Aging

 I turned 40 today. My family celebrated yesterday, and it was ok. I opened presents while the majority of the attention was on the niece and nephews. It was good. We ate icecream cake and take out Benihana. It was good. 

This morning E ordered me back into bed so she could bring me breakfast. A tradition in her family. We talked about how it’s actually a lot of pressure and kind of odd, and she said it’s even worse when there are more people around and you’re the only one eating… but she likes the tradition.  She’s been giving me small presents all week. I put together  1000 piece puzzle she gave me over the last few days of Covid. Took forever, but it was good. The majority of the presents aren’t meaningful, but fun or functional, or candy. I appreciate the gift cards in the day to day. I added 300 hundred to our envelopes for travel and “health” which basically just means “beauty” treatments. 

I made this joke about turning 40 and thus being in the decline, a few minutes later I had the suspicion it was true. A weird heavy lingering. Many times I’ve thought I was dying, or became afraid of dying, or was sad because I knew it was an inevitability of us all… but this felt slightly different. More just an acknowledgement that life likely won’t get easier or better in the ways I’d always imagined… not just a slope upwards, a reaching, though of course there plenty of amazing possibilities to come… but likely along side all of them will be some measure of heartache or loss, or heaviness… and maybe it’s always been that way and I was privileged to not know… or maybe I’ve always held both and just chose to see the good (while simultaneously dealing with the difficulties).  - I think about when I first was rejected from teacher training by Morris, and initially I was just devastated, but within a few days I was planning on attending UMNs master program, and then Morris invited me back. And when I went back I tried extra hard because I knew it was something that mattered to me. And graduated, if you can call it that, in the top of the class. 

But there are a million things I am always scared of and preparing for, and weighing out, so I can’t very well say I haven’t experienced the negatives before… maybe just that the majority haven’t panned out… whereas in the next 40 (if I am blessed to live that long) I will surely start facing those consequences for real? 

I am staring to have a bald patch in the back do my head… it doesn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. I almost see it as a badge of my age.  James has a white beard for the most part… when did my uncles hair turn? When did they lose it?   I suppose my cousin lost his hair in his twenties so losing it at 40 seems like a long thing.   I asked James if he has advice, he basically said, you’re gonna wanna play with your kids on the floor, and it will hurt. Use a pillow, but also get into shape now cuz it’s harder later.  Great advice. 

I found myself over the last week or so wrestling with wanting to return to work. I really enjoy my job and it gives me a sense of purpose and a drive to do it well.  It was painful to sit around and be unproductive and not giving… E called me out a lot on my inability to just sit with myself or rest or take care of me… I feel like I do that frequently. But she is also right that I am over board on work.  I have no balance.  I have no puzzle to just sit and stare at for 7 hours, instead I am always twisted with the 500 things on my list.  It will never get done.  But I did get the puzzle done.

I feel bad for not wanting to connect with people… but I am mostly content in my life. I feel good about stuff… and just a touch “behind.”

14

 The significance of any of the title is how many digital dots in the time at this moment. 

I’m getting over Covid. It’s my first official time having it. It wasn’t pleasant but it was more funny than hard, so far at least. Today was the first day I felt mostly better. Yesterday I learned that you aren’t supposed to take thraflu and DayQuil in the same day.  

E is sick now. For the second time in two weeks she is out of commission. Last week it was a stomach flu. 

Today I felt a lot better, got a lot of the house chores done, but still feel behind, especially with work and long term tasks. E is wondering why I can’t sit still and why the moment I feel better I want to get back to work. I feel like I’m two weeks behind major things, even if most of them are very minor… I feel like I can’t waste a day, and she is wondering why a day not working is wasted? And I wonder if she is right, though I also am frustrated that we are falling behind by the day week month… and it’s not because I’m not working hard. 

They told me they’ll give me 10k for my car even though it is destroyed. Which is pretty good considering. Will still take a week to work through the paperwork, probably longer to get a check… but at least that is a concrete thing.   

New car? New payment plan? I dunno yet.  I think about how many older folks are losing their ability to drive and wondering if I can have their car… 

The first few days of Covid I laughed, I laughed at how ridiculous it felt, sudden aches and temp changes, a cough but one that came on so rapidly I could barely turn my head let alone raise a dulled arm to quash it. I laughed at how things seemed so difficult all of a sudden. How there was a barrier to my brain. I enjoyed the first few days… it was the weekend and I had no responsibilities. Then came the week and suddenly I was responsible not only for my own clients, the paperwork and what not, but also of my supervisees. 

