Christmas in August

"Em, I still don't have a Christmas list from you," my grandma would nudge as we chatted int he kitchen working on Thanksgiving dinner. "Oh, yeah, okay..." I respond though truly wishing we didn't have to go through this ritual again. I did't want to compile a list of what I want, that felt vulnerable and greedy. Sure, there were lots of things I wanted but it's as if somewhere deep inside me, I knew it didn't matter. I don't know why I wrote that in past tense, it still happens. 

So, Em, what do you want?
The question arises year after year and I've become quite gifted at slighting my discomfort by dropping emails of things on my "wish list" to my parents and grandparents throughout the year. The email I sent my mom last week doesn't feel so awful to say... "hey, I think this Lilly Pulitzer dress is whispering to me. It's saying it would like to make an appearance at my graduation in May...oh, and it's on super sale right now, I'd wear a size 6. Love, Emily" This just means 1. I can't give into instant gratification for everything and 2. I've gotta remember to send those succulent emails through the interwebbs so I'm not pinned down by a late-November request for a list and 3. Learning to dispel concerns about making note of Christmas-related items in August ranks on my lengthy list of "reasons I have a therapist."

You can probably guess by now that I'm not here to cry my woes about the materialism of Christmas in my family...though I totally could. It's that question: what do you want? --replied to with that answer: Sweet Jesus, I DON'T KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!

Welcome to my favorite sitting place with a recently found unfavorite stinking question. It's a freaking dandelion of a question, popping up exactly when and where you'd expect it to but you never have a solution, or not yet. The hilarious part about this is that I'm the one who lovvveeeesssss blowing the fluffy dead dandelions. (fun fact: I didn't realize these were dead dandelions until about two years ago when my dad pointed it out. I feel my IQ dropping rapidly) When I blow the dead ones, I'm letting the mutant dandelion seeds fly into the world to create further cesspools of dandelions. My father has yet to truly convince me that dandelions aren't flowers. They are my favorite color and, as a child, I would pick them in bunches from a hill down my street and decorate my bicycle spokes and my hair and still have enough to squeeze against the white (until yellowed by dandelion juices) handlebars of my super cool pink sparkly bike as I paraded through the neighborhood. Gosh, I love metaphor. 

I love and find purpose for dandelions even though my parents pulled me away saying "they're just weeds" as they gunned down the blooms with weed killer. I also love questions that I can't answer in 1.3 seconds, questions that melt in my mouth and get my to tip my head back with closed eyes. More often than not, I'm the one who picks these dandelion questions from the field of wildflowers.

What do you want...from this conversation...from this therapy session...from this internship...from this relationship...this blog? I still get the queazy, guilty, selfish feeling with these questions. There's something inside me saying "you should be happy with whatever you get"yet there's a conflicting yet comforting voice saying "you deserve to be fulfilled and people deserve to know how they can help." And that's where I get stuck. I have an idea of what I want but the words just don't come out. I'm afraid I want too much or not enough or that the person/situation won't be able to give it to me. I keep it simple saying "I'd like a box of crayons and a coloring book this year" instead of telling my grandma that I've been dreaming of learning to paint and would really love to take a painting class with my dad.

I don't have a take-away for you today--unless you are cool with taking "Emily lives not he struggle bus too" as today's dirty, honest truth. Super honestly: when I started blogging again last month, two friends asked me how I felt about it and I said I was struggling because I didn't feel like I had a purpose for it, there was no cohesive fiber (besides myself) tying it together and I didn't know what I wanted that fiber to be...still don't...

Double-take Reality Check

I've changed. I'm not at all the person I was two years ago. 

I say it all the time but don't often taken the time to recognize the profundity of change that has occurred. Maybe it's because I'm in it, not watching it. 

When I reevaluated my desire to blog and dusted off my keyboard, a few of the folks in my graduate program were beaming with excitement to stalk the blog history and read form the beginning. Oh, just watch this wave of thought and emotion--first, I was excited: readers! I write with the intent of people reading, so that's great. Then, nervousness took the driver's seat: The questions began. Do I write well enough? What if they don't like what I have to say? What if people think this is dumb? How will I know if I'm good enough? How do I become better? This led to self-consciousness: I read a few of the early posts and realized that I'm truly not that person anymore...how do I explain that? What if people like the old me better? What if they chastise the old me? What if they see the change as instability or inauthenticity? 

Oh, goshhhhhhhhhhhhh...

I don't have answers to all those burning questions, except that no one has said anything negative and people are still reading both current posts and old ones. In all honesty, I am trying not to think about it, to let people think what they will and to let myself write what I will. This way I calmly sit with my hands wide open to the world.

And at the same time, I've become mesmerized by the enormity of change that has a occurred in the past 2-3 years. Wow. I keep it no secret that this change happened in a street-fight sort of brawl during many many many therapy sessions and life. Shitty life circumstances would punch me in the gut while I swung back as my therapist screamed from the sidelines about the things I was doing to sabotage my game. I ignored her. I yelled back at her. I told her she was wrong. I ignored her some more. And then I began to listen. 

