How to Build Resilience to Depression

I wrote this piece for the local newspaper!

As we’ve attempted to settle into post-pandemic life, the mental health crisis continues to rage. According to a review by Boston University School of Public Health, rates of depression in the United States have risen from 9 percent, pre-pandemic, to 33 percent in 2021. 

With depression affecting one in three people, odds are you know someone, or you are someone who is suffering with depression. Here are a few principles that have been shown to help build resilience to and aid recovery from depression.

Aliveness instead of happiness. Andrew Solomon wrote, “The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality….” Depression is a sense of internal deadening. Cultivating a sense of aliveness means building our ability to be present with the full spectrum of emotion. You can get started with this practice by thinking of the last time you felt fully alive and engaged in a moment. Maybe it was getting into the wintery ocean, or being in deep conversation with a close friend. Now think about a time when you chose to numb a feeling, maybe with food, alcohol, TV, sex or staying overly busy. For many of us, the numbing behavior is our default and aliveness must practiced.

Pay attention. However one chooses to do this (meditation, prayer, journaling, daily reflection, etc.), the act of noticing and processing the events of our day, leads to an increased sense of well-being. Regularly seeing a talk-therapist is a guided practice in paying attention. Whether you decide to seek a professional guide or start something on your own, paying attention to the experience of your life is key. 

Be curious. Curiosity, as a mindset and skill, might be the most useful tool in mental health recovery. If depression is deadening, curiosity provides an opening through which light can enter. There is a lot of pressure in our current culture to optimize every aspect of our day. But, instead of self-flagellating over missing a day of exercise or numbing with one of our vices, the practice of curiosity allows us to notice our shortcomings with compassion. Curiosity doesn’t condemn. It asks Why?, and How? and looks into our internal life with wonder.

My Wish For 2023

Last Fall I read My Side of the Mountain to River. It’s a novel about a boy who leaves the city to make a home in the woods on the site of his great-great grandfather’s failed farm. He builds a shelter by burning out the trunk of a great hemlock tree and he steals a baby falcon from its nest and trains it to hunt for him, though the companionship it provides seems infinitely more valuable. I don’t know how the story ends. River lost interest and we moved onto another book. But I think about the little boy on nights like tonight as the snow is piling up in great mounds around our warm house and the wind is heaving it here and there while I sit next to sleeping, fevering River on a queen-sized bed. There is a beauty to this moment that matches the tick-tick-tick of gently falling snow on a hemlock tree. 

I subscribe to Meg Conley’s SubStack newsletter, titled, “Homeculture.” She writes passionate and artful essays about women, home, money and care. She was recently banned from Twitter after she published a piece entitled, “This is a rant about beds at work” criticizing Twitter (and Elon Musk) for installing bedrooms for employees, encouraging them to work too late to go home.  She writes, “The consequences at an individual level are staggering, but this extends well beyond each employee to partners, children, roommates, even pets. It matters when a person is pulled from our lives.”

The rendering of the bedroom/office, which she quips, looks like an “IKEA showroom behind a 2022 Iron Curtain,” feels immediately eerie to me. It’s a corporate jail cell. And to what end? What exactly are we building and for whom?

I believe this is a question worth consideration as we set New Year’s resolutions and intentions. To what is my life a tribute? 

Those who know me, know I struggle to sit idle. If I have the TV on in the evening, it’s for the pleasant hum of its company more than the repose of entertainment. Rest days are my worst days. I need them every now and then but I still haven’t figured out how to rest without ending up in a mini-ditch of depression by the end of the day. So this is not a treatise for idleness. I like work. I like creating. I find great meaning in all of it. 

I’m not sure what my most meaningful work will be at the end of my life. What will “people” remember me for? What will my people remember me for? Oprah teaches that our most meaningful legacy will be the lives we touch, because we have no idea how our influence will fan out into the universe though those lives. 

I have this one very meaningful life lying next to me asleep. I must admit I am wrapped up in him. He is the one thing that pulls me away from my work (work being the other ways I hope to influence the world). My work life is wrapped around his schedule so I can do school pick up and drop off as often as possible. I cooked German pancakes for him daily this fall because first grade has been hard for him, and I wanted him to have the extra protein to get through his day. He is the one being in my life I know most intimately and yet he feels strange to me at times. He’s always changing, always coming home with something new to learn about or iron out or build up. 

What will the world be like for him? Does an Elon-Musk-work-cell await him? Surely not. This boy—who loves the mountains and dinosaurs and chemistry and Christmas—he will be a park ranger or an environmental scientist someday. He, just like me, needs air and curiosity and love to breathe.

Who is John Gault? This secret phrase is uttered between the titans of industry and the disenfranchised in Ayn Rand’s influential novel, Atlas Shrugged. John Gault, who begins as an enigmatic representation of “good-values” productivity, ends up being an actual person who has abandoned the world to its destruction and created his own society of like-minded individuals in a hidden location in Colorado. His created city is a sort of promise-land bunker for the few who are depicted as truly capable of supporting themselves in his closed society.  

When I was a 20-something, going to PA school, preparing for a life of meaningful productivity and taxes, I identified with the John Gault dream. At the time I was married to a man who listened constantly to the incessant ranting of conservative talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Michael Savage. I was naive, and I took their salacious fear-mongering to heart. I felt I needed protection—me!—a middle class white woman (arguably the most protected of peoples). The only thing I needed protection from was the patriarchy which fuels these mens’ hatred and lines their pockets.

When I became a mother I changed. I started to notice the toll that fear took on my soul. To believe that everyone around me was trying to take what was mine—to see the masses as indolent and lazy and evil—it was bitter and foul and the more I tasted it the more I knew I had to spit it out.

Maybe this is why we need mothers now more than ever. We need mothers to step out of their kitchens, minivans, daycare centers, therapy offices, true-crime binges, yoga retreats and corporate ladder-climbs and enter the public discourse. Mothers see that our world is a mother. The same gravity that magically keeps us bound to her surface, binds us together. Our very molecules are in constant relationship to each other through electric and gravitational pull. There is no bunker, no secret city in Colorado, no private hemlock in the woods that can sever these connections. We cannot abandon each other. 

This is not a call to action for women with children. It’s a call for all of us to reconnect with the part of ourselves that knows nurture, that sees the commonalities between us and feels connected to how much we need one another.

Mothers are the ones who can see this much more palatable, even sweet, truth: People are good. We are good. I am good. You are good. We are good inside. The things we ache for are the same things they ache for, and the same things that boy from My Side of the Mountain ached for: air, curiosity, and love. We want freedom to be with those we love, to do something we feel matters, and a sense that the world is open to us.

This is my wish for 2023: That we see the humanity in our fellow humans. That we embrace love over fear. That we stop putting our faith in the fear-monger. That, together, we be free. 

Can we talk about kindergarten?!

R started Kindergarten at the end of August. I did not know what to expect, but here are my observations so far:

