Connecting with Others

Just spent the week with a visit from my mother. We always have such interesting conversations. We talked about all sorts of things, ourselves, the grand children, cousins, and so on.

It is always so hard for me to say goodbye to my mother when she leaves. I feel a sense of mourning when she leaves and it rips me up a bit each time. I love her so much and feel such a kinship with her. I can talk to her about just about everything and she'll listen and even understand! What a deal.

So I'm grateful for our fab visit and a little low now that it is over. But like all feelings, this sadness will pass, and happiness will come in the anticipation of our next meeting this summer, with hopes for more connection and fun to come.

Speaking of connection, I'm feeling pretty connected to my improv class. It's nice to have a group of people interested in the same things as me. It's been such a long time since I've done something that was wholly my own.

I wish there could be more connection at home. Everyone is deep into their screens and their alternate realities. I crave connection at home. I guess I just have to keep looking and whenever there's a window of opportunity for connection, to take it. 

This whole screen culture is a tricky business.

Whether the Weather

The sun is shining and that brings me hope, even while two days ago it snowed gigantic, fluffy flakes. I'm determined for it to be spring. The calendar must not lie! It's spring now, full stop. Why is it still cold? I persevere in spite of the cold if only to catch a few rays of the temperamental sun that comes and goes here as it pleases.

I've noticed that most of my female friends and acquaintances are quite stressed out these days. In fact, I seem the least stressed out of all of us, and that's saying something! Everyone seems irritable and anxious and angst-filled. Partly, I blame this on the weather. But perhaps it is something more.

Perhaps it is mid life crises, or chemical imbalances, or just a rough patch. It's easy to blame the weather for everything. I do believe it has a huge impact on one's mood, so it's a player in terms of how it influences people. But it's not always JUST weather. 

Why are so many women I care about unhappy? What does that say about our society? About our priorities? About life?

I don't know.

Adjustments

Still feeling mostly good and more engaged with life. I feel like I'm coming out of isolation, which is kind of true. Mental illness, especially depression, can cause a self-imposed exile.

I'm organizing my volunteer teaching for this semester for one day only. It will be a busy day, but since I'm there, I might as well jump, (jump!). This will help test my resilience and ability to show perseverance. I mean, if I want to someday work at this school (I do) then I need to be able to show that I can at least do two hours of teaching in a row! Granted, what I do is more performance than anything, but I'm hoping to shift that so that it's more guided by the kids' energy as opposed to mine. I'm not spending a long time prepping because this is casual and low key. I need to keep it that way.

I realize I am getting a bit grandiose when I think about taking the next improv class and teaching at my kids' school. I'm a dreamer, but I also know I'm not going to just sit home and collect dust for the rest of my life. I need action and connection. Don't we all.

So I'm watching my inner gyroscope to see where it needs adjustment. Doing this blog is one way for me to slow down and process what's going on in my life and in the present moment. Improv is actually very Buddhist. You are in the moment and you accept what you get, without aversion or struggling to escape. I hadn't made that connection before.

As Keanu Reeves says, Whoa.

Looking Up

The data of my past month shows me that I am consistently doing much better. So much so, in fact, that we are coming to the "What's next?" conversation. My husband and I need to have that, and we kind of started it this past weekend.

I know of a few places I could look to work at, mainly places I've worked before. But I want to be sure I'm not throwing myself out of the frying pan and into the fire. I feel burned by the blow-out that happened to me last year.

But I need to remember that there are many differences between me now and me then:

-I'm differently medicated
-I have great therapy
-I know myself a lot better with the new diagnosis
-My attitude is positive
-I'll only look for part time work for the future
-Am doing part time volunteering now which is satisfying and not stressful

It's hard for me to tell if I should try to take a very different direction from the one I was going. I feel at my best when I'm in a classroom, regardless of the age of the students. And I am limited to school year hours because it is simply too expensive and stressful and unrealistic to try to cover nearly 12 weeks of child care for my own children while I work somewhere.

I'm even thinking about subbing again, which I haven't thought about for ages. I do have some ambivalence there, but frankly I have ambivalence about just about everything right now. I feel too old to start over and I just got my degree, and I want to use it. Just not full time with two year olds. That's the take home.

So I'll start sniffing around with NO COMMITMENT at this time, just testing the waters, and see what happens. Just getting back to volunteering has lightened my spirits. I think it will soon be time to start talking to people, seeing what makes sense and what's feasible.

Baby steps. (I hate that expression but it's quite appropriate in this context.)

Drop by drop.

Letting Things Be

Now that we are in weather that allows for some degree (ha) of playing outside, we're confronted with the social challenges that a street full of kids engenders.

There have been politics and hurt feelings, but those fences are mended now.

What I need to do is back off and not be a helicopter parent. When my son said he was going over to a neighbor's house, one resident of which had caused him emotional harm in the past, he said, "I'm not the same sensitive boy I was. I can handle him." Wow.

So it makes me happy to see both of my children outside and playing and dealing with the real world. I reminded my son and daughter, you don't have to best friends to play with somebody, and if someone isn't nice, you don't have to hang out with them. 

And similarly, my kids are of an age when they don't need me hovering around them. They are bright, capable, sensitive kids (in spite of what my sons declares) who can determine if they are in an uncomfortable situation and if so, how to extricate themselves from it.

I need to chillax. The kids are fine. I need to let them be.

