Grateful #36 - cold-calling and posters

As May rolls around, countless seniors are trying to wrap their minds around what it will be like when they go to college.  They’re scared, they’re excited, and they’re ready for that next big adventure they’ve being hearing about since they first started going to school.  In every single conversation I’ve had with them, I try to give them that extra boost of confidence that yes, they will make friends and no, they will not be sitting alone on a Friday night.  More worried about the social aspect than the academic aspect, these seniors are realizing that the built in group of friends they’ve had for years is suddenly going to go disperse, and they will be left to try to create other meaningful friendships that do not originate from something they had in common in the 2^nd grade, or from bonding over the time they got in trouble for laughing at the teacher in their freshman English class. 

Today, one of my students was lamenting about the possibility of getting stuck with horrible roommates.  I pointed out that she will probably get the names and numbers of her roommates ahead of time, which means she’ll get a chance to talk to them before she’s thrown in a room with them for a year.  And then I remembered getting the name and number of my first college roommate, Ellen.  Before the days of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, (and kind of right on the cusp of when email was used as a means of correspondence) my only choice was to call her.  On a land line.  I don’t really even remember the conversation; we probably discussed our majors, our hobbies, our boyfriend struggles, and the color of our comforters.   Bigger than all of those get-to-know-you questions, we went into the conversation WANTING to like each other.  And when we finally met in person in room 1311 of the East Tower, we instantly clicked.   

And then I thought about how current high school seniors will get to know their new roommates before they meet them. 

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. 

A very likely scenario:   Students are given the names and email addresses of  their future roommates.  A student will find her future roommate on facebook and begin to scroll through all of the future roommate’s pictures and judge her based on her clothes, her hair, what her friends look like, how many selfies she takes, and what her favorite bands are.   The senior will definitely compare herself to her future roommate, worry that her future roommate is prettier than she is, make up a story in her head about how her future roommate steals her friends and her love interest, and then have already decided that she hates her future roommate - before she has even seen or spoken to her. 

I wish it wasn’t that way – for as much as I use and love social media, it has it’s downfalls.  Pre-judgment will undoubtedly be the downfall that causes future college roommates to have to work really hard to be liked.

Besides, we tend to put things on our facebook pages that we want the world to see.  We only give a snipit of ourselves to the world, and it's usually the prettiest days, the happiest occasions, and the things that make us look good - we never upload photos of what we look like when we're feeling insecure, we never broadcast to the world how much we've been hurt by someone we cared about,  and we don't brag about our mistakes and our errors.   Our portraits on social media have few flaws; our reality is often quite the opposite.   

 I'm grateful for a poster that hangs on one of the classrooms  across from mine.   It says, "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."  I think we forget that.  I think we forget that behind the Macbook Pro screen protectors, and all the URLs and the prom photos and pictures of our families and the posts about our best 5k time and checking in at our favorite restaurant- we are all fighting hard battles.    Human kindness, as my friend Melissa told me about her years of living abroad, is the one thing that all people, regardless of place in the world, have in common.  Tweet that. 

Grateful #35 (which is a coincidence) Ducks not in a row

I don’t know how it happened.  All of a sudden, I was at party with all my co-worker friends I’ve been teaching with over the last nine years, and I noticed that every single friend, save one, had a baby.  Or two.  I almost felt like an imposter.  I sat with this feeling for a few days and I came up with this:

I’m in that age bracket where everyone gets married and has children.   I average one or two weddings a summer and at least three or four baby showers a year.  At times I’ve felt a little far behind, but because I never really do anything on the same timeline as others, I’ve never really internalized my lack of marriage and baby in a negative way. 

 It could be my impending 35^th birthday.  It could be my sans-child status I take with me to parties and social gatherings.  It could be that my newsfeed on facebook has been overcrowded with ridiculously cute pics of babies holding bunnies, babies dressed like bunnies, or babies eating chocolate bunnies.  Whatever it is, something has been messing with my sense of accomplishment, equilibrium, and self-confidence.  

