Next? 

https://brenebrown.com/articles/2018/05/24/the-midlife-unraveling/

When I early retired from my totally engrossing day-job of 24 years, I moved to a different state (in the US) so that I wouldn’t be (as) tempted to get called back to work as a contractor. (A previous manager did eventually call, but by then I was entirely immersed in my next thing, and not willing to disrupt what I was doing.)

Now I’ve been at this ‘next thing’ for a while. How long depends on when you start the clock. If you count when I started volunteering virtually full-time, I’ve been at it most of 12 years without more than two or three days away at a time, and no appreciable vacations. If you count when I started getting regular honorarium-style paychecks (total dollars/hours worked = less than minimum wage), I’ve been at it 7 years. This is no one’s fault. I did it to myself, on purpose. Most of the time I love what I do, and I’m a bit worn out.

My contract authorizes two weeks of vacation every year, and a month-long sabbatical every five years. That five-year mark was 2020. We all know what 2020 was like. In the panic of those early days, there wasn’t any point in taking a month off, I couldn’t go anywhere, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to, anyway. The people I worked with at the time were also a little freaked out, so I wasn’t in a hurry to leave them. 

I had also started up an online daily meditation practice that I hosted, to give people a chance to connect and spend 30-45 minutes together six days a week. I ran that for over 450 days, and finally hit the wall. I kept the (zoom) room, but other people needed to take turns facilitating the practice. A hard-core 10-12 individuals have continued, with another handful of folks dropping in when the mood strikes them. I still show up and lead the practice one day a week. They’ve been great looking after each other, and taking turns being the leader.

Last December, I took a couple days off in the middle of the week and went to the closest US beach (6.5 hrs away by car, a little more than an hour away by airplane, not counting waiting time everywhere, and driving time from the airport). While I was there, I sprained my ankle walking around the botanical garden on a flat, mostly level surface. When I came back, I told my board of directors that I needed to start taking some of my authorized time off. They encouraged me to do exactly that. On my first day off, I ended up in the emergency room throwing up blood from a tear in my esophagus, which was probably the result of long-term stress. (None of the typical causes made any sense. I appear much too healthy to have this happen to my body.) 

The other chronological thing that happened about this same time was that I turned 65, and went on Medicare, which meant I was officially old. I’ve never thought of myself as old, so this came as a bit of a shock. 

Then, after a morning pulling weeds, and hauling lumber back to a big box store, I got a therapeutic massage, which was lovely. That evening I twisted funny retrieving a book off a shelf and tweaked the muscles of my mid-back. I spent the next week under a heating pad, and it got progressively better, but not well. Finally, in the middle of the night I asked the question, “What am I missing?” The answer was instantaneous. “Are you going to take that sabbatical now?” 

That next morning, I started making arrangements to be out-of-the office and away a month. It starts next week. The board of directors, and other leaders in the organization have been reticent, but willing, to take on various aspects of what I typically do, and I’ve brought in special guests to cover other pieces that were unique to me. They’ll be fine. 

Which brings me to Brene’ article. My first unraveling was in 2008, when I quit my day job of 24 years. I’ve continued to unravel at a slow pace over this last 12 years, but I have a feeling I just got a booster.

Hide The Ball

I don’t know if you remember that old magician’s trick with the usually three upturned cups and the ball that seems to magically move from cup to cup, and the observer never quite knows where the ball is, or how it got there. In one of our Practitioner classes years ago, a dear friend said, “I play hide the ball with myself all the time, and it frustrates me!” When she said it, I realized I couldn’t imagine a more appropriate way to describe how we keep ourselves from knowing ‘stuff’ that we claim we want to know. Most of us do this, at least sometimes. This is not a criticism. I think it’s an aspect of being human.

I’ve been using this pandemic cloistering period to work on my writing practice in a world-wide community of writers. The way this program is set up, everyone has a page of their own as a place to show their work. It’s a little cumbersome until you get the hang of it (like most things are when they are new), but it’s really not hard to find your own page. I’m watching one of my writing friends do his darnedest to keep himself from writing, and letting himself acknowledge that he actually writes well and beautifully. He’s a smart guy. He’s got a successful day job. And he’s got this other side that’s creative, poetic, profound and astoundingly lyrical in its beauty and depth. 

