Jumping Daisy

Back during May – May 1st actually, our old lady dog Zoey passed away.  Zoey was part of our family, but she wasn’t exactly a loving pet.  When a storm would roll through, she would curl up by my feet, but that was the closest thing to snuggling we got from her.  If you happened to stop by her, she might have let you give her some pets or scratches, but on her terms, and as long as she was interested.  She was an easy pet and a mostly good girl, but she wasn’t consistent with my experience of dogs.  I grew up with lab-ish mutts of all varieties.  First on the farm in Tabor where at the peak we had 3 dogs roaming our yard, but none in the house.  When we were down to only one dog and Goldie was aging, she finally found her way into our house and became the first indoor dog of my childhood when I was probably between 10-12 years old.

Since I have moved out of my parents home they are on their second black lab.  Before Molly and now Lola I wasn’t really used to the extremely high energy dogs that they are.  Outdoor dogs on a farm may be high energy, but they also have lots of opportunity to expend it. Still, my idea of a good pet was based on these experiences.

When Zoey passed, I was ready to hang up the pet owner label.  It was nice to be able to leave the doors open anywhere in the house without having to worry about what would be ruined or dragged out of the trashcan.  I really enjoyed being able to leave home and not have to worry about what time we would get back to take care of the dog.

The last summer of daycare came and went and we were sitting on the cusp of no more daycare, no more commute for me to have to drive Eliot 10 minutes out of my way before heading back the same direction as home to get to work. The girls are self sufficient (mostly!) with Leila walking to school and back without requiring intervention from Cory and I, and Thea and Eliot now at the same school just steps from our front door.

And then…

I couldn’t help myself.

And Now…

This 60 lb and still growing bull is ruling the Coobs house.  She is a pain in the butt, but she happily wags her tail to greet me, which is what I always wanted from a dog. Most of us are enamored with Penny, especially when she is wore out.

Very often I find myself lost in thought and I start to compose a post for Jumping Daisy, all wonderfully insightful and relate-able  I’m sure, but then my mind darts in a different direction and the moment passes.

Some things have changed since I was a regular blogger.  I have fallen into the trap of an iPhone addiction.  When I have downtime, I am no longer writing – I am playing a mindless game or scrolling through Facebook or Twitter.  I would like to think I am still a thinker, a feeler and an observer, but things definitely seem dimmer in here.

I am not sure where I am going with this.  That’s the dimness setting in.  I hope I find myself back here again.  It’s funny, but I really enjoy reading my old posts.  Sometimes I think I am a decent writer, and I wonder where it came from but I don’t hesitate to pat myself on the back when I am able to read my own work and feel something of a memory for that place and time.

When I think about this place and time I think about the struggles of reasoning with a teenager who doesn’t seem to understand that right now counts, and the road to the van down by the river is a much more sure bet than the path to success and happiness. (As if I know what true success and happiness look like.)  Or the struggles of getting 10 and 5 year old children to appreciate the need for regular bathing.  Don’t get me started on screen time. It’s amazing that a thing that wasn’t really a thing at all when my first child was born, is now such a thing that it is a constant struggle and a source of both frustration and of an ample supply of currency when it comes to controlling behavior.

In 5 years, I will have a child in college.  5 years ago, I had an infant. This life moves faster than you can possibly realize until the moment that seemed would never come is over and gone.

Last week when my Psychiatrist asked me if I was feeling better about reducing a commitment from life I answered her honestly.  Yes, of course it feels nice to have less of a weight on my shoulders, but there is always something new to feel guilty about, that is just how I am.

So I guess I walked directly into a classic psychotherapist playbook.  Dr. M quickly pulled out her laptop and sent me a link to the first google hit for Cognitive Distortions.  I read the link, didn’t think it really made a lot of sense to me, but when Cory pointed out that it was the first hit he received when he looked up what are Cognitive Distortions, I decided to dig a little deeper to see if maybe Google didn’t have the utmost authority on the topic at the top of its list.  I came across a Ted Talk by David Burns.  Dr. Burns is one of the fathers of the Cognitive Behavior Therapy, which I had never really heard of before this week.

I realized a couple of things while listening to this talk.  1. Every self help book that I have read over the years is trying to get me to the same conclusion that this guy has.  2. I should just go to the source and read HIS self help book.

I about a quarter of the way through the book, and I have to say that I love both the accessible yet academic nature of the book itself, and I also really love the idea of using Data to understand, evaluate and maybe even cure depression.

I started my data collection nearly immediately.  I carry a small notebook with me, and every time I have a thought for a situational reaction that feeds my negative feelings, I write it down.  It’s been a day and a half and I feel like I already better understand the root of my problem.

