Jumping Daisy

Today is my birthday. Most of the time I just don’t really care about my birthday. I am happy to be alive and to complain or whine about aging seems kind of selfish to me. If I didn’t age, my kids wouldn’t get to grow up and have their own lives. Honestly, the thing about aging that bothers me most is around the way that I look. I have never felt comfortable in my skin. I have my moments, but my insecurities far outweigh any positive feelings about my physical person, and now I have granny skin and I hate my hair and my saggy parts.

It’s really strange to me to think about the many manifestations of myself that have existed over the years. There was a Tricia that loved to run. She worked hard to get faster and run further. She was spectacular, and she disappeared sometime ago, and I couldn’t tell you when that was. There was a Tricia that would write down so many of her inner thoughts and feelings. She told the internet all about her children and then her children started to grow and their lives felt more private. And then Tricia got a smart phone and became extra dumb. I distract myself from creative thinking with TikTok and Happy Color.

There was a Tricia that went to the farmers market every Saturday. One that went to church. One that bit her nails. One that was much fatter. One that was skinnier. One that was definitely healthier. That was probably the one the cooked at home instead of getting fast food way too often.

This Tricia reads books. She has a job that she loves. She doesn’t exercise nearly enough but has recently started doing Pilates at a studio and it’s been great. She is so incredibly proud of all of her children, all for different reasons. She is still so in love with her husband. Her dog makes her happy and so does sleeping in.

I am unhappy.  Constantly looking for ways to fix me.  I am stressed by expectations. I spend time looking for ways to ease the burden I have saddled myself with.  Will that supplement help me sleep better? Will that pill make me forget that I am not satisfied with my career?  Will spending my extra income on new clothes or make up make it feel ok to be me? If I float in a pod of saltwater for 60 minutes, will getting out of bed tomorrow not feel terrible? 

Now I have more clothes cluttering my closet, products cluttering my bathroom storage and a deficit in my bank account made out of supplements, drink mixes and skin care products.   And I am unhappy.

I recently entered a flash writing competition. There wasn’t like a prize or anything. Spoiler Alert: I did not win.

My Take aways? 1. My mom told me I was special too much when I was a kid. I am more conpetitive and definitely have a very fragile ego. 

Anyway, here’s what I wrote. It was just a short story with a required Genre of Fantasy and had to include a balloon and an elevator inspector. Oh well.

When she saw the house listed, it was love at first sight.  Some people see an old home and only see the dollar signs that will ultimately come along with all of the needed repairs, but not Julie.  Julie looked up at the tall, narrow building and could almost feel the energy of the many families who had called this house their home during its over 100-year existence.  The history warmed her immediately and she knew it had to be hers, even if it meant years of renovations.  The non-working elevator was an added quirk of the home, uncommon for this neighborhood, but to Julie, it just added to the charm, even if it would be a glorified closet until years down the road. 

After several trips from the moving van that she had managed to drive across four states to pull up to her new front door, Julie sat on the one chair not stacked with boxes in her cozy living room and considered how she had gotten here.  Leaving Illinois was always the plan, but after losing Gramps, it just felt like it was time.  Now sitting in this brownstone in Philadelphia, home felt so far away, and yet, surrounded by all of her familiar belongings, this change wasn’t so scary after all. 

The elevator was like nothing that she had seen before, unless you count the old movies.  The elevator itself was a plain metal box with smooth edges. The box was encased in a beautiful cage that reminded Julie of an old fashioned bird cage, meant to sit in a sitting room on display like a work of art.  Even if it didn’t work, the aesthetic was gorgeous. Julie slid open the gated door to the elevator and walked in to try out the experience of turn-of-the-century engineering. 

The immediate feeling of nostalgia caused her to close her eyes and smile.  Then the smell of cotton candy and the feel of the sugary treat melting on her tongue overtook her senses and she found herself transported.  She looked down at the warm soft feeling of another hand in hers and she knew it was him, it was Gramps.  She smiled over at him as he gave her his most mischievous grin and led her through the gates into the carnival, just like when she was a child. Julie was stealing glances, trying to decide if this was real, but not knowing if she really cared to know. Gramps reminded her that it was his own adventure that led the family to settling alongside the Mississippi River two generations ago.  Gramps had been the first of his family to leave his parents behind in New Hampshire and he understood the exciting adventure that Julie was about to begin. He wanted her to know how proud she made him and to assure her that everything would be just fine.  

The two of them took a spin on the ferris wheel, played games no one ever wins and ate cotton candy. We walked toward the clown selling trinkets from a colorful booth and Gramps reached out to choose a bright yellow balloon for her and gently tied it around her wrist. The carnival was beginning to close down and Gramps reminded her that the elevator was likely to open again.  Julie had forgotten all about the elevator and was startled when she opened her eyes to find herself right back in the center of the antique, having not moved at all during what seemed like an entire evening of reminiscing and enjoying the carnival with Gramps.  