This morning I noticed that he’d written an extraordinary piece of incredibly touching poetry on someone else’s ‘page’, and sheepishly admitted that he didn’t know how to find his own page. We’ve been in this writing program for fivemonths. Twice I’ve offered to zoom with him on his computer to show him how to find his own page. I know of two other people, moderators of the writing program, who have also offered to assist him. Someone even made him a ‘how to’ sheet of directions, and he persists in hiding the ball from himself. I just wanted to cry when I saw his commentary this morning.

If we, or someone else, don’t want to know something, there is nothing that can be done to force them or us to see, and know. It’s not like having a puppy and rubbing their noses in it when we catch them peeing in the house. We don’t learn that way. Once we finally do wake up to the game and see, and are willing to own our own ability, agency, autonomy, authority, responsibility and power, there’s nothing that stands in our way.  

Being part of a world-wide writing community is both exciting and terrifying. I was telling one of my artist friends about it, and she was horrified at the idea of showing her work to others as it was in process, specifically so that other people could comment on it. I told her it was really quite fabulous, because one of the rules of engagement in this group was that commenters were required to be constructive, and kind. Early on when I joined this online writers’ group, I noticed the moderators, quickly and decisively, removed two people who didn’t know how to be constructive and kind. 

It serves each of us to have a small group of supportive friends, who we trust and who actually have our best interests in mind and heart, and who will help us see our blind spots.  Without that, it’s easy to just keep playing ‘hide the ball’, and we don’t learn and grow.

The Dog and The Trash Can

Yesterday a dog tipped over the trash can at the office.  When I went outside to see what the noise was, he was totally nonplussed.  He didn't even move away when I walked up to him, nor did he respond at all to any of my 'chasing away' sounds, or movements.  He had a collar and a tag, and he was healthy enough looking, I imagine he belonged to someone at the city park that is just down the street.  Since I heard no one yelling for him, I assume it is normal for them to let their dog run the neighborhood.

Of course, he wasn't satisfied to tip over the cans.  He wasn't a hooligan with the objective of destruction.  He pulled most of the bags out of the can and ripped them open looking for something edible.  The humor of it for me was the primary thing in the trash was leftover Valentine's Day candy.  There was no chocolate, I don't waste chocolate, and only buy the kind I like, but there was probably five pounds of hard, and not too hard, red bits of compressed sugar, some flavored and some not.  I just imagine when he returned to his humans, with his mouth, teeth and tongue brilliant red, they wondered what on earth he had gotten in to.  Then, if they smelled his breath, it was likely to reek of cinnamon, red licorice or fireballs. It wouldn't surprise me if he had some physical reactions to eating that much sugar.  I certainly would have, which is why I dumped it all in the trash. Hyper dog, anyone? 

While I was finding my gardening gloves this morning, I was fantasizing that the owners would go looking for the source of the red coloring and would come upon his mess and clean it up.  But no, it was still strewn across the side yard in all its glory this morning.  I left most of the sugar on the ground and picked up the remainder.  It didn't take long, and it wasn't too distasteful, since it wasn't gooey trash.  

So what's the moral of this story? Heck if I know.  Maybe it's that cause and effect is seldom a simple linear thing.  It's more like Russian nesting dolls, or interlocking Venn diagrams.  If the owners had kept their dog on a leash.... If the owners had trained their dog that it wasn't OK to forage for scraps in trash cans... If I had disposed of poison, antifreeze or paint in the trashcan, which I know is illegal, and I imagine that people sometimes do.  If the dog had been aggressive to me, I suspect I would have called Animal Control.  If the javelinas, coyotes or bobcats had decided the spread-out trash was a potentially interesting food source for them, the mess would have been greater.  (Apparently they know better.)  If, if, if, if...

So, I guess I'm back to the Stoic view, which dovetails nicely with the one espoused by Don Miguel Ruiz in The Four Agreements.  Take nothing personally.  (The Stoic version of that: Manage your own self and don't worry about what other people/beings do.  That's none of your business.)  It is enough.