Irony in the air: You say goodbye, and I say hello

There’s irony in the air tonight—at exactly the same moment that I’m saying goodbye to my grad school family, I’m saying hello to my high school family. This weekend is my ten-year high school class reunion. Thus I said my first goodbye to the Exeter Class of 2001 ten years ago, almost to the date. Looking back, I struggled with that goodbye as well. I remember being the sodden mess (the one I expected to be last night) the night of our senior party. I remember listening to that damn Vitamin C song about graduation and “friends forever” in my car every day of the summer and crying every time. I remember feeling like I’d never find another group of friends, that I’d never love anyone like I loved my classmates. And actually, pieces of that worry came true, I suppose…I did not and can never “replace” my high school friends. They are unique, and awesome, and the friendships that you make in high school—especially a tiny rural school like the one I went to, where most of us were together every day from kindergarten to senior year—are precious for a lifetime. However, continuing to love my high school friends did not have the catastrophic effect that I’d expected at the time: that I would never have other friends that meant as much to me. The truth is that I did make new friends, in time. I did find other places and other groups with which I belonged. I need to tuck that fact into my mind and let it breathe hope into me, because I’m struggling with the very same set of worries today, only this time it’s because my grad school friends are leaving. Ah, it’s funny how history repeats itself. It’s also funny how even when know we have changed and grown, in times of stress we default to the same old set of insecurities.

As recently as a few short months ago, I might have looked back and scoffed at myself for being so “dramatic” about the way I handled my high school ending. I would have probably thought something like, Oh, well, you’re just a lot better at emotional regulation now than you were ten years ago. Now, though, I’m not so sure that what I did back then was overly dramatic or “wrong” or “immature.” I was definitely not blunting any emotion or avoiding anything; I was merely feeling what I needed to feel in the moment and coping with that in the best way I knew how. I’m doing much the same thing now, in different ways. Is my emotional regulation or my coping any better or any worse now, really? I honestly don’t know the answer to that.

This all being said, what I’m ready for is a weekend of fun with my high school friends. I fully expect to cry at some point over the weekend; after all, we’re all going to have to say “goodbye” again at the end of it. (Have you figured out by now that I’m not very fond of endings?) But mostly, I expect to greet, eat, drink, dance, and be merry. I’m gonna see that irony in the air and laugh my way right through it.

The infinite hug

Tonight I said the “official” goodbye to my spoon—after tonight, she will no longer be a Lincolnite. In saying goodbye to her, as I discussed in an earlier post, I kind of also say goodbye to the peer group that has been my second family for the past several years. I feel mollified that we have several reunions slated for later this summer and in the fall, and some of these events are pretty much set in stone—i.e., our attendance is absolutely requisite. I like the formality of these events; it makes me feel certain that we will indeed all be back together again, and relatively soon. Still, though, it’s the end of an era. The gang is breaking up.

I thought I would more of a sodden mess tonight, honestly. I anticipated and patiently waited for the waterworks to come gushing forth. Our last stop of the night was a bar that we often frequented during our program. Near the end of the night I was spacing out, thinking about the various times we’d been together there. It hit me that it was entirely possible that we would never all be there together again, that this was the last time, this was it. I felt the familiar sting of salty water in my eyes as I stared into my drink. Then someone caught my attention to ask me a question, and the moment was gone. That was the closest I got to sodden tonight.

I think I’m protecting myself by not fully allowing myself to experience my sadness yet tonight. I feel like maybe that’s okay. I expect that it will come in fits and starts over the weeks and months to come. I will feel it when I hear a certain song and think about singing it (horribly off-key!) in Boston in a taxicab. I will feel it when I read something about help-seeking or men’s studies and want to talk about the theory behind it all in person. I will feel it when I roll my eyes at Karl Rove’s latest, when I watch Glee, or when I have a question about a kids’ ability to talk. I will feel it at times I don’t expect. I will feel it.

I actually feel it a little bit more now, now that I’m giving myself space to process all of this. My initial reaction: Ah, crap! My next reaction: ah, there you are, sadness. I’m so glad you are here. I've been waiting for you. You are a part of me and of being human and I need you right now. Welcome.