I think they named the life-crisis cycle incorrectly.  Instead of the quarter life crisis, (because when you’re 25 everything is a crisis, really) they need to add 10 years and call it the “why aren’t all my bunnies  ducks in a row crisis.”  Because 35 year-olds have things.  They’ve done their due diligence in their 20’s, and by the time they reach 35, they have stability, a husband or wife, friends, children, and a career.  I am not naïve; I do not believe that all 35 year-olds have all of these things.  However, as I think about my peers, I can honestly say that the vast majority of them do not have holes or gaps in the areas of marriage partners or children.   Not everyone is happy all the time either; marriages break up, children go through their terrible twos and their teenage angst, and some couples decide not to have children. But all in all, 35 year olds have things lined up in an attempt to secure a happy, meaningful life.   They don’t stare down the end of their 30’s and worry that they’re too old to have children or that they’re never going to meet the right person.

The thing that makes this life crisis the most challenging is that there are not many other 35 year olds with the same fears, challenges, problems, and concerns.   They are signing their kids up for daycare and paying exorbitant amounts of money to do so, taking their kids to little league, soccer practice, changing diapers, and finding a minute to spend time with their partner in order to maintain a healthy marriage.  Pitting my issues of not having enough time to go grocery shopping at the 3 different grocery stores I need to go to in order to satisfy all of my strange eating habits, wanting to find time to take a writing class, improving my backhand, paying off debt, finding people I would want to date and getting some quality time with my friends against a mom who has her own set of issues plus kids and possibly a spouse?  I lose every time.  I feel stupid for even pretending my struggle is hard.    

 And not many other 35 year-olds can relate; they’re too busy getting their kids ready for school, helping them with their homework, and then finding whatever time they can, to work on their own things whether it be for their job, their family, or themselves.  So it makes me quiet.  It makes me keep a lot of my daily struggles inside. 

But. While I may be missing some ducks, I can still quack.  Loudly.  That is to say, I can be bigger in other areas that my peers may not have access to anymore.  I can find someone to watch my dog and go on a vacation at the drop of a hat.  I can play tennis on 3 different teams without securing a babysitter before a match.  I can take classes on the weekends, make dinner the way I like it and I can take a writing class at night when everyone else is tucking in their kids, watching tv, and going to bed.  I can write in my blog without feeling guilty or bad about having me time. 

Putting a timer on my duck pond is like strapping a weight to the few ducks I do have.  I’m just going to let my ducks float for a while and see if I can pick some up along the way, because I do want to be madly in love with someone and I do want to have children.  I just need to have my own timeline.   This may be a strange thing to be grateful for, but I am grateful for that story, “The Ugly Duckling” – not because the ugly duck became a beautiful swan, but because there were so many ducks in a row and in the end, the one who wasn’t in a row was the happiest one of all.

Grateful #34 - Proactivenss AKA the 4th car is the charm.

My very first car was beautiful.   It had a sunroof, leather seats, a spoiler, and was adorned with 716 bumper stickers that told the drivers behind me that A)  I was obviously a teenager and B) I liked music, democrats, going against the norm, and clever sayings that reaffirmed my youth.   And while it looked so cool from the outside, I neglected to think about the inner workings of the car – the parts of the car that made it run.  I drove it through PA, NY, and everywhere in between, without so much as an oil change, a tire rotation, or a service check.  One day it literally just stopped working.   Every car I’ve had since then (save the car I have now) was given to me or handed down to me, and suffered a similar fate.  Learning from my mistakes takes me a few more mistakes than the rest of the world, apparently.

I bought my own brand new car a year and a half ago; funny that when you buy something yourself, you tend to treat it better.  Today I took my car in for its 10,000 mile routine service check.  Before something went wrong.  Before the check engine, check oil, check fluids, check battery, check everything lights came on.   Before I was stuck on the side of the road with smoke wafting out of the engine.  I am grateful for  finally doing something as a precautionary measure instead of as an emergency measure.  Never again do I want to get in my car and have to say a little prayer to the automotive gods that the warning lights on my dashboard don’t light up – it’s a feeling of impending doom.  A very expensive impending doom.

I’ve learned my lesson about taking care of things along the way instead of having to fix them after a catastrophe.  If I ever have kids, the 4^th one is going to be in great shape.   