This is my blog, so I intend to continue to share my experience, though the thoughts I have written in my little notebook will never see the light of digital glow.  I am very ashamed of my miserable, jealous and pathetic thoughts.  Progress comes slowly, and I am committed to it.

It’s funny how change is what it is no matter how it happens. Change is change.  Sometimes it hits you like a ton of bricks.  One minute your reality is one thing, and then something changes and reality is forever altered. A death, a birth, an illness. Sometimes it happens so slowly that you don’t see it.  I am reminded of a proud moment when I felt like a rockstar at my job, a validated and accomplished professional. And then one day I didn’t.

Looking over the last several posts on this blog showed me that I am a couple of a months late on my bi-annual reflection.  The data tells me that I should have been feeling this restless need to emote outside of myself, and out into the open abyss that is the unread corners of the internet, in August.  Fall.

The older I get the harder I work to keep my chin above the water all year round so when fall comes around I am ready for The Great Dip.  That’s what I am calling it now.  It has a name and I know it’s there and it can’t hide from me. It can’t sneak up on me and it doesn’t own me.  Depression is a sleeping giant.  Sometimes it sleeps so deeply I forget what that dark cloud is like.  Sometimes it lingers like the cartoon rain cloud stationed directly overhead, soaking me to the bone while I look around in confusion while everyone else – even those that are fatter, poorer, and/or less validated by love and acceptance dance around in the sunshine directly in front of my face, taunting me with what I think I don’t have. It’s an ugly feeling.  The before and the during are so drastically difference that I can’t understand how I ever didn’t notice that cloud making its way overhead until I was caught in a rainstorm too heavy to see my way out.

I still get caught in the rain.  I am caught in the rain.  I am questioning myself everyday, and wondering if this is my own rain cloud.  in 2016 I was at a professional place that was stressful but challenging in a way that made me feel validated.  Overworked, not entirely fulfilled, but validated.  I don’t believe I have felt more than a tinge of that validation since that time. No longer overworked, even less fulfilled and no longer feeling validated I have turned to self-help books, personal reflection, walks down memory lane and speculation about alternative realities.  I am feeling tremendous amounts of doubt in my greatness.

When you are used to treading the water of your own mood pool, keeping all of your breathing holes out of the pit of self-pity sometimes the best of advice can feel impossible to employ.  You are a Badass: How to stop doubting your greatness and start living an awesome life (by Jen Sincero) was a great read.  So much so that months after I read it, I am still tormenting myself with the advice I can’t make myself follow.  The passage that has stuck with me is this, “You have to change your thinking first, and then the evidence appears.  Our big mistake is that we do it the other way around.  We demand to see the evidence before we believe it to be true.”

I haven’t decided if it’s because I am me – chronically anxious, depressed, distracted and pessimistic or if it is something else.  Maybe the universe is just not on my side. Maybe I really am justified to feel put upon the way that I do.  Or maybe it’s my own black cloud. Maybe I am expecting too much. Maybe all of the time I spend feeling jaded and sorry for myself and victimized by circumstances is what is keeping my fulfillment at bay and my greatness underwraps.

Maybe I need to find a new way to feel validated. I need to be a better Badass.  All of this treading in the waters of self-pity and loathing is exhausting and it doesn’t leave a lot of energy for concentrated badassery.

Just as my writing idol Kelly Corrigan shared on her Instagram account today – once again speaking directly to my confused and downtrodden  self – I know that the darkest corners of my mind don’t get to be the authority on what I deserve.  Now to start to believe it, even without the evidence.

When I was 20 years old my boyfriend gave me a promise ring.  We had been together for about 10 months, but we knew.

It was the first time that a guy had given me any jewelry.  I had dated a couple other guys before him, but nothing serious.  This was the first relationship that I had where I felt like I was part of a couple.  I wasn’t just me out there alone, someone loved me.

2 and a half years later, I married that man.

Fourteen years ago we were kids playing grown ups on our honeymoon to Jamaica, and last week we got to return to that beautiful island for a way too short trip, just the two of us. Aside from a weekend in Chicago that rained and cancelled our plans two years ago, this was our first vacation with just the two of us and it was AMAZING. There is a lot I could say about the excursions we went on, the wonderful food and drinks we had, the relaxing resort with the best staff, the fun couples we met. But what I most want to remember is how much we have grown from the kids on their honeymoon 14 years ago. The honeymoon when we celebrated loving one another so much that we wanted our whole family and all of our friends to know that we were committed to each other in marriage forever does not hold a candle to the 3 days I spent with this man who has loved me through my best and my worst.