At the end of the night my spoon commented that when she hugs someone, she is never the first person to let go. She joked that if she ever got into a situation where the other person was also inclined to hold on, they could be stuck in an infinite hug. I liked the imagery that came into my mind; myself wrapped in a never-ending hug with her, and with all of them….not physically, of course, but spiritually. And so that is how I’m going to hold on to them as we all move forward: a picture of us all wrapped in an infinite hug that transcends time and space. This is by far the most comforting thought I’ve had today. Thank you, my friends, for giving me something to hold onto.

Sucking at life...and laundry

In 1969, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross proposed a five-pronged model of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Scholars have argued to the moon and back about whether her model is “scientific” and “empirically validatable,” and all of these things that scholars care about. Basically, what they want to know is: does her model actually fit the typical grieving process? Forty-two years later, the verdict is still out on that one. In spite of this, the verdict is in regarding the first four of my stages of grief: 1) denial, 2) overreliance on psychologically numbing agents and behaviors (this is the drinking stage, folks), 3) sublimation, 4) CRANKY, and 5) ?  

Tonight I’d like to talk about stage four, CRANKY, because that’s where I am tonight. I’m actually so cranky that I thought I was too cranky to blog, and wasn’t going to. I was going to put up my feet, continue on in my sixth reread of the Harry Potter series (an attempt at a lateral move to numbing, see step 2), and go to sleep early. I know this is actually what I should be doing, because part of the reason I’m CRANKY is because I’m tired. Tired+ me= no good, for anyone, least of all me (or maybe you, if you get the pleasure of seeing me on a day like today. You tell me). 

As I prepared to leave my world for Hogwarts, I saw the jeans strewn across my bed and sighed— they’re physically dirty and they were starting to have that “reworn one too many times” smell. I need them for tomorrow, and there’s no way I could possibly wear them again without offending someone, probably myself. So I hefted my damn jeans and my damn dress pants and some damn shirts downstairs to throw in the damn laundry.

I put a bunch of crap in the washer and dump in the detergent. Now, Jeb and I got ourselves this fancy new-fangled HE Washer & Dryer set last year. The washer has very specific places to deposit each washer agent—the detergent goes HERE and only here, the softener goes HERE, etc. Well, I’ll be damned if I didn’t put the detergent in the fabric softener hole. SHIT. The other fun thing is that there is no way to dump the stuff back out; the stuff holder is attached to the washer. So I’m tired, I’m super CRANKY, and now I’ve dumped the wrong fluid into the wrong damn hole (shame on you if you had a dirty thought after reading that line). 

I consider putting the softener into the detergent hole and starting the load up anyway, just to “see what happens.” I consider yelling at Jeb and getting him to fix this issue for me. We’re down to our last “serving” of detergent, so I don’t want to waste it by wiping it out with a cloth. What to do, what to do. Suddenly I get this flash from my undergrad freshman biology lab, where we had to breathe through straws to inflate a rat’s lungs. Second flash is the bendy straws that we keep in our kitchen to populate Evie’s spill-proof cups. Viola!

So how do I spend the next five minutes of my CRANKY night? Sucking damn laundry detergent out of the fabric softener hole and spitting it into the right hole. (I feel that by doing this I may have somehow bastardized my fancy washing machine.) On one suck I was careless and got a little detergent in my mouth. I rinsed thoroughly afterwards, but I still feel like I could open my mouth and bubble on demand.

I wish I could end this story with saying “And then the whole thing was so humorous looking back that all of my crankiness was gone! Rainbows and unicorns everywhere!!!” Nope. I’m still CRANKY as hell, and now I’ve got a nasty soapy mouth (and retainer. Yes, complete the image). When I opened up my computer to blog it was running slowly and I seriously wanted to punch it. 

And that, my friends, is all. I’m putting my CRANKY ass to bed. After Ron whisks Harry away from the Dursley’s in the flying car, mind you.

