On Missing and Being Human

Today is #throwbackthursday, which is a thing the kids do these days, apparently. As I am desperately clinging to the last two years of my twenties (while, of course, effortlessly embracing the divine thirties because I am completely self-actualized), I also often participate. Through the magic of that fancy TimeHop app, I am able to see all my Facebook posts on this day since the beginning of my account. The thing is that around this time two years ago, my mom was diagnosed with cancer and around this time one year ago, her short five month remission ended and the cancer came roaring back to life, ultimately ending hers five months later. I look back at TimeHop every day for clues about how I was feeling, how much I let slip in public, a sense of how I must have been feeling because to be honest, I do not know that I remember it accurately. I remember a lot of crying, many nights of being angry, an inability to process, and a ton of loneliness settled thick over every aspect of my life.

I have been missing my mother lately. When I was a kid, from around the age of eight to fourteen, I got homesick. I would plan a sleepover with a friend, have a great time, and once it came time to get in bed, become an absolute wreck. A giant knot would form in my throat and without fail, I would call my mom and she would explain to me that she would pick me up in the morning and everything would be ok and it was just one night. And then, as always, she would get in the car and come pick me up right then. This was quite an ordeal, as I was usually at my best friend’s house who lived an hour from me. Mom did not complain or get angry about getting up in the middle of the night or tell me to tough it out. The truth was that she wanted me to be home as much as I wanted to be home.

That homesickness is a very specific feeling and one I remember well. I missed my sisters and my dad and my bed and everything being familiar, but most of all, as embarrassing as it was to admit, I missed my mommy. Like a toddler, I wanted to go home because I missed my mommy and nothing was ok without her. I have felt that way every night for almost a week now. I go to work, come home, make dinner, spend time with my husband, get ready for bed and everything is fine until my head hits that pillow. Suddenly, that knot forms in my throat and I get that distinct feeling in my heart and I want to go home because I miss my mommy and nothing is ok without her. It is the feeling I had when I got the call that she had died, while I got ready to fly to Alaska, as I took multiple plane rides there and sat on the airplane, tears streaming down my face. I want to go home because I miss my mommy and nothing will ever be ok again without her. 

So what is a girl to do? How do I, as a full grown adult woman, console the little toddler Lizzy when even grown up me knows it is never going to be ok again, at least not in that way? And I guess that is what I am trying to figure out. For the rest of my life, there will be a mommy-sized hole in every life event. One day, I will give birth to my own little baby (or, as the case may be, get the call that someone else has given birth to my child and he or she is waiting) and there will be a mommy-sized hole. I will start new jobs or change careers and there will be a mommy-sized hole. My kids will have kids and the mommy-sized hole will remain. There will be new homes, new experiences, new hard things that will happen and mommy will never come pick me up again. And there is absolutely nothing to do about it. 

So why am I putting all of these deeply, awfully sad feelings out here for the entire world to see? Here is the thing: I want you to know what this feels like. I have come to three understandings in the last two years:

1. We as a society are absolutely terrified of genuinely engaging with people in their sad, angry, negative feelings. We are awful at it. We live in a culture of relentless positivity and pulling up by bootstraps. Frankly, we deny ourselves the full range of human experience because sadness and grief is part of the rent we pay for the ability and privilege of loving and being connected to other human beings. We are not very good at empathy and in the face of genuine pain, we often shout useless platitudes because we are so uncomfortable with the plain, raw sadness of it all.

2. Vulnerability is the most empowering thing ever. Not only that, it empowers people around me, which is just beautiful. Am I the easiest person in the world to be around right now? Probably not. Will I say sad things that make you feel awkward? Yes, probably so. Will you feel safe telling me that you too have felt sad things and safe in the knowledge that I will not judge you for telling me you feel those things? Hell yes. And that, my friends, is a beautiful thing. It turns out once you share your demons, they lose some of their power and other people can share theirs too. It has made me a better friend, better wife, a much better social worker. This is not to say I let my grief overpower others, but that it has made me a more empathetic human being. And I absolutely love that.