1. Disclosure. Having to do family court about school start probably infinitely increases the stress level around it.
2. Benefits of being a Californian. Yes! We pay higher taxes, but in California, there are no school supply lists, every student gets a lunch for free if they want it, and they also get sent home with a sack of food. I love this because I know there are kids in my community that need that food. It also takes some of the pressure off of me. I’ve been packing lunches for R since he was one year old so it feels like a great luxury to drop him off knowing he has food—it’s there, it’s done. End. Of. Story.
3. School shopping. So school shopping consisted of three new Star Wars t-shirts, a BB8 backpack and a storm trooper lunch box (really not needed because of item #2 on this list—but I send it with him so he can put his leftovers in it). I love that he picked a good guy backpack and a bad guy lunch box, with no help from me. We are honoring the light and the shadow in this strange, little family! [See I’m the Bad Guy].
4. Making friends…and other things. On that note, in week two I learned R already had a “friend” and an “enemy.” These were his words. When we talked about the enemy, he explained how the boy was mean to him and then he was mean back, and back and forth. I offered that he could interrupt the cycle by being nice, to which he responded, “Nah, Mom. We’ve got this.” And so it begins….
5. Hands to yourself! This is the main feedback we’ve received from R’s teacher. I think this is developmentally appropriate, but I have no idea. Honestly, that’s the main thing I have learned from Kindergarten—I know almost nothing. 
6. Other parents. I moved into this neighborhood at the beginning of the covid shutdown, so we haven’t got to know neighbor kids at the same pace we might have otherwise. (That being said, I’m also increasingly introverted the older I get so that’s not to say that we would have met anyone anyway.) But the other parents are an enigma to me. Probably because I think of them that way—OTHER—an overwhelming mass of humans I have to navigate through to get the child to the gate for drop off and pickup. 
7. Other parents, part two. One thing I don’t understand! Other parents, once having navigated the insane parking, the masking, the backpacking, the walking (this all after the morning quarrels over breakfast and clothes and teeth brushing with the kindergartner, the dog AND myself)—they reach the finish line of having deposited said child, either with a hug or tears or a gentle, loving shove through the gate, and their impulse is to stand and watch the children through the fence, like a zoo exhibition. They want to remain in that space. I do not understand this. My impulse, actually my mind/body/spirit mandate is to escape that scene as quickly as I can without screaming or crying or knocking over children as I sprint in the direction of my poorly parked car. This is the main hurdle for me making friends with the other parents. I cannot even see them when I’m in that state. They are part of the mass. Part of the hive mind that might actually consume me before I get to work.
8. Other parents, part three. I’ve had three weeks of practice with this scene now and I’m just starting to soften into it a little. I noticed a woman who lives on the next block, someone we met on a walk during quarantine, with a fellow kindergartener. I noticed her and I spoke with her. I think I appeared mostly human during the interaction. I count this as a huge victory. And I think that’s the strategy I will continue to take. Try to notice one human per drop off/pick up. One bite at a time eats the elephant.
9. The emails. OMG, the emails. I got R registered for school the Friday before school start so I don’t even know what emails I missed before that time, but on the Sunday night before school started, I found myself simultaneously annoyed that I had to read several giant emails pertaining to school, AND that I didn’t already know the information contained in the emails. For this reason, I immediately understood the quandary of school officials. Every parent wants different levels of detailed information—and they don’t want to read the damn emails. I will say—adding the sender to my address book has made receiving the emails a little easier, because I’m pretty sure I missed several because they were going to my spam or promotions inbox. Pro tips left and right here!
10. After school activities. We have the good fortune of attending a school that offers after school care and after school activities, like soccer, chess, gardening, Spanish. Cool, right!? These are available for a small fee. Because of family court and our late registration, the after school care was already full by the time I was able to sign up for it. Okay, I can flex my work schedule to make that work. Then I learned about the individual classes listed above. R wanted to do chess and soccer. Great! It’s something fun for him to be involved in and meet other kids. It also gives me a little more flexibility with work. Well, three days after signups appeared, soccer is full. I went through the spiral of inadequate mom shame for a day or so. And then set my eyes doggedly on the chess club. We don’t play chess. I did watch The Queen’s Gambit, so that’s my one leg up on my 5-year-old in the chess world…but he adorably insists he will learn and then teach me and his dad to play. So I have been checking the chess club website daily. Incessantly. I have emailed them twice through the “Contact Us” form, asking about said chess club. They have politely responded within 24 hours. It now appears chess club is being pushed back to October, (but October is soon, people!) I am living in constant fear that the sign up will appear and fill up in the 24 hour period between my checks of the website. I have developed a twitch in my left eye from the stress of this. [I just checked the site again as I’m writing this…still not up. Eye twitch]
11. Homework. We don’t even have this yet. Supposed to start in October. God, help me. That’s all I have to say. 
12. The bright side.After all this recognition of the hard (let’s not call it complaining!), I have to say, I LOVE this age. I have heard other parents say this along my parenting journey. I have had moments of motherhood that have been absolutely delicious—of course! But I think this is the first time I have seen an evolution in my child’s development and thought, This is beyond cute—this is really fun! He is more independent now. He fixes his own hair in the morning. He builds legos without my help. But my absolute favorite thing is how he talks to me. We have great conversations. Not like, Oh, you’re a cute kid, but actual, real conversations about the fun things and the hard things. I love knowing what he is thinking. I love watching this little person unfold before my eyes. So I’m here for it. Even as this list grows into sports practice and science projects and homecoming dances and driver’s ed. I’m here for it all. 

If you need to find me, I’ll be the one running from the drop off gate.

From the ashes -> Contentment

I just finished listening to a Tara Brach podcast about contentment. And it brought me back to this question I’ve been asking myself for several years, How do I relax and enjoy my life?

It’s an enigma, right? And I think it’s compounded by social media where it feels like everyone is doing just that. Totally nailing it. 

Take Tieghan, with Half Baked Harvest. Her recipes are amazing. She lives in some picturesque corner of Colorado (recipe book is conspicuously missing those famous Rocky Mountain High Brownies, so I’ll stop you right there if you thought she was THAT kind of Colorado cook) and shoots all of her photos and demonstrations in a monstrously beautiful kitchen. Damn, that girl has something figured out that I don’t. And she’s completely self made. No training. Just a killer instinct for food and bev. 

Or take Kate Hudson who is getting serious about working out for the first time since the baby. And she is putting out beautiful family photos and videos of intensely sexy workouts [I have yet to try the one where she balances a shoe on one foot with the leg is extended while performing a completely log roll…and I have no excuse because the equipment is literally leg and shoe]. Meanwhile, I’m in my comfy Snoopy jammies while she’s posed with a fancy bottle of vodka downing cool little drinks poolside with friends. Am I surprised I’m not as glam as Goldie Haun’s daughter?!

In the meantime we run into this ever-present crossroads of, Do I embrace eating or exercise or neither?… because the two kind of conflict. Actually, I remember when I realized this. I was almost 30 and I had spent the better part of my 20s dialing my domestic skills, including cooking and baking. I was working at the Idaho state mental hospital and I realized, after a cold winter’s mild weight gain (Seriously cold! The water in the toilet froze one Sunday and I had to run the oven, which was a convenient three feet from the toilet in our strange shack, just to thaw it!) that I was spending all of my time in this cycle: 

It might have been my first step toward awakening because I remember thinking to myself, There has GOT to be a better way!

Then in my 30s I sort of went the other way. I separated from my ex-husband and started weight training. [Highly recommend that, incidentally. It was a very helpful practice to show myself I was strong as I was taking on something so scary.]

So I was weight training and eating basically whatever I wanted, which meant I was gaining weight because exercise has a way of making bodies hungry! I liked the muscles, but was thinking, I CANNOT be getting divorced AND large at the same time! So I got into this keto diet and it was super effective, in part because I had this great layer of muscle built up, but also because I realized how much emotion I was buffering with food. 

And when your comfort item is a veggie or can of salmon, it becomes very, very dark, very, very quickly.

This was a mixed blessing. I did end up with a weird relationship to food, but I also got a lot better at listening to my body. I developed this ability to stop eating when my body said “full!” To taste the first bite of cake and then realize only a few were needed because only a few were really enjoyable. It required me to get really present with my body and subsequently my feelings.

It was also during that time I began to feel like a raw nerve. I wrote this post: Floating Like A Rabid Ghost, titled after a line from Cheryl Strayed’s Tiny Beautiful Things. It’s interesting because, of all the things I’ve written, that’s one that gets frequent search engine hits, likely because I quoted Strayed. But I’ve received some really beautiful feedback from readers who were going through their own rabid-ghost phase. 

So back to the raw nerve! In PA school we learned what a deglove injury is. It’s basically what you would imagine, the skin pulled from a person’s hand like a glove. And that was the image that kept coming to mind. 

I felt EVERYTHING. 

Deeply. 

Intensely. 

It was like I had been walking around in a sumo suit for my entire life and finally took it off. I felt freer, but it was also terrifying and So. Damn. Loud. [in my head].

It was during this period I started asking myself that question, How do I just relax and enjoy my life?

I felt like I was messing something up because I couldn’t. Life was not that enjoyable. The days were hard and they started so early because the nights were hard too! I would wake up early and on the days when I didn’t have R, I would walk the neighborhood in the pre-dawn light because the bed became so unfriendly.

I remember feeling like I had to change something and so I tried. I tried lots of things. And I tried lots of NEW things because I felt like the OLD things had gotten me to this point of great suffering. 

And people might have looked at this new life, however it appeared on social media, and thought I was killing it. Interesting job. Cool hobbies. Fit body. Cute kid. 

Those things were all true. And I was incredibly brave during those months and years. I earned massive chops on adulting and life. A lot of that is documented in the pages of this blog, though I still cringe about some of the things I’ve written, the way I’ve handled some things, the way I launched myself into things that didn’t work out.  

But maybe that cringe is exactly what we need to focus on here.

That cringe is what kept me from writing all through my 20s. I had this sense that I might change my mind about some things. I might learn something that would then make my previous writing a record of my past stupidity. And how could l tolerate that kind of legacy!? 

If I’m being honest (which is my current life’s work), I also had a sense that I was living in a manner that wasn’t true to me and when that’s the case, you kind of always worry you will be found out. And then people will know you are a fraud. I still carry this worry to some degree. It’s my fragile ego, that thinks I need more letters behind my name and more money in the bank before I can attempt to create anything that might be useful to anyone, anywhere. 

And this question!—What if it turns out I am completely ridiculous!?! 

Yikes! I might be! 

I might completely mess this life up. Like what if I get to the other side and realize that I should have kept all those Mormon covenants? What if I get addicted to alcohol or shopping? What if I feel like I’ve got the weight thing figured out and then get fat? What if I write a blog and no one reads it? What if I tell people I want to write a book and then I never finish or it never gets it published? How will I LIVE with myself!?!

Last year I went to family court to try to get my kid enrolled in transitional kindergarten at my neighborhood school. I started the process before any of us knew what covid would be and in retrospect that might have played a role in this failure. But I went into that hearing and lost custody time with my son. 

I lost. 

Family court never wants ANYONE to feel like a winner, so I got a FEW things changed that improved my schedule, but I lost. And I walked out of there feeling all the feelings you would guess. 

I actually fail at lots of things. I failed at refinishing my kitchen cabinets. For this reason, they have never had doors, as long as I’ve lived here. So far I’ve failed at talking my five year old out of right-wing conservative politics (election years are really difficult in this family!). I don’t save money as quickly as I want to. My car hasn’t been vacuumed in months. I gave up on cleaning my own house and now pay a wonderful, god-sent woman to do it for me. I kill plants on a regular basis. I broke an heirloom pick axe earlier this summer. 

