New York Christmas, day 3

We walked up to the observation deck of the Empire State Building. Well, we walked up the last six flights of stairs anyway. 

Ahead of us, an old man, puffed along and it was a matter of pride as much as endurance to not give up.

There is something interesting that hsbhapenednin the last three months as I have worked on adjusting my attitude towards my body: exertion is no less difficult but choosing to begin is more likely. That is, I don't enjoy the gym even an iota more than I ever did, but my willingness to put myself in a situation that moves my body has shifted.

Looking down, then, into the streets we have walked gives me some perspective about what I have successfully accomplished and that awareness fills me with pride.

Walking throughout Manhattan and indulging our nerdy selves (Star Wars and then Hunger Games exhibits?! Yeah!) helped me to settle down into the truth of this trip: I needed to be exhausted in different ways. I needed to shine because of choices that I made, somewhat selfishly, that helped me to feel settled and satisfied. That I need to not lose sight of who I am as a person, outside of my obligatory "roles" as mother and teacher, friend and colleague.

Our Broadway choice, Hamilton, quenched a thirst we didn't know we had and it was marvellous.

New York Christmas, day 2

There is a perception that holiday seasons, especially Christmas, produce an excess of moments that feel almost miraculous. Moments that seem made for the word awesome at it's most literal sense. 

We feel cynical and jaded at a world that is too loud, too violent, too sharp against the soft edges of our innocence to truly feel in awe of the world.

My husband is described as a well-grounded realist, if one is kind, and a sarcastic cynic, if one is honest. As you might imagine, it takes a lot to fill him with awe. But today? Today had moments that were awesome.

We went to the New York Public Library and there, unexpectedly, we got to see a Gutenberg Bible. It's meticulous illumination work and intriguing hand lettered margin notes left us both in a state of profound awe. The historical significance of this book from 1456, there right in front of us here, made us walk in thoughtful contemplation, pondering mhow society shifted so massively in the post-Gutenberg world. 

To pair this, then, with the Museum of Natural History with its timeline of human origins

and the 10:26 scale representation in the Rose Centre was nothing short of mind blowing. Time, distance, importance of humanity? How relative we were, how insignificant our worries, how trite our lives felt against the magnitude of space, the infinitesimally fragments of all the known world.

And so, pondering the greatness of everything, we walked together in the rain through Central Park, 

and took in the lighting of the Rockefeller Tree 

and understood that our place in the world couldn't be understood in simple ways but would be endured in simple joys, together. And that fact settled inside me, a kernel of surety in a life that so often has none.

And that? Is awesome.

New York Christmas, day 1

It is December 1st and I am in New York City for the first time. After enduring a day of travel to get here that included numerous delays and turbulent moments, my husband and I are enjoying the amazing freedom of child free companionship. 

In the months between the last post and now, I have committed myself to changing my perspective.

I go to the gym in the hopes that I can gain a new appreciation for how my body moves, how I can work to make it stronger and more capable, how to love more comfortably in my skin. This process is long and arduous. It continues despite my struggles to make it so.

My work/life balance is exactly as it needs to be, despite a frisson of guilt even at the minimal hours I now teach. The proverbial foot in the door is so hard for a Type A gal like me but the resultant joy I have connecting with my children makes this decision an absolute no-brainer. There is no substitution for my time with them.

And because my time is so focused on where my children are right now, it is hard to ensure that I am also focusing on my own well-being.

I struggle with the guilt and freedom of exploring this new adventure, despite the fact that both of us have undoubtedly earned every moment of this trip. 

Parenting is hard and thirteen years of marriage has been filled with ups and downs but on this New York Christmas honeymoon, I am so thankful for everything that has lead me here.

The relief of rage

Days are hard enough to get through when there are just the ordinary hustle to deal with--day camp drop offs, kids to harangue, meals to make, rooms to clean. Days with depression are like doing all of that with a muffling blanket, a strangle of tension that fluctuates in the quiver of emotion that lie just beneath.

It has been awhile since I was able to pinpoint what my emotional state is, in actuality. I can say I am fine but it has no relevance to being fine. I am neither here nor there; I feel unidentifiable. 

Sometimes, as with today, I can drown out the numbness but the only emotion that does so successfully is rage. And while snapping that fine line feels good--and by good, I mean I can feel it and that sensation pulls me away from the desperate void-it is not good in reality for anyone involved. 

It is a debacle of harsh words, bubbling like over simmered poison, hissing on the unsuspecting bystanders, scalding those unhappily on my periphery. 

