ABAW 2012 / AAW 2012

Just an Update, still reading a book a week. I'm a little behind, but the books are listed on the page for ABAW 2012.

I've also been creating one piece of art per week in a little journal I created using index cards. I decorated the index dividers and hole punched the whole thing into a cute book (see below). And I journal on the back.

I noticed that I had been creating increasingly darker, screaming-out-for-help images about my job. Finally, I found this image of a bombed out area and used a label maker to write 'Productivity' - this goal that I am supposed to be striving for. I had decided no more.

Another image I created the week we were trying to get the seller to approve our offer. My husband was a hero that week, going all over to solve every problem that came up. Me, I was a mess of insecurities, fears, and ambivalence. When I look at that card, I remember his efforts as solitary. I know I wasn't helpful. I was scattered and confused like the birds. And I still sit with my ambivalence now.

I hope you can see the images - dunno how to turn them on my Blogger app on my phone. I am very behind in the journal as well - I have pages with little notes scratched on the back. But not until I pull out those images do I really see what has been going on inside.

A creative space

This weekend started with rain, a real bummer as we had master plans to clean and restain our deck. So Saturday started slowly, the air damp and heavy. We currently do not have a functioning HVAC system in our new house, as it has a huge crack in it that our inspector failed to catch. So the air is stagnant, our basement dank and musty, with my brain growing mold within the drywall and up the beams.

That afternoon, I retreated up as far as I could, into the front bedroom that will serve as 'my' room until we get pregnant. So there's a catch for you: I only get one - a baby or creative space. Hmm. Either way, for a minimum of 9 months (probably more because fantasies of mold does not do it for me, I refuse for sperm and egg to unite until the air is healthy - ha, as if I had that power!), this space is all mine.

I'm sitting in the middle of it now, and I just want to stretch out and throw stuff on the walls and paint big and make a royal mess. But I'm a little overwhelmed. I have 500 projects in half completion that I think I'm going to finish. There are also boxes and binders and CDs that I need to get rid of. So another catch: in order to make a mess, I have to clean up, purge, and get rid of all this baggage.

On Saturday I started. I was able to begin bringing together projects, and could see everything I have in one place. I don't have much in the way of work space but I kinda want to work on the floor anyway. I'm not sure how to do that. There are two closets in this room: one I'll eventually empty completely and one I'll store supplies in. I suppose it's sacrilege that I'm storing supplies in a cedar closet (calm down, it's not a good one).

There is so much to do in this house, and yet I'm feeling incredibly called to make and make and make. I'm also incubating ideas for my own business, and feel it could change my life if I find a way to walk calmly with fear, rather than let it talk me back like its trying to now.

Because I want to post again.

I'm sitting in a laundromat, waiting on both the dryer to dry and my husband to finish up tax free holiday purchasing (our house needs so much - I'll share that later), and to check out purchasing a second car, and it hit me in an overwhelming way that I want to blog again. Who knows, this could be the last again for six months. Or it could not. But I didn't want to put up another barrier of excuses, greatest of which is the need to tell the whole story from beginning. Where was the beginning anyway?

To catch you up: we bought a house. A townhouse to be exact, in the city but surrounded by trees. And cemeteries, but we can't see them do we just appreciate their quietness and hope the CDC is right about zombies.

It was a difficult, challenging experience I think made more difficult by all my own hang ups. I've had to deal with issues of security, money, privacy, and safety in oddly fundamental ways that have made me ill. I wouldn't confess that ever, anywhere. And it's been for the best.

I love my husband in a new way I am just becoming aware of. He is amazing. He also is driving me nuts in a brand new way, so it evens out.

Last night we attended the most touching wedding: 2 who have been together for years, a lifetime, and decided to tie the knot. Actually I think the need for health insurance and issues around growing older were also factors, but they held close to the romance. The ceremony showed how much they understood their love for each other, and how their friends and family glowed in this love, and knew it too, in a profound, true way. Joy, joy caused my heart to ache for this - I have the love, which I am so grateful for. I want the community.

So now I have some roots. I'm reaching them deep, and hope to find it nourishes me. Already I am feeling more whole, all my pieces are coming together and on a practical level, I am able to let go. Decluttering, purging, simplifying - those words don't match the experience of realizing that I don't need these representations. All I needed were roots: safety, security, home.