3. The pain I feel now is the rent I pay for being fully human and for having and getting to love my mom. Maybe if my mom were a bad person or a bad mother, I could be happy to be rid of her. If I had known what this feels like, would I have prepared myself by loving her less? Absolutely not. And this is the crux of grief: the more you allow yourself to love people, the more you are going to feel it, so get used to it. Get used to the idea that you will feel pain, that life is impermanent and fleeting and that you only get someone for so long. And that is ok. Do not deny this part, the grieving part, or push yourself through it because this is also part of loving: the losing. 

It may never be “ok” again. I will miss my mommy for the rest of my life, every single day. Some days, I will think of her and smile. Some days, even the smallest remembering will send me into hysterics. I am a new person now, a different person because I have experienced more of the range of being human and allowed myself to live it. Do I wish that were not the case? Oh hell yes, but it is. So here I am.

On vulnerability fatigue

Emboldened by my in-laws’ and husband’s encouragement and subtle prompting, I have decided it is time to come clean and start blogging again. The reason behind why I have not been blogging is very simple and it is something I have been saying to my husband and best friend and sisters for about the last two years: I am so very tired of being so irretrievably broken. We social workers sometimes get “compassion fatigue,” meaning we get so tired of caring about other people that we cannot care about other people. I read about something called “meaning fatigue,” where someone with a life-threatening illness gets so tired of considering the greater plan and the shortness of time that he or she has to take a mental break from assigning meaning to so many things. So, rather than yelling at those I love that I am tired of being so broken, I am trying out another, more eloquent term: “vulnerability fatigue.”

According to dictionary.com, the word vulnerable means, “capable of or susceptible to being wounded or hurt, as by a weapon.” Thus, vulnerability is one’s ability to be so. I also find another definition to be especially descriptive of the emotion I am trying to describe: “open to assault; difficult to defend.” I can practically feel the places in my heart where I am difficult to defend and open to assault. “Fatigue” is the exhaustion that comes after specific, deliberate, repeated exertion. Physiologically speaking, it is when organs essentially give out.

Obviously, my ideas about vulnerability are not totally original. For much more researched and eloquent information about the importance of vulnerability, you should look up Brene Brown. Honestly, the extent of my knowledge of her work with vulnerability is the knowledge that she has written books about its importance and quotes of hers about vulnerability that have resonated with me. Here is a whole collection of her quotes and I really believe they are absolutely spot on. 

So we are in agreement: to achieve true humanity, we have to engage in this act of being vulnerable, own our capability of being hurt, own that we are difficult to defend in places and breakable in others. That is great and so very true. I loved sharing my last blog post and the love I received and not feeling alone and the relief of just being myself all out in the open.

Now where is the guide to doing that day in and day out; to authentically being yourself and allowing the gaps in your armor to show; to “owning your story” and telling it to others in a way that does not sugar coat, but does not make you some kind of martyr who has found the great wisdom in your own truth? Better yet, where is the guide for your husband, who has been taking care of you and considering your own broken heart over and over again since your mother was diagnosed with cancer three months into your relationship; or your best friend who has worked a very hard, very stressful job for the last two years and settled into a new home and gotten engaged and begun to plan a wedding and listened to you cry or fuss or yell or minimize big feelings repeatedly, often without you even having the where with all to ask how she is coping with her own significant life changes; or your sisters who have never been pregnant and never lost a pregnancy and have no idea what to say except “I love you,” but the experience hurts so badly you get angry and tell them they are not being supportive even though there is literally nothing else to say? In short, where is the guide book for the people around me? And how do I maintain my composure and dignity in the face of all this very important authenticity and vulnerability? And at what point is my mere company and the fact that my life keeps falling apart in some big ways make me just too much for people? These wonderful people in my life have never said these things to me, but these are the things that come to my mind over and over at the end of yet another day when I just cannot hack it and I feel like there are tears in my skin and all my inside sad thoughts will come spilling out, soaking everything else when, admittedly, it is kind of exactly what I need and want to happen. In short, how does one maintain themselves in the face of all this life-giving vulnerability?