Emotional multitasking and saying goodbye to my spoon

I’ve always been a fan of multitasking. Given my current situation, it’s good that I have practice with this. In the kitchen I’m a whiz at having 3-4 different things going on at once—I strategically think about how to get everything done so that the meal components finish up at approximately the same time, and when I’m at my best, the kitchen is also clean when the meal is finished. The trick is that you have to shift your attention to each thing at the crucial moment—the noodles can boil in peace while you prepare the salad, but if you don’t monitor them enough to know to remove them at the right time, you end up with a pot of mush. And so forth.

So cooking can be an exercise in the purposeful shifting of one’s psychological presence to various tasks. This week I’m doing a lot of emotional cooking—that is, I’m emotionally multitasking. If you think about it, we all do this all the time, every day. We can’t pour our full emotional self and all of our awareness into just one thing at a time—we literally can’t. The epigenetically crafted cognitive machine encased in that hard round thing that sits on our shoulders doesn’t even allow us to do that. The ability to adapt our energies to fit with our situations comes naturally and without conscious effort to humans (after childhood), generally speaking. Granted, some situations will be more taxing than others. For me, this week is one of those difficult times.

I’ve got the issue of my father-in-law’s health on the backburner. He made it through one pivotal moment in surviving his surgery, and now, we just wait. In the meantime, I have other emotional tasks that I have to attend to. I shift my focus back and forth. I don’t want my noodles to turn to mush.

Today, much of my emotional energy has been focused on celebrating a friendship, and grieving her departure. This dear friend of mine moves away from Lincoln this week. We met when we started our graduate program together in 2007, and fortunately, allowed ourselves to become close to each other as well as others in the program. This person has been a game-changer in my life, and the lives of so many others.

I met with this friend today for one of our sacred-yet-infamous “deep talks.” We talked about the practical, the whimsical, the theoretical. We were both very honest about how we were feeling about this transition. We’re both feeling scared and a little vulnerable. We cried together. But we’re both hopeful about the future. And even though it really hurts to say goodbye, we feel we are better people for having grown this beautiful friendship, and plan to continue this friendship from a distance for a lifetime. We commend ourselves on being able to let ourselves be truly “known” to each other and to others in our program.

One thing about this friend is that she is what I like to call the “spoon” in our group of friends. The spoon is the person who is more or less at the center of the group; the person that everyone else gravitates towards. The spoon brings people together. (Side note: I picked up this whole “spoon” terminology at an earlier point in my life, and I don’t even really know what the original metaphor referred to. So she and I created our own meaning—we decided that the spoon “scoops everyone up”). Without the spoon, the group may have a hard time sustaining itself. If you’ve ever read Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, the spoon is a little bit like the Connector, only maybe on a less grand scale. You all know who the spoons are in your peer groups…think about it. It may even be you.

So my friend is moving away. And my peer group is losing its spoon. These facts do not negate the incredible sense of gratefulness and growth that I come away with having known her. But I still hurt. I’m just going to let this hurt for awhile. I’m just going to let it be, and wait for it to heal. This pain is like a sauce that’s got to simmer for a long time, because it’s only time that will reduce it.

I will have much more to say about my friends as the summer wears on—unfortunately, this is not the only loss I will weather this summer. The emotional multitasking will continue. I’ll probably leave the cake in the oven too long, or realize that I don’t have any yeast for the bread, or put in baking soda instead of baking powder in something. Hopefully I don’t get my hair caught in the mixer, but I’m not going to get this just right. I just hope to deal with all of it well enough—  well enough that in the end, I’ll have food to sustain me. Well enough that I’m still recognizable….and maybe even a little bit stronger for having lived it. Just well enough. 

Michael Scott: My inspiration

I realized today that those of you who aren't fans of The Office (or who possibly haven't seen every episode) might not understand my blog title. FYI, here is my inspiration. Also FYI, you need to start watching The Office. Religiously. Now. (At least catch reruns on syndication.) Doing so will enhance our friendship.

The man with 9 lives

My father-in-law came through surgery! This is excellent, heartwarming news. His doctors are stressing that the next few days are "critical" in terms of his overall prognosis. Thus one acute emotional upheaval is past, but now a slow burn begins. Please keep your positive thoughts with us!

