10 things that are making today great!

Hola!

 

It's your mental health captain speaking!

 

First, we'll start with today's full disclosure, honesty-about-Bailey's-well-being recap (because honesty, in my (honest) opinion, is the first step toward giving you peace of mind):

 

Bails is exhausted and with a spinning head. She was up in the middle of the night with big life questions and possibilities both exciting and frightening her.

 

But! Here in the daylight*, she is counting her positives!!! I urge you to do the same! It's powerful! Research shows it!

 

*Fluorescent office light

 

1. Max's cat sitter is on board and willing to watch him while I'm on my upcoming vacation.

2. Somehow I am able to swim through alllll the details at work and knock out projects and meetings.

3. I called to cancel my massage and they didn't charge me.

4. I ate salad last night and loved it.

5. Carbonated water curbs my cravings for beer, which will hopefully curb the size of my belly. (I just bought three 12-packs).

6. I got to talk to my brother Patrick, my fellow middle child, while I was grocery shopping last night.

7. My book is 26,149 words long (!!!)

8. For once, I am in the green, according to Mint.com, with this month's budget.

9. I have been asked to speak at a mental health event this weekend, and I am honored and thrilled that my church is putting this on and acknowledging the role of faith and wellness together.

10. I made a special playlist just for today, which includes all the people I will see in concert this year: Rachael, Bonnie**, Brandi, Tegan, Sara, Sam. I heart music soooo much.

 

**She doesn't need a website link to refer you to who she is, because everyone should know who Bonnie is.

 

All right, your turn! What are your positives today?

 

Be well. #MentalHealthAwarenessMonth

When a holiday hurts

My mom is the first contact in my phone.

Some years back, I found myself calling her so much, that I grew impatient in scrolling through the M's in my contact list to find her. By accident, I typed in a period before her "name," and thus she became ".Mom".

I thought this funny, and I continue to privately refer to her as "dot mom."

In becoming dot mom, she also got bumped to the top of my contacts list. Given the convenience of dialing placement and the new nickname, I kept the typo as is.

God, my mom is amazing. She hasn't always had the easiest life, but she hasn't let that turn her into a mean person. She loves me and my brothers to pieces. She calls me Peach. She prays with me when I cry, sends me care packages multiple times a year, filled with tissues for my drippy nose, earrings, newspaper clippings and mail that is still being sent to her address.

I saw her twice this week, even though she lives 1,500 miles away.

Alex snapped a picture of me with the Tegan and Sara marquee at the concert we attended, and when he showed me the image I said instantly, "I look like my mom."

Two days later, getting ready for a Cinco de Mayo date with Alex, I looked in the mirror and there she was again.

I love this.

***

I am having a pretty good day so far. There is a little bit of swirling in my brain, and I won't lie, I was up in the middle of the night worrying about my sadness levels and those of others in my life.

But this morning I got up, passed on the opportunity to snuggle with Max, and I went to church. I was uplifted by my community there, and given peace.

Now I find myself at Panera, my second home, with soup and a keyboard and a hike scheduled later with my honey bee.

My day is going OK, and even though I can't be with my mom on this or most Mother's Days, I am so lucky to have such a great mamacita.

Others find themselves in sadness on this holiday, though. Some, in grief.

My best friend lost her mother years ago, and has no one to call today.

Another friend lost her mother this past year.

The family of a friend of mine lost an infant this week. Of all weeks.

The sadness is unspeakable, for those who have lost a mother, or a child.

But I was given hope this morning, when people around me held up in prayer this family who is experiencing such terrible loss.

Alone at 3 in the morning, the weight of the world is too much. Life becomes stagnant in those moments, either stuck in the past or frozen in fear. In a sanctuary with 200 other bowed heads, I can feel a future.

A mother of one, expecting her second, sat in front of me this morning. During our time to share the peace, our eyes met, each pair wet with tears. We hurt for the family we had just prayed for, and talked about how we can just pray, pray, pray for them. Her belly protruded between us. I told her I hope someone spoils her today, and discovered her due date is two days after my birthday. "Maybe I'll have a birthday twin," I said.

We ached for another of our sisters in Christ, and we did our best to look forward in hope.

***

My church honored all women today, not just mothers, and I thought that was beautiful and great.

I was handed a rose before service, given several hugs from the womanhood around me.

