windmills

Yesterday, i drove to pick up Taylor from the top of the hill on campus - as i usually do. It had just stormed, a good long one that woke me up several times in the middle of the night and continued to periodically dump down its bucketfuls throughout my work day. The sky was starting to clear in that magnificent way it does, patches of bright blue visible behind the billowy clouds. Looking down from the hill for the first time, I noticed them. The light was just right, highlighting the very horizon and the army of windmills that turned steadily on its edge. They glinted as if only a mirage, a miracle vision brought by the storm and soon to be gone with the sunset.

I'd been wanting a good storm for a while. The longing had buried itself somewhere deep in my bones (which was disconcerting considering I longed for a very specific type of Abilene storm - that being in my bones worries me slightly).

While I sat there on the top of the hill waiting, watching the gleaming power-generating landscape, I came to a conclusion: this storm was the answer to a craving, a deep-seated plea from my soul sent up the to universe, please... please, let it storm!

I've formed a habit of trying to meet my own needs and first recognizing these cravings for sleep, carbs, a phone call, some fruit or chocolate. I'm learning to recognize them, then satisfy them. I'm not perfect , nor do I intend to be, but I am improving. Slowly, I'm understanding that the more I give my body (and mind... and heart...) what it asks for, the more subtly it asks, the less it demands. And herein lies the solution for binging, over-doing the sweet and running on empty (for me, I believe).

That's my part - that's what taking care of myself means. That's the charge of my stewardship.

And the rest, well, just like that storm, I'll leave that to my Higher Power and trust that no bone-deep longing gets left unattended for long.

affirmations, vulnerability and self-love

today, i'm working a 12 1/2 hour day. and i only have 3 1/2 left. i hit the wall about a half hour ago.  before 3:30, i wasn't looking at the clock, wasn't searching for things to do... but then it hit. and i started looking at the clock every two minutes. and it started taking two hours for two minutes to pass.  and so i blog.  i guess i've been avoiding it.      subconsciously.  after all, it's almost been a month since i've really sat myself down and written anything worth calling writing.  maybe it's been longer...?

anyway, all that to say that my job as a testing proctor isn't half bad.  sure, it's a lot of sitting and asking for people's ID and waving metal detectors in front of people's faces.  but in addition to getting a lot of eye-rolls about our "airport" procedures, i also get to read. and to write (obviously... i am still at work).  in fact, i had enough free time i had today to read several blog series that i've been meaning to read for quite some time. like...months.  it seems funny to write while i'm at work because it's typically very stop-and-go.  i have intervals of three or four minutes of free time.  if i'm lucky, i'll get a whole ten.  it's always been easiest to write when i had a big block of time with absolutely nothing to do (including no interruptions).

so instead of writing, i started affirmation doodling. which is a very cool thing.  if you haven't tried this, you must!  i started with just a blank piece of lined notebook paper.  at the top i penned things i love about me.  then i started listing.  three things.. four things.... a few full sentences with descriptions of how i've grown the last few months... and then it started.  i wasn't writing on the lines anymore, some words were bold and big, others small and scribbled.  each word with it's own personality, it's own story, it's own voice showing emotion.  and i realized that computers can't do that.  they can't show you the emotion that it takes to write the phrase i'm afraid.  they can't tell you the confidence of a dark period at the end of a satisfying sentence.

i've been toying with the idea of art journaling. i have a giant journal, and i use it, but not as freely as i'd like to. before i put a pen to paper i start to analyze.  is it good enough?  is it creative enough?  is the idea finished enough to actually start writing or drawing it out?

it's the same hang-up i get with my blog.

it won't make sense.

i'll sound silly/naive/immature.

i won't come out the way i see it in my head.

people won't take my experiences seriously.

so what?

i've been reading about vulnerability and how it's a big ally to the belief that you have great worth. and those two create a perfect environment for connection.

