Work In Progress

"What day is it? I can't seem to hold on to days any more. It's really bothering me."  My new friend M asks, shading her eyes to squint at me as we pause beside a swollen stream on our spring walk.  Trees reach out to each other above our heads, the path hugged by budding greenery, spotlights of sun dancing on the earth at our feet. I chuckle softly. My problem had always been the opposite.  I had a firm grasp on the days. Monday November 26, 2012 - The day I was admitted to the adult mental health ward. Monday October 6, 2014 - Returned to work.  March 11, 2016 - The day the darkness loomed so great I left work again to save myself. How could I have changed all the moments that led up to those days?  Now that I am unemployed, what will my future days look like? "It's my favorite day.  It's today," I reply with a smile.   I can tell she is not happy with that answer.  

So I thought I had a handle on this....... "Type A"..."Type B".  I am clearly a "Type A"---with a slow to arrive "Type B" that strolls in for herbal tea and yoga after I have been feeding my soul and NOT at work for an extended period of time.  ( I really like her!!!) However, "Type A" and "Type B" emerged as labels for how people respond to stress and were employed, and were later tested in a later experiment to see if these "types" could predict coronary heart disease----- in men----- over 60 years ago----.  The experiment didn't factor in women or the stress reduction medication and techniques available to assist with coping with stress today. Damn.  I thought I was done. But instead I will dig a little deeper (ok a lot deeper), to get a more full picture back to Hippocrates (c. 460-c.3 70 BC), the father of modern medicine, who identified four "temperaments". These "te...

"Let it go....let it go...." and "Shake it off...shake it off." I alternate between these two borrowed mantra for this time--- when the world seems too loud and bright. Even my clothes touching my skin is too much.  I yank off my sweater, and hop step out of my pants while walking upstairs to my room after work, finally able to breath once the edges of sleeves, cowls of turtlenecks and waistbands of tights no longer feel like burning, scratching sun burn.    My skin feels too tight as I try to keep myself together in this package that is required to carry out my daily tasks.   "This is not my circus. These are not my monkeys." "Your lack of planning is not my emergency." It is far too easy to get caught up in the drama of things that are so divisive---as you try to separate yourself by thinking it is not your problem or it is not my fault or I am better than this or I don't need anyone - when we should be connecting t...

Today I am not at work.  Instead, I am catching up on missed television episodes, folding laundry, knitting, writing and resting.    In the hopscotch of fall colds, everyone in my house has toppled--except me.  I remain one hop ahead and a day on the couch helps me keep my balance.   Tomorrow, it will be one month since I returned to work after an almost two year absence.  So far, the hardest part has been deciding what to wear.  I would like to blame it on the fact that the past two years my choices were limited to a variety of shades of stretchy pants and I am out of practice, but it has always been this way.    Three days a week--soon to be back to five--I put on something professional looking and venture out into the "big world", drive 15 minutes to my new location of work, wave hello to colleagues, grab a coffee and press the button that brings my computer to life.   It is hard to describe the feeling of being the...

After months of sorting out the details, a return to work date was set.  I had a month.     That sounds like a long time.  If you work full time right now and someone said you had a month off work it would feel like forever and you would probably howl with delight, fist pumping your way around the office.  Having been off work for almost two years, a month felt like a moment away.     Twelve trips to the gym, four weekends, only a few more chances to spend the day with Sista....how could I possibly get everything done that I wanted to do before I went back?   Tick-tock.  Tick-tock.   A grinding of gears heralded the resumption of the countdown clock that overshadowed my eight week adult day treatment program. A deadline....a deadly line.... slipping through my fingers as I desperately grasped at each lesson, at each session  because I only had 40 days to be "fixed", become capable, balanced, competent...

I have written often of the "small world" of my back deck - here and here - and here  and (sheesh) here  where I cocooned my first summer after my crash, reading, writing and just learning how to live inside my body and yet be part of the world that existed just outside my patio doors. It was my haven---a morning glory entwined gazebo, purple-pink sunrises, warm breezes and warmer coffee.  From the comfort of my chair, I could watch the "big world" go by over my fence.   Each morning, mass transit swallowed waiting patrons, only to spit them out at the end of the day as they returned home.  I imagined them all going to work-- happy, competent, well adjusted and 'normal'.  At the end of the day, they came home--- mostly looking like their same happy, competent, well adjusted, 'normal' selves.   It made me feel small and broken and terrified---and definitely not normal.      The "big world" was too much for me...

Before , when I was working and 'moming' and home making and being a  Perfectionista----before the crash and the dark spiral and the hospital and the rebuilding----before all of that I used to be able to fit into a little red sheath dress. I have written about this dress before, here and here ; how my shape changed; about learning to be comfortable with the change to softer and rounder. For a time, I went to the gym and gave it a solid effort and when I didn't see results I shrugged and gave in to poptarts and brownies.  Instead of facing the muffin in the mirror I continued to buy bigger clothes.  To me, it was always about how the clothes felt and not the number on the scale.  I don't even own a scale! I bought some cute dresses that flared at the waist.  Tops were loose and pants were stretchy.  Trips to the local second hand store inched further and further up the size scale to find things that fit. But the red dress sat in the closet, a c...

I feel like we flipped from winter to summer and skipped spring all together. Everything is suddenly green, I have mowed the lawn twice and all I want to do is get my hands into the earth and start planting things.  Each day, I "tour" my small backyard garden to evaluate the new appearances and there seems so much to do to get ready.   I can't help but to make comparisons to my life.  I have gone from "on long term disability" to someone waiting for the rehabilitation specialist to call (which I thought, would be quite quickly after receiving his e-mail that he would call....) to get started back to work.  Again, I feel like there is a lot of work to do!   Three times a week I Body Flow and Zumba my way away from the evil scale numbers; not yet where I would like to be; the summer before last's capri pants remain unbuttonable.  Combined with cutting out wheat and sugar for over a month, I was able to edge away from the number on the scale I had...

I have been checking in with Malaika (my Inner Wisdom/Super Heroine --see previous post), each day since we met.  She is me, and yet she is not me, and by being only the wise, strong, unconditional loving, fluid parts of me, she can slow down time and provide me with space, time and nourishment to do the hard work. Right now, that includes looking at my Inner Mean Girls and redeploying them in a “helping” instead of “hindering” way.  It’s tough because I have five Inner Mean Girls that are all rolled into one.  Yolanda represents them all and she is the face of all the insidious whispers. Finding a new job for her is pretty easy.  All I need to do is turn her around.  Her arms crossed, the contempt on her face, her rulers ready to measure everything; this would surely silence the whispers. She would let them rant, her skeptic eyebrow raise enough to make them quiet down when they realized they were getting nowhere.  In fact, I think when the ...

As human beings, we are hardwired for connection.  It is the common thread that connects everything I read these days regardless of the title, theme; whether it is on the bestseller list or notes I have taken while in the hospital programs.   Last summer I read Brene Brown's The Gifts of Imperfection and I wrote as I read.  It was a bit like shopping for new clothes.  I tried on her words.  What did they look like if I put them on?  Which ones fit me?    It was harder then.  I had felt like the hospital programs had helped me identify and discard many unhelpful patterns of though and behavior. The problem was, while I was working hard to let them go, I was struggling with who that left behind.  It was an identity void.  The things that had defined me, were also the things that had destroyed me, but they were also the things that had made me successful and carried me far in life.   I held up "need for connection" ...