I asked each woman if she was a mother, and they said kind things to me like: You are a mother figure to someone. If you have cared for any child, you are a mother.

The Bethel congregation also handed out mugs today, that said:

"You are loved." -- God

"Bailey!" my pastor exclaimed. "You're a woman, you get a mug!"

He informed me the mugs were clean, so I filled it up with coffee, as I attend a Lutheran church and Lutherans leave no coffee behind.

I told Rustin I didn't think him the type to hand out dirty mugs to his congregants.

During the service, I looked down and noticed the lettering on my mug was smudging.

In some moments, this may have sent me into despair. Not because mugs are so important to me. I think of them like bunnies; they seem to breed in my cabinet and I always have more than enough. I struggle to unload the dishwasher, packing ceramic cups on the shelf without breaking them. My mugs runneth over.

But in a vulnerable moment, I could have read those smudged words in and on my hands as a bad sign, an illustration that life is so hard and sad, nothing is perfect and pretty and easy like perfectly etched letters on a mug would be.

Today, though, I thought that life is so hard and sad, but that there is also hope and peace. There is healing, even for those most bereft among us. This weekend I have been praying, praying for that healing.

***

I sometimes wonder if the world is in a perfect balance, amidst its brokenness.

Abby and I are big fans of the movie Frozen, and she joked once that the two of us are like Anna and Elsa. We seem to switch off in our moods -- while one of us is the grumpy ice queen, the other is singing buoyantly, "Do you want to build a snowman?"

I'm sure we each find this to be privately annoying at times. Abby is a ball of energy after she works out, and I find myself jealous of her endorphins. But I sometimes count our phenomenon to be awesome. I rarely find myself in a sad place in my apartment without someone who is there to push me toward hope and happiness. Toward light.

I find it amazing that 12 hours ago, I was lying in bed full of worry, and that today in church I was able to grieve for someone but also have hope and strength within me, for her, for me, for all of us. I really think sometimes that God keeps a certain number of us strong in moments when others need proof that strength still exists within themselves. And when those strong people become weak again, there are others to care for them, to grab their hand from the hole in the ground and lift them back to light.

***

I think most of us have at least one holiday during which we struggle to be joyful. For example, I enjoy it now, but Christmas was difficult for me for many years.

Mother's Day isn't a struggle for me, but on days like today, I have the urge to walk into the world, wave my hands and say, "Holiday's cancelled!"

I can't stand to know that people are grieving on this day meant to celebrate. A day that celebrates that which they no longer have. I want to ask that all the happy people keep their happy to themselves, so as not to disturb those in pain.

Cut the cake in silence, please.

Today, I am grateful that I am, to a degree, feeling strong. Today is one of the days that I am able to give. I may only be able to give prayer, but I am well enough to do so.

I am glad that when I saw the ink smudge on my mug, I didn't lose all hope, because I know of people who desperately need it.

Instead, I thought, Hmm. The love is rubbing off, seeping into my skin.

God's love isn't meant to reside in a mug. (Though sometimes I believe it can take this form, not in the coffee inside the mug, but in the loving hands of a person who pours the beverage and then sits with another person for as long as she needs to be sat with.)

God's love is meant to be spread. To keep us buoyant, to make each other strong again. His love gives us power to grieve alongside each other, so we don't have to grieve alone.

To all the mothers out there, happy day to you. We children appreciate all that you've done for us, and I hope that you get super spoiled with dinner, a bubble bath, oodles of gifts.

And for those struggling today, I hope that you are wrapped in the widest range of God's peace and love available. Which is immeasurable. I hope that one of God's children wraps you in a hug, and holds you. I hope that, today, you are mothered.

The rule for Saturday

I have one rule for Saturdays.

I am currently running behind on adhering to this rule, and as a result I am feeling agitated and uneasy. 

Here's the rule, are you ready? 

At lunchtime on Saturday, I must exit the premises of my apartment. 

That's it. 

This rule does not apply on Sunday. Just Saturday. 

It has taken me a while to learn my inner clock. Actually, I plan to always continually be learning about my inner clock. 

But it was not until just a month or so ago that I discovered at lunchtime on Saturdays, I best be gettin' myself out the house. 

And since my clock wants -- needs -- to get some fresh air around 12 p.m. on Saturday, I do it.

I interrupt all programming -- ferocious cleaning, cat snuggling, cross stitching -- to get out the door. It doesn't matter whether what I am doing is productive, whether the actions I am taking will have a pay off if I just power through them.

