I'm doing better. I don't know if you can tell. Mental health is such an individual thing, I'm not sure if writing about my own issues is going to help anybody else. But it helps me, so here you go. This got a bit long. Save it for when you're in the mood.
As I told you last time we talked about this, my mental health issues are depression and paranoia. I think I will always be prone to them. It's like being headache-prone (which I also am). You can figure out the triggers, avoid behaviors that make things worse, and do your best to be healthy. But I'm always going to have headaches, and I'm probably always going to go through periods of depression and paranoia.
So understanding my "issues," and having the tools to deal with them and know when I'm headed into a spiral (of either headaches or depression), is only going to help.
I think part of what I've been going through is the longer-term adjustment to the empty nest. That kind of surprised me. MadMax left last week to start his senior year of college, so this isn't new. We've been empty nesters for three years now.
But there's the initial oh-my-god-my-children-have-moved-out part, which is hard enough but didn't last very long, and then apparently there is another longer adjustment that I am still navigating.
The first part, that wrenching feeling that you tore your right arm off and left it in that freshman dorm, is the more obvious one, the one everyone knows about, and it's not easy. But it's pretty fast. With each of our kids, by the time they'd been gone a couple of months, we were getting used to it.
And then there's Phase Two, which I was not expecting. Why should there be a longer term adjustment? I'm plenty busy. I'm involved in a lot of things in our community. It's not like my life revolved around my children.
But you know-- it did revolve around my children. I was never a helicopter mom, but having kids in the house was the organizing principle of my schedule from 1990 to 2016. That's a lot of years.
Apparently there is a longer term adjustment that I'm still figuring out. When you're a parent, you have obvious significance, even if it's just localized to your kids. You are that child's parent. You are needed. Even when they're 17 or 18, you keep at least some track of where they are, their dentist appointments, their parent-teacher night, their band concerts.
It's going too far to say it gives your life meaning, but it does mean that you've got a certain number of default things that can only be done by you, even if it's just paying attention and being there when they need you. There's a certain amount of purpose involved in that.
And figuring out what is going to take the place of that has been a longer process than getting over missing my kids. Whom I still miss, of course. It's not like you stop missing them, but you get used to it.
So, that's part of what's been going on. Another part of it is still related to something we've talked about before, which is that feeling that this is not the life I thought I was going to have. I guess it's regret, to put it plainly.
That has been a really tough one for me. I didn't think I was going to end up at age 58, living in a rural area with only a string of part-time jobs on my resume and no professional accomplishments.
This is embarrassing to admit, because it makes me sound like such a whiner. I have a hard time even typing it out without surrounding it with snarkiness because I know I sound like a spoiled brat. I am so blessed, so privileged. But the struggle is real, as they say, and pretending like it's not there doesn't help.
My adult life has been so contrary to the way we think these days-- if your life isn't going the way you want it to, change it. Get a new job. Move. Get a divorce. Have an affair. Join a commune. Take art classes, do yoga, change it up, make your life into what you want.
We believe we have agency, the power to make our lives into whatever we want. We believe what the individual wants should be, at least to some extent, more important than family or community ties.
But I couldn't do the life that I had mapped out in my head and have my husband, my children, and my integrity. I can run back through the decisions we made every time we decided to stay here and not move somewhere with more job opportunities for me (which we considered multiple times over the years), and even in hindsight, I would make the same decisions over again. At every stage, I made the decision that was the "right" one for me/us at the time.
It just was never the decision I would have made if I'd been single and childless and unattached. I kept deferring what I wanted to do, thinking someday my turn would come. But then I hit fifty, and I ran slam up against the realization that some of the things I had really wanted to do were not going to happen. Not helped any by the people I could see around me who at least appear to have it all-- family, career, living in the location of their dreams.
Then I had a conversation this summer that has really helped (beyond what we've talked about before, which is realizing how damn lucky I am). I had dinner with one of my college roommates a couple of months ago, the first time I'd seen her in thirty-five years.