Grateful #33 - The end of your comfort zone

Occasionally, I get stuck on Pinterest.  After I look at all the Do –It-Yourself projects that I can never do by myself, I tend to browse the quotes for some inspiration.  Tonight, I came across this picture of a girl jumping off of a cliff into a lake – arms wide open.  The quote read: Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.  The picture was almost identical to a picture of 22 year-old me jumping off of a cliff into a lake – arms wide open. 

I think about that day, back in Ithaca – I remember hiking out there with my friends, climbing up a huge embankment and pulling myself up a rope to reach the spot where everyone jumps – it was a cliff that jutted out maybe 2 feet from the embankment, which is not a lot of clearance room, especially since it’s a 30 foot drop.  My 3 friends jumped before I did - each one of them came back up, bobbing in the water, exhilarated.  I danced around the edge, and then I hurled myself into the air – arms wide open.   You're only in the air for a few seconds, but it feels like you're never going to hit the water - and all forethought about how you should positions your legs, or how you should hold your arms - it doesn't even matter.  At 9.8m/s/s all you can do is scream and ride it out.   Free-falling should be named in reverse.  It should be called falling-free.  Because that's how you feel.  Free.  

I am grateful for opportunities I've taken to break away from the routines, the average, the safe, the usual, the status quo, the normalcy – and hurl myself over any fear and past my comfort zone.  While jumping off of a cliff is a literal interpreation, there are many things that take you to the edge of your comfort zone -  it could be starting a new job, being in large social situations, dealing with loss, or learning something new.  

Maybe it's not that life begins at the end of your comfort zone, but that you grow into your life at the end of your comfort zone.  Because you're always living your life; you just may not feel it until you hit a growth spurt.  

Grateful#32-milestones

Milestones.  We remember them with such a warm, nostalgic fondness.  Our first kiss.  The day we got our driver’s license.   Throwing your graduation cap up in the air.  The day we moved into an apartment and our parents’ house was no longer what we meant when we said we were going home.  The memories come rushing back and bring that slow, wide smile – the kind where your teeth don’t show, and you raise your eyebrow as you realize you’re referring to these memories as the good ole days. 

As the coach of the high school tennis team, I have to say goodbye to a group of seniors every year.  The class of 2014 gave me 7 seniors that I absolutely adore, the biggest group to go through my tennis program. Tonight I held a senior night celebration to honor their athletic achievements.   This was the last home tennis match they will play in their high school tennis careers.  It wasn’t how they reacted to the medals, flowers, goodie bags, player bios being read aloud for everyone to hear, or the handshakes and hugs they got – it was the conversations I overhead that made me grateful for milestones. 

Overheard:

“who do you think will be the next me?”

“im totally going to come back and give a pep talk to next years team”

“we should come back from college over break and play tennis and do lunch”

On paper they may not sound like much, but watching them have this air of maturity (or at least acting like they have an air of maturity) brought me back to those same kinds of thoughts and emotions that I had when I was a senior in high school at my last tennis match.  I thought I was so cool, so mature – the same underclassmen I just played tennis with all season suddenly looked so sweet and innocent from my mature and grown up perspective. 

I stood there watching these seniors with flowers in hand, medals hanging around their necks, and I almost envied their innocence more than the innocence of the freshman.   I was watching these kids live out in real time the moments that in many year from now, they will refer to as the good ole days. It’s not often that moments are tangible, and thought it’s not my own milestone moment, I am holding it very close to my heart. 

Grateful #31 - The stars

The Sunday night blues sink in right after dinner.  The weekend is officially over; relaxation will be non-existent in about 12 hours.  I sit here with my laptop and some file folders and my calendar, shuffling each one around enough to make it seem like progress is happening.  But it’s not.  I looked up at the tv and there were stars all over the screen.  Fox was airing a show called, "Cosmos." 