...and i just had work to do for 20 minutes and now i can't remember where in the world i was going with that.  eventually, i know i wanted to talk about what i doodle-journaled today:

i love that i'm starting to do things (basic things) - like eating when i'm hungry and stopping when i'm full, cooking healthy food, going to bed early, working, doing my "homework," exercising - for good reasons.  i used to do things like this because i didn't like myself and i wanted to be a different person.  i'd do these things because i didn't like my body, because i felt guilty and ashamed if i didn't, because i didn't feel like a good person otherwise or because i was afraid of not being as good as the others around me.

and it's a good realization (like a blanket in my heart) that i'm starting to do these things because (disregarding my surroundings, my body, the people i interact with...) no matter what, i'm worth it.  it feels good to take care of myself because i love myself, instead of because i don't. i love feeling taken care of.  i love feeling healthy and worth it and (most of all) loved.  especially when i'm loved by myself.

because it doesn't matter how many other people love you or how much other people love you.  until you can know (and feel) that God loves you and that you love yourself, it simply doesn't make a difference.

and that's today's work rant.

go write a list of things you adore about yourself.  not just think are fine, not things that you wish you liked.  things you really love about yourself.

and maybe the whole point of this from the beginning was to say that once we can love ourselves and know our worth like that, connection is 1000 times easier.  a bajillion times easier.  in fact, i bet it's not even really scary anymore.  i believe that, i think.

here's to being fearless.

the city that cries at least once a day

i think about seattle quite a bit, lately.  about how i've come to really love the concept of seattle in my mind despite how difficult it was to be there a year ago.  i hated seattle while i was there.  at least, i thought it was seattle i hated.  after the passage of time has dulled the experience slightly, i've been able to separate the experience (which was something close to hell) from the city, which i distinctly remember falling in love with (at some moments).  i miss it, i'll be honest.

what really keeps my attention though, when i think of the whole three-and-a-half months that was my adventure on the west coast is how impossible it was to write.  sure, i tried.  for the first few weeks, i woke up early and wrote while i was eating breakfast.  and then i started work, and then i started feeling less and smaller and not enough.  and then i stopped eating breakfast and stopped running and didn't wash my hair for days and days and days at a time.  after which i stopped writing altogether.

several times i've heard eating disorders described in a nutshell as simply not-wanting-to-feel.  yeah, there are a multitude of other things that go along with it, but if i had to boil it down to one thing, at this point in my life i would say the same thing.  the desperate suppressing of emotion, to the point that everything becomes distorted and simple tasks like getting out of bed and dressing yourself are. so. impossibly. difficult.

during the past five years, my struggle with food has dragged me underwater several times.  sometimes it's been a fight to keep my head above, and every so often i've had a short period where i simply floated.  in seattle i was drowning with my hands tied.

and that's why i stopped writing.  once in the cycle of negative emotion, numbing and food abuse, it makes complete sense to do all you can to stop feeling the negative emotions in hopes that you'll be able to feel happy and function normally again.  so i stopped writing because in order to write i had to open myself up.  i had to be vulnerable and ask myself what i was thinking about and what i was feeling.  and i couldn't do that without risking the start of the cycle all over again.


so i stopped.

it's still a wonder to me that from a place so void of self-compassion i exited my stay in seattle with something akin to determination.  toward the end, there was healing.  or the seeds of it.

but it's taken me longer to be able to write again.  at first, the idea of writing at all was daunting.  i didn't want to be that vulnerable ever, ever again.  old habits die hard, i guess.  i've always loved to write and after forming a three-year habit of writing several times a week, a summer-long hiatus didn't break it.  i started writing about every day things, common things, at first.  in places no one would ever see.

but i'm getting braver.

and if there's anything i've learned from my experience in seattle and the relationships that spanned over and through the dark time, it's that you can't bury those emotions forever.  they'll always find a way out.

so i'm going to start writing more about my adventure on the west coast.  because it's been on my mind.  and because i'm working on feeling again.  and because a lot of things happened in seattle that most people don't talk about. and because we'd all be a lot better off it we did talk about those things.

so here goes.