Love Is All You Need

For the most part, I don’t actually mind getting older. Sure, there are the indignities our bodies undergo as we transition into middle age—parts shrink or expand, they grow spots or protest certain activities loudly and painfully. That’s all largely “meh” in my book, as it’s just part of life’s cycle. Aging is also usually preferable to the alternative—except when it means you've reached an age where friends start dying of natural causes.

That, dear interwebs, sucks unmitigated amounts of ass.

My RenFaire community recently lost a friend. Brian and I weren't super close, but there’s a bond between performers that’s a kind of shortcut. You don’t have to battle through life’s trenches together to develop a healthy level of trust and respect; a weekend or two on stage or in the lanes will get you there.

But when someone from the community dies, there’s a double-whammy. In addition to my own sadness, I’m processing that of my Faire Family. There’s a hole in that world now, and it takes an additional toll on my psyche to feel the reverberations of waves of grief across those sympathetic fibers that connect us as Family of Choice. For me, that is far worse than my own sense of loss.

When I found out, I wrote a Facebook post exhorting everyone to never fail to let friends and loved ones know how much they are loved. I also reaffirmed my love for them. 

I fear, however, that it is not enough.

No More Words

I originally posted this a few years ago on Live Journal, and thought that a slightly repurposed version might fit well here. Especially in today's divisive climate—one where, sadly, discourse has gone by the wayside (a pithy post for another day, methinks)—it's critical to consider what's beyond the words... both for good and for ill.

Words are important to me; I write for a living. Not fun stuff (at least, not usually), but nonetheless, I write. And since I was three, I have been an avid reader. Books were my first—and sometimes truest—friends. Words opened up worlds to me, providing solace, inspiration, and wisdom. Words are how we express, how we communicate, and (ideally) how we find common ground.

Words have power. They can uplift or destroy.

I understand on an emotional level that certain words are so charged, so volatile as to be rendered unacceptable.

Part of me wonders why we punish the word itself.

The Road to Acceptance

I'm in an introspective headspace lately, internets, so my bloggyposts will probably reflect that. But who knows—I might rebel soon (imagine that!) and boomerang back to inanity (face it—it's just a matter of time).

In my more worn out and reflective state of mind—and seriously, self, what is up with the having to get exhausted before you will tune in and pay attention to what's going on? Other than, ya know, the obvious distraction technique and other such nonsense—I've discovered yet one more counterproductive thing I do.* When get to feeling as I have been lately, instead of just acknowledging the mental or physical fatigue, honoring it, working through it, and such, I get a little embarrassed and angry.

What. the. HELL.

Nothing like kicking yourself when you're down, right? 'Cuz that's all helpful and stuff.

Sheesh.

I don't know if it's my brain needing some kind of justification for the tired—which is a distinct possibility, given how I take after my perfectionist father (who also lays claim to a Protestant Work Ethic despite being a cradle Catholic)—or guilt of some kind (see previous comment re: being raised Catholic). Could be a little from column A and little from column B, I suppose.

Now that I'm pondering it (by way of vomiting words onto a pixelated page), it might be yet another way to distance myself from the actual emotion of a thing by intellectualizing it. (Those of you who know me IRL can quit smashing your respective foreheads into your desks and/or guffawing now, thanks.)

Malaise doesn't go on sandwiches

There's some malaise happening in my world these days, internets. (It sounds like a condiment for moody people, doesn't it? Then that makes me wonder what ennui would taste like, only I realize I don't care...)

ANYway...

I'm re-realizing how much time and energy the business of living life takes. (This became terrifyingly clear to me during radiation for my Boobonic Plague... some days, just managing to brush my teeth and get dressed was a major victory.) It's kind of stunning if you think about it, really. I mean, even on the days I plan to be lazy (yes, I'm just Type-A enough to schedule such things—don't judge!), I still need to eat, which means if my budget doesn't allow delivery that there will be cooking, which equates to dishes to do. Then there's getting the mail, or getting dressed, or a million other things that don't seem like much until you stop and count them. And that's not even taking work and related tasks into account.

