Keeping my Head Up

I've been looking for inspiration, as I had previously resolved, but lately I'm not really finding inspiration that I can boil down to a theme for a single blog post.  I've had a few conversations this past weekend, mainly with my boyfriend, about how unobservant I am, though.  On at least three different occasions in the last 3 days, he has completed a sentence to me that started with "How could you not notice that..." and that makes me wonder what kind of opportunities I've missed because I've got my head in the clouds.  Or more likely, because I'm looking inward rather than outward.

This is especially frustrating because I suspect that if you were to interview me 4 days ago and ask me to describe myself in 20 words or less, observant would probably feature in those 20 words.  Definitely not the top 5, but probably at least the bottom 5.

Something else to work on, I guess.

New Things I've Done:

• I started, on the advice of my new online coach, setting alarms for myself to drink water.  Every 4-ish hours, I have to finish my 800 ml bottle of water.  I have to chug at least one of them every day still, and at least one of my colleagues has asked me if I'm pregnant because I'm peeing so frequently, but I've been successful at this for one whole week.  So YAY!

• I skated with my roller derby team for the first time ever in a parade.  Up north, I had been in the Christmas Parade with my team, but at that point in the year there was usually a carpet of snow on the road already, and often a mid-grade snow storm happening concurrently with the parade, so I'd never actually been on skates.  It was really fun.  I'm pretty certain that some of the people I passed had never seen 8 girls and women dressed in red and white athletic gear looping around on roller skates, and the looks on their faces as we wheeled past was pretty rewarding.

Weird Things That Have Happened To Me:

• Two of the residents at one of the nursing homes I work at got married (to each other) this week.  On a Wednesday during business hours.  Ok, truthfully, this isn't something that happened TO ME, but it was something I bore witness to.  Apparently the nuptials had caused quite a stir in the community among both resident and staff.  Some thought it wasn't right that two elderly people were expressing their love for one another in a commitment-type ceremony in the common room of their long-term care home.  Some thought it was a wonderful celebration of love.  Real talk: I think this home is a pretty great place to work and the atmosphere is usually pretty upbeat, but that day was buzzing with positive energy.  The chaplain I share my office with was practically skipping back to the office to grab his bag before he left for the rest of his day.  I think we should celebrate love more.  Because, based on my sample size n=1, it's nice and makes everyone feel good.  Even if, like me, you're quietly celebrating it by more-or-less eavesdropping on the ceremony from your office while you work on your quarterly assessments.

Resolutions:

• Wear sunscreen.  Back when I was in high school, there was this popular recording that started with the words "Always wear sunscreen."  I first read it in a "Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul" book, and it was full of really excellent advice which I have intermittently followed in the fifteen or so years since I first came upon it.  However, the piece of advice that was most emphasized was the sunscreen bit, which I failed to heed today as I embarked on my first parade on a sunny day in late June.  And as I discussed with a fellow roller girl, I inherited the transparent fish-belly skin of my Celtic ancestors which burns if you even think about the sun.  

• Notice more.  My conversations with my boyfriend make me wonder: How many beautiful things have I not seen? How many people have I not helped? How many conversations have I missed because a cool thing was happening right next to me and I completely didn't see it because I was on auto-pilot?  The answer is: probably too many.

Being Wonder Woman?

I often feel like I'm standing on the edge of something look at the edge of something new, and I have to decide if I'm going to take a run at the chasm, Wonder Woman-style (and last time I checked, I'm not a mythical Amazon warrior woman), or jog along the edge to see where that takes me.  To extend the metaphor, I've mainly been jogging on the edge these days to see if I can find a bridge or something that'll take me across, but you can jog for a long time and that is sometimes pretty exhausting. And sometimes the cliff takes an unexpected turn and you end up jogging right off of it.

My band decided to pack it in a couple of weeks ago.  We had some fun, and I think we had a lot of potential, but we struggled to strike the right dynamic and in general we felt like it was better to call it now and still be friends than have a crazy fight as our plane crashed into a field.  Or wait.  That was a movie I like.

If you were to ask me when I was a little girl what I wanted to be when I grew up, the answer was probably "rock star."  Somewhere along the way, after many twists and turns, I ended up being a dietitian instead, which is kind of like the opposite of being a rock star.  But I have always been an avid music appreciator and in my adult life have dabbled in being a semi-professional pianist.  And that's a pretty cool thing to say about myself.  Once in a while, mostly when I was playing the intro to Joe Cocker's "Feelin' Alright" I actually did feel like I had achieved my childhood dream of being a rock star.