But seriously. I fail in relationships. I say the wrong thing. I judge people. I am unkind to myself. 

And THIS is where contentment lives. I guess it HAS to because I keep failing and I don’t see an end to that.  

Contentment is acceptance. Tara Brach defined it as a state of needing nothing and pushing nothing away. I love that, particularly because so often I am pushing things away more than I am needing. Her advice was to make a practice of noticing the moments, when nothing is needed and nothing is being pushed away. And her promise was, by noticing those moments, we would build a gravitational pull to bring them near more often.  

I love that. 

We tend to fear that if we let go of the wanting or the pushing away, we never improve. We will fester and engorge ourselves or languish and die. 

Maybe some people will. I can’t speak for everyone on this. 

But, for me, I’m into this experiment—> What if I trust in my own goodness? What if I believe I have a good compass inside of me and it will tell me where to go and what to do, but also when to rest or when nothing will help? 

I believe this is an inner goodness we are all born with. It gets muddied and covered over by life. By trauma. By socialization. And, so far, every little fleck of it I pick off reveals that inner goodness.

Shhhh…let’s listen to her for a minute. 

She knows. 

She knows when to push. 

She knows when to fight.

To write.

To love.

To relax.

To enjoy.

The whole ball of wax that is 

Life.

The One Where She Starts Online Dating...Again

I’ve been dating to one extent or another since about 18 months after my ex and I separated. I naively stepped up to the plate thinking that I was basically a good wife and I should be able to find a suitable husband replacement fairly easily. People told me my most difficult job would be sifting through the suitors because I was “such a catch.” Professional, fit, kind, beautiful, blah, blah, blah. 

I started out going on some blind dates with friends of friends. These were okay but didn’t give me sparks, and while that was true, I still felt rejected when there weren’t follow-up dates, texts or phone calls. I was still practicing Mormonism then and Mormon men are decidedly not into dating not-quite-divorced women. This was frustrating because the road from separation to divorce was long (almost 3 years) and I felt divorced in my heart. So the Mormon dudes were either uninteresting to me or they seemed like such microcosms of catastrophe that I was terrified to chance a second date. 

Then I started online dating on a few apps. I remember spending time writing, what I felt was, a compelling profile, and then realizing I was WAY over the character limit. They want a few sentences, not a few paragraphs. So I edited that down and put up some photos. I tried to be honest but I also didn’t know myself all that well yet. 

And there were some dates. Most of the men I’ve met online have been decent and kind, from what I could tell. Of course, there were some exceptions.

I had one guy, a doctor (why are so many doctors creeps!?), just ahead of our first meet up, ask me if I was “a submissive.” Had to google that. It was what I thought. I cancelled the date. Felt like we would be off on a weird foot. 

I saw one man who described himself as “ammosexual” as in ammunition. Yikes! 

I ventured to go on a date with a man who was 14 inches taller than me. He was handsome enough, but as I suspected, I felt like Mike Wazowski paling around with Sully in the North Park bars. This guy also worked in sales and after droning on about himself for at least one beer, I tried to help him ask a question about me by offering that my job in psychiatry often feels like sales, because I’m trying get buy-in from patients on taking medications they need but sometimes don’t want. To this, he responded, Oh! I could teach you a lot about sales. [Insert face palm emoji.]

I had meaningless flings, though I figured out I wasn’t very good at that. Maybe it’s the psychiatrist in me, or maybe it’s the level of authenticity I try to approach life with, but I’ve found that men will talk to me. Like real talk. There was the Brazilian bus boy who was handsome and fit. He had all the makings for a romance novel but his back story was full of tragedy and disappointment. I simply could not use him even if he was okay with using me.

Another who emphatically admired the “beautiful life” I created but ultimately preferred to keep his mask intact rather than join the mess of a real relationship.

And the fireman who couldn’t keep up the ruse. He was deeply sad inside. Firefighting gave his life purpose, but he still didn’t believe he was worthy without the uniform. And life is strange because one day he told me he performed a trench cut (a rarely-used technique in firefighting) on a strip mall fire. I saw that strip mall days later and realized it was where another man had taken me months before to sing at a Korean karaoke joint. The place was destroyed…metaphor?

I think that’s the thing about dating. It’s not a straight line. It is very much a web. Each interaction forms a new thread, connecting one strand to the next in a zig-zag or circular pattern. For most of my experience, it has been indistinguishable which direction things were going. Even in my longer relationships, I was riddled with questions and misgivings. Is this what it's supposed to feel like!?

Just tonight I was listening to Oprah talk to women about their “emotional style.” The segment opened with women responding casually to how they would react if their spouse forgot a birthday or Valentine’s.  Women talked about silent treatment and hint dropping. Quiet resentment. I’ve been in those rooms. I’ve been that woman. 

My marriage was traditional. Man wears pants. Woman’s “power” is in how she can influence (manipulate) her man. It’s covert and inherently dishonest. I sort of always assume I will be good at things, so when I was married I assumed I was good at that game. But when I look back, I see now that we both lost. I lost because I completely lost mySELF. And my ex lost because he never got to know me. I carry some of the blame for the stupid game, but he does too because he didn’t want to know me. He wanted a fulfillment of what he thought a wife should be. 

Aye.

The Oprah conversation left me wondering, how does anyone find anyone at this stage of life?

It’s like I know too much. I know marriage doesn’t solve all problems. I know that loneliness thrives inside and outside of that institution. I know that people have lives secret from their spouse. They bring the baggage from childhood, the last relationship, all the relationships. And what’s funny is that if they had no baggage, that would be even scarier—because, if that’s the case, what kind of Truman Show life have you been living for the last 30+ years!?!

And yet, I still believe in magic. 

Despite all odds. 

I still hope to find my lobster. 

I knew I needed to end my break from dating this summer when, after a gynecologist appointment (which, incidentally was immediately followed by a covid quarantine, so YOU read between the lines), I announced to my sister that I might be falling for my gynecologist. “I need to figure out how to take this off MyChart!” I joked with her. [Luckily, I slept on it and realized that if this guy did go for my advances, then what kind of skeesy gyn was I choosing to date!?!….This is waaayyyy TMI, Michelle. Reel it in!]

So I find myself dating again.

After my last relationship attempt failed. I put an update on my dating app profile (which I must say has improved dramatically since those dark and confusing early days). 

[Note: The days can STILL be dark and confusing. Dating is like walking around a cave without a flashlight—actually that’s a really good metaphor! You have to trust what you feel. There are lots of groping styles. It’s painful and confusing and it reeeeaaally feels like there’s gotta be a better way to do this.]

My most popular dating profile pic--it's a few years old but I still look basically the same...right? Maybe I should photoshop in a few more wrinkles.

My new profile is darn effective though. 

I’ve got some active photos, but not too active. (If my family didn’t live in such granola-eating, Subaru-driving parts of the country, then I would have far less photos in such outdoorsy habitats.) I’ve got a full body shot. Not too much boobs, but not no boobs. I kept my descriptions casual and breezy but included several entry points for conversation. This was all before the revamp! And it was working pretty good. 

But one of the things you have to know about dating apps, is everyone on there has multiple things going on. Every one is complicated. I know that’s a complete generalization, but this is a helpful way to think about it because dating apps can feel like a lot of rejection happening fast. 

There are times when you think an interaction is going well, and then it drops off, suddenly. If you’ve met the person, I would classify this a ghosting and not cool. But if you haven’t met and you haven’t been messaging constantly, it’s probably an inbounds move. 

I’ve decided, that when that happens, it just means that another piece shifted into place for them. They don’t need my possibility anymore right now. That’s it. Getting to this point has relieved me a of a lot of bad feelings about dating apps. 

I’ve learned to assume the best about people when they don’t pick me (at least when they are enigma speaking from the great beyond of the internet). There is a Maya Angelou quote, “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.” 

Sometimes that’s just not interested or not available. 

Sometimes it’s, I dislike myself so much I won’t let anyone get close to me. 

Sometimes it’s, I’m a huge asshole who works on commercial ships and thinks because you put a poem about how you have perfect breasts on your dating profile, I’m entitled to some proof, even though we’ve never met and I’m probably lying on my couch smelling of fish guts and motor oil eating a greasy burrito. 

[Woah—that got specific! And you wrote what poem about perfect breasts?]

Oh, that’s my secret weapon, actually. I wrote a poem about how I have perfect breasts, and when I told my therapist that I didn’t think it was fit for publication on my blog or social media, she suggested I use it in my dating profile. 

I got my money’s worth from that session, because that thing is gold! Since it’s addition, I always get a response. Of course that’s an exaggeration, but it’s not FAR from the truth. Very effective little piece of marketing, that poem is.… 

Okay, you’re getting lots of information here and it’s probably prompting you to pull out a highlighter for all of these fabulous, modern dating tips, so let me try to rein it in for you—dating apps are a lead generator. That’s it. Of course some of your leads are unqualified! Some of them will choose not to purchase and some of them will get told to, “Fuck off,” by your complaint department.

And while I can get emotional about pretty much anything, I really try to keep emotion out of the dating apps. It’s not a popularity contest, it’s a marketing contest. My goal is to generate qualified leads, some of which will progress to the next round of vetting. And if swiping has taught me anything, it’s that there are a lot of different shoes out there,  and supposedly every shoe has a mate. [Like even a Jesus shoe—this man was literally dressed as Jesus…I’m still so confused!]

