The Hamster Wheel

I had goals this summer. This was supposed to be the “Summer of Jayne.” I was going to get back into shape (nope), finish my book (nope), eat healthy (nope). I didn’t do anything I planned to do, but it wasn’t a bad summer. I had a lovely vacation in Ireland, flat tires and all. Spent lots of quality time with my daughters (by quality, I mean they were here, we watched movies and I made them food), a little time with my friends (they were here, we went to the beach and they made me food). I worked on my book and progress was made (better than nothing), got rid of a bunch of junk in the house and ordered some new furniture (someday it’ll even get delivered to this flipping island).

School starts tomorrow and I’m sick to my stomach contemplating the big leap onto the hamster wheel. The school year feels like that much of the time, running in circles and getting nowhere. Or maybe it’s two steps forward, three steps back? Pick your cliché.

Teaching is all consuming. My days are structured into 47 minute juggling acts, no two alike. Ever. Unlike mainland teachers, I teach five grade levels every day (vs 2-3) with five different preps (vs 2-3). It’s fucking hard and those ADHD meds are absolutely necessary for my easily distracted brain to function on a daily basis. I bust my ass. And (this is the part that scares me) once I’m in the groove, I don’t notice the passage of time. From Monday – Friday, school is my life. And it’s not healthy. At all.

I need boundaries. I’ve set up a few in my personal life, I need them professionally as well.

This year has to be different. I can’t let another year slip by completely dominated by school. I can’t crawl through the door at four-thirty, too tired to take a walk or cook, curl up on the couch and stare at a television screen. I want to LIVE, not exist. I’ve given everything to this job. Sometimes I wonder, what has it given me? A paycheck? Health insurance? A retirement package (when I reach 70)? Those are big things and I’m not poopooing them. I lived without financial security for years and it sucked. But money isn’t everything.

Bigger picture? I’ve impacted the lives of students, my work is meaningful, I’m never bored (unless I’m at a faculty meeting or professional development), and I get more vacation time than most. I have to keep reminding myself…what I do changes lives. But my goal this year is balance. I have to balance the energy I give to my work with the energy needed to improve the quality of my life.

I’ll be lucky to get twenty winks tonight. I haven’t set up my classroom nor planned this week’s lessons. So what am I doing to ease my anxiety and prepare myself for what lies ahead? Exactly what I said I don’t want to do once school begins; sitting on a couch, watching television, wasting time, praying this year won’t be like every other year.  

Good lord, give me strength! I need a bottle of Pepto and some Xanax with a side dish of motivation. Pronto.

 

Gnats

A woman died.

An elderly woman is dead and a gaggle of sixty-year-old women want to turn her wake and funeral into a WWE match. What kind of people hear the news that a woman they’ve known for five decades has passed on and say, we’re going to her funeral “locked and loaded” in order to confront…me? Yes, me! A person they’ve never met or spoken to, by the way. Why would they threaten a person they don’t know with a loaded weapon (or mouth), you may ask? An excellent question! I’m assuming because they don’t like that I’m seeing a man who broke up with their friend (after dating her for roughly six weeks)?  

Let me clarify. I was engaged to this man (aka ‘Cake’ in previous posts) for two years; together for five. And after a three month hiatus this spring (during which he briefly dated aforementioned friend), we are seeing one another again. Not engaged. Not living together. I’m not sure there’s a definition for what we are, but frankly, it doesn’t matter. We love one another, enjoy each other’s company and that’s enough right now. I don’t need or want a label.

So how are the women who want to confront me at a funeral connected to the woman who passed away? Well, the woman who died was Cake’s mother-in-law (his wife passed away several years ago). These childish sixty-something women were his wife’s friends once upon a time. If I have the story correct, they grew up with her and were close to her mother at some point. Now…how they’re connected to the woman he dated during our break? I don’t know and don’t care enough to ask.

One of these ‘ladies’ (and I use that term loosely) sent Cake a text message when she heard about his mother-in-law’s death. She asked on behalf of herself (and her friends) if he was bringing ‘a date’ to the funeral (meaning me), then wrote she’s ready and armed apparently! Now, if I believed she was actually coming after me with a gun, I’d contact the police and get a restraining order. That would be cause for actual fear, but I doubt that’s the case.

But she clearly doesn’t know me if she thinks I’m afraid of a verbal confrontation. When conveying her message to me, Cake couldn’t help but laugh because he knows…there’s no contest.

There’s a quote from a movie, The Princess Bride, which sums up her foolish notion of verbal conquest. “Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line!” In other words, don’t think you can outwit or unnerve me during a confrontation of any sort. I have nerves of steel and, unlike most, when provoked my blood pressure lowers and my focus becomes laser sharp. You won’t win. It’s “inconceivable.”

