"Waiting" to "Pausing"

I’m waiting to hear the outcome of my third, two-hour long interview from Monday. I was put in a mock session of what the job would entail, and though not mind-blowing, it would be a nice stop-gap for the time being, I think.

But, there’s the trouble. I’m thinking about it a lot. Trying to angle whether this is a good fit for me, if it’s better than the unknowable, and … I’m tired.

I’m tired of the questioning, I’m physically exhausted, emotionally, mentally. When I was on the phone with my mentor on Sunday, after unloading and processing through a lot of muck, she began to respond, and I stopped her by saying, hang on, I just want to finish:

then I told her all the plans I had for the week. Everything I was going to do to support my job search, cleaning up my home, other housekeeping style work like going down to the parking ticket office.

And when I was done with my litany, she said, Wow, it’s really hard for you to let yourself rest, isn’t it?

And here I was thinking that my “positive action” sequence was … positive. That it was showing I’m not slipping into despair, that I’m keeping the jackals at bay with all my activity. Isn’t that what an unemployed person is supposed to do? Keep busy? Do the footwork?

Even if they’re so tired they are on the verge of tears?

And so, this morning, already two cups of coffee into my day, with plans to get out of the house and meet up with people, I went back to bed for an hour. The caffeine kept me from sleep, but the resting was good. I am exhausted. It’s been mentally and spiritually challenging to show up as I have these past few months. It’s been hard, and I feel at the end of a grin-and-bear-it period, without the relief that comes when you stop grinning.

So, … not today, but perhaps tomorrow, I’ll commit to letting myself actually sleep in, to restore what’s been missing, and to gather energy for what’s next.

There’s already a lot to do today, tomorrow, Friday. You’d think being unemployed would mean a break, but I’ve got shit to do I can’t excuse myself from. However, I can sleep in, and let myself have that relief. I can allow it not to mean I’m lazy or going to fail or am being irresponsible.

Turns out, the most responsible thing I can do for myself at the moment is to take extra special care of myself, even if it makes me squirm. 

There always had to be a fly...

...in the ointment.

If things were going well, there was always the knowledge that my father’s parents were shut-ins and deleterious hoarders. Or that my mom was manic-depressive. Or that my brother had a horrible stutter.

There was always the reminder that my clothing was bought at discount stores, that my father had an awful temper, or that my mom’s parents had died under circumstances that ripped her family apart and isolated us against them.

If things were going well, there was always a skeleton or two to whisper in your ear about not believing good things were for you, about being dragged down, about not being allowed to be happy.

Today, those long-quieted skeletons, imagined they’ve been exorcised for years, have begun their murmurous palaver again.

Yesterday, I had a phone call with my mother. She is sick. Again. It’s the same or similar cold/sinus infection she’s been struggling against for over a year. And when it came up last year, when she didn’t know why she kept getting sick, when doctors didn’t immediately know why either, I called my psychic.

Because at the time, all roads led to cancer. Did she have it? What was going on? What can I do?

No, said the woman on the phone. It’s not cancer, but whatever it is, if she doesn’t deal with this, with what’s underlying it, it could be the beginning of a long road to the end. This could be the thing that takes her out.

Whatever your thoughts about intuitives aside, I’d worked with her enough that she knew of what she spoke. And from all indications since that phone call over a year ago, it’s proving pretty accurate. My mom is still sick. Healthier, Sick, Healthier Sick.

And I’m dragged immediately back into a curtain-drawn bedroom where she’d curled up against the light, fighting another one of her chronic migraines. I’m dragged immediately back into being a child taking care of her mother, telling her to get out of bed. Leaving her there, and getting my brother and I out the door for school.

My mother is a woman of chronic ailments. And this newest one, whatever its cause, reason, purpose, is dragging me down again with her.

What is love, comes the question? What is equanimity? What is detachment, enlightenment? Fate? What is the caustic, oxidizing rust that others’ baggage leaches onto you and your own path?

And what is my responsibility in helping them through their pain?

Especially if they don’t recognize it as such.

So much has come up lately about codependence versus interdependence. About leaving others to their experiences and feelings, and letting that not affect what I’m doing and how I’m feeling. Even something as simple as the play, and trying to not let the audiences’ reactions sway my mood.

I feel angry. I feel angry this feels like it’s happening again. I feel angry that I’m powerless about how she cares for and treats her body, about how she schedules her work in the 12-hour days without lunch breaks. About how she spends her off days flattened, recuperating from her over-working.

I’ve had to do so much work on letting her have her experiences, despite my opinions, and yet. And yet. I’m human. And I love her, and I don’t want her to be in pain. And I don’t want her to deteriorate.

And moreso, I don’t want her life to affect mine.

When does a child grow up? What is the role of a loved one? How can you, and can you, let someone crawl along the bottom of their own experience, while you make strides in the direction of your own fulfillment?

Because that’s what’s at stake here. Callous as it may sound, it doesn’t matter, ultimately, what happens with my mom. What matters is what I take on about it. How I allow it to affect me. And mostly, can I continue to make my life what I want it to be when there are still murmuring skeletons?

My whole life, I’ve been distracted by the flies. I’ve allowed my attention to be derailed in fishing them out, or I’ve simply allowed them to decree that I cannot be happy because they exist. That I cannot find success because there are flaws in the tapestry of my surroundings.

Obviously, I write about it today because I’m upset and I don’t have the answer to these questions. Because I don’t know how to move forward when there are tendrils threatening to draw you back.

So, for today, I’ll leave it both as an open question, and as evidence of a success. Because, today, I get to tell you about it. And darkness can’t live in the light. 

The Dailey Grind

So, here I am, back to my Monday morning shift at The Dailey Method exercise studio! My 5:30am Monday morning shift...!

I arranged to have a sub for me during the weeks Addams Family was in performance (and then an extra one last Monday, since, hey, I was tired!). Now back to a 5am Monday morning wake-up call again. But I do think it's worth signing people into class and folding towels for three hours in trade for the free unlimited classes I get. Granted, I've been so tired and busy lately, I haven't been able to come at all. And my muscles feel it. But I'll be back soon.

In the meantime, I get to use this time (despite the thumping music in the studio room) to do job research, ... and do a little line memorization. Today will be the first run-through of Act 1. There's a lot more for me to learn, but I'm glad I decided to take it (more) easy this weekend.

I still didn't get done all of what I wanted, or study my lines as much as I'd have liked, but progress. I feel like I'm staving off the cold that I was about to succumb to. I got to clean some things up in the apartment, and I cancelled the non-necessity engagements.

Interestingly enough, I was approached yesterday after rehearsal with some potential work opportunities, but until there's more conversation, it's all ethereal. That said, it was gratifying to see that people notice what assets I can add and what skills I have. More will be revealed on that part.

It's also time to work on the final (for now) section of amending relationships that don't sit well with me. Third and final is, huzzah, work. Specifically my current employer.

Funny to me that I wrote this list back in the summer, and now as it's my last week of work there, I'm getting the chance to work on this now. There's nothing in specific that I need to necessarily "make amends" for; it's more about attitude. It's also about showing up on time(!), which this week will be harder, as I flit from dentist appointment to interview to... another dentist appointment.