This brings me to the next phase. The first meet up. Since Covid, sometimes this happens via FaceTime. I actually didn’t find that too bothersome. It was lower pressure. I mean, you have to worry about camera angles and lighting, but not how you smell or what pants you have on.  

More commonly, it’s a face to face meetup, where first move is to act cool while you are waiting for a person you’ve only seen photos of and try to look incredible at all times and angles in case he sees you first. 

Most guys here want to meet for a drink, I’m guessing because it’s cheaper than dinner. Also, easy to exit if it’s not going well. And, you have a little libation lubrication for the conversation. [Yikes! Could there be a grosser way to say alcohol loosens you up!]

Bottom line, I think this is totally fine. I get that investment in a fully planned first date has a cost that may not yield benefit. Still, bars are not a great option for alcoholics, but good news for alcoholics comes next—>

It IS impressive when a guy goes all in on a first date! All in within reason anyway. My favorite first date, hands down, was stand up paddle boarding on Mission Bay. It was a day date which, for me, feels a little friendlier. You get to check out each other’s physique in a non-creepy way. You’re doing something active, but you can also talk. Plus you’ve got the option to proceed to lunch or dinner afterward, assuming both parties are feeling it. But if it’s not going well you can part ways, still having done something fun in the sun!

What comes after the first meeting, I don’t completely understand. Really. Like, any of it. The subsequent dates, the texting, the progress of the physical relationship. I’ve walked the road a few times, but I could not tell you how it should go. 

And it’s all the stuff I was talking about earlier that makes it terrifying. At first you’re just trying to rule out if he’s a sociopath or a narcissist or someone who thinks it would be cool to live in van. 

There’s the things you never thought to ask about too, like was he raised in a nudist colony or a have a wife who also wants to hook up with you, and how do you feel about dating a bisexual man? Wow! I thought I was pretty woke, but being in the actual scene really brings it home. 

And when you think you’ve worked through the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns, then you have to decide if you’re going to let this person know where you live. Where you work? Who your friends are? It takes an enormous amount of faith to let someone in like that when you’ve seen what I’ve seen. 

And strangely enough, even after working with parolees and probationers, even after hearing the wildest things from patients, and my co-residents of Walmart parking lots across the nation when I slept in a car for three months (that’s a story for another time and place), I have this curse where I tend to see people as potential. It’s like this freakishly optimistic lens. 

But this, too, is where that Maya Angelou quote comes in handy, “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.” This has been hard-won but, I am getting better at believing the person over the potential. I like to see what a man spends his time on, because, ultimately, this is what he desires. And very little will separate a man from his desires, at least the kind of men I have experienced.

So as I embark on another round of swiping and first dates, let me remind myself what I am looking for: 

1. Someone who is kind to me. 
2. Someone who is honest.
3. Someone who likes to do some of the same things as me. 
4. Someone who wants the important same things as me.
5. Someone who realizes that people grow and change and is interested in the journey of growing and changing together.
6. Holds all the space for complexity and contradiction that exists in me. 
7. Smoking hot bod. 
8. Not a picky eater. 
9. Does not want to live in a car. 
10. Cheers me on while I run in the direction of my dreams and lets me do the same for him.

That’s a starting place, at least.

And a reminder that dating in your 30s, when almost all of your friends are married, makes you a sort of exotic creature, where everyone both hates the idea and loves it at the same time. SO if you’re with me, doing this crazy rigamarole to try to find some future partner or at least a little companionship along the way, remember this:

All that comes after this part of life is more moments, more days, more feelings, more life. And that’s if we are lucky enough to persist here for a little while longer. All that romantic relationships remedy is the idea, in our mind, that we should be in one. The rest is a gamble, a ride. I like the idea of the ride, so I’m going to keep looking, but I know that life is already here happening every day. And it’s deep, and rich and beautiful right now.   

Covid sucks. Can we turn it off?

In June I found my self saying over and over again, “I just need a minute to myself.” So this last week has been some strange karmic joke or the answer to prayer or maybe just a symbol of how in touch with the universe I really am. 

Because I got covid. 

Everyone wants to know, Where did you get it from? 

And I have no idea. 

I did just go to my 20-year high school reunion. I traveled on an airplane. I went to work for a couple of days before my symptoms hit. I even had an initial negative covid test.

At first I thought I just had a regular cold. It progressed from the mild sore throat, to the stuffy head, to the mild cough as expected. I did the second covid test at the end of the weekend just to assuage my own conscience that I was safe to go back to work, because I basically felt fine. 

But the second test annoyingly came back positive. So I got an urgent care video visit appointment and a drive up PCR test to confirm. Yep. It was right. 

I decided to work from home because I basically felt fine and the prospect of being alone in my house for ten days straight with nothing to do but putter around felt overwhelming. 

But also, I was like, Okay! I can work on the book and make art and catch up on my filing (who has personal filing to do in 2021?!?!…I can’t explain myself, but I do….) and garden and build the playhouse and wash my car and do the laundry….[list goes on in perpetuity].

And I did some of that. I rested and I didn’t rest. I felt bad that I couldn’t go surfing when the weather and the water was so nice. I talked to almost everyone I know on the phone. I finished binge watching Peaky Blinders. I even had a board meeting with all the parts of myself and took notes and then read them to my sister! (Slowly slipping into madness...or sanity? You decide.)

I reflected on my repeated request in June for some time to myself. And I tried to *enjoy* it. And you know? I have to give myself credit because, if this would have happened a year ago, or even more so two or three years ago, I would have been A WRECK. 

You see, R has been on vacation this month and away from me. And as much as mom’s get overworked and underpaid, it’s HARD to be away from that kid. Especially at home. Especially when I have not a lot to focus on. 

So I’m giving myself a round of applause as I have decidedly NOT been a wreck. 

I am, however, now ten days in, sicker than when this whole thing began. I wonder if what I had a week ago was a regular cold and what I am experiencing now is the dreaded corona virus. Don’t get me wrong! I’m not on a ventilator. And I still managed to shower today (one of the highlights in quarantine life). But I feel like garbage and everyone should feel sorry for me. (Gifts are welcome!)

But also, maybe this is my first taste of what real quarantine has been like for the regular customer out there. I work in healthcare so I was essential from day one. I’ve been leaving my house regularly. I’ve been seeing people other than those I live with. In some ways, life didn’t change much for me. (If this is the case, then I should be sending gifts to you! Because that was a loooong time and I remember the ugly, frantic energy at the grocery store and Lowe’s well enough to know, that if that was the only social interaction, then that was pretty bleak.)

So I’m not just posting to complain for myself and all of us... 

Or maybe I am. 

This is tough. I’m vaccinated. And it’s still tough. The numbers are spiking. I saw a meme yesterday that said, “We’re gonna have to retire the expression, 'Avoid it like the plague,' because it turns out humans do not do that.” Sort of reminds me of the Jerry Seinfeld bit about helmet laws—how you are making a law to protect a head that is already functioning so poorly it is not trying to protect itself.

And I’m hesitating to publish this because I know and love people who are choosing not to be vaccinated. And I’ve ridden a motorcycle without a helmet!

But here it is. One gal’s opinion. 

Covid sucks. Can we turn it off?

[Not pictured: Covid that is now in my left eye...why the eyes!?! Damn you, viral conjunctivitis!]

How To Attend Your 20-Year High School Reunion:

(In 38 EASY steps…because that's about how old you will be when you need this guide!)