The resulting withdrawal on all sides--lo, self preservation, arise and be present--simply lapses back into the shadows and my rage limps back from whence it came. 

And so it goes.

Let's Stop Faking It

The last week or so has seen an uptick in the Semicolon Project and the connected hashtag #semicolonEDU. As an educator with many present conversations about mental health, it has become increasingly important for me, personally and professionally, to step up to the conversation plate. 

Mental illness, unlike physical illness, seems complicated by people's desire (in everyday ways) to "fix" what is wrong. There seems to be some notion that people can "choose" their way out of mental illness where no one would even postulate that someone with a broken leg could possibly "Just think positively! Think of not broken legs!" to "get over it". 

The endless parade of well-intentioned but maliciously harmful cheerleading makes the temptation to "fake it" undeniable. Putting on a facade, however, exacerbates the situation in all fronts.

After all, if you are not your genuine true self--mental illness and all--how is your relationship with anyone established? What is the level of mistrust that must inherently exist if you fear reprisal for revealing yourself? What shame do you perpetuate upon your own psyche by not allowing the other person to choose for themselves how they will respond to your illness? And what a relief it might be to find that it is you, in your entirety, they may cherish in the end. That, given the ability to walk away, they choose to stay. 

 When I began therapy, I did so without telling anyone else. No one else was aware of how much I was hurting, no one else knew how deeply I wounded myself, no one knew how thin the thread of my connectedness was.

About three months into it, the therapist asked why I hadn't told my husband and what I feared by revealing the truth of my illness, the width of the chasm. My heart raced at the very notion. I was so good at hiding, so adept at throwing up bald-faced distractors, could I really let my vulnerabilities come forward? But if not with my husband, with whom could I entrust myself? 

I was petrified to see the range of emotions I thought would play across his face. Could I handle seeing disgust, revulsion, rejection? But we couldn't continue this way either. If he didn't know me as I truly was, wasn't my marriage a sham anyway? A mockery of what I had promised him in our wedding vows? It took another month, at least, to tell him.

It was mostly wordless. I showed him and braced myself. At first, brow furrowed in confusion, he didn't understand. He couldn't correlate my state of being with the facade of my life. And he was startled at the relevelation. Shocked, even. 

But what he didn't do was show disgust or revulsion. He scooped me closer and held me gently. And his tenderness shredded me and made me whole. 

It is a journey of infinitesimally small steps forward, out of the darkness. Although the carefully layered front may never disappear entirely, stripping myself down to the stark and scary truth feels like an ultimate necessity. 

Society needs to know that the boldness of my revelations about mental illness are what make me strong, make me a good mother, and engage the core of my pedagogy as an educator. 

The Struggle of Some Day

Some day is a phrase I often mutter to myself. Some day I'll finish this project or that one. Some day I will wake up feeling energized and enthusiastic. Some day I will find that reserve of patience that gentles my words. 

Some day feels like a benediction--the shade of hope that all that I strive for will come to fruition. Some day feels like a curse--a Sysiphesian cycle of chasing one's goals to no avail. 

Although the notion is contradictory, it is possible to feel both sides of some day simultaneously. I begin most tasks with some momentum, even as frissons of hopelessness hang like tendrils of dread at all that lies ahead. But I begin anyway.

Struggle is, even at its worst, a reminder of life that is lived, not just breaths into a void.  

Trigger Warning: Rape

I read a book about rape today.Usually reading about rape draws me back, like a rope that snakes me in, wraps itself around me in complicated and confusing ways.  There is a frisson of anticipation that accompanies the uptick of heart rate, a dampening of emotion that tempers the sharpness of breath.  There is guilt, And shame.  And rawness.

But my reaction to this book was different today.  Mostly because the protagonist was feeling all the things that I felt.  So I didn't have to.

In the actions of her character, the conflicted choices, the emotions that took her by storm and by calm, in turns, in the therapy sessions she attended, I didn't have to,  I didn't have to push off the shame of the moment.  I didn't have to consider whether the actions or reactions to events were immorally complicit.  I didn't have to feel responsible for the choices she made, I just had to acknowledge that everything she felt was inside me too.  And that her redemption could also be mine.

And now it is three o'clock in the morning and I need something more to filter this experience through.

I haven't ever talked so openly about this before and I feel unsure why I am here, and now.  But I leave it here as a reminder to myself that the story that aches to be told has no statute of limitation in my heart.