Since I moved here, I've struggled a little bit with who I am in this new place.  I had carved a pretty comfortable niche for myself when I lived up north, and for some reason, the things I did there don't all fit here.  Even though my band taking an extended hiatus was probably the right thing to do, I had a teensy identity crisis.  "Who am I supposed to be now?" I thought.

So, it's time for some Wonder Woman-style leaps across the chasm.  I don't know what that's going to mean yet, but I know it's going to mean more writing.  

New things I've done:

• I started one-on-one coaching with an exercise specialist, via the internet.  Doing it on my own has definitely not resulted in anything more than the same old same-old.  Consequently, my butt hurts.  All the lunges.
• Yoga with Adriene. I started at the beginning of her videos, which mainly are foundational poses.  I do them first thing in the morning, and it's been pretty nice.

Weird things that have happened to me:

• This past Tuesday, a transport truck somehow managed to straddle the median of the QEW through town.  It was full of phospine.  Ever heard of phosphine?  Me neither.  But apparently it's a poisonous gas.  The subsequent evacuation of ground zero resulted in my having my commute time tripled to 3 hours, during which time I really had to pee.  I've learned exactly how long I can hold it.  Roller derby practice was cancelled because the arena was in the evac zone, so I went for a walk instead.  A cyclist was coming down the walking/cycling trail behind me just as a chipmunk was crossing the path.  The chipmunk sustained a serious (probably fatal) brain injury during a collision with the cyclist.  I watched the poor bleeding chipmunk writhing in pain in the middle of the path and didn't really know what to do, so I have to admit that I kept walking.  Shortly thereafter, I saw two deer drinking water across the canal from me.  I feel like if I told this story to a psychic, they would tell me this is some kind of portent of things to come, but I'm too cheap to pay a psychic.

Resolutions:

• Watch less TV.  I love Netflix, but I can certainly attest how habit-forming its full-season releases are.  I literally have to make myself not find a new show to watch when I finish one.  It's not good.

Coming Back

Hey.

Long time no see.

I don't have any excuses.  I just wasn't inspired.

I often find I look back on periods where I haven't done what I should have done, and I think to myself, "It's been a hard couple of months."

And it's true, things have happened.  I rehabbed my broken ankle.  I came back to my sport.  I've been working hard to help rebuild my crumbling team that never seems to be able to keep its head above water.  I bought a house.  I may have gotten my mortgage advisor fired in the process.  I'm in a band.  The band has performances.  And band drama.  And true, I only work 4 days a week, but if you add in my commute, there's another full work day every week spent in the car.

But every couple of months is a hard couple of months, so that's really no excuse.  Life is hard.  Engaging in this little bit of public self-exploration is actually pretty important, and being uninspired should be a giant red flag that something is missing in my life.  I should be looking for my inspiration.

What's going to inspire me, though?

When I think about that, I often think about my 100 Happy Days journey.  It was work to find something that made me happy each day, and be able to take a picture of it.  But I persevered for 100 days and I found that I was a happier person at the end.  Furthermore, if I look back at my previous posts over the years, most of my personal inspiration hasn't come so much like fireworks as a punch to the gut or a fish that got away.  Maybe a hard couple of months is just the inspiration I need.

Rehab

I've never thought of myself as someone who takes their body for granted.  I mean, I'm as guilty as the next person of sitting too much and putting more buttery sugar in my mouth than I probably should, but I would say that I put more effort than the average person into keeping the motor running smoothly.

The last three months have been an exercise in understanding both the amazing powers of my body and the devastating limitations.  I had always been cognizant of the risk of injury in a full contact sport where you have wheels screwed to the bottoms of your boots.  I knew one day my number would be up.  And I think most of those around me who had forewarned me and naysay-ed when I first strapped on my helmet and skates felt a small amount of satisfaction to know they were finally right when they heard that I'd broken my ankle.  But I don't think anybody expected that the reason my toes were pointing in a completely unnatural sideways-y-upwards position on April 30th was because my wheels were just a little too sticky as I went over a teensy lip between two different surfaces at a speed that was just a little too speedy while I was trying to slow down a very fast game.  I drink my milk.  I'm not a habitual coffee drinker.  I've always been on the heavy side.  My bones should be invincible.  My fibula shattered like so much glass.