I’ve already decided I don’t want to continue being a supervisor. I don’t actually like it. It means less control yet more oversight, guiding without enough teaching… I don’t like the set up of it, at least the way it is for me this year. If I had the time, maybe I’d develop a curriculum but I don’t have the time, and I definitely don’t have the energy, and I’m not likely to know where a student comes in or what they need until it’s already halfway through the year. If I were to do it, I’d want to do it full time. And that is not what I had in mind at this time. 

In my third day of Covid, which was really my fourth-  but the first day was masked by DayQuil, I found myself sad, frustrated, crabby. E was starting to get sick by this time and had to take time off work again.  I hadn’t been sleeping well, except in an upright position on the couch. I was bored of doing nothing, but couldn’t muster the strength or thought to do anything productive. I was scraping by, and knew it. And I was against anyone or anything that would further pull from my scarcity or energy. I felt acted upon, rather than the actor. Where was the laughter of yesterday? Why am I feeling so heavy with burden? 

Though last night the fog cleared somewhat and remained more open today. Not enough to work, not enough to go back to work… I’m not even sure about Thursday at this point. I need to catch up with last week when I was clearly getting sick but didn’t realize it. And also I suppose taking care of E while she was sick. 

I keep thinking I’ll have more time to catch up this weekend, but potentially celebrating my 40th… or not, maybe a drizzle fizzle sputter out - don’t want anyone getting sick. 

The thing that launched out at me this morning was that I feel I must act with integrity. Don’t cancel on others or leave them hanging when you are still capable. You know?  There is a job to do and people to attend to, and it is good meaningful work, even if it is fake. Many of my clients have been with me for over a year at this point, which is crazy. Some I’m sure will stay as long as they can afford it. Maybe they are getting someone who believes in them. Or maybe just like to be listened to.. or maybe some get help with their problems. Some don’t, but they come back anyway… and I don’t know why. 

I think about that a lot lately.  The limits of therapy. I know I could be doing more breath work, more somatic work, more coping skills and psycho education … but it lands with some and not others. It’s like telling someone to journal… they will or they won’t.  I know that most would benefit from a change in diet, or more exercise, a larger support network, an empowering hobby… and I would benefit from all the same… but do we follow through? Not until we are ready. There isn’t a key to turn or a button to push or a magic wand… 

With my supervisees sometimes I sense that they are looking for that *key fix… I still look for it too. But I remind them of the things wiser and more patient people than I told me earlier on. Don’t follow the sense of urgency.    I still get caught in it.  

In the pre Covid state and throughout, we watched a lot of port protection Alaska show on Disney… we nicknamed it “not today buddy” because in almost every episode you watch those folks who are basically subsistence on the verge of the wilderness survivalist folks try to get food, or wood, or some other essential and then suddenly there is a storm, or no animals around, or something breaks. And eventually, despite their years of skills and experience they tell the camera person, I guess it ain’t happening today. But despite their disappointment, they maintain this positive vibe (at least for the show-behind the scenes who knows). 

E asks me how will I be present for kids, or life if I am always dedicated to work… it’s a good question. We both are frustrated by how often we are watching tv and scrolling on phones and not connected or present. Both have talked about how do we make more time for loved ones, while simultaneously frustrated with ourselves that we are not holding healthy boundaries, or not engaging in the way we would like to in our positive relationships.  

I often think about how many nights I would spend watching YouTube a few years ago… or movies when I was a teen, or all the lonely disconnected times I’ve already experienced and this feels better than that on any night… but it is the tv watching American life.

Made a little different because we don’t have kids yet. 

But not that different from anywhere and everywhere else. How do humans spend their time when they are bored?

I don’t drink or smoke, or take drugs very often… and this is another factor. 

I think about all the places I’ve been around the world and here, and I don’t necessarily see us doing anything different. But is it unfulfilling? Sometimes

She wonders about getting away to the country, I think it’s a nice dream, this simple life, back to nature, less technology idea, but I am not sure it would actually change anything unless you were super intentional. And super intentional is not easy, it takes a lot of energy and creativity and motivation and drive - to keep it feeling meaningful and not just a self imposed rule or restriction. 

