Relapsing
Last fall I was with some friends, hanging out, chatting away—when I said something that made them stop dead in their tracks. It was only for a millisecond, but in it, the confused looks they gave me were palpable, pertinent.
The conversation continued on, and I with it, but my brain was busy flying backwards around the earth, trying to reverse time so that I could figure out what I’d said right before their faces looked at me like I was a martian. (and not the good kind).
As soon as I could the next morning, I asked…because I just couldn’t figure it out on my own. I thought maybe my friend would ask me what in the world I was talking about, proving that this was all in my head, but instead her reply came out readily—sharp and blunt.
“It was because you self-disparaged,” she said. “And it was in such sharp contrast to how you normally hold yourself, how you talk about things you love—your writing, your passions, so many parts of yourself. Then, you sneak in these horrible tidbits of self-loathing where you cut yourself down. It’s jarring to witness. To be honest,” she said, “I felt embarrassed for you.”
Embarrassed.
I felt embarrassed for me, too. And humiliated, ashamed, emasculated. This friend does not mince words, and ‘to be honest’, this was a blessing.
When I heard my voice/actions/message shot back at me like an echo in a 2 x 2 torture chamber, I actually heard it all for the first time. And that was it all it took. I stopped self-disparaging. Right then and there. Once I’d experienced it, I was ready to never set eyeballs or eardrums on it again.
Fat singing
Imagine creating a masterpiece—let’s say a beautiful song. Many people love it, they ooh and ahh over it, they want to hear it again and again. But you just walk amongst them, interrupting their reverie, shouting things like, “I WAS SO FAT WHEN I WROTE THIS SONG!” What is your point? Who are you hurting? What are you hoping to accomplish?
After I stopped, I would still feel horrible diatribes about myself, my body, my work, my parenting well up in my throat, but I’d just let them out with the carbon dioxide and used air, without letting them take shape as words. And soon, the internal parade of mean started to get quiet.
Mind you
To Not Self-Disparage does not mean that you gloat, boast, show off or wax poetical about how great you are—these are not its antonyms. It simply means that you don’t say mean things about yourself.
I noticed a monumental difference in myself and my life and my way of being immediately. As it turned out, my self-disparagement had been following me around like Pigpen’s dirt cloud. Constant, smelly, blurry-making to the point that neither I, nor those around me, could even see me clearly anymore.
Without it, the good bits could shine.
Me: Wagon: Floor
And so it went. Until a couple of months ago when I relapsed in the typical fashion—I’ll just try it once, I can handle THAT, I said to myself, and then, quite quickly, the self-inflicted barrage came tumbling out in a lurid gush. About nine months worth.
You see, my original Sober-inducing Environment was filled with people who didn’t respond to, “I suck” with “No! You’re wonderful!” It was filled with people who cringed and thought about walking away. Now, the Relapse-inducing Environment was filled with people (okay, just one people) who was telling me how wonderful I was in an unbridled, unprompted, unaskedfor, onaregularbasis way.
So, like any good addict, I thought, hmmmmm….I’ve been dieting for quite some time…what if I just have one bite? Before the question was even fully formed, I started rolling out the insults, shamelessly begging to be absolved of my self-manifested fat/ugly/worthless/mean/bad sins.
It worked like a charm. My self-loathing was turned into beauty and perfection at every turn by this ‘one people’. Sometimes, I’d even double dip—emphatically shrugging off the first compliment-ridden rebuttal just loudly enough to get another dose/hit/high.
Too aware
But, dang, my conscience. It knew what I was doing was wrong. And it told me so. My own self now capable of stopping dead in its tracks, for only a millisecond, but with enough weight to make the look it threw my way both palpable and pertinent.
And with enough weight to help me fill the air around me with blessed silence once again.
Image credit: Raizo
Filed under How To, Myth or Reality | Tags: living, self-disparagement, self-esteem, Writing | Comments (9)Some numbers along the way
8:07 time last night when I decided maybe I’d do a long run in the morning.
4:23 when I woke up.
5:05 when I started running.
700 milliliters of coconut water steadily poured down my gullet.
1 lovely, elderly couple that I flagged down and asked to ‘ferry’ said coconut water down to the end of that first long, long road so I didn’t have to lug it with me. Because, ironically, I was too lazy to plant the water along the course and can now proclaim that carrying it is a bad, bad idea—does ugly things to the stride.
9 wild (and likely crazy) turkeys.
2 big, beautiful, brown bulls.