Did you know that Covered California doesn't cover dental? I didn't! Until I was reclined underneath my dentist's light last Friday afternoon, and she said, Yes, you do need these fillings -- and then dropped the "not covered" bomb. Hence the several appointments this week.

So, that's more information as I continue on my "looking" path. In fact, my dentist had a great recommendation for an alternative private school, and I just applied to them a minute ago.

I have my second interview tomorrow with the alternative private school I met with last week -- whom I told I would only be available to work 30 hours per week. And that seemed to go over fine. With the wage I asked for (which I've been regretting I didn't increase), I'd be able to make the same amount as I do now working 40 hours a week. I have my fingers crossed -- but if it's a good fit, it'll happen, and if it's not, it won't.

The school is also located in the middle of an industrial park, office-building wasteland in Walnut Creek. Which is quite the far cry from the verdant landscape outside my current office in North Berkeley. But, sometimes you make compromises!

In the meantime, I'm going to focus on what I can do at the job I'm at now, watching my attention, (my facebook time!), and how I'm interacting with my coworkers. It's not any of their faults that I am not fulfilled at work and therefore it's not fair for me to seethe toward them, or show up late as a petulant rebellion.

I have no doubt that part of my amending my relationship with my current job is, a) to leave, and b) to understand what it is that got me into that relationship to begin with so I don't end up here again with another employer.

All of those on my list are relationships I have stayed in too long, out of fear, out of scarcity, out of an idea that I can't get what I truly need.

(I hope) I am taking action and self-inventory that will help me to move forward differently. That I'm gaining a semblance of understanding that I don't have to sell myself short; that with work and vision, I can get where I want to, and be the person I want to. I can have the life I want to live, and I don't have to demonize those who are not behaving how I want them to.

The only person's behavior I can change is my own -- and, well, I believe I am. (Come what may!)

Don't Freak Out: A How-To.

When I was sick, I became extremely diligent about my spiritual practice.

Despite, or perhaps including, the conversations I had with a few select friends about the nature, existence, purpose, and questionable benevolence of a Higher Power, I knew that my safest and surest course through all that uncertainty, fear, and buzzing activity around me was to touch base with my center.

It really was only after the first month, though, that I was able to write. I found my first journal entry in a notebook friends had brought me in the hospital just days after I was diagnosed. It begins Saturday, September 29, 2012. There’s one on the 30th, and then it stops. Until after my month of chemo and recovery in the hospital.

But, thereafter, I made it a huge part of my practice to journal, meditate, and eventually write my near-daily blog. I even made the nurse put a sign on my hospital room door that read, “Meditation in progress; Come back in 20 minutes.” (I personally loved that this meant people would continually be turned away without a firm time listed, and I could have some solitude in that busy and anxious place!)

But, I think about this practice now (journal, meditate, blog), one that was common for me before I was sick, one that was essential to me during my treatments, and one that still needs to be a part of my daily life.

Meetings, Movement, and Meditation are my recipe for sanity. And most recently, with all the hubbub, I’m lucky to get even one in there.

But I know very specifically and with assurance that it not only works, it also helps to light my way through.

I am in another place of uncertainty, fear, and buzzing activity. And my only way through is to have the anchors of my practice.

There’s a phrase I’ve heard, “Most days I meditate for thirty minutes, but on really busy days, I meditate for an hour.” Not that I’m doing that! But the intention is there; the intention to give myself even more time and space to coalesce, to touch down, to get grounded, and to listen.

I have less trouble listening as I do heeding. It’s all well and good to listen, and I can do that, and sometimes get answers or guidance; but if I’m not following through or up on the information I receive, what’s the point? Then I simply know what I’m not doing and get to beat myself up for it!

And, I guess that’s not the point either.

I get to remember this morning that I have been in more dire straits than the one I’m currently in: Job ending Friday; uncertain income sources; uncertain path toward fulfillment. I get to remember that I’ve been here before with previous job changes, and I’ve emotionally been here before because of cancer. Nothing puts things in perspective like cancer!

And if I could have gotten through what I did, using the recipe I know works every single time, then I am bidden to use it again. Journal, meditate, blog. Meetings, movement, meditation. Heed the information I’m given.

Rest.

This career shift is all about buying myself time to see myself more clearly, to see my future more clearly, and to create the space and time in which to build toward those goals. This isn’t about busy work, or a brain fogged with anxiety. This isn’t about despair or hopelessness.

This isn’t even about simply “getting through” this time. This time is important; being in this transition space is important. It’s not simply, Batten down the hatches til the storm passes. This isn’t about ostriching my head into the sand. It will be important for me to be aware through all of this time, to listen through it, and to be aware.

To not hide from my own change, because then I won’t know where I’m going or what I’m doing. I have to stay present with this change. I have to acknowledge that I’m uncomfortable, and that I’m taking positive steps. I have to acknowledge where I’m neglecting myself and acting out my anxiety in less than healthy ways. And in order to know any of these things, I have to be present.

And that’s ultimately what each of these “recipes” does for me – they help me get and stay present.

So, yesterday I did cancel that modeling gig. I went to meet up with folks I hadn’t seen in a while. I got my vacuum cleaner fixed, went to the farmer's market, put that bookshelf into my closet. I bought dish soap.

The more I engage in my recipes, the better I feel. The better I feel, the more able I am to take care of myself and to take actions that support me. The more I take action, the better I feel.

It’s a continuous positive feedback loop that has carried me through the most atrocious and trying of circumstances. With grace.  

And if I can remember that -- I am voraciously confident, it can carry me through this. 

A word, if you don’t mind?

Dear Molly,

First of all, congratulations on closing the Addams Family. I heard it was a fantastic run to packed houses nearly every night. And brava on finally getting that one song that was giving you trouble. Fist pumping is highly appropriate!

But, I’m moved to write to you today because I want to make sure you realize how many irons you have blazing right now, and ensure that you’re taking the proper time for yourself. (Although, I must say, I wouldn’t be writing if I thought you were!)

As soon as the show closed, you began a new one the next day, yes? Rehearsing almost daily with a dozen monologues to memorize by next Friday? You’ve been searching for a new job or jobs, as well as having interviews or coffee dates with folks several times a week. You’ve been sitting on weekend mornings for a portrait artist in order to make some cash, and you’ve begun teaching on two weekday afternoons after work and before rehearsal.

Forget about your dishes, we’re way beyond them now! Have you seen your car? Your apartment? Where is the calm space you so crave at home? How about that outstanding parking ticket you need to dispute at the Berkeley parking office? And the fellowship meetings you are barely attending and the crispy, crackling nature of your office interactions right now?

Is it fair to say that you’ve got a few things on your plate… AND that you’re not taking the normal care of yourself that’s necessary for your health? Is it true that you’ve been feeling tired and coming down with something?

Something’s got to give, my friend, and I don’t want it to be you.

Yes, I know this is an uncertain and shifting time, and your home is always a reflection of your mental state. I know it feels like there’s no time for meetings, but doesn’t there have to be? It’s terribly uncomfortable for you and those around you when you’re this wound up.