She took a deep breath and remembered the feel of his soft hand in hers.

The last time she felt his hand was when she had visited him for the holidays a few months ago, only weeks before he had passed.  She had crouched down on the floor next to his recliner and taken his hand in hers so she could gain as much of his attention as possible for her goodbye.  She knew this would likely be the last time that they would be speaking and she wanted to drink in everything about the experience.  For a man who had spent his lifetime toiling in the fields and caring for animals and crops, his hands had been enjoying the quiet retired life. His skin was now so soft against hers, but she knew how much life they had lived. 

Now, standing in the dark elevator, Julie took a step out into the hallway and felt an immediate shift into the here and now. She walked down the hall with a new feeling of both gratitude and grief as she headed out the front door and took a seat on the steps.  Walking toward her on the sidewalk was a man.  He was tall, thin and wearing the uniform of the local inspector’s office.  He stopped in front of Julie’s gate. 

“Hi, are you Julie? The new homeowner?”

“Yes, that would be me,” replied Julie. “May I ask how you know me, and what I can help you with?”

“I was sent by the realty company.  I am here to inspect the old elevator in the home. I heard you have a pretty spectacular antique that isn’t quite in working order these days and we need to ensure it is safe.  I would love to see if we can get that old thing operating again”

Julie looked back into the house where she saw the yellow balloon – the very balloon that Gramps had handed her at the Carnival – floating down the hallway. 

She smiled at the inspector and replied, “No thanks. I think I quite like the way it works just as it is.”

Here is a link to read the winning entry: https://www.foriowa.org/iowa-stories/iowa-story.php?namer=true&isid=242

Cory is the holder of the paper in our family. He takes care of the taxes, and records the things that need recorded, plus stuff that doesn’t need recorded. I am not patient enough to be interested in such things. He recently brought home a stack of family papers that had been living in his office at work. In that stack, for some odd reason, was my work performance evaluation from 2014. I read through the feedback, and reminisced in my mind about the work that I had done during that review period. It was a good year. One of those when I was still only a couple of years into my tenure at the company I still work at 9 years later. I loved my job. I was doing important work for a company that does really important work. I was getting to travel to new places, meet lots of new people and learn the ins and outs of project management for a B2B and B2C company. I was learning how to do my job better, and learning so much interesting science.

Between then and now lots of things have changed. The company has more than doubled in size and was sold to a larger company. Lots of the things I loved have morphed, into new things that I don’t not love, but I am missing something. I am trying to understand what it will take to get me back to the energized employee that I once was. Is my role the problem? or my attitude? Am I the problem? Is it my management?

And in the meantime, two rounds of layoffs in the past 6 months and performance based bonuses may not exist this year. Is this just part of getting old and realizing how many long years of necessary employment remain while my back hurts more and my kids just keep getting bigger and closer to leaving the nest?

If anyone has any advise on this rut, or some low upfront investment passive income suggestions, I am all ears.

Late in the summer I asked Eliot to show me around where he and his friends had been spending their days all summer. As I worked in our basement office Eliot would stop in and ask for permission to go places or do things with friends and frequently that request was to go to “the creek”. We live in a very suburban area. There is both an elementary and Junior high within easy walking distance of our neighborhood and between those two schools there is strip of timber surrounding a shallow creek that will make you feel like you are in the middle of nowhere just feet away from the busy street that runs North through town. We rode our bikes and once we passed the Elementary and a small bridge that topped the creek I followed Eliot as he took a sharp left into the trees on a small worn path that many bicycles had obvious traveled over the warm months. Once we arrived at a bit of a clearing right against the creek bed we jumped off of our bikes and Eliot showed me the fish traps that the kids had made out of disposible water bottles. So far the homemade traps hadn’t brought much success but luckily one of the boy’s had the real deal to denote to the cause. I asked Eliot what they did when they got a fish in their trap. He told me that they would identify what they had caught and then release the fish back to their watery home. We walked in the water a bit and Eliot told me that fiurther down the creek the would find some crayfish and frogs too.

We backtracked out of the water and left our bikes while we walked a bit further through the timber and he showed me the fort that the kids had put together as well. The fort consisted of a combination of reclaimed materials likely pilfered from each child’s garage, and the brush and sticks that they picked up off the ground nearby. Eliot was so proud of the work that he and his friends had done to pass time during the long warm summer days and I have to say – I was even more proud. I was reminded of this tour of the outdoors last week when Cory, Leila and I visited a college campus and the presentation included a picture of students in the biology department taking water samples from a local waterway. If only all of the joys of childhood could continue through college!

Sometime when I was between 8-10 years old I picked a swimming suit out from the JC Penney Catalog. It was a bikini, and though my mom may have tried to steer me in a different direction, to a suit that would better cover my chubby body, I wasn’t hearing it. The suit arrived and I put it on and came out of my room to show mom and I still very vividly remember the look on her face and the “oh, Tricia” that fully conveyed her disgust. I took off the suit and did not wear it again.