4 ducks—one mama + 3 duck-a-lings (pronunciation per Jack and Sophie)
6 young, small, male, vibrant red cardinals (unless it was the same bird that followed me the whole way? But I doubt it…).
3 stunning views of the Atlantic Ocean via the southern coast of Martha’s Vineyard under the early morning sun.
6 hot biking dudes (or at least they looked hot in their gear) that said hello.
1 hot biking chick who looked and sounded (we exchanged ‘hellos’ as well) a helluva lot like Debra Messing.
3 writing/content ideas for later.
12 cars that piloted voluptuously around me.
1 car and asshat that did not.
4,793,281 drops of sweat.
300 ish steps to the beach, post-run.
5 minutes spent soaking my legs in the cold ocean.
5 minutes spent scanning said ocean for Great Whites (they are currently infesting our waters, seriously, look it up on Google).
22 teeth you would see right now if you were here with me…because I can’t seem to close my mouth for all the smiling.
13.1 miles run.
1/2 Marathon checked off the list.
5 roads.
2 legs.
1 me.
Filed under How To | Tags: doing, living, running, Writing | Comments (26)If you run a marathon and no one sees you do it, did you still run a marathon?
I’ve been told that I’m exceedingly competitive. And it’s true. I love making bets. And I love winning them. (and conveniently forgetting about the ones I lose.) I’ve been known to challenge grown men who weigh at least 100 lbs. more than me to arm wrestling matches. Apparently, I love the chase and the fight. No matter the odds.
So, why, in the last couple of weeks, when I’ve been asked about doing a triathlon or running a road race, have I immediately and definitively replied, No way. Not interested. ???
If you write or art or play music or do anything creative, then you know that the creative process does not come in a bottle. It does not pay attention to time. It does not spurt on demand. And this characteristic is both maddening and magical. You never know when the well will be dry. You never know when something wonderful will surge up and out of you.
So we just keep showing up.
As some of you know, I don’t believe in writer’s block. I believe in time. I believe that if you write something else, start in the middle, go for a run, talk to people, move your body and go about your business (without staring at the keyboard or the clock), the words will show up. A watched pot…and all that.
Have I written on demand? Yes, of course, it’s part of my job description. Is it, sometimes, exhilarating? Yes. Is it also pressure-filled and does it make my skin itch? Yes. So, I try not to let it happen.
Imagine a marathon. A real one, with a finish line and thousands of people. These people train for ONE day. They are, in effect, running on demand. They train for four plus months or years for ONE day. What if they wake up that day with a headache? the flu? elephantitis of the big toe? or they just start running and feel like crap? What happens is this: they’re screwed. And the perception is one of failure.
All because of One Day Syndrome
I’m going to run a half-marathon and then I’m going to run a full one. By myself, on my island. No fanfare, no crowds. Just me and my trusty google pedometer charting the perfect course. And some stashed coconut water along the way. And my own awesomeness at the end.
Oh, and no pressure, no ‘on demand’. If I plan it for Saturday the #th and it doesn’t happen, I’ll try again the next week. I’ll find the right day and the right body state. And I’ll do what I set out to do. On my terms. Because lots of things are on someone else’s—but not this. I get this one.
I can hear some of you now, “But part of the challenge is getting through whatever comes at you on that THAT day!” And I will—it’s just going to be on my day. Come on. Of course, I’m not saying that I’ll give up at the first sign of discomfort, you know me better than that. But I don’t really like prescriptions. Look at New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day and Prom. And I think there really is a reason that animals struggle to mate in captivity. Whatever happened to following an urge…all. the. way. up.
This blog—my terms, my space, my domain— is ‘the way’ my fingers write best. And, I think it will also be the way that my legs run best. I just don’t want it to come down to one day, one chance.
I want it to come down to one me.
Image credit: horizontal integration
Filed under How To | Tags: creating, living, running, Writing | Comments (4)Not only do they know me…
Roughly one month ago, my best friend from the 5th grade, Johanna, called me and our other best friend from the 6th grade, Orly, with an ‘idea’.
“I think we should all meet on the Vineyard for the 4th of July weekend.”
Organizing families and schedules and getting to an island is a bit of a stretch across the board usually…except for this time. Within a day or two, every piece had fallen into place. And several weeks later, they showed up. Here. With me.
That was then, this is now
Over the last year, I have been lucky enough to welcome wonderful, brilliant, new friends into my life. These are people who are meeting me now and know this to be the me that I am: an adult, a mom, a writer, a business woman, (and now I will stop this list before I get into trouble).