However, I do want to come back to say, I am writing all this because I am in support of you. I want you to achieve your best in all you do. I just want to remind you to set first things first. Weekends, which have been your farmers market and cooking-for-the-week days, as well as nesting and organizing days, have been robbed by all this new work.

Maybe -- and I’m just throwing this out there -- you tell the artist you can’t sit with him until after your show opens? I mean, the worst he can say is no, right? Maybe you ask a friend to help you with the enormous bookcase you inherited from your upstairs neighbor that’s been standing, disassembled, in the center of your apartment for a week? Maybe you really schedule that time to go to the parking office, and don’t blow it off this time because you’re running late for work?

Look, the bottom line is you’re in a huge amount of transition right now. You’re taking a leap of faith that you’ll land somewhere new and different than where you’ve been. You’re doing this to support your art, and to support the idea that you have more to give to the world than a well-crafted spreadsheet. I am in awe of you for taking the risk.

In truth, both ways are risky: to stay is a risk to sanity, to leave is a risk to livelihood. But, I do have faith that things will turn out well for you (Yesterday's interview was promising & the second interview is set.). You are doing all the right things… you’re just not leaving time for the rest of the “right things,” and that’s where I’m concerned.

So, take a minute to consider my suggestions. See if you can come up with your own solutions, and talk to your friends to help you through this quite chaotic but exciting time.

As a friend once said, The only difference between anxiety and excitement is breathing.

So, breathe, Molly. And I’ll see you when you land, safely.

Yours, 

Stay in Touch.

I received a birthday card in the mail from my father the other day.

On the front are printed all these large, cartoony instructions saying, “Daughter, Whatever you do, don’t open this card!”

On opening it, the message inside reads, “You still don’t do as you’re told.”

And there’s a handwritten note, wishing me a happy birthday and telling me to stay in touch.

It’s both funny and tragic. It’s funny, not for it’s printed content, but for the fact that it continues my father’s understanding of me and our relationship: He’s the good one, I’m the fuck-up. He makes the rules, and I don't follow them. What a set-up. 

This is “funny,” because it’s sad. Because it’s continued confirmation of how unrealistic our relationship is, and because it confirms that this is not a person I want to be in communication with.

Lest you think me harsh to judge or condemn a relationship based on one tin-eared card, believe me, this is the softest of these messages I’ve received. And continue to receive from him.

On Saturday, I got the chance to talk to my mentor. We were talking about amending relationships where there is discord, or where I simply don’t feel at peace.

This, of course, is one of them.

But, my father was listed in a category of others, too: People I’ve fallen out of touch with out of self-preservation.

I wanted to talk to my mentor about whether I’m in the wrong… that still-lingering “good daughter” or “good friend” guilt. Shouldn’t you show up no matter what? Isn’t that love? Or is that obligation? And does it matter?

Isn’t it my job to adjust myself and meet these people where they’re at, regardless of how they’re harming me?

Because as painful as it is to know how intractable the situation with my dad is, I still lash myself with reproval.

I should be able to withstand my crazy aunt’s needling about my family’s ills. I should be able to listen to her constant health complaints and victim-laden phone calls. I should be able to because she’s family and because she’s alienated nearly everyone else she’s related to.

I should be able to sit in a car with my manic friend, even though I get quiet and withdrawn around that kind of unpredictable behavior. I should be able to meet her level of enthusiasm and kookiness because that’s cool, right? Why can’t I just be cool, like her?

I should be able to be in relationships with people I don’t want to be in relationships with, because that’s what “good” people do, right? Because that’s what we’re told good people do.

But, to quote that myopic card, I rarely do what I’m told. …

What my mentor offered me was there are some relationships that are once or twice a year out-reaches. And that’s okay.

Send your aunt a birthday and holiday card, and call it a day.

Allow your friend who makes you uncomfortable to have her own experience, and you don’t have to be a part of it if you don’t like how you feel around her.

Reply to your dad’s occasional emails, thank him for the card. And leave it at that.

There are relationships that we invest more in and there are those we invest less. It doesn’t mean that we don’t care for the person. It doesn’t mean that they are bad, or that I am.

It just means that my self-exacting standard of communication needs relaxing.

You don’t have to invest in relationships that cause you pain.

Believe me, I’ve done enough work in trying to make these particular ones work. To find common ground and compromise and a way of communicating that is healthy, or at least not harmful. And unfortunately, there isn’t one.

I wish and try and hope and beg Universes that they were, particularly with my dad, because who wouldn’t? But, this is an intractable situation. And I have bloodied my fists knocking on a closed door, trying to break in through a side window, and torn fingernails trying to dig underneath all the battle defenses that each of us have drawn to come to a relationship with him that I can be in.

But, when you come to the end of the line, it’s time to get off the train. This one doesn’t go any farther, no matter how much I wish it did. And I do. And I probably always will.

But in the reality of today, these relationships are not serving either of us. I can’t demand someone to show up or behave how I want. I can only adjust myself to what is. And allow myself the compassion to stop haranguing myself for not being able to adjust them.

And I can do that by staying in touch. Just barely. 

In Training

Dear Blogosphere,

Apologies for the sporadic posts these few weeks. First there was sickness, then my mom in town, and then, of course, the Monday 5 a.m. shift at my gym.

And in thinking about the structure of the next few weeks, I don’t know that I can promise you anything more than a few pixels.

This Sunday began the first full week of rehearsals. 4 hours Sunday, 3 each night this week. And assumedly, each weeknight until opening night on September 19. It really is like a part-time job!

And so, I’ve come to think of my approach to this time as though I’m training for a marathon. To the best of my ability, I am going to aim to be completely conscious of the food I eat, the breaks I force myself to take from my desk at work, the sleep I manage to slip in between rehearsals and a day job.

I have this phrase I wrote down a hundred years ago that is taped to my closet wall and has taken me as long to come to understand and believe: Treating myself like a precious object will make me strong.

And I believe this is the perfect time to begin to implement “acting as if” that’s true (because, I somewhere believe it is). The body is a cautious and delicate scale. In these few weeks and months, I’ve gotten to see that my own scale is particularly sensitive (liver trouble, K.O.’d by a virus, my acupuncturist saying my body was ripe with signs of stress).

So, balance, intentionality. Vigilance. Yes, it’s the absolute busiest season of my work year – like a retailer between Black Friday and Christmas. But, as we’ve seen, I can’t show up to work if I’m not healthy, and I’m not healthy if I’m not intentional. So, I have to be my own trainer, stopping the clock to take a walk outside. Deciding, No, I won’t have 4 cups of coffee to power through my day. Yes, guy at the store who watched me put the apple back and reach for the organic one that’s a dollar more expensive, yes, I do need to eat this instead.

I’ve set up a “crash-pad” at my friend’s house who lives between work and the rehearsal theater so that I can go and chill out a few hours after work without having to either rush home and back or sit at a café and spend money or be interactive with anyone.

I’m going to begin going back to my gym a few mornings a week, instead of the once I’ve been doing. I’ve been meditating almost every morning for 10 – 20 minutes. And, we’ll see where the blog falls on the self-care scale, considering the few moments of sleep it ticks away.