I was talking through a brief version of this issue with her over dinner, the decisions I had made that weren't always the ones that I wanted to make. And she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, you made those decisions according to your values. You made exactly the decisions you wanted to, because those are the things you value.
It's one of those ideas that was interesting at the time, but later, it bloomed in my head. It's re-framed the way I think about the past and let me begin to be able to forgive myself for (supposedly) not being "strong enough" to "create the life I wanted."
I've been so angry at myself for not following through on all the things I felt like I should have done, all the accomplishments I should have under my belt. (I should have just put my foot down and demanded that we move!) But I was strong enough to make the decisions that deep-down were the ones that I felt were right for our family. And that's something I can live with.
Refusing to forgive leads to bitterness and hardened anger, even if the person I can't forgive is myself. I'm working on extending grace to myself for not being the person that I thought I would be. I don't think I'm quite there yet, but the more I work on it, the easier it gets. Work in progress.
There's another piece to this, but this has already gone on long enough. More later.
Showing posts with label empty nest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label empty nest. Show all posts
Friday, September 6, 2019
Tuesday, June 26, 2018
yup, that nest is still empty
I halfway feel like I should apologize for that sad-panda post on Thursday, but you know what? It really helps. Writing stuff out and posting it works for me in a way that journaling does not. It helps me think things through, and it helps to see how people respond to it. So I guess occasionally you'll have to put up with it. Thank you. I feel better.
It occurred to me over the weekend that part of what I'm going through (still) is the long-term adjustment to being an empty nester. The short-term part of it, the month or two after each kid went off to college where I missed them intensely, was over pretty quickly. But the long-term transition away from devoting a signiticant portion of my time, energy, and attention to keeping track of their schedules and their school's events and their friends and their laundry and everything else-- I think I might still be working my way through that.
My kids were pretty independent even when they were still living at home. They managed their own homework and by the time they were seniors, they were driving themselves around. We didn't really see them all that much. But still there was always a part of me that was aware of what they were doing, when they'd be home, if they'd had dinner, when was the band concert, etc. Having all that energy back again is great (really great), but there's also a bit of a vacuum. Having a job for awhile filled the gap, but now I'm not working and I guess I'm back to figuring this out again.
Another aspect: I've been thinking about the distinction between being an introvert (someone who recharges via alone time) and being a lone wolf (someone who prefers to work alone). I am definitely an introvert, as I've told you ad nauseum, but I'm not a lone wolf. (I don't know enough about this to know if being a lone wolf is a subset of introverts, or if you can be an extrovert lone wolf??)
At work, I prefer to be part of a team. In fact, my perfect job situation would be to have my own office and yet still be part of a team that meets regularly and accomplishes work together, bouncing ideas off each other, vetting each other's work before it goes live/public/whatever, talking through things that aren't working, etc. I was lucky that for about six months that's exactly what this last job was. But then we moved into cubicles. If you have to work in a cubicle, as one of my colleagues still does, you have my utmost sympathy.
So it occurs to me that another part of the adjustment I've been going through recently has been the loss of my colleagues at work. I spent a year working every day as part of a team, so I'm not just missing the structure and the feeling of accomplishment you get from a paying job, I'm missing the feeling of being a member of a group. And since I'm an introvert, that's not something I can easily replace. I need to brainstorm some ideas on this. (Maybe starting with not grumping at my friends who want to be supportive when I'm feeling down. Just sayin.)
Remember awhile ago I told you that I am an Enneagram number 5? Fives are the observer type, and for observers, it can be hard, really hard, to push through the veil of observation to become a particpant in whatever's happening around you. Being part of a team at work makes this easier, because it just happens. You show up at work and boom! you're part of a team. But it's not so easy to make it happen on my own.
So, as always, work in progress.
