Time & Travel

I would love to figure out how to balance self-care with living life to the fullest. How do I take care of myself, physically and mentally, and travel, my favorite thing in the world? I feel like self-care is a full time job, to the exclusion of…pleasure? Which makes absolutely no sense! Isn’t pleasure part of self-care? Why can’t I travel and take care of myself at the same time?

Why? Because part of taking care of myself is establishing a routine to achieve my fitness/health goals. There’s no routine in traveling and exploration. The point of exploring is to experience something new and exciting. To live fully in the moment. To vacate real life and try another culture on for size.

I have the opportunity to go to Ireland before school starts in September. I really want to go but decided it was more important to focus on eating healthy and maintaining a workout regimen. But is it? Every morning I wake up and question this decision. Should I stay or should I go? I’ve been out of school for exactly a month and except for the few days spent off island, I’ve done pretty well in the self-care department. Will I fuck it all up if I go away for ten days?

It’s not too late. I still have time to take this trip. But will I sabotage my progress if I do? Last week I was in New York and enjoyed some of the best food I’ve ever tasted. They weren’t Michelin star restaurants or cafés we researched beforehand. No, we happened to walk past these fine establishments when we happened to be hungry, checked out the menu and said, okay! Let’s give it a whirl! They did not disappoint.

What is disappointing? Feeling uncomfortable in my own skin. Summer is the worst. It’s too hot to wear layers or hide the extra pounds. I feel naked and exposed. But who really gives a flying fuck what I look like…except me? Am I so self-absorbed that I believe everyone with whom I cross paths is judging my appearance? Sometimes…but it generally coincides with how I feel in a particular outfit. It’s about me, not them. I’m judging myself.

Walking the steaming hot streets of New York City last week, a line from a movie came to me. “You’re a middle-aged woman in New York. You’re basically invisible.” And I have to say, the thought comforted me. I don’t mind being invisible, especially when I’m not feeling great. In my younger years, appearance was everything. In my twenties, I was just as uncomfortable when people paid attention to me (aka flirting) as when they didn’t! I was a wallflower, more comfortable on the periphery of the action than at the center. I guess I still am to a degree.

Which brings me back to my original question. How can I live life to the fullest while taking care of myself? Can I create that balance in my life?

I’m not getting any younger. I had my annual physical the other day and the doctor said I’m perfectly healthy *knock wood*. If I’m going to travel, do I wait until I lose a few pounds? Do I put my life on hold in the name of self-care? In twenty or thirty years will I look at pictures of my fifty-one year old self in Ireland and say, what were you thinking, Jayne, you looked so fat? Or will I treasure the experience? I’m betting on the latter.

My twin brother died a year ago. He never really traveled. He didn’t have many friends. He never had a significant other. My brother stayed home a lot. I always felt like he was waiting for life to miraculously change in order to start living. But it didn’t change and he missed out on so much. My brother wouldn’t want me to stay home, waiting to feel good about my body before doing what I love.

I think…I’ve answered my own question. Life is for living. To stay home would dishonor my brothers memory. He’s with me wherever I go. I have the rest of the year to focus on self-care, so fuck my insecurities. I must put aside my inhibitions and travel. For my brother. For myself.

Rock Bottom

“I’ve hit rock bottom.” That phrase means something different to everyone. Some people, maybe even the majority, associate rock bottom with addiction and that’s one variety. If someone had asked me what rock bottom looked like twenty-five years ago, I would have said it was being a single mother on food stamps. Walking into the DHS office and filling out those forms so I could make sure my baby was fed and had medical insurance, looking at all of the other single mothers, people society deemed as moochers and lazy bottom feeders…I realized I would be seen as one of ‘them’ and it was one of the most humbling experiences of my life. I wasn’t there because I was lazy (and neither were ninety-eight percent of the women in that room by the way). I was getting my teaching certification, going to school at night, taking care of my son, babysitting for two lovely families, shuttling their kids to private schools, working as a hostess two nights a week, student teaching, essentially…busting my ass to survive. And I did. I survived my first true rock bottom.

Then I landed a teaching job, bought a house and was a pretty happy single mom for a few years. I was off welfare, gainfully employed and taking care of my physical and mental health. My son was one happy little boy with a village of loving people helping me raise him. I had great friends and went out dancing, saw bands at the Blues Café. Went on trips to London and San Francisco. I was turning thirty and loving life. I’d arrived. The only thing I could imagine making my life any better was falling madly in love with someone who was madly in love with me.

Be careful what you wish for!

