Emotional mountain climbing

 (Subtitle: Where you don't even get to burn calories but you still might pull a hamstring)

The peaks and valleys of Glen Nevis. Bods/Creative Commons

"Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could."
– Louis Erdrich, The Painted Drum

I came across this today on a beautiful blog post about a woman in New Zealand who just passed away from breast cancer, and the sentiment could not have come at a more poignant time for me. 

Call this irony, or hypocritical, or yet another example of the failure of modern sensibility thanks to the Internet, but I woke up sure that I needed to share on my blog, with strangers from around the world (all 113 of you), that I have been feeling withdrawn. I'm too exhausted from psychoanalyzing myself to decide whether this is an idea I should feel ashamed about, leaving me in the all-too-familiar position of being completely past the point of possessing even one singular shit to give. I am quite simply overflowing with stress, angst, worry, and guilt.

It's what we do. People, I mean. I could probably make a solid argument that it's more a symptom of my X chromosome, but I personally think we are just more chatty. Both sexes tend to take on a heavy burden when we come out of hiding and participate in the world. My participation lately has led me to a place of utter sadness, in so many ways. It doesn't matter how many times I assure myself there's little point in fretting about things I cannot fix, or even improve. My heart is heavy, and it has led me to near total withdrawal. I'm not reaching out to people I love who may need it, because I feel so overwhelmed, and the fact that I'm not reaching out only makes things worse. It's a bad cycle.

Are you still with me? Has my cryptic, angsty vent triggered your involuntary eye roll? I get it. I have a good life, a privileged life versus a full 2/3 of the world's population and most of the population in this country. Things could be a whole hell of a lot worse. I guess this is the guilt portion of our show. I have it good, but I'm so preoccupied with worry about so many people in my life, including myself, that I'm not even enjoying the gifts I've been given (or have earned by way of elbow grease, belt-tightening, and lifting up my mythical bootstraps, depending on your ideological perspective). Any way you slice it, I'm feeling pretty guilty about feeling angsty, and what the hell is that about? I suspect it's my unproven theory that the people around me will be better off if I appear to be keeping it all together.

Somewhere around age 9, I concluded that it was somehow wrong to ever feel anger, sadness, self-worth, or to express any emotion that wasn't 100% positive, or at least carefully measured. Why that is, I don't know. I blame hormones, or possibly Madonna's seminal Live a Virgin LP. I'm sure a shrink would pinpoint some noteworthy experience like getting boobs too early, or a stressed home life, or my dog dying at Christmas when I was 6, or that one time I sipped from a glass of water and discovered it was Sprite. That will leave a scar. The fact is, I don't know and I'm not sure it matters. I only know that it sucks and as I veer dangerously close to 40, I'm pretty weary of feeling that way.

I used to have a big problem with people who make it a point to live their lives in vibrant color, throwing caution to the wind, making an ass out of themselves in the loudest, most public ways they can muster, calling people out on inauthentic BS, all in the name of honoring themselves above all else, at least some of the time. These days, I envy them for holding a spark of something I seem to have lost along the way. I get why the "old people" seem so embarrassing to younger generations. It can be off-putting to share time with someone who has looked at all the social conventions for several decades and concluded too many of those conventions were utter conformist bullshit.

I'm not sure where that leaves me. This isn't Dead Poet's Society up in here. This is my blessedly ordinary life, in which I'm blessed with beautiful children and a doting, brilliant husband. What talents I have, I'm squandering. I'm harder on myself than anyone else ever could be, and that's not a badge I wear with pride. I prize kindness above all other human traits, but I can't seem to muster any for me. I'm pretty sure I deserve a little kindness. I made eye contact with a homeless man the other day when I gave him the 38 cents I had in my pocket, so...

Maybe what I really need is a vacation/whisky bender. Who's in? I'm sure I'd be a wonderful travel companion, what with my penchant for bursting into tears over magazine ads for wholesome snacks your family deserves and my well-honed ability to quietly avoid anything smacking of honest emotion. Road trip!

In truth, I'm probably coming down the other side of my latest exercise in emotional mountain climbing. I'm pretty sure the peak was the day I spent rewriting humorous essays into dark parables about "the collective hopelessness." I suppose it's time to take another stab at the world of antidepressants, but the thought alone exhausts me. I may actually prefer the peaks and valleys to the flat line of meh. I prefer the occasional Earth-rocking thunderstorm to month after month of fog. That said, I'm bone-weary from all the mountain climbing, too. I'd greatly appreciate any insight, dear readers. The options in my comments section will always include Anonymous. So, really, feel free to vent about your own struggle with the mountain, or tell me to suck it up, or tell me how you found balance. I'm listening.

5 secrets I've told my dog

Maggie, who loves you.

Maggie is an awesome confidante. Much like the mythical honey badger, she does not give a shit. And in fact, if you are even in a room with her, she vibrates with excitement because she is lustily desperate for any attention at all. Accidentally make eye contact with this creature and she'd totally marry you, if they allowed that kind of thing (they do not, I've googled it).

So anyway, I tell her things because most of my hours are spent with corruptible, unimpressed children. And, as previously mentioned, she does not give a shit. I could reveal state secrets about nuclear wessels and she would simply blink and gaze at me with adoration. And now, I'm telling you because I might as well be writing these posts inside of a bunker 4 stories under the Russian tundra based on my Google Analytics reports lately. It's like a PostSecret confessional, but with even more anonymity, and less heartfelt earnesty.

1. I can't spell, or use, commas.

For someone who claims to be a writer, this is especially shameful. At this point, I can barely write with a pen on paper because I'm so dependent on my friend, Mr. Squiggly Line.  As far as commas, go, I have given up. Maggie loves me anyway.

2. I still sing into my hairbrush.

You know, that thing pre-teens do (or did, in the 80s, according to every Molly Ringwald movie). I have a hard time passing by an unsuspecting hairbrush and not picking it up to channel my inner Debbie Gibson (who was the better singer but far less interesting than Tiffany). I sing into my hairbrush and make eye contact with myself in the mirror. Maggie pants appreciatively.

3. I hate coffee.

I feel like by age 37, I should be able to drink coffee without rendering it unrecognizable by adding copious amounts of white stuff to it, but no. I am embarrassed to drink coffee in front of people because I have to make the waitress bring more cream and sugar, and I won't order it at a drive-thru because I don't want to ask for "8 or 9 creams and several handfuls of sugar packets".  Maggie stands by patiently while I ruin a perfectly good cup every morning.


4. I only make my children bathe if we are going somewhere.

I just don't see the point. We go somewhere frequently enough. Why waste all that clean? Like the dishes, they are just going to get dirty again. Better to cover up the dirty parts with clothes and forget about it. Maggie likes us better when we are 5, 6 days past clean.


5. I have an irrational fear of gas stations.

I'm relatively sure, as I stand around pumping just an incredibly ridiculous amount of gasoline into my van, that the whole place is seconds away from exploding. I stand perfectly still while peering suspiciously at everyone around me, keeping an eye out for lit cigarettes, bundles of dynamite, and suspicious heaps of fertilizer.  I also nonchalantly ground myself for fear of death-by-static-electricity. Maggie understands, and fears for my safety, as well.



So, what do you tell your dog?