I spent Christmas in California with my husband and his mothers. One morning at breakfast, my mother in law asked me when I would be blogging again, as though it is a matter of course that I would continue. I thanked her for the compliment and then made some self-deprecating comment about my writing, that who needs another white lady blogging out into the universe? My mother in law pointed out the point of writing is that it might help someone else, it might contribute to their journey or their understanding, or that it just might make them feel a little less alone. So, I suppose that must be why I am looking my vulnerability fatigue in the face and writing a little bit more. My hope is that, through my vulnerability, maybe you can let a little bit of your own out. Because it really does make you a more beautiful person. There is nothing I love more than someone letting their genuine self out. I hope this is true for you too.  

An honest look

I’m five years old. I love to run. I can’t think of any single thing more fun than feeling myself fly around the playground, outrunning everyone else.

I’m ten years old. We've moved to a new town. Everyone’s southern accents are thicker and everyone is blonde and whiter than me. I hit my growth spurt early, sprout breasts and hips, shoot up six inches in as many months. My mom signs my sisters and me up for dance classes. The teacher looks at me in my leotard and tap shoes, in tights at the top of the little girls’ sizes, and pronounces me too large. I stop going to dance class.

I’m twelve years old. I've discovered I have a lot of loud opinions on things and they’re usually the opposite of what my teachers and class mates think. I don’t have much of a filter and things generally come flying out of my mouth. I’m taller than everyone else at school, boys included. My hair has realized it’s half Persian and it grows puffier every day. I think I’m fat because no one else in my class has hips or a butt. I dress in baggy clothes. Boys discover there are two ways to quiet an opinionated girl: call her a lesbian or a fat bitch. They employ both tactics, but neither seems to work. I just get madder and louder. Exercise is running myself ragged on the stair climber, blasting loud music in my ears, until I stop being so pissed off. I make it onto the basketball team and my coach tells me on the first day that I’m not good, but I am taller than everyone else, so that’s enough.

I’m seventeen years old. I am even taller with even bigger hips and larger breasts and better thought out opinions. I am louder. I tell myself I care less when boys call me a fat bitch. I stop playing basketball. I don’t participate in gym. I decide that if I can’t be skinny, I’ll be really, really smart.

And I am really, really smart. I go to college and get even smarter. I fall in love and get my heart broken. I have internships and take hard classes and do the right things. I even get a Master’s degree. I have a job I hate. I meet my husband who loves me completely and tells me so. I move across the country twice. I have four jobs in between. I lose and gain about fifteen pounds and I have a love-hate relationship with my body. I am champion of the “is she fatter than me” game. I realize after a while that usually, no, she is not fatter than me.

I’m twenty seven. I’m larger since my mom was diagnosed with cancer a year ago. I see two pink lines on a pregnancy test. My husband and I dance around our tiny apartment. I cry because I cannot believe our good fortune. We tell our families. Everyone is elated. My mama cries. Two days later my back starts to hurt. Five days after that, I start bleeding. A week later, the midwife confirms there’s no more baby. I feel like a complete failure and I tell my body it’s worthless.

I am twenty seven, nine months, and two days. I’m larger since my mother died four months ago this week. My weight gathers in different places and I realize in the middle of a Zumba class in front of the giant mirror that I don’t like my body, that I kind of hate it. That’s odd for me because despite an entire life of people reinforcing that I should definitely hate my body, that it’s fat and that makes it ugly, that there’s something wrong with it, I still love it. So it’s weird for me to look in the mirror and feel such terrible things about it. I suddenly realize I've been punishing my body. I've been punishing it for not holding onto a baby I desperately wanted, for not giving me another one, for never quite going back to normal. I've told it, “I’ll love you when you give me what I want,” which isn't really love at all. I realize I've been telling it that it’s fat and not as pretty as it used to be and unsuccessfully trying to put it on a diet because it’s been bad and must be punished. I realize that I have not been practicing self-love. And I don’t want to do that anymore.

So, here I am. I've decided there are going to be rules.

1.  I love my body. You should know that I am very good at love. When I love someone, it doesn't go away. I give them almost infinite chances. I believe that absolute best of them. I tell them frequently and with abandon that I love them. I give them everything I've got and I listen to them. I have most certainly not been loving my body.