Mindful Methods

So I'm reading "How to Train a Wild Elephant" and it's really interesting. You're supposed to focus on one chapter a week, which means adopting one mindful activity per week. Being the ever-zealous type, I've fast-tracked this process and am kind of working on several at once. They're really cool and kind of fun, too.

For example, the author suggests that you pay attention to your hands for a day (or a week), and notice how much they do for us that we barely notice. They are magical appendages, when you think about the things they can do. And we rarely think about them.

The latest challenge I'm on is to write down ten things you're grateful for each day. I've tried but not sustained such efforts in the past, but I will do it on my phone because I have the "Gratitude" app, which periodically chirps at me and reminds me to be thankful for all that I have. So I'll make my list on those, starting tonight.

I think the gratitude list will come to me easily. I'm feeling pretty grateful for my life right now, and for the people in it.

My writer friend told me about a call for written pieces on mental illness for an anthology, which has me wondering, if I wrote an essay about my experiences, what would I say? Where would I begin? Something for me to think about. Stay tuned.

Just Show Up

My improv class went really well. I realized that I am very rusty and that my thinking is slowed down significantly since I was sick for so long. I feel as though I've been tinkering with an old car in the garage--I've been up on concrete blocks for over a year, and now I've actually got wheels on the car so I can go places. Holy shit, start the car!

The improv teacher is very cool, funny and nice. As are the people in the class, it seems. I had to concentrate more for those two hours than I have in ages. We had a lot of laughs and I can tell I am going to learn a lot from the class. In the entrance lobby there was a chalkboard with the message "You are ENOUGH". This is my kinda place! How Buddhist.

I hadn't known how this class would be, and this caused anxiety/excitement. Apparently there is much more to improv than I had, in my mild hubris, thought. I assumed that with two degrees in Theatre and a current job teaching improv to little kids that I might be "too advanced" for the beginner's class. Ha! Hardly.

There is long form and short form, not just what I called regular improv. There is musical improv and there is a format of performance called a "Harold" which can be the basic structure of an entire series of live or pre-written performances. Wow. 

So there is PLENTY I don't know, and I am glad to have "beginner's mind" again. It is fun to be doing something new and outside the house and just for my self-expression and happiness. It is turning Sunday afternoons into anticipated times, as opposed to dead air times.

So I am showing up, and I'm doing what others are doing, and they don't know what I've been through, and I don't have to tell them, and I don't know their details and they don't have to tell me. It's a clean slate, taking a class full of perfect strangers. I am going to learn a lot about these people, and, I'm sure, myself.

I just need to show up.

Saying Yes

I'm excited/nervous today because I have my first improv class. It's improv for beginners, because in spite of my years of professional performance experience in improv. I haven't touched that stuff in over fifteen years. Will it be like riding a bike, in feeling natural even after all of this time has passed, or will it feel new? I'm trying to enter with Beginner's Mind and not Hubris Head.

There's a great book called "Improv Wisdom" which I love and have gifted as well as received. It applies improv rules to daily life. It's very Buddhist in its "say yes to the present moment" tenets.

I hope to find a place of community at this class. But I want to be realistic: this is not going to be life altering, it just feels huge because it's the first big thing I've done on my own in over a year. No pressure. (Ha!)

So stay tuned for stories from Improvland. I'll be doing my best to stay in the moment, and in this moment, I am going to finish up here and go take a run to find my center, which I need to be balanced.

Drop by Drop

It's weird to feel so good these days. It just goes to show how long it's been since I've felt even remotely "normal" or at my baseline for contentment. It is almost shocking to me that I don't feel despair and crippling anxiety. The anxious person in me is waiting for the other shoe to drop, but I think it already dropped, last year, right around this time of year, in fact.

And this year, at this time, I am on my way up from the abyss. Spring is coming, I'm taking good care of my kids, I'm trying to give my husband a break since he is working so much, and I'm taking care of myself, too.

I guess this relates to Buddhism in that quote "A jug fills drop by drop." Little things make a difference over the long haul. I have been slowly chipping away at my insecurities and issues and I'm coming up with an adult I can be proud to call myself.

In the same vein as the above quote, I've started doing little things every morning to keep the house tidy. If I spend five minutes in every room in the house, it's amazing how much nicer everything looks. And I'm reading "How to Train a Wild Elephant" and it's full of these great exercises, one of which is "Leave no trace." You're to leave no evidence that you've visited a room--bathroom, kitchen, whatever. And then the next challenge is "Leave the room better than when you came in." I really like that philosophy. I'm feeling very spring cleany so this goes a ways to inspire me.

Off to do more puttering.

Choice and Change

It's been awhile. Lots of stuff going on on the emotional level. Investigating mental health care options for my son as well as managing my own. I've come to the conclusion that I like this whole being an adult thing. In the past I have spent too much time acting like a child when it would have made life easier if I had taken a more mature route.

I'm not saying everything I did sucked because I'm a big fat baby. But at times, I've given away my autonomy at the cost of my maturity. I've always done things because other people want me to do them. And I'm not so sure that's how to live a happy, healthy life. It isn't healthy to have "the disease to please" to the extent I do. And many others I know, too.

This is not to say that input from others holds no value. Naturally different people have different concepts of you, which may or may not overlap with your own self concept.

I'm just learning to notice my feelings more and the fact that I am making choices even when I think I'm not. Everything is a choice. And I am the only one who can make choices for myself, ultimately.

This feels like a big discovery to me. Where the hell have I been all these years?