But today, I sit in a laundromat because the Universe is keeping me simple. I mentioned, our house needs many things, including a plumber to hook up our fancy brand new washer/dryer. I think I had to internalize and digest a lesson first.

As an aside, I'm using this post to practice blogging on my phone - I also took a picture to see how it works. That might help to keep posting.

A guide in the wilderness

I've been at impasse, stuck or hiding, I'm not sure which.  I wasn't sure if I'd write this here, but it just makes sense to do so.  I've written before that I've been having difficulty conceiving.  To clarify, I have trouble ovulating.  And well, a girl needs an egg to make a baby. 

I've been to an endocrinologist, who sent me a letter in the mail to let me know I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome.  A letter.  Thanks.  And then I went to a reproductive endocrinologist who confirmed this diagnosis, and recommended a round of progesterone and clomid.  Progesterone makes my period come while tossing me into a black fog of tortured depression, and clomid makes my ovaries bring forth some follicles, which then are supposed to become eggs.   My supposition is that clomid will also make me a crazy weepy mess.   

Still reeling from the craptasticness of a diagnosis, months of testing, and an endocrine disorder, and oh, my feeling like a general failure as a woman, I said well fine, sure, okay.  We endured a giggling walkthrough of when to have timed relations.  Booya, love that I have to take a blood test to find out when to copulate. 

Two days later, I received several phone calls from a random pharmacy, who informed me that I'd also been injecting myself with a medication called Ovidril (it makes those follicles turn into eggs).  So I called the doctor's office, where a nurse rudely informed me I had been advised of this intervention.  That's a nada, biatch.  I'd remember if the meeting broke down like this:  endocrine disorder, failure as woman, medicine, medicine, shot, timed relations.  Nope, nothing about shots.  

I spent four weeks walking around my apartment debating when to take the progesterone, if I should call the doctor's office and schedule an appointment.  And I decided, I don't wanna. 

But I didn't know what to do next.  I want to have a baby, or three.  But I don't want it like this, this cold, mechanical, and downright terrible service of a process.  I'm mourning the fact I need any intervention at all.  I'm reeling that I have a diagnosis that will need intervention.  And I continue to be nervous about having babies, being a parent, and all that normal, gloriously normal, stuff that everyone else gets to have.  And, by the way, I am a fantastic woman, and not a failure at all.  I'm not cool with a process that makes me feel bad.

Time brought a chance encounter with a woman I have been growing friends with who shared her own story of struggling with infertility, feeling unfulfilled, unsure where to go next, and let me know about a therapist who specializes in working with women just like us.  And this lady knows all the good people.  I'm a therapist:  I know that I need some therapy around this, I know that its impacting my work and my life. 

So I saw her today.  I walked away with a page of referrals for reproductive endocrinologists, permission to get 2nd and 3rd opinions (yes! you ARE allowed to do this!), OB/GYNs, and a feeling that someone out there got it, and that my point of view IS okay.  And finally, I have a guide.

try, try again

I could be setting myself up for it, but I'm going to try this again.

Hello, internet.

Okay, so I haven't really done too much to spruce up, but I did change the masthead.  Maybe I'll get wacky and try to change it monthly.  Its so darn easy to do.  The truth is, I like it here, writing posts that I'm not sure if anyone will ever read, organizing my thoughts and finding a reason to bring it together, reaching some sort of synthesis when sometimes things just don't make sense.  And they usually don't seem to make much sense.

Perhaps that's what happened over these many months.  Everything backed up on me, and nothing ceased to make much sense.  I was working way too much, I'm supervising an intern, my own supervisor has retired, my caseload has exploded and I'm finding myself to be fairly in demand with a terrible case of unable-to-say-no's.  The pace has become ridiculous, like running on a treadmill that has gone haywire.  But I feel clear today, I feel caught up, things are clean, I've been making art.  And I will return to work tomorrow and just know it will all disappear again despite my best intentions.

Well, let's give a moment to the best intentions - there is something about putting something in writing that may make it more likely to become so.

I'm continuing to read a book a week, and plan to make one small piece of art a week.  I'm in the process of creating a book to house the project.  The optimist in me thinks I should create a post with pictures to show you.  I've updated some of my art journal, and we finally got a scanner so I can hopefully bring this up to date.  I still have oodles left to do in it though.  And I did the 21 Secrets Workshop, but didn't even get to watch the videos for some of them.  Sigh, oh well, I will keep working on that too.  I unearthed these two sketch books that I had been keeping, and have put them in an accessible place.  In one, I wrote:

I'm supposed to be
Doing something-
But I don't know
What;
And I am too
Afraid to do it.