1. Graduate high school.
2. Go to college and learn that you might have been too big for your britches. Let the bitches get you down. Aim sights a little lower. 
3. Get married before you age out of the college dating pool. (Yikes! Mormon women become old maids at 21?!?)
4. Learn you’ve got five tumors and five years to live. (How did that Tim McGraw song go again? Sky diving, bull riding?!? No thanks!…and what’s a Fu Manchu?)
5. Keep living. Get confused. 
   • (You: I’m not dead!
   • Cart-master: 'Ere!  'E says 'e's not dead!
   • Man: Yes he is.
   • You:     I'm not!
   • Cart-master: 'E isn't?
   • Man: Well... he will be soon-- he's very ill...
   • You:     I'm getting better!
   • Man: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment…
   • You: I feel happy!)
6. Go to grad school to have health insurance to pay for the tumors that aren’t showing up to kill you. 
7. Work. Wash dishes. Grocery shop. Cook. Exercise to burn off the calories. Repeat for three or four years. 
8. Run a half marathon. (Because that’s what medical professionals do when life isn’t complicated enough—duh!) 
9. Have a baby. (Because that’s what married people do when life isn’t complicated enough.)
10. One hundred tiny steps make you realize that your marriage is leaching your essence. Look into your baby’s eyes and know that you must end it, for him.  
11. Realize YOU can actually live YOUR life for YOU. Start doing it. 
12. Start a journal. (Start being honest with yourself.) 
13. Start a blog. (Start being honest with others.)
14. Spend a few years posting the most literal and vibrant and wounding parts of your life. 
15. Enjoy kind or thoughtful comments from your parents, sisters and a few other people. 
16. Wonder if anyone else thinks it’s any good. Wonder if you’re any good. Play whack-a-mole with ego…for years? ...Forever?
17. Make mistakes. Write about those. 
18. Win victories. Write about those.
19. Get to know yourself. Write about her. 
20. Discover that it’s been t-w-e-n-t-y years since you graduated high school. 
21. Decide that you can attend your reunion because now, unlike 10 years ago, you can show up as your ACTUAL self.
22. Get really nervous that you’ve made a huge mistake. Go down the rabbit hole of past failures and insecurities. No one will like you because they know you walked out on them 20 years ago and didn’t look back. They will know you are ridiculous because they read that blog, or because they saw you do mediocre cheerleading or that strange scholarship pageant or they remember when you sang that bizarre choir solo that was more of a wail than song…There are so many you cannot list them all. And some of them are more memories of feelings that actual events. That gripping in the abdomen--I’ve made a huge mistake.
23. Be saved by the fact that Oprah is constantly talking about intention. 
24. Realize that all the fear and anxiety is based on THIS intention: You want people to be impressed with you. You want to be liked. (You’re basically screaming, Love me! Fear me! It’s NOT a good look for you.) 
25. Remember some people will like you and some people won’t because you’re not for everyone and everyone’s not for you.
26. Set a new intention: To show love for the people who grew along with you. 
27. Put on eyeshadow per the directions of the instruction card that came with the palate because this is the most makeup instruction you’ve had since you were 17. (Choose the one called Disco Nights because, you know…you’ve gotta look gooooood.)
28. Walk into the reunion mixer. Hug the first person at the door, your best friend from elementary school. 
29. Get lost in each interaction, one after another, after another. 
30. Choose the people who also choose you.
31. Hug all of them.
32. Boldly call people the wrong name and watch them forgive you.
33. Soak up their goodness.
34. Soak up their giddiness, honesty, laughter, dance moves, serious faces, wide eyes, clever remarks, humble brags, shrouds, curiosity, and acceptance. 
35. Realize that, Yes! Love is patient and love is kind. But love also disrupts. It flips tables. Love is angry. Love is uncomfortable. Love holds opposites. Love is patient—yes, but it moves! Love has no boxes. Love forgives because love sees the whole. Love defends. Love disrupts again. Love holds. 
36. Notice how you all bruised each other because you loved each other. 
37. Feel held. Feel free. Remember you ARE love. All of you are love.  
38. Wake up. Raise three glasses of water, a cup of coffee, and a couple of Advil to the class of 2001. To you. To all of you. Reunited. 

A Well-Tended Muse

Did you know I have not one muse, but several?!?

Okay, why are we talking about muses?

It’s because I get stressed about all the fun things I can do with my life. Sometimes it’s overwhelming, you know?

I'm writing poetry, learning to play the ukulele, cooking, baking, doing preschool science experiments, gardening, planning an epic, layered-rug configuration for my bedroom floor, and I love all of these things. But I’m also writing a book and I try to show up here on the blog with regularity and I work and I’m a mom and often it feels like there are not enough hours in the day.

This is how muses came on the scene. 

You see, I was talking to my therapist about how I get noise in my head that I’m not giving enough attention to each thing. It gets really heavy sometimes.

Barbara, in her brilliance, informed me that I have several muses. (Muses are the 9 goddesses of the arts and sciences, who are tasked with providing humans with inspiration for their given theme.)

“One for poetry, one for music, one for visual art, one for cooking, one for writing…” et cetera, et cetera! And they are like kids, where they get a little jealous when you spend more time with one of the siblings. “But you just have to learn how to talk to them, so they know you love them and will make time for them,” she said. 

At first this felt like relief. Okay, I’m not a bad parent to my muses, I just can’t dedicate myself to all of them simultaneously. But as I’ve thought about it more, it’s morphed into this really fun thing.  

Liz Gilbert writes about muses in Big Magic. She explains that often our muses are standing in the corner, waiting for us to sober up, wake up, clean up and get back to work. Inspiration isn’t being stingy with us, rather WE are the ones who are stingy with inspiration. And the basic premise of her book is that the healthiest life for you, is the life that will produce the most creative existence. So take care of yourself in all the ways and treat your muse like a hot date. Put on make up, wear something nice, eat a good meal and get busy with creativity. 

Ever since that little insight, I have been having so much fun with my sweetheart muses.  I would add that there is one for motherhood, one for work, one for housework—all of those kinds of things too, because those things, though they are less self-indulgent, still require inspiration and enthusiasm—or at least they are SOOOO much more fun that way. 

So, I have this little family of muses around me excited to engage with me! And I’ve been thinking about what they like. What they don’t like. What are their favorite foods, activities, times of day? What’s the best way to hang out? Where do they like to go? And here’s what I’ve got so far:

Poetry Muse: 

Likes nighttime, sometimes early morning too. She’s sexy and fun and laughs a lot. She can get into those intense brooding moods too. She likes nature, likes alcohol. And caffeine—I remembered this because one of my most prolific episodes as a poet occurred when I was camping with my family as a teenager. I drank a Coke with dinner and laid awake with my sleeping sisters in the tent until the middle of the night writing poem after poem. They were completely silly—but I remember that night all these years later—and that’s significant.

Music Muse: 

This muse is responsible for dancing and singing and playing musical instruments. She likes freedom. I think the best gift I gave her was the years I spent studying piano, not because I became a ridiculously mediocre pianist, but I gave her a way to express herself. Leaning into playing by chords came so naturally to her. And now if I can train my fingers to crimp around that tiny ukulele neck, she will have another medium to work in. Music muse works more for the joy of the experience than my others. She is less concerned about perfection. More about the experience. How does it FEEL to dance and play and sing? That’s much more important to her than the executed product. 

Work Muse: 

Likes caffeine. She does her best in the morning and everything kind of falls off after that. She lives for feeling competent and does not like being told what to do unless she asks.  She’s like a well-functioning assembly line. Yes to productivity and efficiency and effectiveness! She hates waste, likes big ideas. She hates getting bogged down with details unless she is moving through them like an assassin. 

Mother Muse: 

She loves home because it’s the best place to relax and putter. She likes the presence of child and little dog. She sounds like happy playing, dancing in the kitchen, food on the stove, clean laundry in the dryer. She likes to say yes and talking about important things, like first crushes and big feelings and airplanes. She wants kisses and cuddles and teeth brushed and toys picked up.

Visual Art Muse:

She’s got eyes! Inspired by faces, color, simple lines. Willing to experiment. She has taste. She lives for the flow state. Which seems to occur most often when seated at a table with some music, paper and color. She likes working alongside of friends. She likes challenge.

Cooking Muse:

Says, “I can do that.” She’s got a lot of confidence because she got used a lot in my last decade of life. So she’s in a kind of semi retirement. I’m happy to see her when she’s here. I’m equally happy to give her the night off and order take out. Same goes for my crafting, sewing, knitting muse.

Garden Muse:

Likes pretty flowers, soil, cool, shady vibes, power tools and big-idea thinking. Hates weeding (my neighbors are like…uh yeah—can you do something about that?). Hates getting poked by thorns. She reminds me of my mama (who just became jealous the other day when I told her about all the good weeding I have to do!).

Okay! so you get the idea and now you can go make your own list of muses. But not because it will make you more efficient or proficient. This is about fun! This is a tool for when hobbies feel heavy. Please don’t belabor them with things like efficiency. 

Once you know your muses, then you get to enjoy them. For some reason it’s easier to care for external creatures than it is for myself, so here’s how I look at it:

I get to hang out with these awesome muses. I take them shopping, we get food, we exercise, we watch TV in addition to all of the things I listed above. 

It’s completely lightened up the responsibility I take very seriously, to live an extraordinary life.

I have helpers.

I take care of them and they take care of me.

This is the beauty of a well-tended muse.

Happiness: The Basics

You know, Michelle’s not happy.

A few weeks ago I was talking to a friend who recently went through divorce. She mentioned that in the course of her separation process, someone we both know, pointed to me and my situation and said THAT.

First, WTF. How does someone in another state who I talk to extremely infrequently make a judgment on something so cryptic as my level of happiness? 

Secondly, I turned inward. Am I happy?

If you’ve been following my blog you probably have sensed that this is a question I throw around, of my own accord, from time to time. I am very interested in what makes a good life. Time seems finite—how do I avoid wasting mine? And what’s the end goal? Is there an end goal? 

My family calls this the Deep Michelle and I’ve always been a little embarrassed about it. There’s a voice in my head telling me to lighten up quite constantly. But also—it’s just who I am! I like deep existential questions. I also like dance parties and stupid jokes and rainbows and brightly colored nail polish. 

So I guess I am writing this post to myself and any other reader who may have been tracking this journey of mine and wondering, Did any of this make her happy?

What is happy? 

Happy is a feeling. It’s one of the things I ask about when I am screening a patient for PTSD: Are you able to feel positive emotions like happiness or love? Yes! I feel happy from time to time. It’s happening more and more lately. I notice it when I laugh out loud at something.  I think laughing at myself feels the best—when I do something so brilliant it fills me with delight or so stupid that I can’t help but laugh.  I felt it today when I smiled to no one as stood on my garage roof in pajamas and slippers trimming my overgrown palm tree. Yep! There’s happy again!

How often should one feel happy? 

Psychiatry has taught me that no one lives on Planet Happy. Another thing I ask my patients to do is rate their mood from 0 to 10, where ten is best and 0 is rock bottom. Where do you live most days? 

