Heart versus head

Following your gut is so much easier when you're young, the consequences of failing aren't as life altering, and you haven't had as much negative reinforcement to give you an aversion to making huge leaps and daring moves.

At risk of sounding like Verdi the snake, I really did used to follow my heart, and it took me to some wonderful places. If it took me someplace I didn't want to be, I'd stew about it for a while and then start to sort of daydream myself into a better story.

Now of course it's all so different. One bad move I made in 2005 had pretty disastrous consequences. It started when I was in a casual long distance relationship and I started to get this feeling that "adults" settled down, put down roots and committed. It's almost as if I felt like I'd been so lucky in my single parent life, had done so many awesome things, that I was somehow supposed to... quit while I was ahead? Maybe that, and then also like... I was being immature by being single. Like being happy and following my heart, which while up until then had been productive and successful, was actually a sign of immaturity and a lack of development. I felt like I was always eating life dessert and never eating my life vegetables. 

And I did love the guy I was in the long distance relationship with, and I was with him at a time when these thoughts were really plaguing me. My heart was telling me that I was happy and excited each day as a single mother, and this was how I should try to keep my life as long as humanly possible. And then my head was arguing that I was being childish and spoiled, and "at some point" there should be a home and yard and man and stability, so I should settle down with the long distance guy. 

And don't get me wrong - there was something attractive about the thought of stability that came from settling down. But it was only attractive, in my experience, as a way station or a resting place. A settled relationship seemed like a place to recharge in comfort before I got back to the things I'd rather be doing. And I couldn't picture a man who would be willing to love me, live with me, be my anchor and comfort - but also let me travel, have adventures and choose my own path. I've never been in close proximity to a relationship that worked that way. And long distance guy didn't fit that mold in the least. He wanted a wife that stayed in place.

After a year of heart (happy single!) versus head (I should settle down), I opted for settling down with the long distance guy. I rationalized that in a way I was following my heart by being with him - in some kind of twisted way, if I looked at it from a certain angle and didn't look too closely - my heart might be craving stability. Only there were practical issues - some blended family hurdles - and so we settled uneasily on some kind of forced limbo where I moved halfway closer to him geographically. It was miserable. I was miserable. 

I settled for a job at 'fabulously important place', which I hated, and moved into a house that felt like 'not my house', and settled on a few more life choices for the good of the relationship that made me feel like a trapped rat. I continued to rationalize that I was doing all of this incredibly unlikeable stuff in order to get to the ultimate place that would (if I didn't look too closely at it) make me truly happy (sort of) - which was the relationship and the stability it would bring. 

And then of course the relationship dissolved out from under me, and there was no ultimate goal anymore to the trapped miserable place I found myself. 

After that came months of being so lost, I couldn't even articulate to anyone how lost I was. I was living in a beautiful place, I was working at a place that would look phenomenal on my CV. I was given back my freedom to move freely around the planet. Only I was completely frozen.

For the first time in my life I had spent years building up a life for myself that was absolutely and totally WRONG for me. I had completely failed. I had (I thought) listened to my heart and hit a brick wall in a dark alley going 100 miles an hour. I found myself completely unable to make even the smallest decision for myself after that. I couldn't make eye contact with people in the grocery store. I couldn't make a decision on whether or not to go on a weekend camping trip, let alone jet myself and Ky to some other country. I felt like... I don't know, like going out on a limb was the most dangerous thing in the world. And when making eye contact with the cashier in a store suddenly feels like going out on a limb, that's a troublesome place to find yourself. 

Never in my life have I felt so stuck at the bottom of a well. Then followed a domino effect of bad decisions knocking into worse ones, toppling everything along my path. It was a horrible time in my life. I no longer trusted my instincts. I no longer trusted my life. And - because I'd spent so long convincing myself that the "settling down" plans I had been making were the plans of a mature adult, I felt like a life failure at maturity and adulthood. And I felt like I was somehow obligated to keep pressing on that path, but it was so counter to my real needs that I was always lost and churning inside.

Part of empty nesting for me is trying to get in touch with my gut instincts again. I've been trying for years, but so much fear has built up that it's been hard for me to tell the difference between my gut telling me something is wrong for me, and my fear holding me back from something good for me, giving me a false stop sign. 

Because going with your gut sometimes is scary. It's scary, exhilarating and challenging. And figuring out if you're that kind of scared - the kind that precedes an awesome, terrifying, exhilarating choice... or the "red flag warning" kind of scared that tells you not to do something ultimately bad for you - is really hard when you're not tuned in to the differences. Your mind can convince you either kind of fear is the other. I've been stuck in that tug of war for way too long.

I've always envisioned having a core of things that are incredibly important to me. Things I genuinely love, things I genuinely believe in. Those form the heart of me. Anything I do that keeps close to that heart, that stems from it genuinely and never strays too far, are the right things for me. Sometimes I end up traveling so far from my core, doing something I dislike, thinking that where I'm going is ultimately going to return and touch the core again, and that I can just "bear with it" for the greater good, etc etc - that never works. I get so far out that I'm miserable. And I can no longer remember why I thought running so far away would bring me closer. And the farther I go, the less I can remember the way back, the less I can hear and feel that core. It's a terrible place to be. 