You see, of late, it has been my contention that I have become more me, recently, than I have ever been. That I am inhabiting my skin, my heart and my brain more fully than I ever have before. And therefore, I assumed that I was so copacetic with these new friends as a result of my newly hatchedness. That we connected so deeply because I was finally and deeply me.
And then Johanna and Orly arrived.
And there I was being the self I’m so happy being now…and there they were not noticing anything different. Being with them was and is like chewing—something I don’t have to think about. It just happens, my body knows inherently how.
Not only do these two women know me, but they also love me. And have, even when years have gone by without much communication, even when life was happening, for 27 years. Their love, it seems, is for something that is just intrinsically, undeniably, Julie.
At one point during the weekend, Johanna told me, when I put on one dress in particular that “it looked better on the hanger”—true friends do not mince words. So, I asked her point blank if I was different or the same—then versus now—and she said, “Well, you were always really smart and a brilliant writer and strong-willed and, well, wild—but I will say that you’re funnier now.” (I’m wilder now too, but that’s an entirely different blog post. Nah, that’s an entirely different blog altogether.)
Which was when I realized that me being me now is really just me being an enhanced version of who I always was—before I wasn’t a kid anymore. You know, when I was 10.
It is soul-quenching to be with people that have known and loved me for this long. It is life-quenching to realize that I wasn’t so off the mark way back when. It is road-quenching to know that even though there was a big chunk of years when I floundered, off the map—the markers were there all along, that I was tied to them indelibly as if with invisible ink that just needed those weird, white magic markers to make the ties visible.
And that, without really trying—just sniffing my way—I somehow, deliciously, made it back. Plus 27.
Image credit: Kevin Dooley (I couldn’t help it. I typed in ‘old friends’ and this image popped up amongst some random and boring pictures of, well, old friends. May we all still be friends when we are this old. And may our bosoms never, ever look like this.)
Filed under Myth or Reality | Tags: life, living, old friends, Writing | Comments (14)Wanting, Cake and Stasis
If I was sitting in my favorite cushioned rocker from Crate and Barrel circa 1995 with a great book, an ice cold Kombucha, a bag of peanuts and Silas—why would I ever move? I’d have to want something else. Like the toilet or my Blackberry.
Think about it.
I’ve been told that wanting is good. That it actually keeps us alive—because we chase our desires, because the wanting keeps us moving actionably forward towards the getting. It follows, then, that without the wanting, you would hit stasis. Forever. Because there would be nothing to move you out of your current spot.
We would die of starvation if we didn’t get hungry and want food. We would die of dehydration if we didn’t get thirsty and want water. We would die as a species if we didn’t get all kinds of turned on and want sex.
It makes sense. I get it.
But what happens when there’s something you want that you can’t have no matter what? (Or at least the probability is so low, even ants stand too high to see it.) Does that kind of wanting move you forward? Or does it just offer up a different kind of equilibrium—more akin to inactivity or, more aptly, wheel spinning.
And if the way out is still ‘wanting’? Do we just need to want something else?
Cake
Have you ever wanted to eat a piece of chocolate cake, but didn’t let yourself have it because you weren’t eating crap that week. So instead, you ate everything else in your kitchen. It doesn’t work to just want something else. ‘Something else’ never fills the hole, never satisfies. No matter how many eggs, carrots, potato chips and pickles you eat and no matter how full you get, you still want the cake.
So, I don’t know about that option. I suppose that would keep us from stasis (or dying). But not from getting fat or fulfilled.
What to do if you can’t have your want, and you can’t eat it too?
Image credit: Chatirygirl
Filed under Myth or Reality | Tags: creating, living, wanting, Writing | Comments (10)The Hard Refresh: Wiping your creative slate clean
It occurs to me that some people don’t know about the hard refresh command. And that I take it for granted that I do.
Basically, your browser caches web pages (or files and remembers them on your computer). So, if something changes on a website, you might not know – because when you type the web address into your browser bar, it returns the last page it remembers for that address. (Didja get that?)
The browser doesn’t always go back to the site’s server and look for a new, updated page. (The hows and whys of when it does and does not do this are soooo not important here – and highly technical in a way that I have chosen decidedly not to be!)
However, if you engage the hard refresh – by holding the shift key down while you click on the refresh button – the page reloads anew. This is particularly helpful when you’re building or updating a website. (Which I find myself doing a LOT of these days with my uber-team.)