I can't help but look back at where I left off, and notice that its purely fear that got in my way.  I had stepped forward into joining an ever growing artist community, and that left me bare and up for critique.  I couldn't handle it.  So I withdrew into my work, as it is a great source of blame and allows me some measure of distance as I get to hide behind professionalism.  And as I write that, I wonder, why can't I be professional about my art, and give myself the same allowances?  I also wrote:

A secret, shy image may have surfaced only to be scared away by the viciousness of those staring in its quiet face.

I am sad at the number of shy images I may have scared away over these past many months.  Images that may have helped me understand or grow.  But growing is scary.  Then I have to take on what I am perhaps not ready for.  I guess it doesn't matter - it seeks us out anyway.  And I need to create like I need to breathe.

So here it is, I try again.

ABAW 2011: To Update and Complete

When I last posted, I had reached 26 books read.  Thought I'd bring this last challenge up to date as I've pretty much sucked at all the others...I divided my readings into sections and went ahead and included some works in progress.  I didn't quite make it to my goal but wow, so close.  Also - apologies for the layout, I couldn't get any of this quite right, but wanted to just get it out there and done so I can start a new year.

Running:

27

28

33

I've been reading quite a bit about running and I enjoy it immensely.  I'm not a good runner at all, but I love the meditation of it and wish I could be a long distance runner if I could devote the time to commit to it (and if my knees could tolerate it - perhaps I should switch to barefoot running!).  I love hearing the stories these athletes tell, and how running becomes a symbol for how they live their lives.

The book by Murakami was one I listened to over my iPhone on a long Fall drive to NY to pick up my husband.  I love Murakami's books, and was hopeful about this one.  I was so pleased to hear his meditative thoughts, our shared experiences running in Boston and how he equates running to writing.  I wish I owned this, as many phrases would be underlined with exclamation points.  Born to Run is just cool. 

Fiction:

34

31

I thought reading fiction would be the easiest way to go to crank through some books quickly, but I ended up having a hard time finding fiction I enjoyed.  For example, Disgrace slowed me down a lot because frankly, it was terribly upsetting and after being a therapist all day, I wanted fluff.  (Not to put anyone off Disgrace - apparently its being made into or is a movie, and comments on important issues in South Africa).  So damn it, I enjoy me a Sophie Kinsella book.  Sue me.  And I can't wait to read the next Matched book.   That's great post-apocalyptic fluff.  Also - I've been catching a lot of my reading on my rides home from work.  Which is bringing down my stress levels, making me a much nicer driver.  Thank you Boston Public Library.

37

29

40

41

 




 Non-Fiction:

35

36

44 - unfinished

Three Cups of Tea is simply amazing.  The Doors, eh.  I should finish Predictably Irrational tonight, and am loving it.  Good stuff about how we make decisions.






Therapy:

30

32

45 - Unfinished

All books are very good.  I already use the Child's Mind information with some of the kids I work with (although I wish I had a big office with bean bag chairs and fluffy pillows to really teach meditation and relaxation to kids!). 

  



Books on Creativity:

46 - Unfinished

47 - Unfinished

I just don't want to finish either book, so I haven't!











Books on Fertility, Pregnancy Planning & PCOS (and no, I'm not pregnant):

38

39

This has been a tough year for me.  One of the main reasons why I stopped blogging was my difficulty dealing with issues around infertility.  I know, I know, blogging could have helped.  I wasn't there.  Sorry.

I've been to two specialists, and finally have a diagnosis that has helped explain a lot of things, and has given me many questions.  I have lots of feelings about doctors, and many really terrible ones about not being able to get pregnant. And lots of shame around it.  I can't tell if I'm rejecting medical interventions because I think there are other solutions that are healthier, or if I'm just not accepting my diagnosis, or perhaps, most likely both.

But if I have to explain to one more person that having this question and trying to answer this question in no way impacts my desire to get pregnant; I'm just sad that it doesn't come as easily as any other woman.  I also wish people would just sit with me in my grief, instead of offering platitudes about God's timing and stress and me being ready.  Bite me, that crap is bull.