Grocery shopping. Scrubbing the toilet. Taking out the trash. (I would say dusting but dust is considered a protective covering at my house so... yeah.) Mail. Laundry. Yard work. These are things that have to get done no matter what state of mind or health one is in. I don't even want to add up how much time that takes the average person, because I already know it's significant.

F*@kin' Perfect

Once upon a time, there was a girl who thought she needed to be perfect. Her father was quite the perfectionist, you see, and she adored him so clearly she should attempt to be perfect, too.

While she grew up to be smart and have a few talents, she also worked very hard to Make Everything Right. She did so not only because she wanted to make her father happy, but because she thought that if she was clever enough to see around corners, thinking everything through thoroughly, then she could troubleshoot where things go wrong and head them off at the pass. And if she never made any mistakes, then she'd never have to hurt.

As you can imagine, things did not go as planned.

Years later, in a moment of pique and pain, she poured her guts out in an online journal format. A girl she sort of knew saw this post, and said something like this:

"Wow! You always seemed so together, and you totally intimidated me. Now I see you're more like me than I ever imagined. I can totally relate to you now that I know you're not perfect!"

And thus, a wonderful friendship was born.

It's Tricky*

Lately I’m beginning to think that the key to a happier life lies in getting good at tricking oneself. I don’t mean that habitual self-deception is healthy or desirable, mind you. I just mean that sometimes to get out of our own way, we have to practice a little creativity in how we present things to ourselves.

Here’s what I mean:

Let’s say – just as a crazy, random example, of course—that I have several huge piles of laundry to put away. (Hush, internets. This is an entirely fictional scenario** that I’m making up to impart some crazy sage-like wisdom on you.) Of course, the longer said piles are left to sit they tend to multiply. In no time flat, I’m left with an overwhelming amount of work. And because I’m only human, internets, the more overwhelming it is, the more likely I am to avoid it. Then every time I’m confronted with the reality of it, guilt and depression and all manner of self-defeating ugliness flares up. True story.

But as I’ve discovered in my 40-something years on this planet, the way to manage such things is head on. The only way through it is through it... but to avoid all the angst and drama, I can play little games with myself to make it more manageable.

I tell myself, “OK, Peg, just put away the underwear today. That’s the goal. Just the underwear. They're relatively small, and wadding works just as well as folding. How much time can it take?”

By making it small, I neatly side-step that whole I-don’t-have-enough-time-to-tackle-this-chore craziness. One of two things happens next:

1) I feel a rush of accomplishment as I check the task off my To Do list. I win!!!
B) I feel such a rush of accomplishment as I check the task off my To Do list that I’m inspired to do more and I finish ALL THE CHORES. I am mighty! Rawr! I win!!!

See? Either way is a win-win and I only had to reframe the situation to disarm my silly self-defeating behavior and WIN. Hooray!

Other times, though, I have to be a self-created Dread Pirate Roberts to my inner Westley.

Stay with me here, internets. What I mean is this: In trying to tackle better habits, which intimidates me not on the day-to-day scale, but when I consider how important it is to have consistency over the long haul, I Dread Pirate Roberts myself by telling myself, “Good night, self. Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you let you quit in the morning tomorrow."

But then tomorrow comes and I no longer feel like quitting, until I do. So I remind myself that I can always quit tomorrow. And so on.

It helps me keep from falling victim to the all-too-common syndrome wherein one realizes the vastness of the journey ahead, and plays out all the scenarios and work/effort those scenarios will take... thus getting so exhausted from over-thinking it all that there’s no energy left to take the first wee step.

As with the chore breakdown method, the amount is no different. It’s all in how you present it.

It makes sense, when you think about it (and probably even if you don't). If someone approaches you with a new idea or some constructive criticism or whatever, how they go about it makes all the difference. Applying the same logic to ourselves is, well, logical.

So, yeah. Tricking oneself. Opposite day. Crazy, or crazy like a fox?

You’ll only know if you try. What could possibly go wrong? ***







* Once again, bonus points to anyone getting my old school hip-hop reference.

** I can make such statements and still look myself in the mirror because I don’t currently have several huge piles of laundry facing me. But let’s just say that there’s a reason the scenario has that vérité ring to things, mmm-kay?

*** Don’t worry, internets. It’s not like I followed that up with, “Hey, y’all! Watch THIS!” or “Somebody hold my beer…” because we all know that way lies madness. And probable ER visits.