Working back to it is very hard. And over and over I have to remind myself that when I get close to it again it will be scary. But it's a different kind of scary than being far away is. I have to be careful and re-learn how to tell the difference.

Empty nesting milestone: out of the trenches

Having Ky leave on the bus to head back to college was, as anticipated, pretty hard. I'd gotten used to being in my role of Mom to a teenager again and it's the role I think I've loved the most in parenting. I know, every stage (except age 3) was "my favorite" and that hasn't changed over the years. I still think each year is my favorite.

But I've never felt like an especially natural, wonderful mother. At least not compared to those who post every triumphant and perfect moment on blogs. As a single mother, I never really knew if I was doing it right. I didn't have a partner to bounce things off of, and I never had the chance to take a time out to reconsider or observe things with any perspective except "in the trenches."

But parenting Ky as a teenager has always felt really good, really natural and right. I felt like maybe 8 times out of 10 I really was making the right choices, saying somewhere in the neighborhood of the right things. And for me, who was never a 10/10, hit-it-out-of-the-park-each-time mother, 8/10 felt like HUGE success. Near perfection at times!

So yeah. Watching my teen stumble onto the bus with a raft of other teens going back to college, in their new Christmas boots and North Face jackets, dragging skis and kicking backpacks and duffles along the filthy bus station floor as they texted furiously and drowned out the bus driver's announcements with shiny looking Beats that cost more than the Frye boots I splurged on for my birthday. Ky in 4 year old Doc Martins and LL Bean coat and a fuzzy blanket wrapped over shoulders like a long trailing cape.

The drive home for me filled with exhaustion, sadness, missing Ky already, looking forward in some small way to having the house and my time to myself. This will be "the usual". 

Back to contemplating the view from outside the trenches of daily hands-on parenting. 

Oh I wish I still had a little baby

I got tears in my eyes reading this article reporting Pope Francis encouraging breastfeeding in church. 

"If they are hungry, mothers, let them eat, no worries, because here, they are the main focus,"

I don't practice a formal religion, though I was brought up Catholic by a mother who was schooled in a convent, and a grandmother who was raised in a Catholic orphanage and served the Church so fiercely and sweetly in her life that you'd have thought she was a nun. 

When Ky and I traveled to Italy, we visited the Vatican. Pope John Paul II was still interred and they hadn't yet finished building his weird Sleeping-Beauty-esque eternal sarcophagus in St Peter's Basilica. (In fact there was a "coming soon!" sign over the construction area where his glass coffin would soon reside - as if he were a Sephora franchise in a mall). My main memory of the Sistine Chapel? "No photos! No photos!" being yelled by the guards. I barely took in the beauty for all the simmering anger and stress. 

Pope Benedict wasn't a very familiar or beloved figure then. When we were in the Vatican, we heard about 100x more "Pope John Paul" references than "Pope Benedict" and Benedict's wares weren't selling very well in the gift shop (the grace note?). I don't think people ever connected to him. 

When Pope Francis was elected I loved him first for the name he chose (it's a family name for me - Ky was nearly a Francis!) and then for the things he said, and then for the acts he did. Each time he makes the news, I feel even more warmly towards him. 

It makes me wish that Ky were a little baby again. That I could breast feed if needs be in the Vatican, knowing the Pope had given it his blessing, knowing that he'd made the world just that little bit safer and happier and more real. 

Becoming a better person

That sounds unbelievably trite, but I'm not sure how else to phrase it without new agey 'self improvement' language. At its heart, the issue is that at 40, I'm so sick of the things I'm not good at. I'm tired of making the same mistakes, over and over. I know what my big failings are - or at least I have a good idea of the things I keep tripping over, repeatedly, and the things that always seem to be standing in my way.

Every few years I do this sort of life-level spring cleaning. I use Freemind to map out all of my shortcomings, and then I have "branches" and "clouds" to group them and form solutions. I seek help from professionals for those failings that seem fixable with help, and I work diligently on my own to fix the things that only I can come to terms with.

Not body image. Not "becoming a better housekeeper" or "learning harmonica, once and for all" - but the big things in life. Developing friendships. Giving energy to the people who matter to me the most. Giving my own needs equal weight in decisions. Being warmer, more open, less shuttered in my heart. Following through when I start to reach a place that makes me happy, or gives me peace. Allowing good things to happen with open acceptance. Communicating. Admitting to myself what I truly want, what honestly brings me peace and happiness, rather than assessing my life choices from the perspective of an ex boyfriend, my mother, a coworker who barely knows me. 

I feel like I fill my life up with jobs, work, extra interests, travel, planning travel, planning jobs, planning out ways to enhance my extra interests, and even to some extent running - all to avoid sitting quietly and looking at each of my weaknesses. Thinking about their impact on my life. Deciding to change things, or to accept them. 