Finally, I’d like to make sure that I get time in with my “brain drain” crew, spending an hour with people who normalize my experience and help my thinking to turn down in decibels.

"Meetings, Movement, and Meditation" has arisen as my prescription for health, and I am hoping to treat myself as the worthy patient and doctor of such self-care, which will enable me to show up fully, mind, body, spirit.

Because… I gotta tell ya, This shit is So.Much.Fun. !

Incoming!

Enjoying my last moments of solitude in my studio apartment before I pick my mom up from the airport this afternoon. Delighted though I am that she’s coming to visit, I look forward to someday having an apartment where we both have bedroom doors!

Also, my voice is going, a combination of sickness, rehearsal + yesterday’s voice lesson, when it really began to go. My voice teacher advised that I avoid talking as best as I could during the next few days… I replied, (Fat chance!) You know my mom’s coming into town, right? 

That woman and I could talk until all the stars burned out and still have things to talk about that were interesting. It’s who and how we are. How we've been. But, I need to “rest my voice,” as the teacher put it, so either my mom will do the majority of talking, or she’ll get really good at lip-reading!

I’m excited to see her, to have her here. But, I also know that it means three and a half days of mostly “up” energy, or at least engaged energy, which is hard for me. Because it’s a “visit,” it means that we have a lot to talk about, and a lot to try to “fit in" to three days, since we see one another maybe once or twice a year. Oakland may be the Brooklyn of the Bay, but it doesn't mean I can get to her home of Manhattan by the Q train.

What I realize is that I’m going to have to police myself these few days, getting over a bad week of being sick still, but also, just for general self-care.

My mom, whether it’s the New Yorker or the mania in her, runs on an elevated frequency. As her child and a game partner, I tend to rise to her level. Some people call that level anxiety(!), but as someone once said to me, The difference between nervous and excited is breathing.

So, I’m going to have to remind myself to breathe, to take time to be a little more still and not quite as participatory as perhaps I might be, and to also let her know that's my intention. Also, I’m going to have to inwardly remember to un-constrict, to let her vibrate at whatever frequency she wants to without feeling I have to meet her there. That’s my part in this: she’s not asking me to be all abuzz with her; I’m doing that myself.

It’s hard, as I’ve said, when people change the rules to a game you’ve played for a long time; but I also don’t like partially dreading spending compacted time with her. It’s a litt-- a lot exhausting to try to match that level of up-ness and on-ness, and, well, it’s why she’s the one with bipolar disorder, and not me.

There’s also a crash when you’re up that high.

I’ve tried to learn to moderate my own extroverted and introverted behavior, balancing a few hours of out-ness with a few of aloneness. It doesn’t have to be inside my home, away from the world; just alone-ness is enough, on a walk, at a museum alone, at a movie alone. As much as I thrive on connection and conversation, and could indeed talk to the end of time, I’d be working on fumes by then.

Self-care will be the name of the game. I know that’s changing the rules a little from how we've always been and always communicated, but if I let her know that I’ve introduced a new rule to our relationship, at least for now—for even one hour out of the 16 we’ll be spending conscious with one another—I think it will be respected and absorbed.

It might not be a smooth transition into a different way of “being together,” but I think in the long run, it will help us both to be present with the other in a way that feels nurturing.

Which, I think is what a mother-daughter relationship is supposed to be anyway.

Round and Round She Goes!

Waking at 5 am to do work-trade at my workout studio doesn't make for a lyrical blog, so I figure I'll just give you a "state of the union" update on a few things I've been writing about here recently.

Yesterday, I had my first vocal rehearsal for The Addams Family. It's sooo low, this range, so I'll do the best I can! Which, I think will be alright! I also took my first voice lesson last week in over a year, and I really like the woman I met with. She's in SF, but I think, for now, at least through the play (Opening Sept 19), I'm not in a position to shop around at the moment.

I also wonder if I should begin auditioning again, too. As I once heard, "You're only as good as your next play"! Which is a great discouraging mantra!! But, perhaps instead, I'll look at audition lessons or acting lessons, too. It's not that I have the finances for that at the moment, since

I've begun acupuncture again, following all the medical upswing of the last few months with my liver, et al. But things have calmed down. Medically and emotionally. I had an ultrasound of my liver about a week or more ago. They found that, indeed, there were fatty or scarred areas on my liver which were likely causing the elevated liver enzymes that incited the doctors to panic in the first place. They can't tell from the ultrasound if it's fat or scarring, but in either case, the dr. said that we don't have to do anything except watch it. That there were just small spots on the image. Nothing seriously damaged at all. Or even moderately damaged. Thank god. The irony of a sober person developing cirrhosis was just too galling.

In the meantime, I've begun again with the acupuncturist I used to see (who's also in SF, so I try to stack my time there), and I think she's been influential in helping my system calm down and regulate. Granted, I see and have been seeing my chiropractor/naturopath, (who, using muscle testing, was able to diagnose liver scarring!) but I wanted some additional support, since things were "showing up" in my ovaries, and I know that the chemo may have knocked those ladies out of alignment. The acupuncturist, I began seeing for fertility/womanly issues about 7 or 8 years ago. She's known me for a good long while, though I haven't seen her in a few years. It's nice to have that long-term relationship, and she remembers things about my life and my progression that I'm surprised she does!

Next in Team Molly accrual, I met with a woman yesterday about a "fulcrum"related topic. I want to find a way to work less and earn more, so that I can actually not live paycheck-to-paycheck and dawn-to-dusk for the rest of my life. I believe it's possible, and have been reaching out to people to ask for their suggestions on this.

She, this friend of a friend, suggested something that I've had suggested twice before: Teach writing to kids.

...

Bu- But, B, B.... but I don't know how. But it'll be hard.

Mainly, I don't know how, and that means that I throw up all kinds of barriers to mask that vulnerability, like "it's hard," it's competitive, I don't have experience, etc etc etc.

These are not very true. That I don't know how to go about it is. But that's why I reach out for HELP! The same woman I met with yesterday said that she just paid... wait for it... $200 for a 4-hour class for her child.

I'm sorry, what?

In a class of 6.

She said that, in this area, you can charge at least $30 per kid per hour, and have a small class. She said that the teachers also offered help with personal organization for the kids, helping them clean out their backpack, organize their homework schedule, organize their life, because, if you haven't figured this out -- not all parents know how to model this for their kids.

Point is. This is the 3rd time in as many years that the suggestion has been made to me about doing supplemental education for kids. And I would love to do that. I have the passion, and the good intention (despite my practicality about the numbers), and the acumen with kids. I just do. And I don't want to be a "classroom teacher;" I just have watched and am continuing to watch too many of my friends work really hard for a diminished ROI.

Fulcrum, man.

Good for me for reaching out and being open to ideas. Now, the work will be to create a curriculum, a program. Eek.

And that's where the help will need to come in. But I know plenty of people who can, and the things that I don't know, I have the wherewithal to find help for that. She sent me the links to several programs in this area that offer similar services/classes that I could model my work after. It's exciting, nerve-inducing... and I hope I do it!!