It occurred to me over the weekend that part of what I'm going through (still) is the long-term adjustment to being an empty nester. The short-term part of it, the month or two after each kid went off to college where I missed them intensely, was over pretty quickly. But the long-term transition away from devoting a signiticant portion of my time, energy, and attention to keeping track of their schedules and their school's events and their friends and their laundry and everything else-- I think I might still be working my way through that.
My kids were pretty independent even when they were still living at home. They managed their own homework and by the time they were seniors, they were driving themselves around. We didn't really see them all that much. But still there was always a part of me that was aware of what they were doing, when they'd be home, if they'd had dinner, when was the band concert, etc. Having all that energy back again is great (really great), but there's also a bit of a vacuum. Having a job for awhile filled the gap, but now I'm not working and I guess I'm back to figuring this out again.
Another aspect: I've been thinking about the distinction between being an introvert (someone who recharges via alone time) and being a lone wolf (someone who prefers to work alone). I am definitely an introvert, as I've told you ad nauseum, but I'm not a lone wolf. (I don't know enough about this to know if being a lone wolf is a subset of introverts, or if you can be an extrovert lone wolf??)
At work, I prefer to be part of a team. In fact, my perfect job situation would be to have my own office and yet still be part of a team that meets regularly and accomplishes work together, bouncing ideas off each other, vetting each other's work before it goes live/public/whatever, talking through things that aren't working, etc. I was lucky that for about six months that's exactly what this last job was. But then we moved into cubicles. If you have to work in a cubicle, as one of my colleagues still does, you have my utmost sympathy.
So it occurs to me that another part of the adjustment I've been going through recently has been the loss of my colleagues at work. I spent a year working every day as part of a team, so I'm not just missing the structure and the feeling of accomplishment you get from a paying job, I'm missing the feeling of being a member of a group. And since I'm an introvert, that's not something I can easily replace. I need to brainstorm some ideas on this. (Maybe starting with not grumping at my friends who want to be supportive when I'm feeling down. Just sayin.)
Remember awhile ago I told you that I am an Enneagram number 5? Fives are the observer type, and for observers, it can be hard, really hard, to push through the veil of observation to become a particpant in whatever's happening around you. Being part of a team at work makes this easier, because it just happens. You show up at work and boom! you're part of a team. But it's not so easy to make it happen on my own.
So, as always, work in progress.
Friday, June 8, 2018
7ToF: mid-life aches and pains. Also what I learned from podcasts this week.
I added an email signup over there on the right side so you can type in your email address and receive posts in your inbox as they are published. Thank you for being interested, person-who-asked-for-it!
1. Fair warning: I am bad about editing and re-publishing my posts, so if you sign up, they may show up in your inbox more than once. All I can say is that I'm better about it than I used to be. (Originally this was followed by a long discussion about self-editing and the pros and cons of writing snobbery, but it was way too long so I'm moving it to a later post.)
2. A friend of mine who has young kids looked at me with panic in her eyes when she told me she had read my post about de-cluttering. For the record, the kind of decluttering project I'm doing right now probably wouldn't be possible with kids around--and is way less necessary, anyway. You've only got ten? twelve? years of stuff, not thirty-four. It's an empty nester project. I probably should have said that in the original post. When I had young kids, I was lucky to make a sweep of unwearable clothes and broken toys every year or two. Don't panic.
3. Dean and I were on one of our evening walks this week and the topic of aging came up. You spend your whole life knowing intuitively that you get older every day (and for the first half of your life you're really excited about that!!). We all know from our parents and grandparents and popular culture that getting old involves aching joints, less refreshing sleep, wrinkles, and an endless series of tiny indignities. But still, in spite of knowing this practically from birth, we are both frequently surprised and personally outraged as each new sign of age appears. And then, every time I adjust to the new normal, it gets worse. *grimace emoji* Aging is not for sissies.
4. I have a friend who told me once that Aleve worked as well for her as codeine, so I went out and bought some that day. But you know what? Aleve does nothing for me. And I bought the Costco size bottle. So since I had that big jug of Aleve, I've started taking one Advil and one Aleve when my particular ouch-y spots flare up, instead of my usual one Advil. The combination works better than either one of them alone.