What a handy tool to have at the ready when you have an automatic reaction to something.
Like:
- When you see potato chips and then eat the whole bag – because your browser remembers that that’s what you did the last time.
- Or when you see that someone that’s just no good for you and you run to them as fast as you possibly can – because your browser remembers that that’s what you did the last time.
- Or when you have a lot of work to do and instead you clean your house or eat or watch a movie or play solitaire or go out to dinner or surf the web – because your browser remembers that that’s what you did the last time.
- Or when you’re trying to write a new post, paint a new picture, solve the oil crisis in the Gulf of Mexico and you just keep coming up with the same crap or stagnation or theme or brilliance – because your browser remembers that that’s what you did last time.
Ahhh…to be able to hit shift+refresh and clear the slate, load something new and see an entirely updated screen.
Image credit: CeeKay
Filed under How To | Tags: creativity, hard refresh, inspiration, living, reboot, refresh, reload, second chance, write, writer, Writing | Comments (7)Potholes (and the things that fill them)
I have a new favorite run. It curves around this ancient, sand, beach road making its way to the ocean – passing marshes and ponds and currently empty summer houses on the way.
Like all old, dirt roads, it’s ridden with potholes. Which by definition are hard to see – camouflaged by the same dirt and sand as the rest of the road. Some are as big as my bed, some are as big as my shoe – but when it comes to making me misstep and even fall – they subscribe to the school of equal opportunity.
It just rained here for three days straight. Poured, really. I cursed it more than once. And when I set out to run this finally rain-free morning, I dreaded sloshing through the puddles, soaking my shoes.
But when I turned onto the beach road, I saw that all of the potholes were now full of the rain. The standing water caught the early morning light – and I suddenly had a brightly lit path of warning signs, like aquatic caution cones, guiding me along the right path.
They reminded me of people, writers, events in my life over this last year that reflected and filled and guided. They reminded me of my own inner navigation system that’s done the same.
Turns out, three days of rain was kinda worth it.
Image credit: Steve Rhode
Filed under Myth or Reality, Writing | Tags: living, running, Writing | Comments (11)How’s your suck?
Disclaimer: I did not birth the term ‘suck’. And, yes, I wish I had.
Yesterday, I went to a friend’s house to borrow a skirt, and she said, “We have to start with the shoes. What shoes are you going to be wearing? Do you have boots?” No, I don’t. And, so, she graciously handed me her black, soft, leather, knee high boots from Paris. I have to tell you, I fell in love as I zipped them up. Instantly, utterly, lustfully.
They fit like butter, they looked dangerously good, they made me feel divine. It felt like they possessed some sort of transformative super power that turned me into the 30 something fashonista I would be now if I hadn’t spent a good portion of my 20′s at a yoga ashram – finding my Warrior Pose instead of my Prada.
When I got home, full of this feeling and boots in hand, I had an epiphanic thought. Paris would be nice and so would $500 boots, but I have an internet connection and an Ebay account. And I’m gonna find my boots.
There was no effort involved. Just the flow of boot ‘juice’ from my self to my computer. And there they were, not exactly the same, possibly even a little bit hotter, in black and in brown – with a price tag of $40.00 for the pair of ‘em.
That, my friends, is good, strong suck.
Suck is about calling the things you want to yourself. And getting them. It comes in a few forms – some unwanted, some just plain glorious.
Weak Suck
You self-disparage. You second guess. You’re timid and you hide and doubt yourself. You never get what you want. Because really you don’t have any clue what it is that you want in the first place and/or you feel that you don’t deserve it.
Reverse Suck
You spend your time complaining about what you don’t want and being negative to the extent that you end up sucking the bad stuff right to your forehead. And though you will likely try, you have no one to blame but yourself (such a pisser).
Random Suck
Which is really to say that it’s uncontrolled and undisciplined. It’s high, it’s low; it turns on and then off on a whim. You get that ‘something’ is at play, but you don’t know what or how. You’ve given up your suck to ‘fate’.
Good Suck
This is what we’re all shooting for. It’s precise, directed, vacuum packed. It brings the awesome things. It empowers you. Its momentum is self-fed. And it is feels so natural, so right-on that it doesn’t feel like work – it just feels GOOD.
…And it might just get you some kickin’ boots.
Image credit: FreekzOr
Filed under How To, The Business, Writing | Tags: being your best self, creative writing, living, self-fufilling prophecy, Writing | Comments (14)