There are a few things in this world that will literally take my breath away every single time.  I do not mean the rare, special, romantic, emotional, or extreme moments – those are a different kind of breathtaking.  I am talking about something that occurs fairly regularly, that despite it’s normalcy, still takes your breath away.  Every time.  One of those things is looking up at a star-filled sky.  I grew up in town that hosted brilliant constellations every night.   My trips to the planetarium as an elementary school kid brought the stars even closer to me.  As soon as Mr. Danner turned off the lights and put the stars on the ceiling, I was mesmerized.  (sidebar: just thinking about that while I’m writing – i remember how the room smelled, what his voice sounded like, how the plastic chairs felt when I leaned my head back as far as it could go…)  My eyes couldn’t take it all in fast enough and I was swirling about the room, (which I could have sworn was really moving) grabbing onto Orion’s belt while sliding down the big dipper.   As an adult, I have found myself in the magazine section of Barnes and Noble tracing the cover of Astronomy Magazine without even knowing why.   A few years ago, I lived near a church that had an outdoor spiral staircase that led to terrace on top of the building– there was one bench with a perfect view of the sky.   I sat there for hours some nights, simply getting sucked in by the gravitation pull of outer space. 

I am grateful for the way the stars in the sky is one place where getting lost is actually how you get found.    

Grateful #30 - not flying under the radar

For the first 18 (and depending on how far we go in school, 22-25) years of our lives, we get accustomed to hearing parents, teachers, and professors shout our praises when we do things well.  And though we learn how to be proud of ourselves without needing recognition from others, that extrinsic reward somehow means more.  For me, it’s never been about the money or the grade as much as it’s been about being able to hear someone I respect or admire tell me I’ve done well or think that I’m smart and creative. 

There’s a point, however, when we enter the workplace, when this constant feedback stops being constant.  We go through our daily grind, work our hardest, solve problems, put out fires, reconcile differences in people or numbers,  pack up and go home.   This is not to say that we don’t witness the value of our work from student achievement, client retention, or increased sales.   However, the acknowledgements from our bosses and colleagues are not as common anymore; they shout, “see you tomorrow!” or “have a good weekend!”  but those reaffirming praises we used to hear all the time have long since stopped.  As the years of being in the work force add up, we get used to it - we forget how good it made us feel when people stopped to notice our efforts. 

Perhaps that’s why I am writing this today –I had a significant moment that I wanted to relish in for a while.  When a colleague noticed my efforts AND said something about it – it was like I was given an A+ gold star, put on a float, and paraded around the room in all my glory.

Simple praise.  Literally the words were:  “You did a really good job.”  That’s all it took.  Adults are very quick to praise children, but we need to praise our peers, too.  I’m all for intrinsic motivation and having self-confidence on my own accord – but I don’t know anybody who wouldn’t want to hear that he or she is doing a good job.  It’s not the same as saying thank you – that’s kind, too, but that’s someone needing something and being thankful they got it from you.  The kind of praise I’m talking about is different.  It’s from someone who knows your job, does similar things that you do, and instead of thinking about him or herself, someone is taking the time to honor you.  The job YOU did.

I am grateful for not flying under the radar today.  And for the person who happened to look up and see me flying. 

Newfound Freedom

So, I decided not to hold myself accountable for this most recent bout of absenteeism.  I am entitled, I think.  But, I do feel particularly grateful for a few things today.  So, I’ve decided to share.

First, and this is a huge one, my son is medically stable.  His surgery was successful and his port is operational.  He is well.  I am able to administer medication (though with a lot of struggle and resistance) to him and, therefore, he is not in pain.  Score.

Second, as a direct result of this newfound freedom from seemingly crisis after crisis, and due to my ability to be (semi) self-reliant in the administration of his medication, we have been cleared for travel.

In two (2) days, for the first time since my son was born, we are going on a vacation. For those of you reading this and plotting a break in, my parents will be staying at our home.  Don’t even think about it.

I find it befitting that our first vacation will be to the Hemophilia Federation of America’s Annual Symposium (a big thanks to “you know who you are”), this year featuring an entire day devoted to the topic of the allergy my son has.  It was meant to be.  Our first vacation and my son is stable. Oh, it’s a fine time, indeed. 

NOTE:  Do not mock the art. It is a rare classic piece that is copyrighted.  It will sell for millions.  Just wait. Wait for it.....