2.  Loving my body means I’m not trying to change it. I will take it for what it is and love it in exactly that way, no hidden agendas, no secretly wishing it were different. Just pure love.

3.  I will give my body what I would give someone I love. On bad days, I will encourage my body. On good days, I will cheer it on. I will accept when it wants to do something I don’t necessarily agree with (like eat lots of chocolate if it’s sad). I will give it fresh air and sunshine and exercise.

4.  I do good things for my body BECAUSE I love it. I will not exercise because it’s been “bad.” I will exercise and eat delicious things because that’s what you give someone you love: the very best you have to give.

And because this is America, I’m blogging about it. 

Taking stock

I've now made it to the middle of the fourth week and I'm feeling the need for some reflection. I've always heard it takes a month to form a new habit, but that hasn't really been my experience in other areas of my life. Lasting change takes much longer for me, but I think there's a need to go back and evaluate motives for change to keep the drive to continue. So, here it is.

The Good...
- I have much more energy than I used to. I'm not constantly riding sugar highs and lows or falling asleep halfway through the day. I'm able to focus for longer periods of time and more consistently.
- I seem to have come to the point where I actually enjoy green smoothies. The trick for me is fresh mint and some red pepper for sweetness. I actually enjoy my green smoothie each morning and end up feeling full without the heaviness that traditionally comes with a big breakfast.
- I feel good about cultivating some self control in this area of my life. I feel powerful when I'm able to take control of what I put in my mouth and say no to what I know will make me feel, quite frankly, like crap. On Sunday, the roommate and I went in search of sugar free frozen yogurt at one of those get it yourself and add your own toppings place. I ate a little bit and a couple hours later, almost fell asleep driving home. The crash was impossible to ignore. I said no to cheating and having some sugar tonight because I was going to a movie and I knew I would fall asleep in the middle. And I said NO! ME! Turns out, I have the ability to say no! That feeling of saying no to something I know will make me feel like crap is pretty bitchin all by itself.
- Y'all, EVERYTHING IS SWEET! It's creepy, really. Raw almonds are a dessert. The other night when I had a sweet tooth, I snacked on red pepper and it was fixed. I've really started to taste the natural sweetness in stuff and it's pretty great, actually.

The Bad...
- I haven't lost any weight and though this is not the reason I started this whole thing, it is a little disappointing.
- I'm torn about whether this is a good thing or not, but there's a difference in the way I seem to be viewed by some people. Wait, now that I write that, I'm not thinking it's such a good thing. I either get a "why the hell are you doing that?!" reaction, a "here's a helpful tip!!" reaction, a "well I really only eat fruit/agave/'natural sugar' and you really don't need to cut that out! Everything in moderation!" reaction, or someone who really doesn't care. Honestly, I come across the not caring attitude a lot less than I thought. Everyone seems to have an opinion about what I'm doing. I don't always mind. Sometimes the tips really are helpful. I think it's odd how concerned people are with what goes in someone else's body and I think it has more to do how they feel about their own eating habits and food in general. Strangely, some people seem to respect me more and take me more seriously than they used to. This I find to be genuinely weird and off-putting. I don't have to tell you that our society puts a HUGE emphasis on what a woman eats, what she looks like, and how much she weighs, then proceeds to base the sum total of her worth on those factors. I'm angry that the fact that I don't eat sugar somehow warrants more respect than many other things that I do with my life. It's like I'm finally paying attention to what I really should have been paying attention to all along as a woman. There's also this weird idea that healthy eating is somehow a mark of enlightenment and emotional well-being, when there are a billion other factors in what someone eats. Turns out healthy eating does not make one a superior human being.
- Sugar free does not automatically equal healthy. I tend to get so excited when I find sugar free snacks and I can go a bit overboard. And twice I just NEEDED something sweet and broke down and got sugar free pudding and knowing how bad artificial sweeteners are, I felt like it might have been better just to have the sugar.
- It's hard to order at restaurants, which I do a lot because it's a way my friends and I socialize. That's changed a bit, but I'm still a Southerner. We relate with food in front of us, so I've had to just go with food that normally would not have sugar. I'm not sure it's always been sugar free, but all I can do is try.