The newlyweds were all over the island. I guess a lot of people get married on New Years, and I couldn’t help but think that these kids playing grown ups have no idea the roller-coaster in store for their next 14 years. I hope they are all as lucky as I am to be able to look across the table/hot tub/beach chair/relaxing hotel room balcony and think, “Wow, I thought I loved you on our honeymoon. Now I know what love looks like when your spouse coaches you through an anxiety attack, when you sit hopelessly in a hospital while tests are run on your partner, when you lose a loved one, when you celebrate new houses/jobs/babies. With the good and the bad, the love just grows and grows.”

I wonder if the couples there celebrating their 50th anniversary looked at us the same way. I hope they did.

This trip was the best thing for my marriage, and I really don’t want to make it another 14 years before we do this again.

Sorry about picture quality – the old ones are pictures of pictures, the new are screenshots of video.  They are both from some of the best days of my life. 

Look at these baby grown ups!

14 years, 2 houses, and 3 babies later 

If one gray hair shows, I’ll be fine
If my waistline grows, I’ll be fine
Even if time takes its toll
We’ll stay young for the rest of our lives

–  From Tim McGraw and Faith Hills Song, The Rest of Our Life

Fall is always a tough transition for me.  I didn’t realize until a few years ago when I finally took the step to visit a counselor for a few short months when I must have been feeling the perfect balance of weak and brave all at the same time.  She helped me realize that when my mind gets rolling and the anxiety starts taking over, its always fall.  Armed with this realization I have tried to meet fall head on with my own survival plan.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it really doesn’t, but it always pulls me back into my own mind and causes me to truly consider my daily life. This is something that I love, but I get worse and worse at all the time.

Today, on one of the very last days of the summer break from our regular school schedule I was compelled to ignore my increasingly demanding job and take some time to slice up giant cucumbers in step one of the process of Grandma Dalene’s cinnamon pickles.  I stepped into my cluttered kitchen with the memory of having received the recipe in the mail from my Aunt Sandy years ago.  I wasn’t sure where to find it, but I knew I would have kept it.  I pulled open the cabinet in my kitchen that houses cook books, plastic straws, measuring bowls and a random collection of “kitchen stuff”. I ran my finger along the cook books trying to determine which one I would have been most likely to stick that recipe in. I grabbed a plain envelope and pulled it out from between the books.  Addressed to me, from Sandy Howard.  It was meant to be.  I read over the recipe, remembering going though this process decades ago with my Grandmother.  I had begged her to make them because they were one of my favorite treats from Grandma’s house.  After beginning the process today with the tedious work of coring the cucumbers to make perfect rings, I understand why I only remember helping once.  As it turns out, Cinnamon pickle making is a 50-some hour task, so it will be a while before I confirm the authenticity of the results, but the process is therapeutic.

Last week was not a good week for me.  It is so hard to describe why when the why doesn’t exist.  I found myself getting through each day using the same coping mechanisms that one would deploy to get through an amusement park ride that, though not necessarily scary, is not providing a welcomed thrill either.  It’s exhausting riding that uncomfortable ride all day.

Today my girls and I left our cucumbers to soak in the process of becoming pickles and set out on a bike ride.  There were several moments during our ride where I would have to encourage Thea to tough it out and keep pedaling up that hill, because on the other side was a nice breezy downhill to reward us.  We all dealt with the frustrations of the lead rider stopping or slowing abruptly and the uneasiness of crossing a busy street.  I marveled at their independence, and they helped me forget my uncomfortable ride.

I have been feeling the itch to write –  but I haven’t quite figured out what I’m itching to write.  I do know this; I don’t know what the heck happened to me.  Visiting my blog has become such a depressing event because I don’t know who this person is that has left so many pieces of herself and her family in this space over the last 9 years.

I mean, I kind of remember her.  She liked to take pictures, and to run.  She crafted and sewed and created experiences for her daughters.  Everything was pretty good for her.

Life got complicated.  Mostly good complicated.  Instead of having insightful thoughts to share about the good life, I find myself torn between not wanting to recount the mundane in paragraph form, and not wanting to share the not great things.  I don’t know how to get back where I was, or if I want to be there, but I am feeling the new year itch.  There are some things I know I want to get back.  My health, my fitness, my sanity.  They all tend to be bundled up together, and so when life gets busy, they all tend to go down in flames together. Busy isn’t bad, but the plummeting endorphins is bad.

Parenting has gotten to be a lot less fun and games, but a lot more though provoking and complex, in a way that I think I would like to write about it, except that it no longer feels like my experience to write about.  Potty training is one thing to blog about, but the struggles and joys of raising a tween don’t seem like appropriate fodder for the internet when it comes to your own very real, very complex child.