During the years when I do my "spring cleaning" I often use my love of hard work as a way to, strangely, avoid the hard work of sitting still with my thoughts. I come from a blue collar family. There is hardly a higher compliment than to call someone a hard worker. And hard work, to my family, means constant tangible busy-ness. Looking at two options for how to spend your next hour and choosing the least sedentary. Often this means choosing the least appealing option. 

When I have the chance to sit still and look at my thoughts, my failings, my feelings about my failings, and tracing them to how they affected my life and evaluating whether I can live with those effects - or, alternatively - to make lists, source self-help books and counselors, create a task list of things to do that can solve each problem in turn, then download productivity software that allows me to track my progress and remain accountable on each area... well, I always opt for the latter course of action. 

I once spent an entire Saturday installing black foam board panels in a checkerboard line marching around my bedroom walls, each with a pinned on title: SELF, HOME, WORK, COMMUNICATION, TO-DO, and then under each title, an ongoing list of action items that were either on the "complete" side or "incomplete", so that each morning my first view would be of the progress I'd made (or had not made) and an instant check-in with myself to start my day. This resulted in stomach aches each morning and averting my eyes so they would never, ever hit one of the boards on my bedroom wall - then complete avoidance of my bedroom as a whole. 

But the act of buying the foam boards and nailing them up onto the wall and writing out the cards was very satisfying, and made me feel like I was "working hard" to fix myself. I was hammering, I was running errands, I was taking charge. Only I really wasn't.

For the rest of this month I'd like to work on "becoming a better person" by allowing myself time to sit and think about the things I'm struggling with. I don't completely discount talking to professionals if that's what seems the best course, or writing lists if I should find myself needing to do more than one thing, but that I'll do that only after some serious, quiet contemplation of the place I find myself, and where I'd like to find myself instead. 

(I wrote that and immediately felt myself getting excited about finding the perfect place to sit and quietly contemplate, what I might use to help me relax [pillow? blanket? yoga pants? candle?] ---- no no no. Just sitting still. Just whenever I have time, just in a quiet place and just in whatever I'm wearing, feeling and smelling at the moment.)

Hmm.

T-minus 4 days

Ky is headed back to college on Sunday. 

I've had very few "knacks" as a mother. I don't have a knack for knowing the right things to say during times of angst. I don't have a knack for making a teenager's bedroom cozy but cool. I don't have a knack for cooking, or picking clothes that Ky will actually be willing to wear (not even expensive cool stuff like a leather jacket, or a pair of Doc Martins - I always seem to choose something just a hair off) or care packages. 

So I've been surprised to find myself with a knack for parenting a teenager who is verging on adult. I first noticed this with my own teenager of course, but then it spread to Ky's friends - who always seem happy to see me, confide in me, ask me for advice and tell me they miss me when running into me grocery shopping. And I noticed it while teaching undergrads - who write me emails long after their classes with me have ended, telling me they wish I taught more, or asking if I would go for coffee and catch up. 

I don't try. I don't think about it much. I just sort of do my own thing, and that particular young-adult age group just seems drawn to it in a very sweet and genuine way. And because I tend to see Ky's developmental stage in all of them, this makes me happy and comfortable and more myself. The best version of me.

People my own age tell me I'm chilly, standoffish, hard to get to know and hard to get close to. I think that's probably true, and it's something I NEED to fix now that Ky's away and I'm struggling to put a life together without the constant presence of my (adult) lifelong shadow and foil. I need more peers to balance the sheer number of young adults and students in my day. But I'm really good at parenting (advising, just being in front of) teenagers and young 20-somethings, and I'm not very good at adult friendships. Something I know I need to work on.

In any case it's t-minus 4 days until Ky goes back to school, and my heart has been filled and I've gotten to laugh ridiculously and spend approximately 10x our normal grocery budget (and I don't care) and just feel like myself, the best part of myself as a mother. 4 days from now I'm back to working 2 jobs, staying late with impunity, coming back to an empty house and cooking for one, spending more time in my bedroom than any other room of the house.

I feel like this is the time to really think about how I can add to that part of my life, rather than having it turn into a waiting game for Ky's vacations. Filling the empty evenings with even more work and projects. Turning to people my own age - awkward as I seem to be with them - and learning how to be my best self with them, too. 

...

Unlikely fashion side note: Ky has been telling me I need to go outside my conservative comfort zone of jeans, Frye harness boots, tshirts and cardigans. My winter uniform. 

Therefore over the last week I have:

1. Dyed my hair "medium golden blonde" and it looks approximately 5 shades lighter than the color on the box, and....

2. Impulse purchased Revlon ColorStay Ultimate liquid lipstick in "Brilliant Bordeaux" because I had a hazy thought that perhaps my newly blonde hair and minimal brown-ish color family eye shadow could be punched up with a dramatic lip. As it turns out, this is a lip "stain" rather than a "lipstick" and though I tried it on last night and have since eaten, drank, showered, washed face twice, brushed teeth, applied chapstick, slept 7.5 hours and had an entire pot of coffee, my lips are still the most vampy dark read imaginable. I honestly don't think it's going to come off. I think I have tattooed an impulsively chosen dark red color to my lips.