In re-reading today's previous post on this subject, I realized that I might have painted Jim in hues that aren't quite true to the man he really is and has been throughout his life. If you at all got the sense of a frail, delicate person-- this is so wrong. If you ever met Jim, I think that "frail" and "delicate" would be two of the furthest things from your mind (and those of you that know him personally may be able to attest to this). While his health has been compromised in recent years, Jim has got to come from some of the hardiest stock on Earth. I'm not kidding. To prove this point, I wanted to write just a cursory list of what he has already survived in his 66 years of life:

1) Orphaned by biological parents before he turned three.

2) Extremely difficult childhood. I'm going to reserve details until I obtain Jim's permission to speak at will.

3) Dyslexia.

4) Stabbed in a bar fight.

5) A week in a Mexican prison (for peeing outside a bar).

6) During his gig as a penitentiary guard, broke up an inmate dispute in which the inmate attempted to use a shiv on him.

7) Heart attack in his early 50s. According to Margaret (his wife) and others, he had flatlined and was technically dead for quite some time (I have no idea how long "quite some time" might be)...and then all of the sudden, he wasn't. He lived to tell about it.

8) Quadruple bypass. Several years later, single bypass. Multiple stints, angioplasties, numerous other procedures (e.g., pacemaker and defibrillator installations).

9) Raising Paula and Jeb. No small feat-- being a parent never is. He is also a frequent caregiver to one or more of his eight grandkids. 

You  just can't make this stuff up. Well, I suppose you could, but I swear that I didn't-- these things all really happened. And this is a mere sampling of the myriad challenges and brushes with death that Jim has overcome. None of us should be surprised that he taking on cancer with both fists.

I hope to write up the story of Jim's life when he well enough to talk through it in detail. In my mind, his story is one that screams, "I am interesting! Write me down!" Jim seemed to think it was a good idea, too. :)

A case of the Mondays

I’ve definitely got a case of the Mondays. For once, though, I feel it is justified. I’m gearing up for what is potentially one of the more intense weeks of my life. Three (big) things are happening: 1) My father-in-law undergoes very serious surgery, 2) I say “farewell” to a few of the dearest friends I’ve ever had, and 3) my 10-year high school reunion. By the time Memorial Day rolls around, I anticipate that I will feel physically and emotionally drained.

 Today’s event is my father-in-law’s surgery. Three weeks ago we found out that he is having a recurrence of cancer. In 2009 he took on colon cancer and, after a painful and lengthy treatment and recovery, beat it. Then a couple of months ago some of his regular lab tests came back looking kind of funny, and after some poking around the doctors found a tumor in his liver. I guess the liver is hard to see well via medical imaging, because today’s surgery is both corrective and exploratory: they will remove as much as the tumor as possible, yet they’re also going to take a look in there and “see what they see” in terms of if the cancer is elsewhere.  As is my nature, I’ve done some research on the topic—via internet and talking with my cancer-savvy nurse-mom—and liver surgery is risky, per sé. What you also need to know about Jim is that he has diabetes and has for more than fifteen years struggled with his heart.  He’s had multiple bypass surgeries and also has a pacemaker AND a defibrillator in there, keeping him going. So today’s surgery is going to be pretty hard on Jim’s body. He’s a fighter if I ever saw one—this guy has an immense will to live. Yet I can’t help but feel worried— for Jim, and as such, for my husband and his/my whole family. Jim is under the knife as I write this. I think I speak for all of us when I say that we’d appreciate any prayers and/or positive vibes as we await results.

I will have more to say on the other two events as the week marches on.

Making my declaration

This week marks the beginning of my summer of endings. Yeah, yeah, I know it's also a "summer of beginnings" and all of that. Those who know me best know that I play the Pollyanna/silver lining card just about as often as I can get away with it. Yet in this instance I'm resisting the urge to make it "all okay," to blunt my pain with trite aphorisms about doors opening and opportunities abounding, blah blah blah. It's not that I'm being fatalistic-- I do believe that there is some pretty cool stuff on my horizon. It's just that I also need some time to bleed, to process all that's happening without a fake smile on my face. I need to grieve before I go blithely smiling into tomorrow.