Lastly, for fun, I'll tell you that my "Great Caffeine Reduction Experiment" is going well! I've moved from 4-5 cups of coffee a day to 1-2! Granted, I went to bed at 8, then 9 pm for about 2 weeks, and am still tired by 10pm! But I think a) that's more normal, and b) might pass. In any case, I think it also helps my body, and my energy, which I'll need. Not to mention my voice, since coffee is dehydrating.

So, things continue to move. ... And the Tarot card I pulled recently is the one about intense rest and reserving of energies. So, I cancelled one of my coffee dates this weekend (with a girlfriend, don't get excited!) to fulfill that need. But I think there's more rest to come.

As someone once said, "On most days, I meditate 30 minutes. On days that I'm very busy, I meditate an hour." (and I say this soooo metaphorically at the moment!!)

Fulcrum

(No, sorry, this has nothing to with the group of evil spies on the t.v. show Chuck.)

Ever since I listened to this podcast on the development of energy efficiency, I've been thinking about developing a process to create more while expending less.

In "olden times," the podcast said, a day's work could earn you an hour, maybe, of candlelight. Imagine having to work an entire day, just to get one hour of power to your iPhone, let alone your refrigerator or car.

In contrast, through scientific achievement we now, through a day's work, earn a whole lot more power through our effort.

... I can't remember how many days it reported precisely, but to give perspective to it: I pay on average $12 a month for my PG&E bill. (Granted I have most of my stuff attached to power strips I turn off before I leave, and never leave things plugged in that I don't have to.) But, if I earn more than that per hour of my work, I've earned myself over a month of power in 60 minutes.

The point is, science has created a system whereby we work less to produce more. Our efforts are magnified through efficiency -- we don't have to work as much or as hard to get what we need. Science created a fulcrum, a point on which we can pivot our efforts to enhance them exponentially.

In my life, I am in a process and a pattern where I work a lot, like most of us, and what I earn from that pay supports a life that is getting by. I'm not saving much. I'm not spending much. I'm pretty much working to get by.

And I've decided I'd like a fulcrum.

To be specific, I'd like to work less and earn more. (Wouldn't we all? But yes, isn't that the point -- perhaps we can.)

I did some calculating this weekend, and I can earn what I'd like to be earning (more than a "getting by" amount) by working half the time, 20 hours a week, if I triple my hourly wage. Sounds far fetched perhaps. But stranger things have happened. And the rate I'd need to earn isn't outrageous. It's actually pretty attainable for a skilled service.

The question now is, what will the service, my fulcrum, be?

At various times, I've teased the idea of throwing caution and (my own) morality to the wind and thought of prostitution. I'm sure I could earn there, but at what other cost? Result: rejected.

Other thoughts:
Consulting -- in what?
Counseling -- perhaps -- more schooling then?
Coaching -- maybe -- more schooling, too.

But, we're back to the point of the fulcrum -- I can expend energy now in creating my fulcrum. It'll likely take time and effort, but boy howdy! The results!

I don't know yet what the outcome of this line of thinking will produce, but I like that I'm thinking this way, out of the box of where I usually look. Instead of looking again at the job sites I always look at to get a higher paying job but work the same number of hours, I'm realizing I need a different way.

Because I need to be available to the projects that ignite me, and I have to give myself the time and space to do that. ... Without being a starving artist -- I simply refuse to struggle more than I have to. It's not fair to me anymore, when I know there can be another way.

So, if I can find a kind of steady-ish, scheduled-ish vocation that allows me to produce more while expending less, ... well, as Archimedes said when demonstrating the lever:

"Give me the place to stand, and I shall move the earth."

You Spin Me Right Roun’...

I’ve been looking up meditation retreats. There’s this one I’ve heard about for years that’s a 10-day silent meditation retreat – I remember a guy I knew once shared that his therapist advised him against going on a silent retreat! (He went anyway, and reported great tidings.)

But, one thing I always seem to forget until after I’ve gone on such a retreat or weekend away is that I can effect the same kind of stillness without going so far, and without paying so much.

I remember last year, I went north to Marin to participate in a half-day meditation retreat. The meditation itself was lovely; the grounds are nestled into the hillside near the ocean, and there’s an organic farm and garden you can walk through during the walking meditation part. But… the zen talk… eek.

This day's particular teacher stuck in my craw the whole time, so before the second “dharma talk,” I left. I felt good about having gone, being among the greenery and the eucalyptus. I even saw a chipmunk on my way back to the parking lot. But, I didn’t need to stay and “practice listening” to someone whose personality shone way larger than his teachings. It was way more about him, than his teachings.

As I left, I noted that I could have found the same or a similar degree of stillness, just by driving up into the nearby national park in Berkeley. I didn’t have to sit in a “zen-do” or listen to teachings – really, I just wanted to listen to the silence, and although I can do that in my own home, I prefer to go somewhere nature-y when I really want to recharge. 

I’m reminded of this as I look up retreats this morning: a day-long one at the same retreat center, the 10-day silent retreat place, even a hot-spring zen-center-meets-spa related to a nearby center.

But really, what do I want to achieve or gain or experience? Stillness.

I feel very harried at the moment, with a lot of irons in the fire around creative endeavors, work endeavors, and even friend endeavors.

I’ve been wanting to strengthen my relationships with friends, form new or stronger connections, and this weekend has been the perfect exercise in that – it’s been chock full of friend-related activities that have been truly wonderful. But, I’m tired.

Yesterday morning, spur-of-the-moment birthday plans were texted to me: “Join me in Marin for dinner and a hike under the full moon.”

Um, Yes, please!

None of the 6 dinner attendees knew anyone except the birthday boy, and we had a great time. The hike was fantastic. Epic, really. The view over the Bay, the fog rolling in, the lights below, the reflection of the “super moon” in the water. – That, my friends, was meditative.

But, it also wasn’t. Different personalities require different levels of reverence, and for some people, silence isn’t really an option. – I’d love to go back and experience it in the quiet. It was awe-inspiring.

And, I wasn’t home til after midnight … which if you didn’t know, is way past my bedtime. But, so worth it!

However, I begin to feel a draw inward. I’m an “X” in the “introvert/extrovert” Meyers-Briggs scale. Meaning, I am neither an “I: Introvert” nor an “E: Extrovert” – I fall so perfectly between the two, needing both in such equal amounts, that I am an “X: Right in the middle.”

So, with all of this external push (creative stuff, job stuff, friend stuff), Anty needs a recharge. (Honey, I Shrunk the Kids reference, fyi.)

But, it is important for me to remember that I don’t need to retreat from the whole world, put huge parameters around my life in order to do this. It’s as simple as committing 2 hours, getting in my car, driving 20 minutes, and crunching through the soft-fallen eucalyptus leaves until I get to a spot where I can sit – no incense required. 

Phone a Friend.

I was invited back for a second interview. And I politely declined.

If there’s anything I learned from my awkward dating experience recently, it’s that saying yes to something you’re sure you don’t want is lying and wasting both people’s time.

Therefore, when I was passed up for the job I'd applied for in this organization and my resume got handed from one branch to another, I did my due diligence: I showed up, made a good impression, and knew that this newly offered position was not a fit. But I got the callback anyway.