The tasks and the hobbies will be there when I get back.

But, my body, and my brain -- my high maintenance, little nag of a brain -- say, "Please, Ma'am, let us change our surroundings. For just a bit. Please?"

So I obey.

***

Those who know me well know that I view eating as a chore. It drives me bonkers that we have to stop and eat so much, not only to stay alive but to keep our moods steady.

I think a lot of the problem is that our culture has changed so much from when eating used to always be a community activity -- all hands were on deck, preparing, cleaning dishes, milking the cows, cracking the eggs. And even when men were working the fields, hunting and what not, they still came round the table for lunch.

I mean, I presume. I don't picture a lot of biblical wives sending their shepherd husbands off with a brown paper sack stocked with PB&J and a juice box.

Point being, people didn't used to dine alone. Now, we dine alone a lot. That is certainly part of the reason that I don't enjoy stopping to eat so much.

But I'm also just impatient. Restless. I have so much else I want and need to do, that the last thing I want to do is stop everything for an hour and prepare and consume a meal.

So it's been frustrating for me, probably more so than for the average person, to learn that my body needs to eat, what it needs to eat (protein? carb?...a dreaded green?), how much it needs to eat.

I don't like letting my inner clock rule me. I feel like I'm a grown up, I should call the shots. But lo and behold, my stomach actually calls the occasional shot.

And so does my brain.

***

So it took me a bit, but I finally realized that at lunchtime on Saturday, I need to get out of the house.

That's it. There are no parameters to what I do when I leave. I can be productive, or I can go to Target and max out my credit card.

The point is I just need to get out. My inner clock says change it up, so if I want to feel not agitated, not depressed, not frustrated with a still-looking-messy-bedroom-after-a-morning-of-cleaning, then I best listen to that clock.

It is frustrating to learn your inner clock.

It takes patience, the humble acceptance that we all have idiosyncrasies and are maybe more high maintenance than we want to be.

But I've found that there is great pay off in the humble acceptance and the subsequent humble bow to your inner clock.

I love weekends, and certainly need the break from work, but I also find that the lack of structure and the reduced social interaction (versus spending 8 hours a day with your coworkers, being purposeful, completing tasks) really challenges me.

I never quite know what I'm going to get each weekend. It could be great, start to finish. It can have too much people time. It can have not enough people time. It can be fun, it can be lonely. It can be productive, it can make me wish I was at work.

In the last couple of months, the longevity of my positive moods on the weekends have improved greatly.

***

Since it is Mental Health Awareness Month, I want to make some of my posts this May practically geared around mental health.

A lot of times you will read me here on this blog getting serious about very serious topics, like debilitating depression and other ways that emotional suffering can look and feel.

But sometimes -- yay! -- mental health can be kept in good shape with simple tools.

Like I said, it is indeed frustrating to listen to your inner clock. It takes practice, trial and error, to get it just right.

But honestly, it's not hard for me to get out of the house for a couple hours on Saturday. It can be difficult to slow my roll on whatever project I'm working on before I leave the house, but there's a lot I like to do out in the world. I can shop, hole up at Panera and write, go hang out with Alex.

And then, says inner clock, I'm allowed to return home. To pick up again on that cleaning project, that cross stitch project, to resume snuggling with the cat.

So let me leave you with this, for my first mental health post for this month that is so wonderfully focused on something so important to each and every one of us.

Find one thing your inner clock is telling you. And listen to it.

You don't have to look at the big picture, just start where you are, in this moment. What is your clock telling you?

Is it telling you to eat?

Is it suggesting you take a nap?

Do you need to phone a friend, go grab a coffee with him?

Do you need a hug?

Pause. Listen. Bow to the leaning.

Be well. Thanks for reading. Much love.

(Now it's time for me to go grab my laundry and then head to Alex's place, because it is 2:14 p.m.! I'm late!)

Book update (halfway there!)

I kind of want to keep quiet about this, because I don't want to brag about something that isn't finished, or jinx it, or, especially, slow myself from working on it. I know how dangerous resting places can be, soft cushiony nests lined with laurel leaves. Nests that invite you to stay awhile, have a snack, forget the life-giving project you're working on.

Nevertheless, I'm not sure how I got here.

