A day late

Happy 5 year anniversary to me!

Unclipped

Awesome.

The first clip

I climbed today.  I made it to the first clip.  I know that is meaningless to you, but it is significant to me.  It's been a little bit of a goal.  Despite what is going on at work, which I won't bother talking about, I've been managing to climb twice a week.  I notice such a big difference when I climb twice a week as opposed to once.  Anyway, it was my best climb to date.

Other than that, I don't have much to say.  I don't want to complain about work so I'm just not saying anything.

It's almost my AA anniversary.  5 years.  Wow.  December 14th.  I'll go home for it - so I can spend it with the people who were there when I first showed up.  I can't wait to see them.

14,000 calories I didn't eat

Hi folks.  I am back.  Sorry for going MIA for a while - I just don't have much to say.  I still don't, but I'll try.  I didn't really realize how long it has been since I last posted.  The only things I have had to say in the past 3 weeks would come out as complaints about my job and I am trying really hard not to write about that.  I can tell you though that nothing has changed. In my mind, things are maybe worse.  Can't tell really.  There is a lot going on there though and I am extremely busy.

I am doing this wacky diet.  If you know me in real life just zip it - I know what you are thinking.  But I have gained like 15 pounds in the past few years (I think it is a combination of taking medication and sitting on my ass all day).  And no, you wouldn't be able to tell by looking at me most likely and yes that means I am probably at a normal weight for my height, but, my preference is to be slightly underweight.  I am not going for anorexic looking or anything.  I just want to go back down to my preferred weight.  So I did this diet for 2 weeks as an experiment just to see what I would lose.  I only lost 4 pounds in 2 weeks.  I was disappointed.  I thought for sure I could get six out of it.  But then again I am already pretty thin so it takes longer to lose weight because it doesn't take as many calories to maintain my body weight.  I am going for two more weeks to see if I can get 4 more pounds.  I admit that I have cheated a little so maybe I would lose a little more if I stop cheating.

And then I thought about it.  3500 calories equals one pound of fat.  That means in two weeks I cut 14,000 calories out of my diet.  What the hell was I eating before.

How it works

I realize I haven't posted in a while but I honestly don't have anything to say.  I went to an AA meeting tonight for the first time in a long time.  I wish I could say that I don't go very often.  But when does not going very often turn into not going at all?  It's probably more accurate to say I stopped going to meetings.  Of course I am full of rationalizations and justifications for why this idea is ok, but any alcoholic would be able to justify the hell out of it.  I also haven't had a sponsor in nearly two years, but the reason for that is that I don't need someone in my face right now telling me to go to meetings.  I have to be realistic and I can't go during the week because of my job.  I have no excuse for not going on the weekend.  It's simply that I would rather hole up in my condo and talk to my friends on instant message while I lay on my couch and watch weird tv.  I've been doing this for quite some time.  It's like a fake form of interaction with people.  It feels real.  The people are real.  You almost forget that you are isolated from the real world.  I wonder sometimes if all of this social networking online etc. is changing our culture.  In fact I am sure it is.

So the last meeting I went to I guess was in Michigan.  That was in the summer.  I still don't feel at home here at a meeting even though it's been 4.5 years that  I have lived here.  Which is basically the reason I have stopped going.  I don't feel terrible for not going but I think that's just something you get used to.  Maybe you get worse and worse in your head but you don't realize it.  It just becomes normal and you end up thinking, yeah, I don't need to go to meetings, but I'm no worse off for it.  But am I?  And if I am, how the hell would I know?

Anyway, I went to a meeting.  It's been a long time since I have associated with people like me, whose brain works like mine, who understand the crazy in my head.  That was comforting.  The meeting was so so, decent lead.  People often say they hear exactly what they need to hear.  I don't think I heard anything in particular that spoke to me.  But if nothing else, I always leave a meeting more grateful than when I arrived, no matter what the topic is.

More than anything it was good to hear "How it Works,"  I like to listen to that be read from the Big Book.  I miss hearing it.  I like the ending.  It doesn't say that God might remove your alcoholISM, it says that God could AND would IF  he were sought.

And thus commences the day of nothing

I think anyway.  I did a lot yesterday.  There was just one thing on my list that I didn't do and I am just not sure I am going to be able to get myself to do it.  The most I might do today is go get my computer out of the car and pretend to look at what I could do today but what I won't.  Sorry I didn't post from Vermont.  I didn't have a chance to.  I didn't really realize how long it has been since I posted.  I can't say anything has happened anyway though

The visit to Vermont was nice, but I was admittedly stressed out because of work and it detracted from it a bit.  I had a lot of fun but it would have been more fun if I hadn't been stressed out over work.  Every time I go out of town something happens at work that threatens to ruin it.  It happens every time without fail.

I am going to a conference on Tuesday through Friday this week which I completely do not want to do.  All a conference is for me is a loss of billable time.  But I am ending the week with a trip to NY to visit my good friend Nina so I am looking forward to that.