Who raised these women? Honestly! A woman dies and you go on the attack? When will it get through your thick skulls? Cake doesn’t owe you an explanation for his choices and I don’t care if you like me. I hope you all find hobbies or some meaning to your empty lives. You’re little annoying gnats but you mean nothing to me. Clearly you don’t mean all that much to Cake either if I’ve never met you in the five+ years we’ve been together! I sense you once did, but not anymore. Cake’s done.

A woman is dead. If you want to pay your respects, go to the wake and/or funeral, be fucking courteous to the grieving family and guests, and get on with your lives.

Time & Travel

I would love to figure out how to balance self-care with living life to the fullest. How do I take care of myself, physically and mentally, and travel, my favorite thing in the world? I feel like self-care is a full time job, to the exclusion of…pleasure? Which makes absolutely no sense! Isn’t pleasure part of self-care? Why can’t I travel and take care of myself at the same time?

Why? Because part of taking care of myself is establishing a routine to achieve my fitness/health goals. There’s no routine in traveling and exploration. The point of exploring is to experience something new and exciting. To live fully in the moment. To vacate real life and try another culture on for size.

I have the opportunity to go to Ireland before school starts in September. I really want to go but decided it was more important to focus on eating healthy and maintaining a workout regimen. But is it? Every morning I wake up and question this decision. Should I stay or should I go? I’ve been out of school for exactly a month and except for the few days spent off island, I’ve done pretty well in the self-care department. Will I fuck it all up if I go away for ten days?

It’s not too late. I still have time to take this trip. But will I sabotage my progress if I do? Last week I was in New York and enjoyed some of the best food I’ve ever tasted. They weren’t Michelin star restaurants or cafés we researched beforehand. No, we happened to walk past these fine establishments when we happened to be hungry, checked out the menu and said, okay! Let’s give it a whirl! They did not disappoint.

What is disappointing? Feeling uncomfortable in my own skin. Summer is the worst. It’s too hot to wear layers or hide the extra pounds. I feel naked and exposed. But who really gives a flying fuck what I look like…except me? Am I so self-absorbed that I believe everyone with whom I cross paths is judging my appearance? Sometimes…but it generally coincides with how I feel in a particular outfit. It’s about me, not them. I’m judging myself.

Walking the steaming hot streets of New York City last week, a line from a movie came to me. “You’re a middle-aged woman in New York. You’re basically invisible.” And I have to say, the thought comforted me. I don’t mind being invisible, especially when I’m not feeling great. In my younger years, appearance was everything. In my twenties, I was just as uncomfortable when people paid attention to me (aka flirting) as when they didn’t! I was a wallflower, more comfortable on the periphery of the action than at the center. I guess I still am to a degree.

Which brings me back to my original question. How can I live life to the fullest while taking care of myself? Can I create that balance in my life?

I’m not getting any younger. I had my annual physical the other day and the doctor said I’m perfectly healthy *knock wood*. If I’m going to travel, do I wait until I lose a few pounds? Do I put my life on hold in the name of self-care? In twenty or thirty years will I look at pictures of my fifty-one year old self in Ireland and say, what were you thinking, Jayne, you looked so fat? Or will I treasure the experience? I’m betting on the latter.

My twin brother died a year ago. He never really traveled. He didn’t have many friends. He never had a significant other. My brother stayed home a lot. I always felt like he was waiting for life to miraculously change in order to start living. But it didn’t change and he missed out on so much. My brother wouldn’t want me to stay home, waiting to feel good about my body before doing what I love.

I think…I’ve answered my own question. Life is for living. To stay home would dishonor my brothers memory. He’s with me wherever I go. I have the rest of the year to focus on self-care, so fuck my insecurities. I must put aside my inhibitions and travel. For my brother. For myself.

Rock Bottom

“I’ve hit rock bottom.” That phrase means something different to everyone. Some people, maybe even the majority, associate rock bottom with addiction and that’s one variety. If someone had asked me what rock bottom looked like twenty-five years ago, I would have said it was being a single mother on food stamps. Walking into the DHS office and filling out those forms so I could make sure my baby was fed and had medical insurance, looking at all of the other single mothers, people society deemed as moochers and lazy bottom feeders…I realized I would be seen as one of ‘them’ and it was one of the most humbling experiences of my life. I wasn’t there because I was lazy (and neither were ninety-eight percent of the women in that room by the way). I was getting my teaching certification, going to school at night, taking care of my son, babysitting for two lovely families, shuttling their kids to private schools, working as a hostess two nights a week, student teaching, essentially…busting my ass to survive. And I did. I survived my first true rock bottom.