I'd be the best mom ever.  I just have insulin irregularities that cause my hormones to go out of wack.  When those hormones are out of wack, my body doesn't do what its supposed to do during the monthly cycle.  If willing and wishing could make things happen, well.  But I've got to get there, and soon!

42

43

33

ABAW: 22 - 26

A long, long month.  I have no idea how I've kept reading.  But here it is. 

I swear I thought Nora Roberts wrote more supernatural stuff.  This was not that at all.  Something about love, cougars, and a psychotic dude.  Eh. 

The next book was quite lovely and made me all moody and teary.  About the daughter of a man with major chronic depression.  She seeks to understand how her genetics influence who she is, and ends up completely off path, numb from her feelings.

I finally finished the Happiness Project, which to be honest was so-so.  I enjoyed the beginning, the conceptualization of her project and the outlining of her intent.  I did not like when she started to include blogger comments, and then didn't integrate them at all.  And how she would do some tasks in a half assed way, and give herself credit for them.  I guess I didn't connect with the person I was reading about.  Or maybe I'm just cranky.  Nah - I wanted her to go deeper, and I felt she just kept skimming the surface of things. 

Perhaps that's the thing with our search for happiness:  I believe its just a fleeting feeling in the midst of a hundred other ones, all equally valid and rich.  When we make happiness into a project, we further remove ourselves from the real feeling and instead make it into a task to complete.  Even now I am thinking of the many projects I've started and not completed, of my true priorities, of how I spend my time, and what I want from it.  And with that, steps further and further from the rawness of my feelings.

Things are tricky right now.  I'm taking on many more responsibilities at work, which requires me to fully understand what I do, be able to communicate it, and also puts me at risk for increased criticism, which I hate.  I'm also learning so much.  And getting angry at myself for not being further in my career, for not making more money, for lots of dumb things that come up when I compare myself to others.  I recognize I have something there to process, and I'm not at all.  I know I'm changing exponentially daily, each week brings a slightly different me, altered by what I am doing in a way that I am unrecognizable to myself. 

One thing I have learned is that I am a pretty scrappy gal.  I am self-sufficient, I make due with nothing, and ask for less.  While I'm proud of that, maybe that's not the smartest way to operate.  Maybe I need to ask for more - a lot more.  I need to reconceptualize how I see "work", and I desperately need to figure out why I am addicted to work.  Lie:  I know why I am addicted, I need to get my own treatment for it.  But I am stuck - I love to learn, to research, to have a billion things to do and think about.  I'm doing the same thing that I critique in the Happiness Project:  I'm actively ignoring my own feelings and shoving myself into a project, hoping its authentic and worthy.

Surely it is?  Right?

Ultimately, its irrelevant.  I should be doing a good job, I should be offering a service that my clients are contracting for.  If I want to get paid more, I need to set up a business and exchange fees appropriate for that service.  I should engage in learning, teaching, consulting.  But I question the undercurrent that I know what is best, that someone knows what is best.  I know there are standards for ethics, legal parameters around confidentiality, and basic codes for treating another human being.  But when do I say enough is enough:  the drugs you are using are killing you, the decisions you are making are tearing your life apart, the way you are treating your partner/child/friends is abusive?  The way you are treating me is abusive.   

And this is where I realize that I myself need some education.  I need to face my own block if I am to offer that level of service I want to offer:  in other words, to move forward in my own project, I have to face my feelings.  And I've got a lot of them, and I don't like them.  I have to speak them, and it feels out of control and reminds me of the vast, cavernous empty places that we all have, that we all fill as best we can.  But I do know that speaking of them, staring them in their apparent infiniteness, makes them diminish and disappear.  And so I'm ready.

And those other books?  I figured I should be giving myself credit for all those 'dry' books I read.  I'm working my way through a big stack, learning how to be a better supervisor (or to quell my anxiety).  One thing that sticks out to me is that I need to be so very aware of the dynamics and influences of others, both actively connecting to and then moving past my own responses.  This job, it forces me to think so very deeply, and like water wearing down stone, alters me.  I keep asking, "is it worth it?"

I keep waiting for something to tug at me from another direction, watching for something to help me make sense of it all.  I keep noticing all these little white feathers that seem to find their way right where my feet step and wondering where they come from.  I wonder who will I be at the other end?  Its rushing by so fast, I want to dig my heels in and stop it.  But the rush, the rush I like.  After this speed, slowing down is just too slow.  And there is the sickness.  So I focus on the signs, the reasons, the excuses, and press a little harder on the gas.