I raise an eyebrow to anyone who states they live at a 10. Delusional? Manic? Lack of self awareness?  I think most of us want to live between six and eight. We want to hit a ten on occasion, maybe even three times a week, but to live there would be exhausting!  

And we could get picky about which words we use to describe which number. Is ten ecstatic, euphoric, delirious? While nine would be delighted, enthralled, jovial? Eight we call happy, joyful, cheery. Seven is well-fed, content, open-hearted. Six—relaxed, engaged, straight-faced. And at five we're getting into mildly worried, barely hungry, and I’m-fine-but-my-neck-is-kinda-tight. It drops off from there all the way down to zero, which is either catatonic or suicidal. 

What I’ve learned from asking this question over and over again is that the answer varies depending on the person. Some of us are pleased hitting a ten once a year. Some of us feel we are in a depression if we didn’t get there at all last week. So I think the answer is, You get to decide!

And I mean that literally—no shame however you choose. I purposely avoid writing about happy too much because we have this kind of hyper-pressure on getting it and keeping it. I remember when I was a BYU student there was this culture on campus of smiling and saying hello to people as you passed them on campus. I did this most all the time, because it was my duty as a fucking delightful person.

Did it help sometimes? Probably. Was there a cost to obligatory smiling? Most certainly. 

So I say this with all sincerity. YOU get to decide what your personal goal is for how often you hit happy. And there’s not a wrong answer…unless you picked catatonic, in which case your family will be annoyed by having to feed and toilet you….

Which leads me to my next very basic question—

How do I feel happy more often?

If I knew the easy answer, I would not be revealing it here for free, I would be pointing you to my book for purchase on Amazon, or better yet, from some independent, ultra-kewl hippie bookstore in Portland.

There is no easy answer. 

Boo!

Okay, but I will let you in on my strange inner life and you can glean from it what you will.

First thing is to stop chasing it so hard. I stopped looking away from the things in my life that were hard and terrible. It turned out I was putting a decent amount of energy into avoidance, convincing myself and the world that I’m fine fine fine! Fine is a state of detachment. Instead of trying to make life look easy, I started to sink into it. To let life be life.

And this brings me to my second experiment—start to pay attention. Open your eyes and look at what is in front of you. My journal is filled with passages about my postage stamp backyard. The orange tree. The tiny birds that come pick the bugs off of it. I still debate in my mind whether I should know what the birds are called. (Eckhart Tolle would say, No, just notice the being-ness of the birds! And my ego is like, You are looking at those birds every day and you don’t know what they are called?!? No winners here. If you care to help, please send a bird book!)

Paying attention puts me in the moment. And most moments are pretty okay if they aren’t being wrecked by my overly analytical, anxious brain. It also puts me in my body.  Noticing the feeling of the sun on my skin, the breeze, the fountain chattering away, light coming through the bamboo.

I have a confession. All these years of yoga and I still never understood how breathing was such a freaking pleasure for these granola munchers. I think it’s because inside of me was a secret yoga competition. Who is the stretchiest, breathiest, zennist yogi in all the land? Sometimes I was competing with that one girl (you know her) or the guy in the back who I’m not really into but I still hope he’s checking out my ass… or even myself at my last yoga class or when I was 19. That’s right, I am fully capable of turning a sun salutation into a full-blown tryout for the 1996 women’s olympic gymnastics team.  I’m coming for you, Dominique! 

But I got over that. And here’s how: I started paying attention to it. I think that’s how it shifted. At first I noticed I didn’t like thinking about how everyone else in the class felt about me. So I shifted over into being competitive with myself. But still, what was this dark cloud over yoga? 

It was me. 

And the watching was the answer. Because if you can get competitive about yoga (which I clearly can), then you can get competitive about the very practices that should be liberating your mind (which I clearly can). I effectively took and take myself out of contention for the Olympic Zen team and put myself in the stands. My job was and is only to watch and listen. 

I watched the competitive thoughts, meaning that they came up, I tried my best to not judge them and let them go. Bless and release those precious, little demons! And what I learned on the yoga mat became meaningful in the rest of my life. 

I began to watch myself at work. While I interact with my son at home. With the dog. With my family. On a date. Watching became my practice. 

This was a natural pathway into happy, because watching is fun! There’s a reason we like to watch shows and movies and sporting events.

Well now my life is a big watch fest! So I can laugh out loud at the dog when he falls off the center console into the back seat because he wasn’t expecting me to make that left turn. I can notice that my nerves are fried—and this moment of reading bedtime stories is too much—and also absolutely perfect. And it can be both at the same time. All this is possible because I am the watcher. 

It’s like slowing down and tasting your food. The central thought in my head has shifted from I know to I wonder. Wonder!!! What a fantastic feeling! 

Instead of flailing my arms as I drown in life or militantly perfecting my backstroke, I’m sitting in a floaty with the water lapping up onto my legs and feet. The water analogy actually really works, because sometimes I get slammed by a big wave. I’m knocked off my floaty, gasping beneath the hair that’s all in my face when my head pops up above the water. But I remember that I HAVE a floaty. So I locate it and climb back on and continue to watch.

Is that happy? Feels pretty good to me. 

Can we circle back to the initial WTF? You know, Michelle’s not happy…that one?

For years, I showed the world I was happy. I was really convincing—hell, I even convinced myself. I’m sure this is why some people were surprised when I jettisoned the husband. And I’m still a little sensitive about my life choices—I noticed that as I was writing this. They affect people who I love and have loved in a big way.

You know, I spend my days trying to assess patients for depression, happiness, well-being and I get it wrong. Because I’m not a psychic. All I have to work with is what the patient is showing me AND what I’m open to see. Maybe the most powerful lesson from becoming the watcher is this: life is experienced through a filter. We project, avoid, get defensive. We are coded to do this.

The practice of watching lets me glimpse the filter. My job is to wonder, not to know. And so all I will do is wonder about that WTF statement, [I’ll write a blog post about it] and then I’ll let it go. Because the only person I can really know is me and I feel pretty good about her.

• 

  Got er done.

• 

  Megan was here!

• 

  Topanga Canyon

• 

  Rio on the Ruby quilt.

• 

  Fall skies are the best.

• 

  The ocean is cold now :(

• 

  Trimmed palms. No broken limbs.

• 

  Happy?

Conversion

I was thinking about the boom box at Baskin Robbins the other day. The tinny sound of Mix 105.5 floating over the trickle of water through the scoop basins and the chorus hum of freezers.

I can’t hear a Billy Idol song without thinking of that boom box (was every night 80s night?). Natalie Imbruglia, Alanis Morissette, Harvey Danger, Eve 6. Ryan would bring his Discman so we could add Wyclef Jean into the mix and every night he worked he would play Closing Time at 10pm to hint to the lingering customers that they needed to clear out so we could mop. 

This was my teenage job that paid well below minimum wage but dividends in free ice cream.

So. Much. Sugar.

I used to buy a large Coke at McDonald’s on my way in and then I would add vanilla syrup. I think that combo might kill me instantly now. I used to eat hot fudge topped with whipped cream with a spoon. A taste of this or that. Suffice it to say even my 17-year-old cheer captain self lost five pounds when I quit that job.

The N’sync cake. *Sigh*

I probably need to come clean about that.

So when you rise through the ranks of BR and become 17, you get some responsibility. One of them is to decorate cakes.

One day there was an order for a birthday cake with a drawing of the band members of N’sync on the top. We didn’t have photo cake technology. No—we had a device with a mirror and a light that would reflect the image on the top of the cake and I would trace the image in icing. This worked well for simple line drawings, but photographs…? Nevertheless, I attempted it. How hard could it be to freehand Justin Timberlake in icing?

The answer is—really hard.

Like, no one—especially me—should attempt to freehand Lance Bass in icing. No one. But I did it. 

So, the birthday girl’s grandma came to pick up the cake. I don’t think she even looked in the box. But she paid for it and carried it out the door. And I was like, “Phew! It worked!”

I don’t know if I imagined no one would open the box. Or maybe I had magically nailed their vision for an avant gard rendering of teenage heart throbs, but I was relieved for about 30 minutes until the mom returned with the cake. Shit!

She asked me if I could fix it. Ummm…no. That is my absolute best attempt. Pretty sure. 

She was upset. Which seemed reasonable at the time but thinking back on that, I’m not sure that was well-placed. After all, it’s just 17 year old me with a few bags of icing and a mirror light—should we be surprised that I’m not creating Pinterest worthy N’sync cakes? Seems like that one is kind of on you, lady. 

Thankfully, it’s just ice cream and I let her select a cake from the case, probably the 9” round cookies ’n’ cream with Oreos on top—always a safe bet. She took the new cake and I hastily tossed N’sync in the trash.

When I’ve told this story over the years, people ask me, Who would take an order for such a crazy cake in the first place?

I have no idea! I would exclaim. I was just doing my best!

But no—that’s a lie. I know exactly who too the order. 

It was me. 

Whatever part of me that took that order, it’s the same part that decided it was a good idea to run against Veronica Shreibeis for senior class president. (Even without knowing her, you can tell just by the sound of her name, what a fearfully, beautiful creature she was with long, blonde hair and an air of effortlessness that I would never attain.)  

