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.

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.

Modified Diet

What I’d like to write about today is far too incendiary. I wouldn’t want anyone to stroke out or have a nervous breakdown. So I’ll simply say this; cake is delicious. My relationship with cake has been complicated, this is true. I’ve spent a great deal of time trying to figure out the nuances of my connection with this particular baked good. Cake is enticing and has a lot to offer. The taste, texture and aroma of a good cake can overpower a person who has been deprived of sweets for many years.

Sometimes cake tells you what it thinks you want to hear. For instance, you won’t gain a pound if you eat the whole damned cake. Everyone knows that’s a pipe dream! You’ll gain a shit ton of weight if you eat more than a slice, day after day after day. I understood this, but shoveled it down whole anyways. I ate the entire cake instead of being honest with myself; I can only handle a slice at a time. I packed on pounds I couldn’t afford and carried around that weight for too long.

But what is life without cake? Is it an either or situation? Every problem has a solution and there is indeed an antidote to this complex equation.

I don’t have to cut cake out of my diet entirely. My relationship with cake can change if we’re both willing to redefine the parameters. I’ve done my part by establishing boundaries, setting limits and controlling how much I eat. Cake, in turn, has changed up its ingredients and produced a new variation that’s organic and unassuming. It scraped off the rich sugary icing and no longer overwhelms the senses. As an added bonus, cake finally recognizes its value and won’t let just anyone take a bite.

I now have a more honest relationship with cake and am happy to once again partake of a slice on this new modified diet.

*this is a work of fiction; any resemblance to actual individuals or events is purely coincidental

Control

It’s quiet in here. I’ve been in constant motion, surrounded by people every day for almost a month. Now? Everyone is gone and I could sleep for a week. Some people don’t like to be alone but I’ve never been one of them. Oh, I have lonely moments now and then, but for the most part, I enjoy my own company. That’s when I get to create a whole other universe where I control everyone and everything. In my stories I can be the person I always wanted to be, eat whatever I want and never gain an ounce, live in my dream house, travel to far off places, explore different professions, create the ideal man, choose my motherhood status, bring my mother and brother back to life. Where I exist in an alternate reality, one in which I’m pulling all the strings for hours at a stretch.

After reading those words some may conclude I’m not a happy person, but they’d be wrong. I am happy most days. I’m a silver lining kind of gal, the cup is half full. I’m an optimist, a dreamer. Even when things are shitty, I know the feeling or situation will pass. It always does. Generally speaking, I don’t let other people bring me down. I may get pissed off for a spell, but I stopped caring what other people think about me a long time ago. I have nothing left to prove to anyone but myself.

I firmly believe whatever we put out into the world, is what we receive. If the past fifty-one years have taught me anything, it’s that. Spread hate, hate comes back to you. Spread love, you get love in return. I have a lot of love in my life, so I must be doing something right. My friends are my family. This isn’t to impugn my blood relatives, they are good people, but would we hang out together if not connected by DNA? Maybe? Maybe not? My friends, however, we cheer each other on and lift each other up when life gets hard. If I hit a bump in the road, all I have to do is send out the SOS and my people, my chosen family, are there for me. It helps that I’m a good judge of character and don’t allow fake people into my orbit.

Other people aren’t as fortunate. I feel sorry for good folks who allow toxic people into their lives. For whatever reason, they don’t know the difference and have been made to feel like they deserve less than loyalty and kindness. It’s unfortunate when they’re blind to the bad intentions of others. My bullshit-o-meter is finely tuned and for that I say ‘thank you, god!’ What’s glaringly obvious to me isn’t necessarily apparent to others. But bad apples eventually fall to the ground and it brings a smile to my face when good people shake the rotten fruit from their branches.

What makes a person toxic? How did they get that way? Some may argue they had shitty childhoods or were abused by people who were supposed to love them and I can see that. I understand how that could make a person unpleasant. But we all have within ourselves the ability to overcome the circumstances of our childhood and/or unkind, even abusive, lovers. It isn’t easy, but it’s possible if one is willing to put in the work.

I think toxic adults (people in the 40+ bracket) are fueled by one thing: jealousy. They want what others have instead of appreciating what’s within their reach. Toxic people are never satisfied and feed off others’ misery. If they can’t be happy then no one else should experience joy. It’s the poor-me syndrome. Grown-ups whining and wincing, gossiping and sniping, when they should be in intensive therapy. Or at the very least, doing some serious self-reflection.

I’ve taught my kids that jealousy is a wasted emotion. It makes people bitter, resentful and cruel. To those who feel the need to tear others down, I share one piece of advice; life is long (knock wood) and in the end the only person you’re competing against is yourself. Choose love and acceptance. You’ll be a happier, more contented person.

Happiness doesn’t guarantee a life of ease, even for a cockeyed optimist like me. Grief has long tentacles and tightens its’ grip more often than I’d like (to put it mildly). There have been many days over the past year I’ve had to push myself to do the simplest things, like get out of bed and go to work, brush my hair and teeth, make dinner, wash the dishes, do the laundry. Vacuum. Dust (that’s the hardest for some reason). Grade the papers. Simply being present for the people in my life is a struggle on those occasions. Grief empties the vessel and drains my energy.

Yet even on those dark days, I believe better days are ahead, that this too shall pass.

There’s very little in this world we have total control over. I can’t control the weather or fix the state of our broken democracy. I can’t control other people’s behavior or words. I can’t make people fall in or out of love. I can’t control the aging process, wrinkles, menopause…the whole nine. But I can control what happens in my books. I can play ‘god’ and create characters who reflect the attributes of people in my life or aspects of my own personality. I can unleash the demons inside and change the trajectory of the story with the tap, tap, tap of my keyboard. It helps to know there’s always a place where I call the shots, even if it’s an imaginary world I’ve created out of thin air. A world that only comes to life for others once I’ve purged the story from my being, start to finish, in the form of a book.