This has been an interesting time in my life to try out such a big diet change. Tomorrow is my last graduate school class. I'm looking for my first real big girl career job. I'll likely be putting my stuff in storage and couch-hopping starting the end of next month. A letter with an unrealistic plan for paying back my staggering amount of student loan debt arrived yesterday and I've realized I've arrived in adulthood. These are all situations that would normally send me running for chocolate. I feel like I've had to come to terms with stress without food as a crutch, which is important to learn.

All things considered, I'm damn proud of myself. And slap happy this whole thing is almost half over.

The dreaded third week

Last Sunday, the week I'd been dreading since the first day I started this whole thing arrived: the week of absolutely no sugar. People, this is where it gets serious. And I have really been dreading this. And I'm almost afraid to write this, lest it call down more cravings, but...I thought it would be harder. I mean, don't get me wrong. This afternoon, all I could think about was chocolate cake and then the ice cream truck drove around my neighborhood for a good half hour and it was all I could do not to lean out the window and yell very bad words at the ice cream man, but I promise it's usually not like that. Normally I'm quite civilized.

I was listening this morning to an episode of This American Life called "My Own Worst Enemy". For the introduction, Ira (yes, we're on a first name basis. I'm a true NPR nerd.) was interviewing people who routinely eat foods they're severely allergic to. Y'all, there was a woman who ends up in the hospital after popcorn and eats it bimonthly, a man who keeps an epi-pen nearby because he can't keep the shellfish that makes his face puff up and closes his throat out of his mouth and a woman who spends the night in the bathroom twice a week after pizza. My first reaction was to judge these people fairly harshly. Ok, "fairly harshly" is an understatement. I was disgusted and seriously suggest these people seek professional help. And then I began to wonder if these people are really all that different from me even a month ago.

I'm an intelligent person. I grew up with parents who refused to let my sisters and I eat cereal for breakfast, who bought local grass-fed beef, and who taught be how to cook from scratch. Obviously, it wasn't perfect. I've got more than my fair share of food neuroses (like you didn't know that. There's a whole blog here devoted to it, people). Honestly, I'm not sure I know anyone who doesn't have food neuroses. This is America. BUT I did grow up on better food than much of the United States. And my dad is a chiropractor and knows about nutritional supplements and and and...really, there was no reason to be treating my body the way I did. So knowing everything I knew, was I really all that different from the people who knew full well the consequences of what they were putting in their mouths and continued to eat food that would make them sick?

I'm not trying to get preachy or trying to suggest that this is everyone's experience. My epiphanies are my own and apply only to me, but here is my epiphany: if I know it's bad for me, I really shouldn't eat it. I KNEW what sugar was doing to me. This was not a revelation that came upon me when I started this crazy experiment. I KNEW better. I just didn't want to do anything about that. And now, I'm having to face up to what I've been eating and all my weird emotional stuff about food and re-define what food actually is to me. Seems straightforward, but stay tuned. That's not a one post kind of discussion.

So the lesson of the day? Well, now that I've read this over, it seems I've outlined an argument for continuing my sugar-free lifestyle past the eight weeks I first agreed to.

Aw, crap.

The milkshake that did NOT bring all the boys to the yard

I woke up on Friday morning and decided that I was finally ready to try a green smoothie. Y'all, this is completely not my thing. I do not like yoga or poetry. Rarely if ever do I feel a connection with all living things. I'm annoyed by soothing voices and up until two weeks ago, I routinely ate half a pizza in an evening. Drinking a green smoothie was not on my to-do list. However, I've decided to quit sugar. That's just one step away from making my own granola and hand-feeding deer. It's safe to assume I'm going to be eating a lot of things I never thought I would.