When I was thirty-one, I did indeed meet a man who swept me off my feet and married him less than a year later. I went from being a single mom with a few nickels to rub together to a married woman of means. Glitch? He was abusive and is probably the most controlling man on the planet. A toxic narcissist of the first order. What’s the expression? Marry in haste, repent at leisure? I’ve been repenting for over twenty years though the ink dried on the divorce papers a decade ago. And the repenting ain’t over yet. We have two children together. I’ve got about three solid years of repenting left…seven, max.

I saw the red flags before I said ‘I do’ but ignored them. To this day, I’m not sure why. Was it because I was in my thirties and thought I should be married? Or because he was more into me than any man had ever been? I was used to male attention, but not his intense adoration. He moved across the country to be with me after knowing me a week. Hello! Bright blood red flag! Was it the financial security he provided? The diamond earrings he bought me? The trips he whisked me away on? The fancy shoes and clothes and first class plane rides? I never believed I was shallow, but looking back, maybe I was?  

For a few months, I believed I was actually in love and perhaps I was? But some part of me knew it wasn’t right. He wasn’t right. Those red flags were everywhere and impossible to ignore, and believe me, I tried. Desperately. In the days leading up to our wedding every part of me revolted, the thought of getting married (I couldn’t admit at the time) to him made me physically ill. I’m talking literally sick! And still I ignored my instincts. I was hopped up on all sorts of medication at my wedding and could only focus on getting through the day.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Talk about short-sighted! What about the rest of my life? What about my son’s life? I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself for dragging my boy into that unhealthy situation. I didn’t listen to my gut and we both paid the price.

I hit more rock bottoms than I can count during our marriage. From abuse-related trauma to post-partum depression to marital infidelity to my last stand. I’m intimately related with rock bottom. In the book I’ve been writing, I finally delve into these dark issues, so I won’t recount them here. Let’s just say every day spent married to him brought with it a fresh hell.

I’m not looking for pity. I made my bed and I paid the price. Insert whatever cliché that comes to mind here. But I’m an expert at making ‘lemonade’ and came out of that marriage stronger than ever.

My point is this: rock bottom isn’t a place people hit once, and it looks different every time you plummet. My mother’s death was another rock bottom, which was only surpassed by my brother’s passing last summer.

And now? My latest rock bottom. I hate writing these words because they sound so trivial in comparison to my other rock bottoms, but it doesn’t feel trivial. It feels massive, intense and consuming. I’m talking about weight and age, ladies and gentlemen. Having recently broken through the fog of grief, I looked in a mirror and found a much older lady staring back at me. A chubby older lady. I thought (hoped) I was imagining it, but I’m not. I received proof positive last night in the form of several photographs from a cookout I attended…and promptly broke down in tears.

What the fuck happened to me? I wasn’t this old and fat in February. I looked pretty good in the pictures from my trip to Italy! What happened? How? Why? I know I’m in the throes of menopause but come on! Haven’t I been through enough? I’ve survived so much worse and THIS is what’s going to knock me down for the count?

Last night I was inconsolable, the pain was fresh and real. Weight is a battle I’ve fought my entire life, but I’ve felt good the past five years. Now? I don’t want to go anywhere or do anything. I want to crawl into a cocoon and wait until a miraculous transformation occurs and I emerge a gorgeous butterfly. Fuck! I hate myself for writing this, for thinking these things. How contrary they are to the lessons I’ve taught my children and students!  

I can repeat these words until the cows come home: I am not my age or weight. My worth is not defined by these things. But dear god, it hurts. I haven’t cried this hard in a long time.

So, yeah, this is my newest version of rock bottom. My only consolation given my vast experience dwelling here, is that once you hit bottom, the only direction left to go is up. I know what I have to do and it’s going to suck. Deprivation, single-minded focus, diligence, routine, blah blah blah. I’m tired of climbing mountains. But it has to be done because I really want this to be the last rock bottom I ever hit.

Fingers crossed.

Analytics

Technology is pretty amazing these days. It’s also informative and potentially scary. I’m writing a book that begins in the year 2002 and I couldn’t remember what technology was around back then so I did a little research. Did we have laptops? What kind of phones did we use? What about digital cameras? What I discovered is…I’m old and the technology of twenty years ago was primitive in comparison to what we have today. Back then we used flip phones to (slowly) text and call people. Remember those days? When we spoke to people instead of shooting off a quick text? Or voice to text? And then the geniuses in Silicon Valley added the (fuzzy) photo feature and before you know it, we’re carrying computers in our pockets that do everything from transferring money and editing photos, to reserving flights and making movies! I have all the news I could possibly read in the palm of my hand. That definitely falls in the ‘amazing’ category.

