My View from the Top of the World

  It's my birthday today.  I'm 54.   I love the picture above.  I took it last week after a not-so-good training run.  It's unedited, unfixed.  It shows all the grey hairs, the wrinkles, and the old skin.  It shows how I looked after I was defeated by my own overconfidence.  And yet, it's one of my favorite selfies to date.  I guess I've reached that part of life when birthdays make me feel a little pensive and wistful.  Additionally, the covid year has been particularly difficult for all of us in varying ways.  I feel like this year has aged me considerably, not just my appearance, but my heart and soul as well. As much as I hate to admit it, I've been heard lamenting about looking my age. My middle daughter, who is too emotionally intelligent for her (or my) own good, clapped back at me once, "well, you are your age so it's perfectly fine to look it." (She has a knack for forcing me to look in the mirror and come to terms wi...

  This is for all the mommas.  I feel like the universe has been sending me messages lately.  I didn't really notice at first, but after reading through a certain social media thread, it hit me. If you are a mom, and you feel like your anxiety is through the roof, you are nowhere near alone.   It started with this: This definitely hit a nerve, because this has been me most of my life, but especially since becoming a mom. It is, in fact, why I spent two years in therapy trying to "de-program" myself.   Then, I noticed the commonality as I read down the thread and realized that it was all the moms saying, " THIS IS ME!! "   Next, there was a conversation that I had with the mom of one of my students.  I happen to be talking to this young lady about her worries, and helping her with coping skills.  In discussing our personal experiences, this momma told me, "I was never an anxious person, until I had my daughter. " Another social ...

Well, it's been a year.   I've definitely learned some things along the way... haven't we all?  A full year of our lives... wouldn't want to let it be wasted time.  A lot can be learned in a year.  Here are some of the lessons I've been contemplating, and in no particular order.   Blowing on a cake and then sharing it was never a good idea! And I mean, NEVER!  I used to watch people blowing out those birthday candles with a certain amount of trepidation... now that trepidation has converted to repulsion.  For sure, I've learned a TON about hygiene, and with great results.  Between the distancing, hand washing, and masks, I haven't so much as caught a cold in the past 365 days. Here are some other things that have been moved to the "never gonna happen again" hygiene-no-nos list: hugging people outside of my bubble (and I'm a hugger), traveling without sanitizer, shaking hands (nope nope), buffets (gonna miss you, Hoss's), close-talking....

Most of us have heard about relapse in people who are in recovery from addiction, or from certain diseases.   Relapse is defined as "a deterioration in one's condition after a period of improvement."  Well, as I've recently discovered personally, relapse occurs in our mental health recovery, also.  Quick heads up:  this is going to get personal.   I've realized that you can get a little over confident in your own journey, but then, as always, life has its way of forcing you to stop and take notice.  Often, with relapse, there are warning signs that something is going wrong.  With physical disease, this might be recurrence of symptoms.  In my own depression relapse, I started to notice weeks ago that I was feeling more frustrated and angry, more frequently.  I was also feeling more and more exhausted, where all I wanted to do was curl up under the blankets with only the heating pad and dogs for company.  I noticed these things w...

My brain is a jumble and I had no idea what I was going to write about today until I saw this tweet.  And, honestly, I still have no idea what I'm going to write about so we'll just see how it goes.   So, yeah, this grabbed my attention.  I'd been thinking of heading in this direction, but really didn't want to be a downer.  And I didn't want to make peoples' eyes spontaneously roll by talking about the hard times, and the mental health, and the importance of self-love and self-care, and the inevitable conclusion of "find the positive."  Because, not everyone is in the same place right now, and that's obvious with all the dissension in the media and social media.  In fact, you have to admit that social media is a bit of a cesspool right now.  It's practically impossible to post anything other than puppies and kittens without igniting a firestorm of conflicting, and often, nasty and inexcusable comments (and I've even seen those on puppy pos...

  You had to know that eventually, I'd have to go there... you know, running is a metaphor for life.  Well, lots of things are a metaphor for life, but running and athletics definitely are. I've always said that the last two miles of any run are the hardest.  It doesn't matter whether I'm running six miles or twenty - six, those last two are killers.  Even running a marathon, when I've put in all the hours and miles of training... I know, in those last two miles, that this is it... it's almost over... the finish line is in sight, and so is the celebratory meal.  When you've put in all the hard work, expended the energy, and survived all the obstacles of training, with twenty minutes, or so, to go, you just can't wait for it all to be finished.  Everything goes back to normal... no more four hour training runs for a while, you just get to be a "normal" runner again - if there is such a thing.  How about all of this as a metaphor for quarantine l...

  I've been thinking a lot about intentionality lately, what with the state of the world, and all.  I really started thinking about it because of my recent emotional reactions to social media.  It could definitely be argued that social media is more trouble than it's worth... but somehow, it's become an integral part of our social lives, especially through the COVID and quarantine days.  I'm reminded daily that I could live without all the drama, but to be honest, I do enjoy staying in touch with far away friends and family, I enjoy exposure to articles and information that I might not otherwise see, I enjoy hearing other peoples' points of view - mostly.   We've all heard that psychological research has concluded a connection between social media use and increased depression, as well as other mental health disorders.  I think it's pretty much accepted that when we are watching others' highlight reels, we can tend to feel worse about our own lives. Whe...