Sitcom Wisdom

Before we get into today's post, I'd like to wish you all Happy New Year! (We'll save the "when do you stop actually saying that?" debate for another post, okay?) I'm not as eloquent about it as My Secret Boyfriend Neil Gaiman*, but it's no less sincere for all that.

Though, now that I think about it, bringing up MSBNG (yeah, that acronym isn't working for me either, internets—sounds too much like a news channel and my adoration for Neil is hardly news—my bad!) was fiendishly clever of me because the linked post above is thematically tied to what I want to share today. (I love it when my brain has a plan and doesn't let me in on it until the very last nanosecond!)

I'm feeling a little more reflective lately, internets. Perhaps this was induced by the dizzying possibilities and potentialities of a brand new calendar year, or perhaps it's due to bidding adieu to the old year. Though I'm not a big believer in New Year's Resolutions, being more of the Do It Now! Live the Life You've Always Imagined! sort, there is something seductive about assigning an otherwise arbitrary start date to such things. For me, there tend to be more pitfalls and disappointments when I follow that path, but I don't judge. If it's your thang, good on ya. Get down with your bad self.

In the inevitable looking back process, though, I find myself doing mental inventory of the things I've learned. I'm middle aged (Good Lord, when did that happen?!?) but in my relatively short-ish life I have managed to amass a small stash of wisdom—mostly through the usual I-Don't-Think-I-Wanna-Do-That-Again trial and error method most of us employ.

It comes down to this: Your brain is NOT your friend. It can be fooled in so many, many ways. Your memories aren't really what you think. And even scientific observation to reinforce our own conclusions fall victim to Confirmation Bias (unless we're actual scientists... but even then, I'm dubious). This kind of sucks since it's your tool for interacting with the world in a meaningful fashion.

Oddly enough, the solution can be found via George Costanza in Seinfeld: Just do the opposite.

It's brilliant, really. George decides that every decision that he has ever made has been wrong, and that his life is the exact opposite of what it should be. George tells Jerry, who convinces him that “if every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right”. George then resolves to start doing the complete opposite of what he would do normally. He orders the opposite of his normal lunch, and he introduces himself to a beautiful woman who happens to order exactly the same lunch, saying, "My name is George. I'm unemployed and I live with my parents." To his surprise, she is impressed and agrees to date him.

George was really onto something. We get so enmeshed in our habits—whether or not they're actually good for us—that it becomes easy to sleepwalk through life. We stick with what's comfortable, when getting strong means hurting a little. That's how you build muscle, right? Little micro tears heal, leaving strength in the wake of temporary aches and pains.

It may be my own Confirmation Bias working here, but that seems to support some of my Working Hypotheses for Getting Through Life in a Less Miserable Fashion (like Captain Barbossa, I don't have rules or codes... mostly just guidelines).

Mentally and spiritually the process isn't that different. For myself, I've discovered that fearing something probably means I should run towards it. The caveat to this, of course, is that one must be facing irrational fears, phantoms of the brain and such. Running towards dangerous predators like Alaskan Brown Bears or Evil Cartilage Fish^TM sharks is probably not wise; fear of those things is utterly rational and life saving.

But for pernicious Brain Weasels that lurk in my grey matter and seek to only maintain the status quo (even if it isn't quo!), I look at it like this: if I'm afraid of something, then it must have meaning or else I wouldn't feel anything (sort of like how the opposite of love isn't hate; it's indifference). The fear probably springs from the fear of either losing the thing of significance, or of actually getting said significant thing. If it has meaning to me, though, that's counter-intuitive at best which means I should run towards situations that I fear because they have meaning and significance for me. And since my brain can't be trusted, voilà! It really does make sense, in a Zen-ish paradoxical kind of way.

It's the same with powerful emotions—especially painful ones. The more you struggle to avoid them, the more they trap you like the proverbial Tar Baby. When it comes to pain, the only way through it is through it. You can bury it or avoid it, but it never goes away. In fact, these strategies practically guarantee that it will get much, much worse before it gets better. It's natural to shy away from pain, but you only get rid of it when you own it and process it; then you can move on and heal. See how that ties into the muscle building analogy?