In fairness to Eliot, I should be writing about his ever adorable milestones, like how he will now say “cheese” for a picture, and he recognizes when the “fight, fight, fight!” is about to come up in the Iowa Fight song and he waves his hand and screeches along for the “go Hawks!”  Raising my third baby is already so different.  I am different, our lives are a lot different now, and I just hope that he understands why even the digital baby book that is this blog wasn’t appropriately filled out for him.

One thing that he will hopefully always know, is how loved he is.  This child has a couple of extra little momma’s who always want to steal his hugs and to dry his tears. His main Momma wants those things too.  I love to snuggle my big guy and tell him much I love him, I just don’t do it in text like I have in past years.

When Thea was a baby I was so sad for her growth and worried that it was “the last time.”  With Eliot, I am not holding on to the distant memories as I thought I would, KNOWING that this really is the last time.  I consider it both a blessing and a curse that most milestones are met with a sigh of, “thank goodness we are getting to the easier part.”  Don’t get me wrong, I am enjoying this baby and his sweet soft baby skin, but I am also finally at that point that I always wondered if I would reach, where I am satisfied and happy to move forward.  I have so much to look forward to with this sweet family of mine, and I am thankful to not look back longing to do any of this over again.  I have regrets, but they don’t make me want to turn back time or make another baby.  I am complete, satisfied, and more than sufficiently challenged.  2016 is going be the real year after “the baby year.” I am taking time for myself, and for my marriage.  I am looking for opportunities to bring professional fulfillment without the loss of my sanity.  I am going to frantically search for the time I need to take care of myself, how ever that care needs to be taken from one day to the next.

I just don’t know what to put out there anymore. Maybe it’s time to let go of the URL and move on.

I have a notes app on my phone that I sometimes record references to possible future blog posts, thoughts that I have run through my mind when I can’t keep the course of whatever it is I am supposed to be focused on.  There is always something, and its rarely something I chose for myself, but that isn’t really the truth.  Every bit of my situation is a result of a choice I made.

The past year has been the most challenging of my working career, and the year of post Eliot employment has just closed out and I have reason to be reflective and consider the future apart from the past.  The current state of my mind is focused on taking back what I can of my time and my energy while trying to maintain the level of focus I need to do the job I have.  It’s one of those moments that builds the lump in my chest, one where I feel I am at a crossroads.  I can take my bad feelings and push them away and evaluate my life and my values and how to best maintain them and move forward, or I can gnash my teeth and furrow my brow in indignation over the injustice of it all.

If you know me, you know that I will stew and analyze all while maintaining a positive attitude while I work on my plan B.

The only time I get really upset, is when I think about all that I have given of the first year of Eliot’s life.  I have spent a disgraceful amount of time in a state of stress and distraction  that has kept me from truly enjoying my last baby.

I have missed an entire year of blogging.  A good portion of a year of sleeping.  At least half of the year of exercising.  Now I just need to decide what I need to focus on bringing back.

Yesterday morning I pulled up to daycare and handed over my precious son to his caregivers. I walked away with tears in my eyes and the feeling that I was leaving a piece of myself behind. We joke around in our house about how Eliot and I are BFF’s, but the emptiness I feel when I know I won’t be seeing him all day is no joke. the 11 weeks I spent at home with Eliot went by in a flash, but it was also excruciatingly slow. It seemed like it too forever for him to feel solid and secure in my arms instead of the skinny little rag doll I brought home from the hospital. I spent my days staring down at his little face just willing him to smile at me. I rocked and bounced and nursed him to get him to happily nap. I struggled with balancing time spent holding my baby that I knew would be grown and uninterested in my snuggles before I am ready, with the need to pick up my house and take advantage of time off work to organize closets.

I could go on a long rant about our culture not taking care of new moms and not valuing the importance of babies being fully bonded into a family before leave balances are expired but it seems so worthless, as nobody really cares about those things, at least no one that can make a difference. I will try to focus on what I did get, and try to get past the bad feelings I have about what I am not getting. Just like I tell my children, you can’t have everything you want. I just wish I didn’t feel like I wasn’t getting what I need. And people wonder why postpartum depression is such a huge problem.

I can’t even get into all of the reasons that yesterday was such a horrible day for me, suffice it to say that handing over my sweet baby that I know isn’t going to take well to days without to me, was not the worst part of my morning. We have some real issues in our family that I don’t think it is fair to blog about, because it isn’t all my story to tell. I love my children, all of them, but sometimes I have to remind myself of that fact. It hurts to not always like the ones we love, and I am hurting badly.

So there. It’s not rosy and it’s my reality right now. Maybe I can follow up with a happier more grateful post later, but right now I am choking back the bitter taste of anger and sadness.