I mean, I do. I sat my "butt in chair," as Anne Lamott advises all writers to do, I opened up the Word document, and I typed.

Over and over, I typed.

And now I find myself at 25,000 (plus!) words.

Whoa.

Wow.

Anne Lamott prays three major prayers:

Help me help me help me.

Thank you thank you thank you.

And Wow.

She prayed the first two for a long time, then added the third as she got older.

I suppose I have followed a similar suit. A lot of grappling fear and wondrous moments of peace and relief and bliss, with quick words in edgewise to the Guy who watches it all.

And now, as I find myself looking at the bottom of my draft and seeing a 5-digit number, I just whisper into the air:

Wow.

My book -- MY book! -- is 25,000 words. About halfway to where I expect it will end up.

And to think the idea -- a young adult novel about a girl struggling with anxiety -- just came about in my head while I was simply driving to lunch.

It bears repeating:

Whoa.

Wow.

[Also THANK YOU! for all your support. Xo]

Wrestling with passion

I'm not in a good place today.

I dislike this, because a) no one ever prefers to be in a bad place, and b) because I've thought my recent off days would be chalked up to a phase. Boredom, stress, something other than maybe I'm just depressed. 

I don't say this to indicate that I've failed in some way. I just haven't felt this way in a long time, and since I've seen dark places before, it disturbs me to think that I might be headed back to a season that once really messed me up. 

Sigh. 

I hate even typing this because that means it's true. I'm dealing with something. Whether it will disappear -- poof! -- tomorrow, or stay for several months, I have to admit that today I feel depressed. 

Grrrrrrr.

The slow music I'm listening to is not exactly helping, but I'm not sure some poppy tunes would help the situation either. They might just make me angry; why are the Beach Boys so happy?? I might ask. 

Alex is asleep in the next room, and I wish he were awake to keep me company. But he needs his rest, and I want him to rest. 

Tears are welling in my eyes. 

I take comfort that Alex is near, yet. 

Tears are now running down my cheeks. 

I know that I'm strong. I know that I can endure a lot. I have resources, the most loving friends, a job to keep me busy and coworkers that make me laugh. 

Yet. 

I feel burdened. 

I told A that tomorrow I have to order lunch for a meeting and it just feels like a TASK. 

And it is a task. 

But it shouldn't have me feeling so overwhelmed. 

I have two upcoming vacations, and I am struggling to focus on the joy that I know they will bring me, because my vision keeps getting blocked by things like possible turbulence and exhaustion from jet lag, and the people we love who we leave behind when we go on another adventure. 

I just want assurance that this feeling will be gone -- poof! -- tomorrow, but of course we can never know. 

I want to ask Why? but I don't dare, because that means I'm facing the pain. 

It's just that -- and anyone who's been depressed more than once can attest to this -- the thought of going back to the dark place is so damn scary. 

I've been asked to speak at a mental health awareness event in two weeks, and I don't know what to say. 

A few weeks ago, I would have just told the story I've told over and over. Anxiety and depression in my twenties, lots of therapy, lots of learning useful coping skills, lots of leaning on friends, family, and the church, then a life-changing alteration of meds, and Bam! Happy happy happy ever since. Even Steven -- no crazy ups, no crazy downs. Just calm and at peace. 

Now, I find myself re-evaluating what I might say. 

I want to be honest, of course. And I want to give hope. I don't want to walk in and say, "Well, apparently, after two years on a great cocktail of medication, you might have to go visit your psychiatrist and do some tweaking."

Although honestly when I say it like that it seems rather simple. Unless you're depressed, in which case the scheduling of the appointment, the going to the appointment, the trying out the new meds and gauging your daily feelings, the reporting back to your doc, just look like 

TASK.

TASK.

TASK. 

I've started the conversation with my therapist. He can't prescribe meds, but he's asked me to continue to monitor my feelings for a few weeks before he refers me back to a doc. 

***

I have to say I feel a little better than I did 20 minutes ago. 

I'm texting Abby, and she's asking good questions. 

I went pee. 

I got myself a fresh can of carbonated water, or "fizzy water," as my Sweet so fondly calls it. 

The music doesn't sound as gloomy as it did. 

Grace. God's good grace. That glorious moment when things suddenly don't feel hard, or sad. And it happens when we aren't looking, the way I just noticed yesterday that my headache had gone away. It was so very present, I got occupied with something else, and then noticed it was gone. But I didn't feel it the moment it left; it disappeared while I was tending to something else, and God did the erasing of the pain in my head. 