I love what I read on a post on Tiny Buddha recently: "Fear is an emotion, not a fact." Based on that, it's hard to imagine why we'd want to let fear rule our emotional lives.

I have no scientific basis for any of these theories other than my own meandering experience, but so far it seems to be working. Really, the efficacy of a thing is the ultimate indicator, don't you think? This could be a great informal experiment, internets! Try your own Opposite Day! Let me know what you learn! Ohhh, the things we could unleash... the (good kind of) havoc we could wreak!

Then again, this is wisdom gleaned from an episode of Seinfeld. It's all relative.




* If you didn't read Neil's journal post, you really should. Because 1) I spent the time to embed the links, and really internets, there's no need to be so selfish!; and D) it's a really, really good post—inspiring, warm, and wonderful. And who doesn't need more of that in their day?

Guilty Hair Care - It's a Conspiracy!

I have a confession to make.
 
I sometimes feel guilty on behalf of my hair care products.

Maybe it’s just me (stop looking at me like that, internets; I may have broad, Teutonic farm girl shoulders but I cannot carry the collective weight of your accusatory stares!), but there’s an obvious inequity that occurs. I invariably run out of conditioner way faster than shampoo. Perhaps I over-condition my hair, or perhaps it’s a product design flaw. I mean, shampoo foams up, increasing in… mass? surface area? volume? I don’t know – clearly, I’m not all that scientifically minded (try not to be shocked). Whatever it is, I end up with more shampoo once I start scrubbing. Conditioner? Not so much. It’s the same pre- and post- scrub.

So if the second theory – product design flaw – holds true, then why is it that they sell shampoo and conditioner in the same size bottles? Another design flaw or fiendishly clever ruse on the consumer? You decide.  

Either way, I kind of feel bad for my hair care products. Some days I pity the shampoo for having to working harder/more efficiently than the conditioner, and because it might feel less important than conditioner because I don’t use as much – but fret not, shampoo! It’s because you’re better at what you do! Then I feel bad for the conditioner, because it’s not like I need it less. I mean, what good is squeaky clean hair without being smooth and  manageable? It’s a conundrum!

But the inequity doesn’t just apply to shampoo and conditioner. I use some leave-in hair products, too. There’s a Prep spray that’s you put on when your hair is wet and it presumably prepares your hair for whatever else you’re gonna do to it – hence the name. It’s supposed to make the thickening spray – which is what I really need, internets! – work better. See, I have weird hair. I know, I know… everyone says that but I’m actually right. I have a lot of hair – individual strands, that is – but they are baby fine, frictionless strands. En masse they feel really nice and silky, but the utter lack of body is really almost unforgivable. I mean, you know that little *pouf* that most people have in the bang area? (I heard it as soon as I typed it, internets, but you know what I was meanting so just stop it!) I have to work for that pouf, lest my bangs stay lifelessly molded to my forehead. And don’t get me started on hair accessories. A clip or barrette will work its way from the top of my skull to the nape of my neck in all of about 30 minutes. It’s ridiculous.

So… yeah. Leave-in hair care products.

The Prep spray and the Thickening spray come in the same size bottles. It feels like I spray about the same amount of each. Why wouldn’t I? It’s the same number of hairs I’m trying to cover, right? So why is it that I run out of the Prep a lot sooner than the Thickening spray?

I’m pretty sure it all points to a hair care product conspiracy.

No, seriously! Stick with me here. The Hair Care Product Inequity^TM results in a whole rigmarole of hair care product purchases. I have to make extra trips to ULTA or Sephora because I never run out of the previously aforementioned products at the same time. I can somewhat mitigate the issue with shampoo and conditioner as they come in large and jumbo bottles. The ratio isn’t exact, but I can often buy a regular shampoo and jumbo conditioner bottle and end up with similar this-stuff-is-all-used-up-and-I-need-more timeframes. But the rest just means more frequent trips which means I get bamboozled by some free-with-purchase scam or distractimicated by all the colors so they can whammy me with some new must-have shade of lip gloss or  glittery eyeliner.

See? CONSPIRACY.

And please – no musing on the whole hot dog/hot dog bun inequity. I don’t need you trivializing my beauty regimen woes, internets.