My curiosity at this point in my life isn’t driven toward learning how to farm or create and maintain buildings. I have a vast love of learning, but I don’t find it meaningful right now… I find my work meaningful right now. 

Jan 1st

 It’s the end of the break, and the beginning of the new year. Sort of an artificial thing, but doesn’t keep us from reflection right? Maybe, makes it easier. 

Today was a weird hard day for no reason. 

I went to bed last night thinking I should probably erase some of my social media and games and what not, so that I could live a more present oriented  life. 

I had downloaded one of those super addicting games and spent a lot of time on it last night. The little drops of my attention getting sucked into the vacuum of this completely make believe - totally insubstantial thing. It gives hits of pleasure, enough that I considered making purchases so I wouldn’t have to wait for the little timers…

I’m sure we have all played these types of games. There are little mini games to play in between the larger theme, and sometimes you can’t remember which game you are actually intending to play. 

It’s a different sort of time waste than other things, with Tetris I know I’m organizing my mind. With word games I know I am utilizing my mind, with the computer games I am learning and thinking about history and what not… but with this artificial town, and its artificial economy, and its artificial timers and rewards… I’m just sucked into a nothingness… I suppose you could make the argument that having to keep all the little things in mind and return to them could be a type of memory or concentration building tool… but at the end of the day I have not accomplished my actual life goals and how many hours did I spend tapping away at the void?   And why do I feel drained, and anxious and on edge? 

I suppose there are other reasons too.  E’s stuff triggering my stuff triggering her stuff and so forth. 

She woke up this morning, felt sick, projectile vomited all over the room and it still smells cuz we don’t know where it all went. She hasn’t thrown up since but still felt sick all day and rested rather than pushing herself. Which is the healthy thing to do, except of course she has some deadlines that sound very serious. And it puts me into my trauma response. 

And so I did all the household work, and my work, and mostly just sat on my phone avoiding life today. I think it was because I was frustrated with her, with life, with the way I overwork and take care of things… and still don’t get ahead. 

I had some minor tasks I didn’t get done for work that I have been putting off, and it feels bad. I also took time off specifically to take time off… and up until the last few days didn’t feel bad about it at all. I did accomplish laundry, dishes, meals, and taking out the garbage and recycling. I also did some cleaning though it still smells. Lysol the whole mess. 

I get into this headspace where I worry that if I don’t do things, they won’t get done. In this space, I neglect to notice all the things other have done, or continue to do for me. I get self righteous and afraid. I try very hard to stay even minded, but I’m scared and frustrated… I worry that I won’t get to feel safe or get to do the things I want to do because I’ll be making up for others. In some cases this has been my genuine experience, and it’s hard because I know I have allowed it to happen and then become resentful.  In other cases, I think I envy not having to worry about it, because these things are always on my mind. My faith and values say that I should be able to roll with it, allow it to come, experience it, recognize that what I worried wasn’t the outcome and then let go of these worries… but that’s hard when the pattern repeats…  it would be nice to say come storm, rain down on my parade, I invite you. But I don’t think I’m that zen yet.  

I overbooked myself tomorrow. 8 clients and a supervisee. It’s gonna be a long tough day, and I don’t think I’ll have anything left.   Most of these clients are fairly easy to deal with, mostly enjoyable. But I have some worries… of course I do. Worry that I won’t be enough, worry that I would be able to support them, that I will lose steam and hurt them in someway. Enneagram 2 qualities?   I am not grounded, I’m not connected, and I think that throws me off quite a bit. The rest of the week is more average, but starting with this many clients is probably a recipe for disaster that I will be making up for next weekend and so on.  It never ends.   

That’s kind of the thing I’ve been thinking about lately, enjoy the process because it never ends… it’s all process, not end result. 

I wrote a text to Pete last night mentioning something like that.  I’ve been very out of touch with everyone. Not really a life… 

If I were able to balance better, like maybe 25 clients instead of 30 each week. Maybe that would be better… but there are still always hard situations, and I need something outside of work to be passionate about. 

Normally I’m pretty invested in my relationship, but this weekend it’s been more like trying not to caretake/control/worry/be frustrated. 

Anyway… I thought I would write because I couldn’t get myself to do more work, and also felt wound up from that stupid game… which I deleted so that I wouldn’t be jumping back to it between sessions at work. 

I dunno… I feel like maybe not all of this is my stuff to hold, but it impacts me, so where is the line?