First, what the hell is a green smoothie? It was kind of difficult to find an actual definition. Those I did find ranged from including things like dandelion leaves and other things I have literally never heard of to a fruit smoothie with some lettuce thrown in. The best definition and how-to video I found is from my friend Sara's blog (yoga goddess and all-around bad ass and yet still grounded when it comes to this type of thing). I've been struggling to find something to eat for breakfast that gets me full, doesn't have sugar, and takes a little less time than sitting down to eggs and bacon.

I looked for recipes for green smoothies for a long time, but couldn't seem to find any that didn't include fruit. As previously discussed, the sugar in fruit is still sugar. It's the same sugar you find in honey, agave, raw sugar, and Coke. After becoming frustrated with the lack of sugar free recipes, I decided that I had green things in my refrigerator and if I threw them in a blender, the result would be a green smoothie, whether it was the "right" recipe or not. To those of you who may consider doing this (Why? Just, why? Come on, guys! Isn't this blog enough warning??) I don't recommend it. If I could go back, I would begin my green smoothie adventure on week one and gradually wean myself off the fruit. Oh well. C'est la vie.

My first green smoothie included broccoli, kale, walnuts, and unsweetened coconut milk. I've also become a little obsessed with yogurt since reading about all the lovely health benefits, so I threw some of that in too (yeah, don't do that).

The result? Um...yeah, not so much. Honestly, it wasn't bad, it just wasn't good. It was definitely a new taste, but I didn't dislike it. Next time I will not be adding yogurt, as it kind of gives the whole thing a tangy taste, of which I was not so fond. Overall though, I had not felt as healthy eating food as I had in a LONG time. It was just so freaking fresh! And a really pretty green! I kind of feel like I have a new found food mission to conquer green smoothies. I just think there's got to be a way to make them more edible without adding sugar. And damnit, I'll find that way.

As usual, I roped roommate into jumping in with me. She was less than enthused.

The thing about drinking the smoothie was that I immediately felt full and I felt full for about three hours at which point I went from full to STARVING without any feeling in between. I compared notes with the roommate later that evening and she said she had the same experience. A little weird, but I'm willing to research to figure that out.

Overall, not the most unpleasant experience I've had and definitely much faster than my other breakfast ideas. I think this may be the beginning of something wonderful...or the beginning of my descent into yogic, karmic, earth-loving, personality change, but let's hope not.

So this is weird...

After falling off the wagon yesterday, there are 33 animals who are extremely disappointed in me. And I am a little disappointed in myself.

It started with blackberry jam, perhaps one of my very favorite things. And we're not talking about pure fruit preserves. We're talking fruit and tons of high fructose corn syrup...12 grams of sugar in each delicious tablespoon, to be precise. To clarify, the plan says an adult woman should have no more than 6 teaspoons of sugar each day and 4 grams of sugar=1 teaspoon. Therefore, half my daily sugar intake was consumed before 9am. And then, around noon, I started to miss sugar too much and I snacked on the sugar covered shredded wheat cereal that remains in my apartment as a relic of my pre-sugar free life simply because throwing away food makes me feel guilty, even if it is bad for me. And then, because I was tired of feeling deprived and figured that after the jam and cereal (the horrors!) there was no use in sticking to the no sugar rule for the rest of the day. Because, you know, if I drop my phone on the ground, I should probably smash it into a million pieces. As previously discussed, I live in extremes.

And then something weird happened. I realized that as the day went on, the jam and cereal were enough. I did not seek out cookies or ice cream or a sugary frapaccino when I went to get my daily coffee that afternoon. Instead, I snacked on some nuts and a little cheese and though I did have some salsa when I went out to Mexican food last night, that was enough too. And I woke up this morning, had some protein for breakfast and completely ignored the jam. It was a passing thought that some jam might be nice, but then it was over. And when I went to coffee, I ordered my latte with one splenda and didn't even glance at the pastries. And right this minute is perhaps the first time since I started this whole thing that I do not want a cookie. They are right over there at the bagel shop where I'm writing, but I don't want them.

This may not last forever. Perhaps, when my afternoon snack time rolls around, I'll be fantasizing about a chocolate shake, but right at this moment, I am content and looking forward to eating the walnuts I packed instead.

Ok, so maybe I'll survive this whole thing after all. Perhaps there is life after chocolate.