Full disclosure: Dean, the medical professional, says-- with a barely suppressed eye roll-- that's because you're taking two painkillers instead of one. You be the judge.
5. Also, arnica. May God bless the person who discovered arnica with an unending rain of blessings (seems likely that it was an Indian or a wise woman, since *clears throat* unnamed medical professionals are skeptical). I hesitate to even say this-- because the surest way I know to experience one of the signs of aging is to smugly note to myself that at least I don't have that yet-- but so far my knees are good. *knocks on wood* But when I do something a bit out of my normal level of athletic activity, they ache, and arnica clears it right up. What works for your aches and pains? Am I the only one thinking of trying copper?
6. I Heard It On a Podcast #1: From the 10% Happier Podcast, episode #133 with Catherine Price. Before you figure out how to eliminate the negative side of obsessive phone use, it's a good idea to figure out what positive things you want from your phone. Back in Jan/Feb when I was trying to dial back my phone usage, I spent lots of time figuring out what I could eliminate, but I never did the opposite: what do I want my phone to do for me? This seems worth some time. Texting-- the #1 benefit of my phone. GPS. Information like weather, movie times, business phone numbers and addresses. What else?
7. I Heard It On a Podcast #2: From The One You Feed, episode #224 with Cheri Huber. Everybody gets stuck in a downward sprial of negative thinking occasionally, and it gets worse when we're stressed. I'm the worst person ever. I'm such a failure. We've been endlessly told that the solution is to think positively! But unfortunately that usually means saying things we don't believe: I'm awesome! I'm amazing! I can do this!
Really what we should be doing is telling ourselves things that are true: I love my family. I have good intentions. I care about the outcome of this situation. Even silly things like I love the color blue. Music makes me happy. Whatever you can tell yourself that you know to be true can break the cycle of negative falsehoods, because --I'll let you in on a secret here-- none of us is really the worst human being ever.
p.s. Cheri Huber, who must be a genius to have come up with this, actually recommends recording yourself saying the true things so that you can play it back when you're down and hear your own voice telling you true, positive things. I'm not sure I'm quite brave enough, but I'll try it if you'll try it. We all have voice recorders on our phones, I guess.
Have a great weekend.
1. Fair warning: I am bad about editing and re-publishing my posts, so if you sign up, they may show up in your inbox more than once. All I can say is that I'm better about it than I used to be. (Originally this was followed by a long discussion about self-editing and the pros and cons of writing snobbery, but it was way too long so I'm moving it to a later post.)
2. A friend of mine who has young kids looked at me with panic in her eyes when she told me she had read my post about de-cluttering. For the record, the kind of decluttering project I'm doing right now probably wouldn't be possible with kids around--and is way less necessary, anyway. You've only got ten? twelve? years of stuff, not thirty-four. It's an empty nester project. I probably should have said that in the original post. When I had young kids, I was lucky to make a sweep of unwearable clothes and broken toys every year or two. Don't panic.
3. Dean and I were on one of our evening walks this week and the topic of aging came up. You spend your whole life knowing intuitively that you get older every day (and for the first half of your life you're really excited about that!!). We all know from our parents and grandparents and popular culture that getting old involves aching joints, less refreshing sleep, wrinkles, and an endless series of tiny indignities. But still, in spite of knowing this practically from birth, we are both frequently surprised and personally outraged as each new sign of age appears. And then, every time I adjust to the new normal, it gets worse. *grimace emoji* Aging is not for sissies.
4. I have a friend who told me once that Aleve worked as well for her as codeine, so I went out and bought some that day. But you know what? Aleve does nothing for me. And I bought the Costco size bottle. So since I had that big jug of Aleve, I've started taking one Advil and one Aleve when my particular ouch-y spots flare up, instead of my usual one Advil. The combination works better than either one of them alone.