Then I landed a teaching job, bought a house and was a pretty happy single mom for a few years. I was off welfare, gainfully employed and taking care of my physical and mental health. My son was one happy little boy with a village of loving people helping me raise him. I had great friends and went out dancing, saw bands at the Blues Café. Went on trips to London and San Francisco. I was turning thirty and loving life. I’d arrived. The only thing I could imagine making my life any better was falling madly in love with someone who was madly in love with me.

Be careful what you wish for!

When I was thirty-one, I did indeed meet a man who swept me off my feet and married him less than a year later. I went from being a single mom with a few nickels to rub together to a married woman of means. Glitch? He was abusive and is probably the most controlling man on the planet. A toxic narcissist of the first order. What’s the expression? Marry in haste, repent at leisure? I’ve been repenting for over twenty years though the ink dried on the divorce papers a decade ago. And the repenting ain’t over yet. We have two children together. I’ve got about three solid years of repenting left…seven, max.

I saw the red flags before I said ‘I do’ but ignored them. To this day, I’m not sure why. Was it because I was in my thirties and thought I should be married? Or because he was more into me than any man had ever been? I was used to male attention, but not his intense adoration. He moved across the country to be with me after knowing me a week. Hello! Bright blood red flag! Was it the financial security he provided? The diamond earrings he bought me? The trips he whisked me away on? The fancy shoes and clothes and first class plane rides? I never believed I was shallow, but looking back, maybe I was?  

For a few months, I believed I was actually in love and perhaps I was? But some part of me knew it wasn’t right. He wasn’t right. Those red flags were everywhere and impossible to ignore, and believe me, I tried. Desperately. In the days leading up to our wedding every part of me revolted, the thought of getting married (I couldn’t admit at the time) to him made me physically ill. I’m talking literally sick! And still I ignored my instincts. I was hopped up on all sorts of medication at my wedding and could only focus on getting through the day.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Talk about short-sighted! What about the rest of my life? What about my son’s life? I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself for dragging my boy into that unhealthy situation. I didn’t listen to my gut and we both paid the price.

I hit more rock bottoms than I can count during our marriage. From abuse-related trauma to post-partum depression to marital infidelity to my last stand. I’m intimately related with rock bottom. In the book I’ve been writing, I finally delve into these dark issues, so I won’t recount them here. Let’s just say every day spent married to him brought with it a fresh hell.

I’m not looking for pity. I made my bed and I paid the price. Insert whatever cliché that comes to mind here. But I’m an expert at making ‘lemonade’ and came out of that marriage stronger than ever.

My point is this: rock bottom isn’t a place people hit once, and it looks different every time you plummet. My mother’s death was another rock bottom, which was only surpassed by my brother’s passing last summer.

And now? My latest rock bottom. I hate writing these words because they sound so trivial in comparison to my other rock bottoms, but it doesn’t feel trivial. It feels massive, intense and consuming. I’m talking about weight and age, ladies and gentlemen. Having recently broken through the fog of grief, I looked in a mirror and found a much older lady staring back at me. A chubby older lady. I thought (hoped) I was imagining it, but I’m not. I received proof positive last night in the form of several photographs from a cookout I attended…and promptly broke down in tears.

What the fuck happened to me? I wasn’t this old and fat in February. I looked pretty good in the pictures from my trip to Italy! What happened? How? Why? I know I’m in the throes of menopause but come on! Haven’t I been through enough? I’ve survived so much worse and THIS is what’s going to knock me down for the count?

Last night I was inconsolable, the pain was fresh and real. Weight is a battle I’ve fought my entire life, but I’ve felt good the past five years. Now? I don’t want to go anywhere or do anything. I want to crawl into a cocoon and wait until a miraculous transformation occurs and I emerge a gorgeous butterfly. Fuck! I hate myself for writing this, for thinking these things. How contrary they are to the lessons I’ve taught my children and students!  

I can repeat these words until the cows come home: I am not my age or weight. My worth is not defined by these things. But dear god, it hurts. I haven’t cried this hard in a long time.

So, yeah, this is my newest version of rock bottom. My only consolation given my vast experience dwelling here, is that once you hit bottom, the only direction left to go is up. I know what I have to do and it’s going to suck. Deprivation, single-minded focus, diligence, routine, blah blah blah. I’m tired of climbing mountains. But it has to be done because I really want this to be the last rock bottom I ever hit.

Fingers crossed.