Anyway, my current therapist wants to know some of the background story of my life surrounding an event that occurred 3 1/2 years ago. I have a lot of memories but it's difficult for me to remember from the center of Self I was in 2011. In a lot of ways, it feels like third person. This week, I've charged myself with reading the blog posts and my journal from that time to better understand who 2011 Emily was, what she wanted, how she walked through the world. Is it weird that I don't know? Does change keep happening like this throughout adulthood? 

I wonder what I've missed as I've been so busy in the present and future that I've forgotten to honor my past. We hear all the time about how meaningful it is to live in the moment and live for today, and I wholeheartedly appreciate that. To do one thing mindfully takes practice and patience. I don't think this practice, however, asks us to forget our stories and just live in the now. My story has brought me to my now. 

The Practice of Practice

I've written before about how I'm spectacularly aware that what I do actually know seems unsubstantial in the vast face of the knowledge, existence. If you're still reading after I've told you that I don't know anything, one of three things may be true--

1. You and I are in the same boat: You don't know anything either and feel linked with my soul. Therefore, you keep coming back for more simply because we have a connection unbound by words.

2. You think there's something groovy about my boat: You believe, in at least some minuscule way, that there is merit in acknowledging our weaknesses. And, perhaps, some of this merit is built on the idea that admitting weakness somehow speaks truth.

3. You're thinking of trading in your scooter for a boat: You're not quite sure why I say I don't know anything yet keep coming back to the keyboard day-after-day to write. You just don't get me but you want to, you're intrigued.

Solid.
I really like metaphor.

I've been thinking about this all day and still don't quite have the right combination of words to clearly and eloquently express my musing. There's no reason it couldn't wait for another time when I might be able to paint a more perfect picture. Before sitting down tonight, I realized something. If I was to wait, I would be lying on my back watching the clouds pass and feeling frustrated that I wanted one to look like a lobster and none of them did. I really like metaphor. I'm saying that I'd be waiting for what I deem as perfection to come into my sight and feeling frustrated when that moment never comes.

I'm the first to add impatience to my list of flaws. It comes a few words before perfectionism (because, naturally, the list would be alphabetized). When thrown into the blender that is my personality, these two qualities express themselves as anxiety, big, prickly, cardiovascularly-out-of-shape, anxiety. Nearly every moment of every day, I have to make choices that starve the anxiety. I have to practice stillness and cardiovascular normalcy (aka breathing) and all sorts of other things to distract myself or improve the moment (hey, hey DBT fans :D). Some times I'm a pro and others it's like I'm a newborn who can't even hold her own head up. Anyway, I practice.

The anxiety is what got me worrying back in March about how on earth I was going to be able to do therapy in the fall. Despite my experience as the client, I don't know a whole lot about being the therapist. Sure, we've taken classes but I've never actually had to do it. It's like an adult learning to swim--she might read all about the physics of floating and proper stroke technique, yet when she gets to the pool, she's afraid to come out of the locker room because this is different, it's real. I was reminded today that these things take practice. No one is great right away.

And, I was reminded that practice takes practice. You have to practice giving yourself a second chance. You have to choose to show up even after you've made a mistake. You have to practice compassion with yourself as you practice. Replace all the 'you' with 'I' and this shall be my mantra from here on out.

This life is a practice. I wake up each day and try again. Practice, practice, practice.

Confession: I'm an addict

If you know me beyond name, favorite color, and undergraduate major, you know I have a very addictive personality. Reframe it however you want: determination, commitment, dedication, passion, etc. When it comes down to it, I'm an addict.

For the doubters out there:

• in late January 2012, I began training for my first half marathon at the rate of ...I couldn't run a mile and in November 2012 I ran my first full marathon.
• while training for the full marathon, I got a stress fracture in my foot...and kept running. There were many reasons, among which was "it's what I do, I run."
• my favorite color is yellow--have you seen my bedroom and wardrobe?
• from February 2012 until about October 2012, the only cereal I ate was Panda Puffs. Now I'm on a Rice Chex sprinkled with coconut kick.
• come look at my bookshelf and you'll know exactly what four topics I've focused the majority of my research on.
• I chew every bite in some multiple of seven.
• Disney, need I elaborate?

True, I don't stress about when I'm going to score my next hit or if I'm going to have enough time to sober up before going to work in the morning or how I'll have enough money to buy food for the week after my cigarettes. But I latch on to things I like, things that are useful, things that make sense and hold on for dear life. That's addiction.

I'm a Brene Brown addict.

You haven't heard of her/her work??!!?!! Well, until late October, I hadn't either. Since then I've read each of her three books twice, watched her on Oprah's Super Soul Sunday, and become a follower of her blog: Ordinary Courage. No big deal.

Big deal!

She's a shame, vulnerability, fear, trust, courage, authenticity guru. She's a social work professor at the University of Houston and calls herself a 'researcher storyteller' because she believes "stories are just data with a soul" and her work brings that to life.

It all started when a professor shared Brene's first TEDtalk with us last October.

Within just a few minutes of engaging the video, I was hooked. If you didn't watch it, WATCH IT. That's all I'm saying here by exposing my addiction. Please watch it and let it change the way you live and love and walk through this messy beautiful world.