In the ‘informative’ and ‘potentially scary’ column, I include website analytics. Normally, anything with the word ‘analytics’ in it may as well be written in Sanskrit for my lack of understanding. But these website analytics are simpler to comprehend than the name suggests. Even I understand this stuff. For instance, every time someone clicks on my blog, these website analytics tell me not only what page they visit and when, but the IP address and town a reader lives in!

When I first opened these analytics, I thought…I don’t need to know this much information about my readers! Though I will say I’m continually amazed by the number of people who read my blog and the geographic diversity represented. To those readers, I say thank you! I’m flattered and still have no clue how you found me. I’m just a romance writer from little ol’ Rhode Island.

But here’s where the ‘scary’ comes in. One day, I noticed a lot of my visitors were from Warwick, RI. That seemed odd considering I know maybe two people who live in Warwick. So I scanned the IP addresses and the vast majority of those clicks were from one person who checked my blog sixty-seven times in a single day!  You read that right. Sixty-seven! I’m a pretty good writer, but I’m no Shakespeare. This person obsessively visited my blog from nine in the morning until close to midnight. Should I be worried? Would the police consider this stalking?

There are a few others who visit my blog a ‘potentially scary’ amount. People from my tiny home state. Based on these analytics, someone in Coventry could be considered stalker material. There are also a couple of potential suspects from East Greenwich and North Kingstown the police might want to question if anything ever happened to me or the people I care about. Just putting it out there because with these numbers, you never know! Visiting my site once or twice a day, sure, but sixty-seven times? Analytically speaking, you’re unhinged! I’m making sure my doors and windows are locked. I’m not parking in dark lots without a can of mace.

What’s the saying? Forewarned is forearmed? I give you fair warning? I don’t know…it’s something along those lines. Potential stalkers, you have been digitally noted. I’ll leave it at that.

Fishbowl

I had to eat some humble pie recently and it left a bitter taste in my mouth. I remained silent until silence was no longer an option. When you fuck up, intended or not, sometimes you have to eat fucking pie to stop the situation for escalating further. So I did and only time will tell if my indigestion was worth it.

In the meantime, I’ve been living in my least favorite state: uncertainty. The in-between. Purgatory. Flux.

I was talking to a friend the other day, explaining how bizarre it feels not knowing where I stand amongst some members of the community. I’ve earned a reputation for working hard, honesty and integrity. For any one of these qualities to be questioned, unfairly or not, is unpleasant (to put it mildly). My friend’s response to my discomfort was “luckily your friends are antisocial” and I couldn’t help but laugh. Those closest to me don’t give a crap what anyone thinks. (Most of) my island friends are indeed antisocial and thank god for that!

It’s hard to live in a fishbowl, where everyone is up in everyone else’s business. My attitude over the years has been the less I know the better. I don’t need to know who slept with whom however many years ago, which person broke up so and so’s marriage, who’s a drunk or has overdosed in the past. Who’s been sober and for how long. It’s none of my business until it affects one of my students. Then I’m looped in, but without judgment. I leave that to others.

At the moment, I don’t know whether I blend into the scenery or am the exotic fish in the bowl. Will some people stare or have they moved on? Am I completely paranoid or right on the money? I just don’t know, and I always know! That’s the benefit of living a life above the fray! I know who likes me and who doesn’t (no one is universally liked. no one). I know who I can trust and who I can’t. Call me intuitive. When it comes to the important stuff…I just know. It must be horrible to live a life of uncertainty day in and out.

But time is on my side. If ever there was a moment to be completely misjudged, I couldn’t have picked a better one.

In this temporary state of uncertainty, I’ve kept a lower profile than usual (who knew it was possible?). Eating the frigging pie either worked or it didn’t. I know who I am.

Hmmm…typing those words felt good. I know who I am.

Damned straight, I know who I am! What the hell have I been afraid of? A dirty look? Bring it. If someone glares at me, I can glare right back. Shit, after a million years in the classroom, I’ve mastered the stare down. If anyone wants to have an uncomfortable conversation? Let’s chat. I can handle it. Why? Because I’m a formidable woman and can hold my own. Anytime. Anywhere.

Well…this little mind dump has been extremely helpful! I needed to remind myself who I’m dealing with here and it’s not the gossip hounds. I’m dealing with ME and I know I can handle just about anything. Been there. Done that.

Yeah…it’s time to wipe the crumbs off my face and take a leisurely stroll about town. Maybe smash the fishbowl while I’m at it.

Fuck humble pie. I’ve got this.