When I was 12 I found a book of exercises on the bookshelf and brought it up to my room. I religiously did the exercises (mostly crunches) every day for the 30 days that the book said it would take to see results. I saw no results.

At 14 I was counting calories. Skipping school lunch, only to come home and make up for all the calories I missed and more. I could tell you how much I weighed and what size wore of year of my life starting at about 8 years old. 3rd grade. I remember monitoring how my jeans fit me and hoping they would start to be too big. At 8 years old. Spoiler alert. They never became too big.

I went from wearing the same size and stealing clothes from my older sister to no longer fitting into my sister’s cute clothes and instead outfiting myself in t shirts and sweatshirts that I hoped made me blend in, and at least didn’t draw attention to my body.

In a casual conversation about my latest weight loss adventure I mentioned to my friend that I have been trying to lose this weight since – she cut me off. “You have been trying to lose weight for the entire time I have known you.” We met at 13 when I moved to a new school and she became one of my only friends.

TikTok is full of gross and stupid content, but it isn’t all bad. When my doctor suggested a new, pharmacuetical approach to weight loss I found lots of information on TikTok, and I found WeightDoc. An Obesity specialist who has helped me see that my weight is not a reflection of my inferiority, but rather a reflection of my genes, my environment, all of the ways that I have reinforced my own feelings of shame and disgust and self hate. I’m not really any better, but maybe one day I can believe this new reality. In the meantime, I have started taking a life changing medication that is helping to calm the voices in my head that tell me I should go ahead and eat until my stomach hurts.

Walking from the second restaurant of the evening, picking up some to-go nuggets for one of my picky eaters back in our D.C. hotel room I enjoyed the quiet and the people watching. As I make it to the top of the hill and started across the overpass I was met by an interesting group of people. There were five or six of them and the men looked my age or maybe a bit older and the women were young, thin beautiful and dressed to show it off. I probably looked at them a little too long trying to figure out how they all fit together, but maybe I was giving off a judgmental vibe because one of the young women looked directly at me and said, “You are beautiful.”

I can’t tell you how I reacted. I might have said thank you. I might have looked away in embarrassment. I know what I looked like, what I look like all the time. My hair is going gray because I have given up on hiding it. During the past two years I have gained 30 lbs on my already firmly overweight frame. I have given up.

Why did she say that to me? I’ve been thinking about this for 3 months.

I am really struggling. Not in a way that I can put into a clear list of what’s wrong and what needs to change, though I do have a list. I am not sure addressing the list would change anything in my heart and mind. I just wanted to put something out *there.*

The last time I was regularly seeing a psychiatrist I started a new medication and for the first time in as long as I could remember I was feeling like when I walked into a room, it was just me walking into a room, with my present mind and my present body. I didn’t have the weight of my thoughts, my feelings about how my body looked, what everyone else in the room saw. I haven’t changed my medication again, but that feeling of presence is gone. And I miss it. I don’t think there is any amount of yoga, meditating, salt floating dieting that can pull me out of this sluggish, sad, fat body. Not the one that you see when I walk in a room, the one that I feel every moment of my life.

I keep buying things. Clothes and plants mostly. It doesn’t help. I would like to test if a vacation would help.

There was a time shortly after Thea was born when I clearly remember being in complete misery.  There is a certain amount of misery that comes with every childbirth experience.  I had that.  Then I also had some nursing issues that were causing me sharp shooting pains in my chest, coupled with mastitis so I also had a lovely fever.  No sleep.  Fat uncomfortable body with added pain and I clearly remember wanting to give up, crawl into bed and never emerge.

I’m getting there.  This time the misery is much more mental than physical, though the fat uncomfortable body is still around for the excitement.

I know that many of us are at some version of this hell.  This year has been such a disaster in so many ways, but this pandemic has me feeling like I am balancing on a very precarious rock perched over oceans of dark seas of unknown depth and lingering monsters. At the same time, I am holding tight to the precious gift of time at home.

In this very unsettling time I must also admit that there is a certain loveliness in the uncertainty, and the required break from the daily grind that was my life prior to March of 2020.  Some of it is great.  Time at home, time with my dog, time with my kids – watching them enjoy a true old fashion summer of running the streets and riding bikes and having fun from sun up to sun down.

For me, I am at that point where I am feeling like I have squandered so much opportunity during this “escape.”  I haven’t been exercising much, though I could go out and walk or run between meetings and no one would know because I am working from home and no one has to smell me.  I have been eating fast food and drinking too much beer.  I should be making homemade, healthy meals because I am here 30 minutes earlier every day without the commute/kid pick up time in the schedule. I am wasting, and I can’t say that this is time well wasted.

Some days I think this time will be passed before I know it and everything will be as it was before, other times I feel like this will never end. Much like maternity leave.  Some days I can’t wait to get back to work, to my regular routine, others I just want to be here, in this place with my kids and the mess and the chaos, forever.