Grace and fear. If I had to name two things that are in continuous (though sometimes dormant) battle in my life, I might be wont to say those two things are happiness vs. sadness. 

But I think in fact they might be grace vs. fear. 

I either find myself in complete and utter awe of what God has given me, unable to give my gratitude words, try as I might. 

Or I find myself huddled in anxiety, thinking myself unable to order lunch for a work meeting, fearing that I am about to spiral into X more years of depression. Obnoxious, uninvited, squished-in-a-box depression!

***

Abby and I are texting about farts and I just laughed out loud. 

Laughter = carbonated holiness, says Anne Lamott. The wise, honest, ever-embracing-of-grace Anne.

Anne wrote a book called Grace (Eventually). 

I didn't actually catch the significance of the title until I went to hear her speak (I've only seen her four times, no big deal. And I've met her famous son, Sam, also no big deal). 

Anne said that there is always grace, but it's not always right this second. It might be...eventually.

***

Just as I don't know what to say at the mental health event in two weeks, nor do I know what to say now. 

We sang a song at church this morning, and it always kind of gets me. I'm going to botch it, so this is not a direct quote, but it goes something like this: 

You're full of life now

You're full of passion

It's how He made you

Just let it happen

And then the closing part of the song is something like this: 

So take me back

Back to the beginning

When we were running together

Through the fields

Again. Not a direct quote, but the sentiment's there. 

The song gets me for two reasons. 

One, I love that it gives me permission to be me. It reminds me that God gave me all this LIFE inside me, the crazy passion, the extreme love for words, and my friends, and for singing and stuffing my face in the cat's belly. 

Just let it happen. 

Sadly, the flip side of that is occasional melancholy moods that seem to be unfairly intense. But again, the permission to let it happen -- when I take away the fighting against it I'm erasing some of the pain in my head, like the headache that was erased from my life yesterday. 

And then the second part of the song. I don't wish to be a kid again, but MAN! to be a kid again!

It just makes me remember how I never used to view my passion as a bad thing, as something that was wrong with me. 

(Commercial break: I don't think that there's something wrong with me, per se, but I do find in my experience, that it is perfectly fine to address a challenge in my life by going to therapy and take meds. If that makes sense. I hope it does.)

I recently told Alex that I used to cut out pictures of cows from magazines, and use rubber cement to paste them to construction paper, which I would then assemble in books called "cow scrapbooks."

My adorable, precious love slowly raised his hand in the air. 

"Yes, Alex Sanborn," I called on him. 

"...Why?"

I lost myself in giggles, wondering how I could explain to him that this was just something I felt compelled to do in my youth. 

When I was gluing pictures of cows, I never asked why. 

When I was the only one dancing at our middle school dances, I only wondered why others weren't joining in. Didn't they know how good it felt?

Passion. Life. Unbridled.

Sure, if I had it my way, I'd say, "I'll take the good-feeling passion, please, but none of that bad-feeling stuff, thanks."

But I'm not in charge. And we live in a broken world. Which is why I cling to the cross -- or, remind myself to try to do that. 

I'm not going to tie this post up with a tidy bow, because that would seem dishonest. I will do my best, though, to keep y'all posted on my life and my feelings. 

And I will leave you with this. 

While it has been hard at times to be so passionate -- when, for example, I get wrapped up in TV characters and my brother pauses to tell me I care too much, or when I feel elated but secretly wonder if I will feel deflated in a few hours -- I can sincerely count many times and ways in my life that the passion given to me has been amazing. 

For one, I pour my passion into this here writing, and it feels pretty damn good to write, to be a writer, to feel confidently that's what I should do. 

I have begun work again on my novel, and it feels so good to give that middle school heroine life, to give her coping skills, to give her hope, to prepare her for a great future beyond the walls of Grade 6. 

And for what it's worth, when I knelt at the communion rail this morning and Debbie handed me the blood, shed for me, that sip from the tiny glass tasted like the first taste of wine at a really great party. Not the kind where people get too drunk to really enjoy. But the kind that just flows, where you are wrapped up in your friends, old and new, in the conversation, not worried about tomorrow, not worried about today. Just loving the moment, soaking it up and slowly sipping. 

Take me back. Back to the beginning. When we were running together, through the fields.