ABAW: 20 & 21

My husband and I have been watching this British TV series, Survivors.  I love me anything apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic, although it freaks the hell out of me, and gives me nightmares.  Especially zombie nightmares, ugh.  This one is a relief:  no zombies.   

I've been feeling a bit down lately, wanting things that don't seem to be working out, and feeling like time is just slipping away.  My priorities seem one way in one situation, and completely different in another.  I start making plans to march one direction and then get confused, wonder what I was thinking, and become stalemated. 

I want nothing to do with this computer, although I keep looking towards it remembering what I was involved in, but it doesn't seem quite right.  I've dropped my art projects.  I feel winter coming, even though its months away. 

Is this depression?  I'm a therapist, I should know, but when I'm in it, I never quite know. 

And this damn job, why do I keep doing it?  When I'm there, its all encompassing; when I'm away, its meaningless and risky.  It feels like a false purpose that doesn't fill me up when I'm out of the running. 

We all just want meaning and purpose in our lives, connections with other people, to use our best selves to make a contribution while being accepted for our basic selves.  I spend a lot of time doing that for others, but don't seem to really have it for myself.  I need sunshine, time, breathing space, family, my love.  Balance.

Tomorrow I get more testing done to figure out what is up with my hormones, and to see if we can get any closer to having a baby.   I'm afraid:  of my potential as mother, for the health of this baby, for my relationship, and mostly for the possibility of no baby, and so I march forward.

ABAW: 19

I'm sitting here this evening watching "Its Kinda A Funny Story," a movie about a teenager who spends a week on an inpatient unit after feeling suicidal, and, of course, not only makes a big impact on the other patients and falls in love with the girl, but is able to start finding happiness. I like it, I'm not going to lie. But its definitely not like that. Perhaps that's the message: be incredibly thankful and give back.

I've been thinking a lot about how to connect my clients to community, to create something bigger than this day to dayness of therapy, something lasting that gives back. Something big. Something that allows all parts to be involved in their most impactful ways. I met a girl today who sparked this idea to start a magazine, to have editors and writers and art, lots of it, drawings, photography. How? And then I keep thinking about the blandness of our waiting room, and the absolute necessity of a mural there. How? An open studio. An art show. Mentors, jobs, places where people fit. How?

I know this blog is growing quieter and quieter, but something big is developing.  A shift to a new site perhaps, a different type of blogging, I'm not sure.  I wish I could describe the feeling of what is happening in the dark recesses of my brain, like tumblers in a lock falling into place.  

ABAW: 17 & 18

Every once in awhile I get overwhelmed by the bigness of things.  And on the flip side, I give myself big, almost impossible tasks, set goals really high, and usually meet them (that's a big thing I just admitted there!).  But I still get overwhelmed.  And then I pull back, withdraw, beat myself up until I finally get back in the game.  Sometimes it feels strategic:  when I pull back, I seem to come up with a new, better, clearer way of approaching this impossible task I've subjected myself to.  At least, that's how I'm spinning it.

Lately I've been thinking about the enormity of the blogosphere.  There are so many voices, so many posts, so many links.  My brain ceased to be able to take it in.  I certainly couldn't keep up with my reader, much less give comments, or do the challenges I signed myself up for.  I didn't want to touch my computer.  And then I realized I was overwhelmed by the channels on the TV, the items I had DVR'd, the items I had on my Netflix list.  And then there is my pile of books.  And the ideas I have and tasks I've given myself to do in my art making.  Nothing could touch the to do list I have at work.  I'm overwhelmed.  Completely totally overwhelmed.  Maybe this is me realizing what depression looks like for me, as its descending.  Usually I don't know until I'm in the black and I just have to ride it out.

But I've been doing some thinking, and some art making, and its still important to me to post it here.  And I've been doing mega-thinking about what I want to do with this space:  I feel like I can't share it because of my job.  But I want to start developing a professional persona, building my business so that I have more control and do the work I want to do without being completely buried under paperwork.  And I have this voice I've discovered.  I want to share my own lived experience. 

So I'm thinking.  Apologies for the absence, but I needed it. 

And for this Book A Week challenge I've set for myself:  I've read 17 books so far, but 28 weeks have gone by.  I have so many half read books, stacks and piles.  And wow, I'm reading some amazing books.