Two weeks into my journey, I was back on my feet.  I had a walking cast for 6 weeks, and though I couldn't drive, or swim, or shower standing up, I could walk almost without a limp and almost as fast as I ever could with two virgin legs.  And after 8 weeks, aside from the super gross athlete's foot and the fact that none of my pants fit me anymore, I felt very little pain in my broken ankle.  I honestly thought when the cast came off that it would be like nothing happened.  Because I drank my milk.  I took my vitamin D.  I walked the shit out of that walking cast.  My bones should have been stronger than ever.  Meanwhile, the muscles around them had wasted away to tiny, inflexible threads.  They expressed their angry fatigue with an almost constant ache.  The fluid that those muscles would normally pump away pooled around my ankle.  My physiotherapist said my strength and range of motion were pretty typical of my injury.  I felt so stupid.

With a sport like roller derby there's a community, and in that community are people who have had similar injuries, so I know there's life after ORIF surgery.  I know that if I stick with my physio exercises and keep pushing myself I'll get back to where I was, and perhaps keep on going.  Every time I look at the hook-shaped scar on my inner ankle I think, "I can rebuild" and do another calf raise, go on another bike ride, stretch another theraband.  I've hired a personal trainer to help get my strength and endurance back so I can come back to my sport with my fists up.  And I'm seeing improvements.  I can almost do a single-leg calf raise with my broken leg.  I can almost point my toe without crying.  I can almost go a whole day without compression socks and not see my foot become a swollen balloon by the end of it.  And those are good things.  But then I think back to those women who've come back from their injuries and see how well they're doing and wonder to myself "Am I working as hard as they did?  Did they feel this pain at this point? Do I seriously have what it takes to come back from this?"  As much as I feel extremely motivated to get back to where I was, I can hear my self-doubt knocking at the back door.  I really hope I don't let it in.

Being Broken

Pardon the hiatus.

I was feeling myself not terribly inspired to write much, and then I broke my leg.  Playing roller derby.  So at least I was having fun.

Because I was more or less indisposed from the time of the inciting incident (a reasonably non-spectacular plough stop over a small lip in the track surface followed by a relatively over-spectacular display of screaming and backwardsy-upside-downy foot in the air because I didn't know what to do with it) to when I got home from surgery two days later, information about my status was transmitted over Facebook by my boyfriend.  Not because he felt the need to announce to the world that I was broken, but because he knew that a lot of people were wondering how I was doing and he felt it was the best way to reach the greatest number of people.

And lots of people reached back.  The outpouring of support and get-well-wishes was, at times, very overwhelming.  But soon after that, I started counting the people that I hadn't been in touch with in some time who were expressing their concern, and I realized that I'm a colossal failure at being a long-distance friend. 

I've come to think of myself as a kind of Madonna (the Like a Virgin kind, not the virgin kind) when it comes to relocating and reinventing myself.  I've taken a number of risks that have necessitated restarting my life from scratch a few times and I think I've been pretty successful.  I haven't been very successful at taking any of my previous lives with me to the next, though there are a few exceptions.

I blame two things.  First of all, I must admit that reinvention is kind of time-consuming.  To be really successful at it, you have to join things and go out with people and hang out with your new friends.  And that's all really awesome.  But it leaves less time than it should for checking in with old friends and asking how they're doing.  Secondly, I don't flatter myself to think that my old friends are completely aimless without me.  They've done things with their lives.  They've joined things and gone out with people and are hanging out with new friends.  And that's really awesome.  And I don't want to impose on that, since, you know...I'm the one who left for different (but admittedly equally green) pastures.

But this is another time that I feel I must be brave.  I suppose if my old friends don't want to talk to me anymore, they'll let me know.  And maybe they're feeling the same way - I'm making a new life and they shouldn't get in the way of that.  That being said, I've certainly welcomed everyone reaching out to me with open arms.  Why wouldn't they welcome me reaching out?

So, like all conclusions, I'm ending with a resolution.  I have friends.  Many friends.  Some are new.  Some are old.  Some are friends that are dangerously close to becoming people who used to be my friends, not because of a falling out, but because of my own complacency.  So I'm going to try to keep in better touch, because you never know when you need a friend.

Being Brave

The original title of this post was "We can be heroes" but then I thought that my fifteen loyal readers might think it was tacky to capitalize on the untimely passing of a pop icon.  I think I was right.

Though, while I'm not writing about David Bowie per se, there's a more than tangential relationship between Bowie and what I'm about to write.

Three things happened this week that made me think about my life (more than I usually do, I guess...).  I know I'm a little slow off the mark on my New Year's Resolutions, but I think it's probably smart to have resolve all the time and not just on January 1st each year. 