Grateful #29 - cleaning

I was a very messy kid.  My mom and dad had to check under my bed and in various drawers for the things they told me to put away; I tried to stuff them in places to hide them.   If you ask any of the people I’ve lived with over the past 13 years, you would hear a lot of the same things.  My poor roommates - they had to endure endless piles of jeans, tshirts, shoes, jackets, sweaters, and sweatshirts floating from my room down the hall because I had an inability to hang up my clothes after one (or several) bouts with hating everything I tried on.  They’d tell you that I have a lot of clutter, that I leave empty boxes of things in the pantry, that there’s toothpaste in the sink.  At some point, probably when I lived alone for the first time a few years ago, I realized that messiness actually didn’t need to define me.  I got tired of being messy, and honestly, I thought it was kind of gross.  I am meticulous about my kitchen now; I can’t stand dirty dishes, crumbs on my counters, or clutter taking up space.  My biggest improvement is that I hang up my clothes as soon as I take them off.  I walk in my closet every morning and I have a million unwrinkled, pretty things to choose from -  (some may fight me on the pretty part, my style may still need some work).

This weekend, I did one of those deep cleanings – vacuum, windex, mop, dust, laundry. I also took my dog to the groomers – she needed a haircut desperately.  When I got her back, she was so fresh, clean and happy.   I could tell she felt so much better,  she even slept happier.  Her clean start in my clean house made it that much better.  I am grateful for how a little cleaning on the outside can also clean up your attitude and make everything feel shiny and new.     

Grateful #28 - Tallness

One of my students is 6 feet 7 inches tall – he’s a very big guy.  He’ll never sneak up on anyone; I can almost see him coming down the hall from a different floor.  The great thing about this kid is that he has never once uses his height or stature to intimidate anyone.  He’s kind to the people that pay attention to him, and he’s kind of friendly to those who don’t.  Most people don’t get to know him all that well, but he’s actually a really cool kid – he’s smart and he’s got a good sense of humor.  He is also really talented in graphic design.  I know this because instead of doing his homework, he is busy making really intricate images and graphics on the computer.  The other great thing about this kid is that even though you think he's not really paying attention to you, he actually is.  He knew the teachers were getting new laptops today, so he sent me an email with the image he made (above )and said he wanted me to have a new background for my new computer.  Coffee with a heart and an acoustic guitar – clearly the kid pays attention to me.  And though he’ll never sneak up on anyone, he definitely snuck up on me today as someone I am grateful for having in my life. 

Grateful # 27 - Photosynthesis. Kind of.

I started this project to make myself more aware that beauty can sometimes be hidden in drawers, lurking behind walls, tucked under the stacks of papers piling up on the coffee table, running across the street, or even staring us in the face without us even knowing it.  I started it so that I would be more conscious of the way people can affect each other.  I started it to prove that things are more than just things; we can draw meaning from anything if we want or need to. 

When I started this, I had grandiose plans of sitting down every night and writing about something that I was grateful for, uploading a picture, and sharing it with the world!  It started off that way, and then as life pushed forward and I found myself flailing behind, barley holding onto it by a rope, I realized that it may not be as easy as I thought.  I wish you, the reader, knew how often I throw ideas around in my head about what I am grateful for; though lately they mostly stay inside my head and never make it out into the air, they are always there.  Hundreds of them.  So in essence, I am still fulfilling my own end of the project, I am just lacking in the follow through of sharing them.  It’s not really even that I don’t have time, though that’s kind of the go to phrase these days.  Everyone loves to throw around the good ole, "Man, I am SO busy!"  Yes, everyone is busy.  Everyone is seemingly important.  But I think my biggest roadblock is thinking that I need to be eloquent and prophetic when I write.  Instead of simply stating that I am grateful for 80-degree weather today during tennis practice, I think I need to write some highly intellectual version that likens photosynthesis to way my mouth converts into a smile when bathed in sunlight.  The little language nuances I love are the very thing that stops me from writing sometimes.  If I am grateful for being in the sun during tennis practice, instead of the 30 degrees we’ve been practicing in, I should be able to say that without worrying about how short it is, how intelligent sounding it is, how well written it is.  I should just say it.

Photosynthesis and energy blah blah blah.  I am grateful for how warm it was today. 

Grateful # 26 - nothing

I actively decided that I wasn’t grateful for anything today.   I would find no light peaking out from under some papers, no source of inspiration dancing across my field of vision, no hidden meanings hiding out.   There would be none of that today. 