So on Wednesday, when I got the "want to see you again" email, I called my mom. Not always the paragon of rational decisions, but someone who here I felt could be, I told my mom about the parallel metaphor between my career and my lackluster first date. And it’s strange and uncomfortable follow-up.

A friend earlier that morning suggested I just go to the second interview. “You never know.” But, see, I think you do. When you’ve given a fair and first chance at something a worthy go, I think at that point you get to say whether you’re interested to go further.

As a mentor once told me, A first date is just an interview for the second.

We do get the chance to say no at some point, yes?

I felt so, and I just needed a little corroboration. Not always a co-signer of my machinations, either, mom was the right call. She listened, and then she asked what advantages this job could have over my current one. They were few.

One, I told her, was suggested by my friend earlier that morning: You could meet a nice Jewish guy.

After hearing this very short list, she replied, “First of all, you are [insert some really nice and positive characteristics, like, smart, beautiful, brave and wonderful] and you don’t need to take a job you don’t want to meet a hypothetical guy.”

Or something like that.

It was really the only enticing reason of the bunch I gave to her. If the job I’d actually applied for in the first place was still available, I’d still be interested in that, and I do know it’s still open. But this offered job would be a lateral move, adding a 3 hour commute for what I imagine is similar pay and responsibilities that don’t really align with my values or my career goals.

So… she said it sounded like I already knew what I wanted to do. But what I could do was be honest about my goals, tell them that I was still interested in the first job, be very flattering and kind about their organization and say if other opportunities came up there, I’d be interested to have that conversation.

Unfortunately, in the dating world, it’s not as easy or accepted to say, "Hey, I’m not interested in you, but if you have any friends you think’d be good for me, let me know!"

But, Romance and Finance don’t always overlap.

In the end, that’s what I did. Called the woman who’d interviewed me for the second position, got her voicemail, and told her exactly what my mom coached me in saying.

What my mom really did was help me to feel comfortable owning my truth.

This is not always easy. And sometimes I need someone outside of my own limiting self-beliefs and self-sabotage to coax me and just sort of shuffle me along on the path I know I want to follow.

In the pre-school in the building where I work, some of the students have a cute ritual when their parents drop them off in the morning: Push on the Tush.

It is exactly how it sounds. Having been deposited in their classroom, feeling safe in their surroundings, the child is ready for their parent to leave, and wants to have a ritual for that separation. So, the parent stands in the doorway, and the kid gives him a push on the tush. And out the parent goes.

For me, that’s what my mom did. Having come to a conclusion, but needing a little encouragement, I reached out to a person I knew could hold and support me, and then give me a little push. 

The Facebooks.

Yesterday, I saw another of those articles posted by a friend on Facebook about the rose-colored facade that Facebook allows us to put out to the world. About how we only see photos of grand trips and lattes with foam hearts drawn in them and that uber cute one of you and your partner looking so darn happy.

This article and those I’ve seen like it tell one side of the truth, but not all of it.

I didn’t comment on my friend’s article, as his friends were aggro-commenting about Falsebook and how pissed it makes them that we don't see the "whole" picture of others' lives. I didn’t want the agida of the notifications if I put my thoughts there, so, I’ll “post” my comment here:

Facebook saves my life.

When I was first diagnosed with cancer in an ER and led right upstairs to start intensive chemo treatment, there was no packing of stuff, no notifying loved ones or having some hippie prayer circle. I called my mom, and then I called one of my best friends and asked her to do the major task of letting Facebook know, because that is – whatever feelings we all may have about modernity, technology, and disconnection – where my friends “are.”

Because she did that for me, my friends knew where to find me, and what to bring me, and how to get in touch with me.

A few weekends ago, an acquaintance – someone I’ve met only a few times, someone I could say “hi” to “in real life” but wouldn’t call “in real life,” aka a Facebook friend – put up a call to go to a local lake for a lazy Sunday afternoon. I had no plans that day, I’d never been to that lake, and I took a chance at spending time with someone I barely knew by letting her know, via the Facebooks, that I would love to go with her.

We did, and I made other new (Facebook) friends. I had a wonderful and, for me, an adventurous afternoon.

When I got frustrated with my job search recently, I threw my resume up on my “wall,” and two people have given me actual live leads for work, and two have contacted me to offer me help on my resume. I’ve looked at this thing so many times, I see only dot matrix anymore.

When I couldn’t stand that I don’t know if I’ll get to go camping this summer once rehearsals start, I let the Facebooks know I wanted to go, and now will be going into the wilderness with "real" friends, having a respite from this social network thing that brought this trip to fruition in the first place.

I get to see that my college roommates aren’t dead, what state they live in, how many kids they have. I get to see friends from my high school musical days launching and thriving in their artistic careers. I get to read the witticisms, intrigues, and slush that my friends post, and I get to feel that I know they’re safe.

I have learned about friends’ weddings, deaths, job changes, moves, births, divorces, successes, struggles, and banalities. And they get to learn about mine.

I won’t say Facebook is a benevolent entity, wanting us to all feel connected in a disconnect era. I won’t say that this is the “best” way of keeping in touch with people you’ve lost contact with, or moved a few zip codes from. But it does work.

I can also see it from the side of the aggro-commenters, lambasting the system for creating a culture of constant "less than."

I can admit that just the other day, I Facestalked a crush’s ex, and felt the creeping compare/despair that I see so many of those Facebook “expose” articles lament. But, what I did as I felt that gnaw of “not as pretty, funky, cool, yoga-y, artistic, traveled, fun, witty” creep up was not to skewer Facebook for allowing her to present an awesome and curated face to the world. What I did was LEAVE HER PAGE.

For the love, peoples. It’s certainly not that I don’t also fall prey to that depraved inclination and curiosity. I’ve Facestalked ex’s new girlfriends (or wives), and I’ve Facestalked crushes exes. I've kept tabs on who's "talking" to who and leaving little digital roses on one another's doorstep. But, what I’ve learned to do by now is to remember that a Facebook wall is NOT the whole story, but EVEN IF IT IS, it’s NOMB (none of my business).

Other people are allowed to have happy lives, curated, sappy, enviable. And the choice I get to make is whether I want to engage with envy, not with Facebook. 

Stay to Play.

I'm at my new Monday morning desk-trade shift at my gym (unlimited classes in exchange for checking people in.... at 5:30am), so I don't know how extemporaneous I feel while techno music blares in the background, and my pulse finds center again... so perhaps this'll just be an "update-y" kinda blog:

The play I've been cast in (Queen of the Amazons...!) begins rehearsals at the end of July, to perform over weekends around Labor Day. I haven't actually opened my script since our first table reading... but I continue to take it places with me, in a good intention to read it.

In the meantime, I went to play bass yesterday with a friend and his friend -- it was super fun. My poor un-practiced fingertips are a little swollen, but ... man, just to be back in the loud, the beat, the fun. It was so much fun. (Did I mention it was fun?!) We're looking at playing a date in October, and are meeting up again next Sunday. I feel... like myself, having this in my life again; being a bassist again.

My dad didn't actually receive the Father's Day card I sent, since he's moved back up to New Jersey from Florida for the summer. I still haven't returned his return voicemail, but now that I got the card back in the mail, "unable to forward," I suppose I should find out what their "Summer" address is. And also endeavor to keep my bile and perhaps envy to a minimum.