1.  David Bowie died of cancer.
2.  A dear friend's father died of cancer.
3.  I had a huge fight with my boyfriend.

How are these connected?  You might not have been asking, but I'm going to tell you anyway. 

When I moved to Northern Ontario to start my adult life, I didn't know a soul.  Not a single person.  I was desperately searching for a boyfriend.  I know it's nice to have some romance in your life, but if I reflect on that time in my life, I think I was desperately seeking someone because I wanted to feel connected to my community.  My search was ultimately successful, but it was not without its significant speed bumps.  It took me several months to make friends (more on that later), but when I did, my friend's father was a great advocate and important navigator of my life in the north.  I didn't know him as well as I would have liked, but he directed my community theatre debut - giving me a shot at a lead role with only my say-so that I'd been in the drama club in high school, gave me my first bunch of tomato plants, and always made me feel like I was a person he wanted to chat with if he saw me around town.  And from my vantage point, he lived an incredibly rich life most of the time. 

Before all of that, I felt like I could die in my apartment and the only reason anyone would think anything was amiss would be my absence at work on Monday morning.  If I squint my eyes really tight, I can remember a time in my life when making friends wasn't difficult, but something happened at some point to make breaking the ice in a social gathering wholly terrifying.  I sought counselling, and by the grace of several self-confidence worksheets, my peculiar ability to sightread piano music, and one strangely successful unsuccessful e-harmony match-up, I had friends!  And for a very long time, I saw myself leading a life similar to the one I imagine was led by my friend's father and that was pretty great, and certainly good enough for me.

And then, five years later, I moved away from my friends and my comfort zone.  So, this week, I had a huge fight with my boyfriend.  The details don't matter, and we've mostly resolved our argument, so that's nice.  But it got pretty edge-of-the-knife at some points.  And I thought of the places I could go to cool off and debrief and decompress.  I could think of one.  And then I felt incredibly lonely.

And it's not like I'm not around people.  I'm a champion joiner.  Problem is, once I've joined, I live in fear that if I open my mouth to talk to someone I'm going to find that I suffer from some kind of sneak-attack dysphasia and all I can produce is word salad, and I'm going to be that weird girl that nobody likes because she says weird stuff.  Instead, I'm pretty sure I come off as that girl who seems stand-offish and unapproachable because she says nothing to anybody and doesn't make eye contact.  My modus operandi is to just be "around" and then eventually I've been around so long that everyone just knows that quiet girl who's always "around" and they're comfortable with my "around"-ness.  And I'm comfortable with them and I can start to be myself...the one who talks to people and says things other than "Hi.  We seem to be in the same place together right now.  That's...a thing." (Truthfully, I probably still say shit like that, but it's delightfully awkward when you know me, rather than awkwardly awkward when you don't.)  But that takes a long time, and I'm really lonely now.  You see my problem here.

So what does David Bowie have to do with all of this?  Well...I'm pretty sure that when I'm being "around" girl, even if I'm quiet and stand-offish, I still seem pretty normal.  And I guess my fear is that, if I put the real "myself" on display, someone's just going to come out and say "Girl, you're fucking weird, and we don't need your kind here."  If I think about it rationally, most of the people I would want to spend time with are probably too polite to say anything like that, and are much more likely to embrace the weirdness.  But in situations where I'm afraid I might suddenly come down with a freak case of dysphasia, I'm not really thinking rationally, so I sort of forget that most people are generally polite in most situations.  David Bowie was the kind of person who was his real, really weird, self at a time when people were not always polite about who that self was.  His appearance was flamboyant and ever-changing and experimental.  His music was flamboyant and ever-changing and experimental.  His sexual orientation was flamboyant and ever-changing and experimental.  He seems to have been amongst the original poster boys for letting your freak flag fly.  And nothing about me is as controversial as anything about David Bowie but I'm still incredibly scared that somebody is going to hate one, or some, or all of my weirdnesses and point it out and make me feel so bad about it that I never recover. 

The lesson that life is short has been reiterated to me this week.  And the outcome of being quiet, stand-offish girl who never speaks to anybody is more or less the same as being that weird girl that nobody likes.  I'm going to be lonely, and that's really not the life I signed up for.  On the other hand, there's a chance that I could be that weird girl that SOME people like.  I don't know what my odds are, but I have a feeling that to win my odds I'm going to have to be a little bit brave this year and let my own tiny freak flag fly. 

Everybody else is doing it: My year in review.