It was a lousy day.  I almost didn’t want anything to make me feel grateful because I  wouldn’t even know what to do with it.  Negative Nancy stole my clothes and my car and drove to work.  I hated everyone.  I hated everything.  I was mad.  I was sad.  I was just not feeling it at all. 

And then it came to me a few minutes ago.  Im grateful for not being grateful for anything today.  By really allowing myself NOT to see anything positive or anything happy, I was able to really get to the core of what was bothering me in the first place.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for pulling yourself out of those bad moods and turning it around, but those Band-Aid approaches don’t fix things; they patch it for a minute and heal awkwardly.  They end up being sore for a while.   Bathing in whatever it is that gets us upset, makes us sad, gets us frustrated, points out our inadequacies, unearths our demons – is cleansing.  Because once it’s out of our systems, once we make ourselves deal with ourselves, we can start seeing positive things again authentically. 

 It’s been a hell of a day.  And I felt every single minute of it.  And now I can put that to bed.  and me, too.

Grateful #longoverdue: family, friends, big things, and little things

It’s been a minute since I’ve written; I went to Pennsylvania to visit my family and then immediately jumped right back into work and coaching and I haven’t had time to sit down and write the way I like to write.  I tried a few times, but I struggled with it so much, that I almost didn’t write anything about my trip at all.  And then I realized why I was having such a hard time.  I tend to see little tiny things in very big meaningful ways.  When I’m grateful, it’s usually a small moment that made me think big.   Being home only a few times a year, makes going home a big thing.  Meeting my niece for the first time is big thing.  Playing tennis with my brother for the first time since I was in the 8^th grade is a big thing.  I dont know how to express gratitude for just one big thing without breaking it down into a million little things, all of which could be their own entry into my grateful blog.  

It’s making me unable to write.  And I need to write.  So in order to get the ball rolling again, I decided to skip that one for  minute and write about something else.

Again, tonight, I was in the company of someone I completely adore.  This time, it was my oldest and dearest friend.  I had a very long, draining week.  For whatever reason, by the time I got home from teaching Saturday school and running errands, the very thought of having my friend over and engaging socially was too much;  I was all prepared to tell her that I was too tired and worn out to have company.  I actually did tell her that, but she very quickly replied, “Im coming.  You can’t back out.  Love you” 

I’m grateful for people who know me well enough to know what I need before I do, even when it goes against what I think I need.  At 4 or 34, I am so lucky to have a friend who I can say anything to, do anything with, and be anything I want to be and she’ll love me for it.  Not love me despite it.   And she’ll wear the flowery barrettes so that I don’t have to wear them.

Cleansing/Repairing the Soul

Sometimes, I just need to cleanse myself. I am grateful for the tools that I have amassed to accomplish this "cleanse."

We all face difficulties, unpleasant experiences, traumas and sometimes the only way to lift up your soul, and step away from the deep dark hole that your soul sought refuge in, is to cleanse it.  

It is no secret that my posts harbor a negative side to them, but drizzled with the hopes of possibility and positivity.  I was operating in what I call “survival mode” – until now.

I am more optimistic about the future and as a result, my soul can step out of the cellar it was hiding in that shielded it from the passing tornado.  That cellar was dark, damp, and well, dirty.  My soul needs to be cleansed.

I wish I could say that my recent trauma was the first I’ve experienced in my life.  It wasn’t.  Here are the steps that I usually use to emerge from the darkness.

First step is a nice, long, hot shower.  Well, several nice long, hot showers.    

Second, eliminate the tense muscles and stress.  I usually opt for a massage. But, it could be any stress reliever - exercise, dancing around your living room to great music, anything.

Third, do something for myself, to feed my soul.  I write.  I wrote.  I am writing now about writing.

Fourth, pay mind to the food that I ingest and clean up my diet.  When my soul is in hiding, my mind and intestinal desires wander.  I tend to care less what I eat and whether or not it’s healthy.

Fifth, do something, anything, to make someone else happy.  This one requires some more thought.  But, helping someone else can easily help to repair your own soul. 

Last, when you are faced with difficulty, your mind tends to wander and it settles on the “what ifs” and “why’s.”  For me, the most important step in my healing process is to ground myself in each moment.  Be present.  Live in the now.

Life happens only once.  Don’t spend it in a dark, damp cellar pondering how you can change things.