Full disclosure: Dean, the medical professional, says-- with a barely suppressed eye roll-- that's because you're taking two painkillers instead of one. You be the judge.
5. Also, arnica. May God bless the person who discovered arnica with an unending rain of blessings (seems likely that it was an Indian or a wise woman, since *clears throat* unnamed medical professionals are skeptical). I hesitate to even say this-- because the surest way I know to experience one of the signs of aging is to smugly note to myself that at least I don't have that yet-- but so far my knees are good. *knocks on wood* But when I do something a bit out of my normal level of athletic activity, they ache, and arnica clears it right up. What works for your aches and pains? Am I the only one thinking of trying copper?
6. I Heard It On a Podcast #1: From the 10% Happier Podcast, episode #133 with Catherine Price. Before you figure out how to eliminate the negative side of obsessive phone use, it's a good idea to figure out what positive things you want from your phone. Back in Jan/Feb when I was trying to dial back my phone usage, I spent lots of time figuring out what I could eliminate, but I never did the opposite: what do I want my phone to do for me? This seems worth some time. Texting-- the #1 benefit of my phone. GPS. Information like weather, movie times, business phone numbers and addresses. What else?
7. I Heard It On a Podcast #2: From The One You Feed, episode #224 with Cheri Huber. Everybody gets stuck in a downward sprial of negative thinking occasionally, and it gets worse when we're stressed. I'm the worst person ever. I'm such a failure. We've been endlessly told that the solution is to think positively! But unfortunately that usually means saying things we don't believe: I'm awesome! I'm amazing! I can do this!
Really what we should be doing is telling ourselves things that are true: I love my family. I have good intentions. I care about the outcome of this situation. Even silly things like I love the color blue. Music makes me happy. Whatever you can tell yourself that you know to be true can break the cycle of negative falsehoods, because --I'll let you in on a secret here-- none of us is really the worst human being ever.
p.s. Cheri Huber, who must be a genius to have come up with this, actually recommends recording yourself saying the true things so that you can play it back when you're down and hear your own voice telling you true, positive things. I'm not sure I'm quite brave enough, but I'll try it if you'll try it. We all have voice recorders on our phones, I guess.
Have a great weekend.
Friday, September 2, 2016
7ToF: the bird has flown the coop
1. I was a sobbing mess while we were packing up MadMax's stuff. It was ridiculous. Even for a devoted mom, it was excessive. I managed to do it mostly in private and not in front of poor Max, but still. I put the T in INTJ, you know. I hate emotional messiness. Ugh.
2. But you know what? The actual drop-off wasn't that bad-- I mean, in terms of me holding it together. There's so much excitement, and the school he chose did a great job of making 3,000+ freshmen and their families feel welcomed and cared for. Once he gets things figured out he's going to be fine. And I'm positive that he's going to miss his dog more than he misses us.
3. Now that we're back home, I think I'm having an easier time adjusting than Dean is. Dean and MadMax share many of the same interests, so he lost one of his best buds. On the other hand, I'm discovering that having MadMax out of the house means that there's considerably less laundry, and "his" bathroom (the only bathroom on the main floor of our house) stays clean. Not that I cleaned it all that often, mind you, but I don't have to walk in there after an adult has used it and realize that I let an unarmed, unwarned innocent go into an oversized petri dish. I think I'm already through the worst of it. Plus, we text just about every day and he's already called once. We'll be fine.
4. Random observation of the week: Chickens don't like bell peppers. Who knew?
5. I don't think I have any male readers at the moment so let's talk shopping. Is there anything worse than bra shopping? (as I type that, I realize that yes, there is, and it's swimsuit shopping. But bra shopping is still pretty bad.) With all my weight gain and loss and gain and loss over the past few years, my bras have been through the wringer. I've had bra expanders and gotten rid of them and adjusted them up and down. My bras--all of which were at least six years old, and some more like eight--were in tatters. But still I resisted, because UGH.