It's the time of year that people and media outlets stop being creative and start rehashing the year's events, hoping to boil it all down to a few sentences and themes, and maybe make a few predictions or set a few goals for the coming year.  Not wanting to be left out, here's my year in review.

January - Man visits north.  Relationship has existential crisis.  Woman decides to move south.

February - Hibernation.  Valentine's Day.  More hibernation.

March - Woman tells all that she's decided to move south.  Friends derive fake (maybenotfake) sabotage of move south plans.  Parents offer cautious encouragement and stern warnings about pension contributions.

April - Woman rehearses for final Temiskaming Festival of Music.  Gravity of situation not sinking in because job search is going poorly.

May - Woman interviews for sort of crappy jobs.  Is offered one.  Declines because they don't pay enough.  Parents' stern warnings about pension contributions echo through her mind on repeat.

June - Woman interviews for more crappy jobs.  Is offered two.  Takes one.  Packs up northern life in whirlwind.  Feels a little bit like she's giving up on her Northern Adventure, but gravity of situation not sinking in because of new job starting IMMINENTLY.  Woman pays off student debt completely with vacation hours payout. 

July - Woman discovers, on first day of new job, that it is a BAD JOB.  Parents' stern warnings about pension contributions echo through her mind on repeat AT TOP VOLUME.  Woman starts using recently paid-down line of credit to buy groceries.  Woman has loud and messy crisis about inability to adult properly.  Much ugly crying ensues.  Woman thanks Jebus that she gave appropriate notice to terminate part-time contract at northern nursing home and still has some work through July, even though it means that she has to drive back up North to an empty apartment every weekend and pack.  And pack.  And pack.

August - Woman quits BAD JOB.  Woman takes NEW GOOD JOB.  Woman thanks Jebus even more that she gave appropriate notice to terminate part-time contract at northern nursing home since contract company descended from the heavens with NEW GOOD JOB at exactly the right moment.  Woman watches mother and cousin get married (not to each other).  Woman moves out of northern weekend apartment.  Much furniture is broken.  Man's skull is nearly broken during epic backwards fall from back of moving truck.  Friends save the day and assist with moving truck tetris.  Relationship survives!  Woman joins Niagara Roller Girls.  First practice involves 40 minutes of hard endurance on the hottest day of the year.  Woman thinks that maybe she can't play roller derby after all.

September - Woman chickens out of auditions for local community musical, remembering bitterly previous community musical auditions.  Woman has existential crisis about her new, non-piano-playing identity.  Woman pounds piano with score from Les Miserables.  Woman embraces new home by purchasing a bushel of plum tomatoes.  Makes several litres of tomato sauce.  Breaks glass tabletop under heat and pressure of pot of several litres of hot tomato sauce.  Buys new table.  Woman has existential crisis about inability to cease making major home purchases.

October - Woman starts second NEW GOOD JOB.  Woman laments not having at least one weekday (and sometimes two) off.  Woman has existential crisis about work ethic.  Woman travels north for the first time in two months.  Feels strange not driving to her old apartment.  Celebrates impending parenthood of good friends.  Participates in impromptu post-baby shower jam night.  Feels like things are right.  Woman and man and friends start cover band.  Woman no longer subjects piano to fortissimo renditions of "One Day More" on a daily basis.  Frequency now biweekly only.

November - Woman turns 32.  Woman increases RRSP contributions.  Parents' stern warnings about pension contributions become echo somewhat more quietly.  Woman has existential crisis about aging and placing TOO MUCH emphasis on adultiness.  Woman celebrates birthday by playing glow-in-the-dark mini-golf in all-but-abandoned Clifton Hill Midway in late November and narrowly avoiding the over-order charge at an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant.  Youthful vigor is restored.

December - Woman plays on winning roller derby team for the first time since beginning to play roller derby.  Wins MVP Blocker award for the first time since beginning to play roller derby.  Decides that maybe she can play roller derby after all.  Sees northern friends making Christmas Concert-related posts on Facebook.  Realizes she had almost forgotten it was Christmastime because she had been involved in exactly zero Christmas concerts.  Becomes melancholy.  Friends from October baby shower have beautiful baby girl.  Woman becomes elated.  Woman receives cornet from father for birthday/Christmas.  Becomes confused, but not unhappy with this unexpected gift.

So that's it, folks.  That's my year in review.  My goals for 2016 are to play the piano at least 75% as much as I did in 2015 (with 50% as much Les Miserables) and have 10% fewer existential crises.  And learn to play the cornet.

Happy Holidays, everyone!  And a Happy 2016!