I've been thinking of this era as an early mid-life crisis. I even threw myself an evening on the town with dear and trusted friends to commemorate this, and to epitomize this. At the time that I planned this gathering, I thought, "Okay, so I'll have this night, go a little crazy, and then the crisis will be over and I'll move on with my life! Problem solved!" Ah, my naiveté alarms even me sometimes. The truth is that the name (say it with me now...it's okay...CRISIS) fits, still. It's still happening. It come in waves. I don't lay around bemoaning my life and getting cookie crumbs in my bed and drinking myself into oblivion night after night. I haven't ran out and bought a hot car or signed myself up for plastic surgery.  I'm actually living my life pretty similarly to my pre-crisis life-- my family, my friends, my research job, my therapy job, my dissertation, my books, and--yes--Facebook. But I feel different. I introspect a great deal-- sometimes I'm so in my head that my body literally becomes a mobile receptacle which has the sole purpose of transporting my head from place to place. I think about the past. I think about the future. I think about the present. I think about my life and how it ties to other lives, and what it all means. I think about the choices I have made, am making, will make. Part of this is because I have the luxury of time for all of this introspection. And part of this is because I feel like I just have to do this right now.

I'm trying to find helpful ways to cope. Sometimes it feels more like grasping, but once in awhile, I grasp onto something good. Writing has been one of these incidental good discoveries of late. Writing and I, we go way back. I got my first diary when I was about 8 and became a semi-regular writer by the age of 10. In my tweenhood, I developed a habit of writing stories that depicted myself in lives that I wished I were living, rather than the one I was actually living. As a teen, I wrote letters to folks who I was mad at, or who I secretly loved, or felt some other strong emotion for-- with no intention of sending the letters. From my teenage years on out I've kept a sporadic journal. I used to chide myself on not being disciplined enough to write daily; now I see, however, that I write when I'm moved to write, and that's okay. My writing has to be inspired by some emotion per sé, or some event that I found to be meaningful (which of course evokes a powerful emotion), or some big idea (also imbued with emotion). Thus as I look back, I can see that I've always used writing as an outlet for emotion-- AKA, to cope. Yet in the mounds of required papers about theory and therapy and ethics and research methods, writing became a chore-- and it's now so easy to see why. Scholarly and technical writing--with the exception of special projects (such as reflection papers)-- are by their very nature devoid of emotion. Emotion isn't even really allowed. And while I can certainly write from a very intellectualized, "objective" position, I'm learning that it isn't my favorite. And anyway, that's work. This writing, the writing I've been spending hours and hours of my free time on lately, is for me. And that's love. It's coping in the best way that I know how. Sometimes I struggle in being true to my emotions in face-to-face situations. But I rarely if ever sugarcoat or minimize in the written word, the writing that's for me, nosiree. For me, it's a big deal to have a place to do that.

Something else that has been helpful-- reaching out. The times when I sought the solace, validation, and the loving arms of my family and friends have been among the most healing of my experiences.  I'm not gonna lie-- this whole reaching out thing actually isn't easy for me. I like to be able to do things myself; I've always been like that. Do you want to know why? When I ask for help, when I share my struggle, when I'm really, really honest with what's going on with me, then someone else gets to see how messed up and imperfect I really am. Though I like to (delusionally?) think I've come a long with in my battle with perfectionism, I am still really not down with people glimpsing what I perceive as the less desirable pieces of me. Sure, I'm now a little more okay with some of those external bits-- as in I am more okay with my personal appearance, house, office space, other outward expressions of myself being seen in their natural state (which is often in disarray!).  But the internal stuff? The confused, unsure, unhappy pieces on my inside that eat at me? The place I default to is: How dare I let that slip out. How dare I think about letting someone know that this crap exists in me. Everyone will know that I don't have it all together.

So, what I'm trying to achieve here is a marriage of the two coping skills that seem to have worked the best for me: writing, and reaching out. I need to use my writing to be honest with myself about all of this shit. And I need for you to see it, too, and do with it what you will. I guess I just need to let it all hang out, for better or for worse. 

As I sit here, I take a deep breath, just as someone who is about to make a big, loud announcement would. And now I'm channeling the spirit of Michael Scott as I say: "I....DECLARE....LIFE CRISIS!"