey (of Dirty Dancing) said something that resonated for me so strongly that I had to re-watch that segment to hear it again. Jennifer was asked why she was so committed to her performances, what was driving her. She answered:
“Just to be as good as I can be today. That’s it. I just really, really want to be my best and show myself what I can still do or never knew I could do.”

Moments like that are why I find the show worth watching. They are the times when I can see that someone has dared to do something new even though it scared them. Jennifer’s determination shows, she is holding nothing back when she dances. That energy makes her far more fun to watch than the technical perfection of the professionals-only dances. Jennifer may or may not win the competition, but she really has already won.

Now I just need to drill the thought into my skull so that I can remember it on a day when I’m afraid to try, or on a day when I’ve dared to try and failed.

A rambling examination of the current state of my life

By / October 3, 2010

When people ask how I am doing, I tell them “fine.” It is a true answer, but it is also incomplete. The full answer to how I’m doing is very complicated and takes a long time to tell. So I distill my life down to a single word, because taken on the whole my life is fine.

Harder to answer is when someone asks what I have been up to lately. I have been doing so many things lately that it is hard for me to pick anything to say. They’re all tangled up together and I have trouble articulating what is filling my days so completely. All of my days are full. Even the days when I spend most of my energy avoiding the things I really should be doing. My brain is full. My hours are full. Things I thought would be done by now keep bouncing back, and there are still things I want to add.

On Friday night and Saturday morning Howard and I fell into conflict. He was grouchy because his week had gone awry and his grouchiness impacted me. I went spiraling into the pit of “I can’t do this” where in I lament how I have too many things and I can’t possibly manage it all. One of the things I find highly annoying about emotions is that they have to be expressed and felt, even when a piece of my brain knows that it will all be fine. My meltdown was nicely magnified by knowing that dealing with meltdowns only add stress to everyone involved. Which is why I try not to have them. I know I am doomed to fail. Meltdowns are pretty inevitable, but I do my best to steer, alleviate, and schedule them.

There are people in my life who want more complicated answers when they inquire how I’m doing. They know that I expected September to be a little crazy. We’ve entered October now and I’ve started hearing “So have things settled down for you yet?” I want to be able to give a positive answer. Our family has made so much progress from where we started six weeks ago. We’ve come a long way, and some things really are settling in to nice patterns. Some things have gotten really good and nothing is truly bad. However I don’t feel settled. I don’t feel like my schedule has spaces in it that I can count on. I’m still adjusting and reacting on a daily basis. Some days have lovely spaces of time in which I can contemplate new projects, but the list of projects I have queued up is very long and the projects which are just for me keep getting bumped down the list. I need to qualify that last sentence. All of my projects are mine. I love them all. The projects which get worked on most are the ones who benefit other people as much or more than they do me. I think this is a good way to prioritize and a good way to spend my life. It is just that I am constrained by many simultaneous projects. I don’t want to give up any of them and I want to do more.

Mostly I manage this by suppressing thoughts of the projects for which I don’t have time. My garden is a mess and it will stay that way. I try not to think about writing projects unless I come upon a space in my schedule. Unfortunately writing projects thrive upon back-of-the-brain simmering and the simmering space in my brain is full of other things. I hardly dare hope that I’ll be able to free up the back of my brain. I can think of nothing so likely to cause an emotional meltdown than hoping for something and having it snatched away. So I’m doing the work in front of me.

As I was writing this Howard came into the room to discuss schedule for the evening. I told him that I would start snack time soon. Then I said “And we’ll get to have another week tomorrow.” I meant “start another week” but the way it came out is rather apropos. Each day is so full of things that it feels like a week.

On Saturday Elder Uchtdorf spoke about slowing down and taking time for what matters most. He gave a really good talk. I’m trying to do that. I feel like I’ve been trying to slow down for about two years now. I’ve had some measure of success, but I often feel like I am digging in my heels and being dragged along by all the events I am expected to steer. Some times I have to cut loose and skip things. I am grateful to live a life so full of good social events and friends that I can’t keep up. This has definitely not always been the case in my life.