In an exasperated flurry, last week, I sent my photos to some modeling agencies in SF, and heard back from one they'd like to see me this week. ... Then I looked them up on Yelp -- and if there are worse reviews on that website, I haven't seen them! So I'm going to gauge whether that'll be worth my time to meet with them, just for the experience, if not for the professional service of them.

I'm also in conversation with two professional leads for actual work, one I'm meeting this week, another I hope to. Both are in the "helping/teaching" professions. And I haven't quit my job yet -- YAY!!

That's honestly been the biggest success of this whole time, for me. I am unhappy, but I'm not cut-n-running. Which is my M.O.  -- In jobs and in relationships.

Granted, in both, I tend to get into them without much thought as to whether I want to be in them, get through the "honeymoon phase," look around and say, Uh... is this really where I want to be? And that is when the cutting and running happens.

It's not that leaving is not the appropriate move, but in jobs at least, doing so without a safety net is a recipe for desperation, low-self esteem, and the tendency to get into the same situation.

So, this "sitting on my hands" that I've been able to do (with the *enormous* help of friends) has been a really new thing. And, like a cigarette craving, it seems to be waning.

The more I stay in this place of active looking and active staying, ... I don't feel my throat constricting every single minute as I have in these past few weeks. That feeling of crawling out of my skin, of needing to do SOMEthing ANYthing to make this feeling stop.

The "some"thing I'm doing right now is not running. That's been my only move before. A one-trick pony: Uncomfortable? Run!

Instead, I've been asking for major help from friends in helping me not to do that. And during that time, I've discovered ... been forced to discover ... other modes of action. For example, actively seeking work, finally sending out my photos to agencies, and just showing up for the rest of my life anyway.

Even though I'm unhappy, I don't have to be unhappy.

There's this picture I drew once in response to an exercise in a self-help book last year. It's called "Creating a Life Worth Living" (and now sits in my Kindle, unread past Chapter 2!). But it asked us to draw a picture of how we see our life being a year from then.

In it, I drew several things, including the back of a curly-haired head facing a computer, a phone looming large near it. The only thing you see is the computer. Me staring at it.

It's the most depressing image!

So, what would I like to change about the image, the prompt asked me? Well, I'd like that experience to fade. To fade in importance. To not be so activated and aggrieved by it.

The longer that I "sit on my [active] hands," the less running seems like the right option for me. I like having a job while I look for other work, while I "figure out" my life. I like not feeling panicked about how I'm going to pay my rent.

But mostly what happens when I quit a job is that I cut back all the things that are fun in my life.

I can't be a volunteer usher, because I don't have a job. I can't come play bass with you, because I need to be sending out my resume. I can't laugh, because I'm in scarcity.

Staying in a place that is not ideal is not ideal, of course, but I feel like I'm developing alternative ways of dealing with that, ways that include having fun, even as it's hard.

"Push the Button, Max!"

In the 1965 hilarious film, The Great Race, Professor Fate (Jack Lemmon) chases our hero, The Great Leslie (Tony Curtis) around the globe. Whenever Professor Fate attempts to unleash a hidden gem of an engine booster or booby trap, he yells to his sidekick, PUSH THE BUTTON, MAX! – which Max does, to uproarious and hijinxed disastrous results.

It would have been a Leslie Nielsen film if it were done in 80s.

What sparked this memory this morning is how often there’s a voice inside me egging me on to push the panic button. Come on, Max, this is a great idea! Let’s pull all ripcords, let the chips fall where they may! Damn the consequences, HOO-RAH!

Yesterday, I got an email from Kaiser to follow-up on some routine bloodwork I get done every few months now, just to keep tabs on my post-Leukemia cells. Apparently, my liver enzymes were elevated. Like, Wonkavator-through-the-factory's-glass-ceiling elevated.

My doctor wrote me that I had to come in for follow-up labs right away, that if I drank alcohol I should stop immediately, and that she was informing my oncologist, Dr. Li (which humorously autocorrected to “Dr. Lithium”).

Professor Fate wanted Max to push the button so bad. It’s bad news, it’s tragic, it’s cancer, it’s death, it’s imminent! PUSH THE BUTTON!

But… here’s the thing I’ve learned about pushing that button, from the movie, and from my own life experience: It rarely does anything productive.

So, I texted my coworker and my boss that I would be in late, that I was going to Kaiser, and then I called my naturopath/chiropractor/nutritionist in SF and made an appointment with him for that morning, too.

Because, this is how The Great Leslie would approach it: Pause, Assess, Reframe, Choose Love.

Well, maybe he wouldn't use those terms, but he would pause, at least, and assess before leaping out of the hot air balloon.

I arrive at Kaiser, and walk down the hallway. I’m toodling to myself, softly singing/humming tunelessly, just making notes up to distract my thought-life. I realize I’m practicing something called self-soothing, a practice I read about for babies learning to fall asleep on their own.

Instead of fully freaking out, I’m using a positive biofeedback technique to calm my pulse, my panic. And, it works, a little.

After they take 7 vials of my blood, I drive into the city to see my chiro. The man I credit for saving my ovaries from nuclear annihilation during chemo, with his supplements, nutritional advice, and amazingly accurate diagnoses of what’s going on in my body.

I tell him that my Kaiser doctor said it had nothing to do with having poured chemo into my body for 6 months, since that was finished last March. It couldn’t possibly be related.

Assholes.

No: Idiots.

Of course my liver and kidneys are still bouncing back, shmucks. I “love” the way Western medicine brains work: There is no immediate cause of this that we can see, so it must be something new and traumatic and deadly.

How about a patient history, assh— Sorry, Idiots.

It’s like telling someone who broke their ankle a year and a half ago that that has no bearing on why they’re now experiencing pain in their hips. … You guys did learn the whole, “The knee bone’s connected to the thigh bone” song in medical school, right?

Anyway, my annoyance with Western medicine aside, I went to the doctor I trust, after having done what the Western folks wanted me to do.

We did some muscle testing, which is like the coolest thing ever. He handed me a small vial filled with clear liquid marked GMO corn. Told me to hold my other arm out and try to resist his pushing it down. My arm fell like an anvil. It weakens my system.

He held out one labeled organic corn? My arm stayed straight as a compass.

We did this several times: Pasteurized milk? Down. Raw milk? Up. Non-organic eggs? Down. Organic eggs? Up.

What I should offer at this point is that I have been eating a ton of crap these past few weeks. Whatever cookies, candy, cupcakes have been lain out at work, I’ve eaten – because I’m stressed. And sooner or later, my ban against refined sugar and dairy yields, and I go to town.

I’ve also been busy so I haven’t been cooking at home, and have therefore been eating take-out foods, which, although aren’t the worst foods I could choose, are surely not all made with my liver in mind.

So, I’ve been tired, stressed out (as you’ve read), and eating crap to boost me back up.

Yeah, apparently my overworked and Hirojima’d organs need some TenderLovingCare.

(Heh. ... Organs... lovin'... heh...)