It was the same part that made me jump into the swimming pool at age five even though I didn’t know how to swim, and just because some older girls told me I couldn’t do it. (I still remember the image of the tiles on the side of the swimming pool bouncing up and down as I jumped to reach the surface, and the watery silhouette of my mom as she bent over to pull me out.)

But it’s also this part that emboldened me to go back to school to become a PA (I didn’t consider myself a science person…still don’t!), choose to stay in a marriage, choose to leave that marriage, have a baby, buy a house, surf, post a video of me singing on the internet, and write this terrifying blog.

It’s a freaking bad ass part of me. 

But this is the question I am most interested in at this moment in my life: What can I control and what can’t I control?

I know I have some power, daring, courage. 

I also know how it feels to be kicked in the teeth and fail miserably.

Which, I think, leads me to elusive faith. 

Over the years I’ve observed so many church ladies who seem to be in conversation with the divine constantly. What is that? A delusional construct? God on speed dial? Some kind of coping skill?

I’ve looked on with contempt as they seemed to hand over the outcome of their lives to an unseen being. And maybe that’s because it seems to get sucked up into the martyr role that women so easily assume. Women who are told their desires don’t matter and their functions in this world are preset and predetermined. Women who are told to be quiet and small, their means to creative power leashed to covert influence on a husband.

No wonder the church ladies turn to god. 

But where does my power end and the divine begin? 

I felt the answer as I was pulling laundry from the dryer. This quiet confidence. God is in me.

The image of a god in heaven hearing and sending and receiving and cursing and blessing didn’t get me there. I had to pull god out of the sky or maybe, more accurately, I stopped worrying about that version. Because that version has so much baggage.

The version of god that gives me faith is the divine that lives in me. Only YOU know, Michelle. I say this to myself all the time. 

I know I am on my path. I know because I am listening. I am in constant conversation with myself—not my thoughts, but the deeper voice. The knowing. There is a fluid connection in my life that guides me through my desires, curiosity, envy, anger, joy and peace. They are all speaking to me.

What I have learned to do is listen. 

And believe in my ability to do that.

Maybe that’s faith.

• 

  inktober

• 

  Current stage of puppyhood

• 

  Sunday mornings

• 

  Our comic book comes out Nov 2021

• 

  I'm the bad guy...duh!

• 

  Working on our contouring

• 

  San Clemente!

I don't know.

Today when I got home, I walked into my backyard and heard a loud meow. 

MEOW. MEOW. MEOW. 

I was not expecting this. I don't own a cat.

I peeked around the side of the house and saw a GIANT, long-haired, charcoal cat. The cat had a blue collar, so I’m going to use male pronouns (but I recognized that female cats may choose blue as well).  

I greeted the cat.

I asked him if he would like to follow me through the open garage door to the world outside my fenced backyard. 

MEOW. MEOW. MEOW.

“Here, kitty, kitty!” I called in my sweetest cat lady voice. [See--I KNOW cats. Though I will admit I did not want to touch him.  He was HUGE.]

“Here, kitty, kitty!” Over and over again until he followed me through the garage and out to the tall grass in my side yard. And the giant cat was gone as mysteriously as he came. 

I did not expect that cat. 

I was talking to my sister on the phone, relaxing on my new outdoor couch, when I looked down at the deck and saw Rio, sitting with a curious look on his face glancing from my face to the dead rat at his feet. 

Now, I am proud of myself because I did NOT scream, which happened the last time he presented me with an entire rat carcass.

But this time, the rat was not completely dead. I could see a little rise and fall in its chest. Rio, seeming to read my mind, attempted to pick it up again. I stopped him. Obviously, I’m the adult here. I need to take action. I grabbed a stick from under the orange tree and returned to the rat.  The rise and fall had ceased. 

• 

  Not as big as the last rat.

• 

  Earlier that week, looking very distinguished.

I poked. Nothing. 

When R saw the rat, he said, “Now we get to look at rat bones!” 

What?!? No! 

Last week, we dissected owl pellets at our friend’s house. I did not know what an owl pellet was. In case you don’t know, I will describe. When an owl eats a mouse or rat or bird or whatever little creature, it is digested partially in the first stomach.  What can’t be digested is held in the first stomach while the digestible material passes into the second stomach.  The owl then vomits a tight packet made of the contents of the first stomach (hair and bones). This is what makes an owl pellet.   

I knew none of this until Rachel presented me with a paper plate holding three clumps of matted hair. With the kids and me looking on, she pulled apart the pellets to reveal evidence of three rat skeletons. And I knew that her daughter was going to be just fine in online kindergarten this fall. 

• 

• 

But back to the undigested rat on my deck. 

Because this isn’t my first rodeo, I knowledgeably covered my hand in a poo bag, picked the deceased rat up by the tail and carried him to the trash can. He left a small pool of blood on the decking, which I doused in hydrogen peroxide and then rinsed with water. (I have a large supply of hydrogen peroxide now, after learning that is what’s needed to rid your dog of skunk smell). 

My backyard is tiny. 

The whole lot is 1/3 of a regular sized lot in my neighborhood. 

And yet. 

It is full of surprises. 

This afternoon I was talking to my sister. 

I’ve been going through another existential crisis following family court and my birthday marking another year. I didn’t really expect it. Not my first family court rodeo. Not my first birthday rodeo. I have been to lots of rodeos—duh! 

My sisters are a good audience for my crazy moments. This past week, I made a recommendation that my sister moon her husband in response to a marital dispute.  I was meaning to be silly but the more we talked about it, it seemed like the idea had real merit. If you want any free marriage advice, DM me, okay? I’m a secret genius on this stuff. Still waiting to hear if the mooning worked….

So I was talking to my other sister and she gave me the idea to write a blog post about why Fall feels hopeful. She said that was the article she wanted to read. 

First I thought about the fall when I trained for the half marathon because my then-husband didn’t want to have a baby yet and I was bored with my career and making dinner and washing dishes. I am not a runner and it felt really cliche because so many people in medicine run out of ways to punish themselves after school ends, so they take up punishing habits like running. But the half marathon was a really good choice in that moment. 

I ran three or four times a week under the massive oak trees in our historic Omaha neighborhood. My mom was so delighted with my decision to do this, that I flippantly said, “If you think it’s such good idea, why don’t you do it too?” And she did.

This is what 15* looks like.

The race was on Thanksgiving day. In Omaha. It was FIFTEEN degrees when we started. It was EIGHTEEN degrees when we finished. The bagels and bananas they provided post-race were frozen solid. We had McDonald’s for Thanksgiving Dinner that year.

But the running put me in a really good place for the winter. Since I left my home on the range in Wyoming (aka—where the skies are not cloudy all day), I’ve struggled with mild depression in the winter—this is part of why I love living in San Diego. And the regular endorphin boost of that exercise made a big difference. 

So there’s one idea. If you need a Fall boost—run a half marathon. 

…I GUESS. 

But it also seems unfair to ask anyone to train for a half marathon when they are working from home and home schooling kids and worried about the upcoming election and the health of their loved ones. And there’s also racism and terrorism and thieves and rapists and Facebook.

That’s a lot. 

Already. 

So if the half marathon’s not your thing, this is the one other idea I have. 

Be open to being surprised. 

Liz Gilbert talked about this in such a lovely way on her instagram stories last week. She called it a spiritual practice, to which cynicism is the opposite.  

Cynicism is the voice inside that says, I know how this goes. I know who that person is. I know what’s coming. The writing is on the wall. I know. I know. OH—I know. 

And we cling to that because we want to feel in control. And knowing feels like control. 

But you know what? 

I DON’T know.

I don’t know how this going to go. 

I don’t know if Trump is going to get another four years. I don’t know if I’m spoiling my son or being too hard on him. I don’t know if the tumor in my neck has grown. I don’t know what that greasy stuff in my patient’s hair was today. I don’t know if I’ll catch any waves. I don’t know how to make sense of the COVID-19 news. I don’t know if I’ll sleep tonight. I don’t know if there will be a goat in my backyard tomorrow. (If there is it will certainly be a distinguished city goat with a neatly trimmed beard!) 

i. don't. know.

Of course I have opinions and fears and anxieties about all of these things. But I’m willing to be surprised.

I’m willing to be wrong. 

That’s the equivalent of faith to me. That’s accepting divine will. It’s not, I know how this goes. It’s not that I get what I pray for. It’s not that I have all the answers. 

It’s that I don’t! And there’s some energy, some force, some goodness in the universe that is working it out for my specific growth. So let me leave it to said universe.

That’s hope. 

That’s spirit. 

Notice the cat and the rat and the owl pellets with wonder. 

Anything is possible.

• 

  Watch dog.

• 

  "That's my navy face!"

• 

  Minimalist. Chocolate. Perfect.

• 

  Birthday air fryer. Goes well with wine and dancing in the kitchen,

• 

  These were delicious (thankfully I like crispy), but I read the directions (afterward) and you shake to avoid burned edges.

• 

  Charcuterie--makes working from home feel fancy.

• 

  Avid scientists in action.

I Just Want to Feel Like My Old Self

At my last job, most of my cases were people with ADHD, depression, anxiety and mild bipolar disorder.  I saw lots of people for their first ever psychiatry appointment and this was a phrase that frequently came up: “ I just want to feel like my old self.”  