So how am I doing? Fine. Really. I’m very busy, but most of the busy things are good. I only end up worn out by quantity not by difficulty.

What have I been doing? Stuff for the kids, mostly homework support, and scheduling. Stuff for the business, maintenance work, some revamping of old systems, preparations for upcoming events, and book layout. I’ve also been managing accounting, managing the event booking for both family and business, making new friends, reconnecting with familiar friends, and spending time on family.

Do I have space for calm contemplation or writing? Yes. Sometimes. Those times arrive randomly. I can’t expect them or hope for them. All I can do is try to take advantage of them as they arrive.

Most days can be improved with chocolate

By / September 24, 2010

Of late I’ve been writing lots of fragmentary blog posts, ones that contain many small moments or ideas rather than taking time to give the things full space. In this way the blog is an accurate representation of the state of my mind and my life. Each day is crammed full of things to do and problems to solve. I pack a month’s worth of events into each week. Inevitably I lose track of some things. Today I missed yet another visiting teaching appointment. Again it was simply because I was distracted and forgot. This visible organizational failure was the proverbial last straw and I cried a bit.

The thing is, I really am getting all the critical things done. The work I do for the business is on schedule, if not as fast as I would like. I’ve been keeping up with kids and supporting homework efforts. The average cleanliness of the house is higher than it has been in a long time. (Though today is not a particularly good example of this.) I’m handling so much and doing it well. On some level I know this. But the small failures knock me right off my feet and bring me to tears. I don’t cry for the tasks themselves, mostly they aren’t important. My tears are grief that I’m working so hard, staying so focused, and it still isn’t enough. Who is it not enough for? Me. Howard and the kids are not complaining. Friends and neighbors understand and sympathize. My harshest critic lives inside my own head and she has really high expectations.

Things are settling in. I can see it. I spent the two weeks prior to this one working heavily with Kiki, almost to the exclusion of the other kids. Kiki settled just as Gleek’s annual calm adjusting-to-school period ended. This week has been mostly about Gleek with a smattering of parent teacher conferences for Link. Sometimes when I tuck Patch into bed at night I listen to him chatter about his day. Or rather, I look attentive, but often my mind wanders to other places. Then I feel sad that he does not get nearly the focused attention that the other kids do. At least not from me. My guilt is somewhat appeased that Howard sometimes feels guilty because he spends more time with Patch than the others. Then I remind myself that the patterns were different before and they’ll shift again. Which makes me tired because I’m a touch exhausted from all the adjusting we’ve been doing in the last few weeks.

In the midst of today’s crying bout, Howard declared that I needed to get out of the house. So he bundled me into his car and off we went. Mostly what we did was grocery shop, but there was talking too. It was good. The best bit was the ending when Howard took me to a chocolate shop which caters to connoisseurs of the cacao bean. The differences in flavor were stunning, particularly so because the flavors are not additives, but a reflection of where the bean is grown. It was like I’ve always assumed wine tasting would be, only with chocolate. We did not bring home very much. We don’t need to be stuffing ourselves with chocolate. Also we can’t afford very much of this stuff. We’ll savor the little we have bit by bit over the next few weeks.

I returned home a calmer person. By some minor miracle, I was able to retain that calm through the chaos of children flocking into the house and back off to their events. Nothing required super-human effort from me, which is good since I had none to give. I am still very tired. I still have more things to do tomorrow than I can reasonably expect to be done in a single day. But I keep hoping that I’ll have one of those days where I breeze through a hundred tasks with time to spare. On my best days, I exceed my own expectations. Which is probably what tricks me into keeping the bar so high. On my best days, I know that I have to give myself breaks and take days off. I plan for that. Unfortunately on the days when I desperately need rest, a less charitable version of myself tends to be in charge. I could try to remind myself that I am allowed low energy days, but even that requires effort at a time when effort is at a premium. So mostly what I do is fall to pieces a little. Then I pick myself up and keep going. Or Howard picks up the pieces and puts them back. He’s gotten quite good at it.