6. Then I saw a flyer from our local dept store about their annual INTIMATES sale, and practically on impulse I found myself pulling into their parking lot. I'm not gonna lie, it was still awful. There is no amount of intimate engineering, shall we say, that is going to make me look good nekkid, and there's no avoiding looking at yourself in the mirror while you're trying on bras. I tried on at least half a dozen before I found one I liked. But I persevered, and I ended up with three. Finally bra makers must be actually listening to what women want, because once I waded through the ones I didn't like to get to the ones I did, these are the most comfortable bras I've ever worn. If you haven't bought new bras recently, give it a go.
7. I bought the book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking (by Susan Cain) not long after it came out, just to be supportive since I am a pretty major introvert. But I never got around to reading it because I thought I knew everything I need to know about being an introvert. But then I heard the author speak on a podcast (more about that nother time), and decided I should actually read what she had to say. I am loving it. I don't always agree with her, but overall it has been one helpful insight after another. I'm probably the last introvert to read this book, but if you are and you haven't, you definitely should. Great book, fascinating stuff.
SO now that I've done FIVE "seven things" posts in a row, I will try to do something else next time. But probably not next week since I'm going to Seattle. Woot! Road trip!! If you've heard a terrific audiobook recently, let me know!
2. But you know what? The actual drop-off wasn't that bad-- I mean, in terms of me holding it together. There's so much excitement, and the school he chose did a great job of making 3,000+ freshmen and their families feel welcomed and cared for. Once he gets things figured out he's going to be fine. And I'm positive that he's going to miss his dog more than he misses us.
3. Now that we're back home, I think I'm having an easier time adjusting than Dean is. Dean and MadMax share many of the same interests, so he lost one of his best buds. On the other hand, I'm discovering that having MadMax out of the house means that there's considerably less laundry, and "his" bathroom (the only bathroom on the main floor of our house) stays clean. Not that I cleaned it all that often, mind you, but I don't have to walk in there after an adult has used it and realize that I let an unarmed, unwarned innocent go into an oversized petri dish. I think I'm already through the worst of it. Plus, we text just about every day and he's already called once. We'll be fine.
4. Random observation of the week: Chickens don't like bell peppers. Who knew?
5. I don't think I have any male readers at the moment so let's talk shopping. Is there anything worse than bra shopping? (as I type that, I realize that yes, there is, and it's swimsuit shopping. But bra shopping is still pretty bad.) With all my weight gain and loss and gain and loss over the past few years, my bras have been through the wringer. I've had bra expanders and gotten rid of them and adjusted them up and down. My bras--all of which were at least six years old, and some more like eight--were in tatters. But still I resisted, because UGH.
6. Then I saw a flyer from our local dept store about their annual INTIMATES sale, and practically on impulse I found myself pulling into their parking lot. I'm not gonna lie, it was still awful. There is no amount of intimate engineering, shall we say, that is going to make me look good nekkid, and there's no avoiding looking at yourself in the mirror while you're trying on bras. I tried on at least half a dozen before I found one I liked. But I persevered, and I ended up with three. Finally bra makers must be actually listening to what women want, because once I waded through the ones I didn't like to get to the ones I did, these are the most comfortable bras I've ever worn. If you haven't bought new bras recently, give it a go.
7. I bought the book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking (by Susan Cain) not long after it came out, just to be supportive since I am a pretty major introvert. But I never got around to reading it because I thought I knew everything I need to know about being an introvert. But then I heard the author speak on a podcast (more about that nother time), and decided I should actually read what she had to say. I am loving it. I don't always agree with her, but overall it has been one helpful insight after another. I'm probably the last introvert to read this book, but if you are and you haven't, you definitely should. Great book, fascinating stuff.
SO now that I've done FIVE "seven things" posts in a row, I will try to do something else next time. But probably not next week since I'm going to Seattle. Woot! Road trip!! If you've heard a terrific audiobook recently, let me know!