At first I wasn’t sure what to say to this.  It sounded like a really reasonable request.  More reasonable for the 20 year old college student having his first bout of depression, than the 63 year old who was looking back on her 20s as the example of “old self,” but still…how do you go backwards?  

I related to it.  Some circumstances are temporary.  School feels this way.  There is always the end of the semester, a winter break, after that next test…maybe that’s part of what teaches us early on that we should just hold on until the other side of this thing.  The thing being abnormal, so once it’s over we can go back to normal.

But what about the experiences that forever changed me?  Or forever changed my circumstances?  Things that it seems there is no “other side” to get to?  Mark Nepo described this as going through a door and you turn around to go back through it but the door is gone. Where is my old self in all of this? 

When I sat across the table from patients who had been clawing or pining for the old self for years, I wanted to yell, “SHE’S DEAD!  YOU’LL NEVER FIND HER AGAIN! STOP LOOKING!”  That’s not therapeutic—and it’s not true.  What actually came out of my mouth was a nudging toward new self.  Maybe that person you used to be, maybe she had never experienced the death of a child, twenty years in a loveless marriage, sexual assault, a major professional setback, or being diagnosed with a chronic illness.  

Maybe that old self is irrelevant now.  Maybe she doesn’t know enough of the reality of life.  But irrelevant seems inaccurate too.

What I am hinting at is acceptance.  Acceptance that the world may look completely different on the other side of a major life event.  Things may shift in dramatic ways.  And my brain wants to tell me that there will be a back-to-normal moment again.  That is when I will feel like my old self. 

But what I’ve realized is that on both sides and in the middle of all of these circumstances, it’s just me.  There is no other side to get to.  I am waiting there for myself already, just as I am here with me now.  

I’ve been thinking about it with this COVID-19 noise.  I’ve been in a lot of anxiety, mostly because I’m afraid life will look different for a long time.  And I really liked my pre-pandemic life.  I am not unique in that I have had to cancel travel plans, scramble for childcare, worry about toilet paper and canned goods and old people who seem to keep going out despite the warnings.  

• 

  Normal day. R's "Grass Game" on the sidewalk outside preschool.

• 

  Commence carb loading.

• 

  Attempt to get through a weekend without the gym.

• 

  Break down and visit a friend's hot tub. No one was there. (How are we going to get used to this?!?!)

• 

  Dress purse dog in masculine buffalo plaid flannel.

• 

  Urgent haircut for purse dog when he starts running straight into walls.

• 

  Nighttime chalk art produces strange results

• 

  Sigh...feeling like my old self when we resume the old nanny share for a few days. (Can we talk about how we're going to do childcare during this?!)

Descent into pandemic.

I worry about whether I (and we) are being careful enough with this or taking it too seriously.  I worry because I’m not doing my regular fitness stuff and because I’m stress-eating more carbs.  I worry about responsibly consuming all of the produce I’ve purchased.  I worry I will fritter my time away watching TV or talking this all over for the fiftieth time on the phone with a friend or family member.  I worry I won’t take advantage of the sunshine when it’s out.  That’s right!  I have FOMO for sunshine.  

There is so much available to be worried about.  And my brain wants to tell me that when things go back to normal, then I can be my old self again.  But my old self isn’t waiting in the wings.  She’s here with me right now.  Along with the 75 other versions of my old self that I’ve been in the last 36 years. Along with the new self that is growing out of the worry and the sunshine and the produce and the yoga and conversation I am feeding her today.  

All selfs are welcome on all sides of life's challenges.  They’re all here to stay anyway.  

I heard Tracy Ellis Ross say that her most frequent prayer was, “Gentle, gentle, Tracy. Give yourself a thousand breaks and a thousand more.”  I think I will adopt this.  

Gentle, gentle, Michelle.  There is room for all of you, the old and the new, in this beautiful, chaotic world.  

Sat nam.

My most helpful thought

Last week I found myself rolling back and forth on the ground with a bunch of giggling asian women.  I was in my kundalini yoga class at the YMCA.  We were doing an exercise where we put our hands out in front of us, superman-style, while lying on our stomachs, then we turned to the right until we were on our backs, then back to center/stomach, then to the left.  As I rolled back and forth on the floor with these giddy women, I thought, I live such a rich life! 

One year ago I was entrapped in the agony of my thoughts.  I was just beginning to question whether my thoughts were really true.  But I still had so many to sort through.  It felt like every waking moment was thought-thought-thought-thought, one after another.  I was starting to question them but I still had so many.  There were the thoughts, and then there were the thoughts that were judgments of the thoughts, and then there were some judgment thoughts of those thoughts.  My brain and my ego were really running wild.  And it became untenable.  So I started some intense work on watching and then dismantling my thoughts. 

This brought me into the most disorienting season of my life to date.  I spent almost all of October separated from my son.  He was traveling with his dad for two weeks.  Then, the week I was supposed to have him was interrupted when I got a stomach flu that was so severe I couldn’t care for him.  I had to ask his dad to come pick him up.  I entertained him with TV for much of the day, while I laid in bed without any energy.  I remember at dinnertime he asked me for something to eat.  It took me about five minutes to raise myself from the bed and into the kitchen to pull something out of the fridge for him.  I have experienced this kind of decimation before, but never as a mother and never alone.  

After the stomach flu, I went to NIH for my ten days of testing.  The writing saved me.  I set a goal to blog every day and it pulled me through those days of isolation.  For the first time I allowed myself some introspection on the NIH experience.  I challenged myself to stay open and to find connection there.  And I shared it on my blog which helped me feel slightly less alone during the cold October days.  

The days between NIH and February run together in my memory.  I remember early mornings, where I would wake before the sun, unable to remain in bed.  I walked a lot.  On the days I didn’t have R, I would put on my headphones and room my neighborhood early in the morning listening to Brandi Carlile and Oprah Super Soul podcasts.  I lost weight.  I felt excoriated.  I heard Mark Nepo describe it that way and it felt precise to my condition.  My physique and my spirit were polished away to the essential elements.  And as Cheryl Strayed put it so eloquently, I floated like a rabid ghost through those days and weeks.  

I learned that R would be going on vacation with his dad in February.  With the ghost of the previous October breathing down my neck, I booked a trip to Hawaii to occupy most of R’s vacation days.  I had been studying Mary Oliver’s work prior to the trip and I spent that my time in Hawaii focusing on the present moment.  Nature has a way of pulling me into the present, and I let that heal me.  I returned feeling revitalized.  I vowed to reinvest in regular exercise.  I was also eating a banana with Nutella every day to help with my stress calorie deficit.  

After Hawaii, life kind of crashed back onto me.  I clung fiercely to my commitment to stay open to the good that was available to me.  I walked, I lifted weights, I played with R.  I was trying to stay open at work, which made work increasingly heavy.  I was losing patients to drug addiction and strange accidents.  I was attempting to shepherd heroin addicts toward feeling their feelings.  I was open to all of the pain and it almost swallowed me.  Then I wandered into a kundalini yoga class by accident. 

I had begun to seek out a more spiritual yoga practice.  So when I saw the instructor with her colorful mandala scarf laid out on the floor and the battery-powered candles, I was open.  In the first class I met the true version of myself.  My therapist asked me to name her but all I could come up with was Michelle because she seemed like the purest version of me.  I envisioned her as I went through the exercises, this open, playful, loving, interesting creature.  I kept coming back to kundalini because I wanted to see her again.  I wanted to know her better, this person who had been buried inside of me. 

In kundalini, I saw metaphors for joy and pain and trial and play and boundaries and kindness.  The practice opened me further but it also taught me to protect myself.  I heard my voice in the chanting and singing.  I felt myself in the movements.  I finally located the sacred place inside of me, the part that god put there long ago, the part that is uniquely wise and kind.

My practice helped me understand my role at work.  I wasn’t supposed be a repository for all of the pain my patients carry.  My job was to identify those who were open and to shine some light their way.  For the rest, medication management would be enough.

My yoga practice helped me find stillness.  My mind became quieter.  I began to watch my thoughts with curiosity.  I got better at identifying the useful ones and noticing the useless ones.  That’s how my original thought was born.  I live such a rich life!  

This thought has carried me through my faith transition, a divorce that is still incomplete, raising a little boy through the terrible two and threenager years, worries about tumors, and opening the part of me that is capable of loving deeply.  

And I think rich is the word for it, because there is so much depth in my life.  So many colors.  So much vibrancy.  Some of it has been penetrating darkness. But I am equally opening to joy. I am a rich woman, indeed.

I made this list of things that have changed in the past year and I’m sharing it with you, with the simple hope that you might reflect on your life in a similar way. Namaste and sat nam. 

• I’m better aquatinted with myself.
• I have more trust in myself.  
• I’ve started dating. 
• I am getting my first glimpses of how to forgive.
• I started a spiritual yoga practice.
• My brain is so much quieter.
• I opened myself up emotionally to my patients and then had to figure out how to shut that down somewhat. 
• Eight of my patients passed away. 
• I started to solo travel.
• I was more honest with myself and the people around me than ever before. 
• I kept a toddler alive and relatively happy through the terrible two and threenager years.
• I started painting and drawing again.
• I picked up knitting again.
• I started playing the piano and singing again.
• I began to understand humility.
• I began to see the part of god that lives in me.
• I published 114 blog posts (that’s 112,505 words) and some of you have read every one!