Pushing the panic button does nothing for me except exacerbate an already very sensitive system. I don’t like hearing that I really have to stop eating the cupcakes at work, and not use half&half at Peet’s. Or, since it's not organic, I can't drink Peet's at all. I don’t like knowing that because of something I didn’t ask for I now have to work extra hard to fix its effects.

But, What I like less is driving to Kaiser on a Friday morning, thinking about the children I won’t be able to have. The life I won’t be able to “figure out.” The X-Men movie I won’t be able to see.

Look, Death and I have a pretty intimate relationship. We’ve fought an epic battle, and He’s waiting and watching in the corner, seeing if my hubris will bring me down. If, like in Million Dollar Baby, I will let my guard down and He’ll have the chance to (spoiler alert).

What I got to see from yesterday’s panic/not panic "opportunity" was that I still am pretty keen on this Life thing. That I can’t quit my job without health insurance. That I stress out about things I don't need to. And that I’ve accomplished a whole lot in the year and a half since I was diagnosed, things I want to continue to do: play music, make art, be with friends, travel.

I don’t need to push the panic button to “wake me up” – Life has a way of pushing it for me. Of pushing the button on the side of my cosmic cell phone to illuminate the time and remind me to stop freaking out in my head and get into my life.

So, today, I’m going to hum tunelessly as I get dressed, cook organic eggs, do (some) dishes, and head to an 11-year old’s birthday party to shoot mini-marshmallows at my friends. Because that’s the text Life is sending me today. 

But don't worry, I won't eat any. ;)

I think I might be...healthy.

It’s been surprising to notice how nice I’ve been to myself this week as I crawl out of the hopeless, “what am I doing with my life,” place.

Without real conscious intention about it, while I’ve been wading through the mire of job postings and life meaning, I also allowed myself to buy a silly book, read it in the sun, and then go see a funny movie. I went to a community party, even though I still don’t feel “cool” enough to be a member of that community. Surprise! I know people who were there, so I guess I must be. I mean, I knew several people, wasn’t lonely, had many conversations, so I guess I belonged, right?

I made another nice meal for myself after therapy last night. I painted my nails for my job interview, and I’m awake again early to go to the gym to feel strong and proud and accomplished. 

I participated in a staged reading Tuesday night, my first. And I had the insight and perspective, as I sat in that empty stagehouse, to notice that I was doing what I told myself I wanted to do while going through my chemo. I could realize I was accomplishing my dreams. Following them. They sure don’t feel accomplishy (yet) in the dim lighting of a poor cast and poor audience. But, it’s a case of feelings aren’t facts.

I’ve had several long phone calls with good girl friends. Went out to coffee with a co-worker and sat in the community garden nearby, plucking a strawberry off its vine. I stood on a dock swaying in the Berkeley marina one day after work.

I showered.

Despite going through what feels like a dark time, a lost time, I realize that I have an impulse toward self-care I didn’t know I had.

Two friends texted me yesterday to reach out for support in their own journeys. To ask me to remind them that life is abundant and fear is an asshole. Which I gladly did. And it reminds me to remind myself of these things too, but moreso, it reminds me that those are core pieces of myself, pieces that friends see in me, and reach out to me for: I’m an uplifter. Not always, I’m not Pollyanna or inhuman. But, I am someone who more often than not is there to remind my friends that what we’re doing is not impotent. That life is worth living.

I’ve been prefacing my sentences this week with, “Despite the fact that the planet is dying…”! Despite the fact that the planet is dying, I want to leave an imprint in it; I want my life to count; I want to move the needle of human progress forward. Despite the fact that the planet is dying, we continue to bring children into this world because every generation has had its reasons not to. Despite the fact that the planet is dying, I will go to the gym today; meet with a former theater collaborator to who reached out to me about a book she wants to write; I will go to the farmer’s market and eat a plum off a tiny toothpick.

My habit toward self-care, toward health, has become something so natural in me that it’s unnatural. And if such things as this can make seismic shifts, I guess I can remember that life is abundant and fear is an asshole. 

Work It.

I’m up at what I would call atrociously early, if I hadn’t just signed up to be the desk person at my gym at 5:30 am on Mondays starting June. That will be hellaciously early. This is only moderate.

I do a work-trade at my workout studio so I can get free unlimited classes. Last time I was on the trade staff, I barely took advantage of it; since I could go whenever I wanted for free, there didn’t feel like any urgency. Now. … Well, I started back on staff just before my Boston trip, so I felt a bit urgent in “lifting my seat"! And in hoping not to wheeze like a rhino during any strenuous activity!

Now that the trip is well over, and schedules are back on track, I’m trying to get back a few times a week again. It’s good for me. Mentally, mostly. Though, yes, when I go regularly, I see and feel changes that I like. It’s nice to feel strong, capable. It’s nice to push myself because sometimes the class is peopled with 60 year olds (along with the 20, 30 and 40 somethings who are straight out of a Marina postcard) – and if they, a sexagenarian, if you will, can do it, can hang for an hour, then so can I. Moderately!

I also asked a friend to meet up and do our writing together yesterday evening, since we’re both in the study group that’s doing all this together. It was good to see her, and we got a lot accomplished. I can already see that this work is a lot deeper and more meaningful than the last time I did this, so I can hope for change because of it.

It has already shown, in just the 15 timered-minute increments, that there are some messed up ideas around self-worth, what I can expect in this world, and what I think I deserve. So… it’ll be nice to get them out of my reflexes and onto the page.

Also, I did show up to an audition for a staged reading this past weekend, and in fact, actually got the part. Like, in writing. In an email saying, “I’d like to offer you the role of…” and then the follow-up email entitled, “Welcome to the cast.”

So, I’m now Various Roles! Ha! Yay for me. Goes on my resume.

Speaking of, I did a little more work last night – or action, rather, and sent something out. I still have loads to wade through following my info interview with my former boss last week, which was awesome, but I can try to take a small action every day. In fact, I took that action last night after all that writing during which my fears and beliefs tell me that no matter what I do or accrue or amass, it’ll be taken from me because I can’t handle it properly, because I don’t deserve it.

SO, I told that thought and belief to screw itself and got online to follow-up on something I’d seen earlier last week.

I also replied to the Volunteer Usher group I belong to who’d put out feelers to see who’d be interested in ushering the Sir Paul show at Candlestick in August. UH. ME. We won’t find out if we’re “chosen” until August, but I'm throwing my hat in the ring.

I continue to throw my hat in the ring. It’s kinda one of the things about me. I can have all these creeping, sodden beliefs and habits and reflexes that undermine what I do and want to do in this life, and I seem to continue to do this stuff anyway. I don’t know what or where that came from, that same impulse that told cancer to fuck itself, that knows this work is worth it, that isn’t satisfied accepting less than I deserve because of reasons I learned long ago about only deserving a second rate life, job, relationship, since it’ll be taken from me anyway or I’ll screw it up anyway.

I seem to have some bloody impulse that impels me to keep trying. I squawk a lot about dilly-dallying at the cross-roads of my life, and that’s true in many regards, and makes sense if I believe the above is true. But despite my procrastination, my self-sabotage, and my self-judgment, I’m awake at 5:30 this morning to do something that’s good for me. And my ass.