My dad and his girlfriend drove out to Vermont so that was nice.  My dad told me after the fact how much fun he had.

I know this is a boring post, aren't they all though - but I just have nothing to talk about.

Nothing has changed

I haven't posted in a while.  Nothing has happened.  Nothing has changed.  Nothing has changed at work and nothing has changed about the way I feel about work, except that it has dawned on me how little they actually value me after all.  They are obviously operating under the assumption that no matter how they treat me and regardless of whether they will let me move, I am going to stick around anyway.  Well it's a faulty assumption.  It is also clear to me after the last week or so that they are completely clueless.

The job in NY still hasn't rejected me but they haven't called either.  I keep telling myself that it's just taking a long time for them to call because it is such a huge company.  And I keep telling myself - if you want something bad enough, you can get it.  I think I can get this job if they would just call.

In the mean time I feel trapped.  Nearly everyone tells me that I shouldn't quit without another job.  But damn, it is hard to hang on when you are this miserable.

Anyway, I am headed off to Vermont to visit my brother and his family.  My dad and his girlfriend are there as well.  Hopefully there will be lots of fun, and if the weather cooperates, a little rock climbing.  See you when I get there.

Not the best form ever

This is the overhang that plagued me for so long.  This isn't the best form going over it.  I've been told that anywhere you can put your knee you can put your foot.  No wonder my knee is bruised.  Anyway, this overhang is no longer my enemy at the climbing wall, I have moved on to more difficult things.  And that's my friend narrating.

Fingers crossed!

Still not rejected.

Not rejected yet

So far I haven't heard anything from the job in New York that I applied to.  But that's a good thing right?  It has only been two weeks since I sent my stuff in.  With a huge company it must take a long time.  That's what I keep telling myself.  Dealing with my job for the past two weeks though since sending it in has felt like an eternity.  I am just so ready to be out of there.

Best climb ever

Last night I had the best climb that I have ever had at the gym.  It was awesome.  The overhang is no longer an obstacle and now I am working on getting over the next ledge, climbing routes, climbing new ropes, challenging myself.  It's the only thing keeping me going under my present circumstances.  It's the only relief I get from the stress and pressure of my job.

Anyway, this weekend, later today after I go to an art fair, it is job search and resume time.  Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Moving on, but not the way I thought I would be

I've had all kinds of moving on the brain.  Moving to Michigan primarily.  It seems that although I believed that they were going to support me and let me do it, they may possibly not, and nevertheless, they are going to drag their feet until January just because they can.  They have decided to send me to a client 3 days a week for 3 months which I decidedly do not want to do (but can't get out of) and this just gives them more time to pretend they are thinking about it.  Well something happened last week, that I don't really feel like going in to, which has led me to believe that the partner, while saying he will do anything to make the move happen, is actually full of shit.  I no longer trust him, respect him or want to work for him.  I have seen a different side of him.  What once seemed to be the perfect job has gone sour, rather suddenly.

It has been on my mind for a long time what my longevity at the firm would be.  Where my career was going.  What I wanted.  I just didn't have a clear picture.  Well, I have made up my mind, definitively.  What I once thought was the job I always wanted, isn't that job anymore.  What I once thought was the job that I would stay at forever, isn't anymore.  Things change.  I have decided to leave the firm. How and when I don't know but I will be leaving for sure.  I no longer want to make partner and I am at that stage in my career path where I either go for it or I leave.  It's up or out at this point.  So I am choosing out.  I am choosing to leave.  I knew I would face this decision eventually I just didn't know it would be now or that I would sort of be forced into it.

It means I need to find a job at a company (there is no point in switching to another firm).  The job I applied for in NY I am actually rather qualified for.  It would be a huge step up in my career.  It is for one of the major networks.  Keep your fingers crossed that they don't flat out reject me.  I hope they at least consider me.  Actually, what I am hoping for, is a miracle.

Maybe it's moving on time, maybe

I'm applying for a job in New York.

Trying something new

I am going to try to not unplug this coffee pot when I leave for work tomorrow.

Just one more thing to unplug

You know that coffee maker I have been dying for since last November?  I finally bought it today.  It was kind of an impulse buy even though I have been thinking about it for months.  I want it, but do I need it?  I think I am going to leave it in the box for a couple of days and then make up my mind.  It is just another thing to unplug though.  I don't know why but the unplugging things only applies to my house.  I go to my brother's for example and they could have all kinds of things plugged in and I wouldn't think twice about it.  It's weird.  I'm weird.  Oh well.

My pathetic life

My life has been pathetic for a while now and I have had little to no motivation to change it at all.  I settled into this pathetic routine and I don't seem to be able to break free of it even though part of me desperately wants to.  I just kind of want for it to happen.  You know, like without me having to do anything.  Poof.  Everything is different.  Part of me thinks that moving will snap me out of it because everything will change because it has to.  Unfortunately, since talking to the partner twice, I have not heard another word about it.  We decided to put the pause button on it until my mammogram was over and until his adoption was done.  Well both of those things have concluded and I am afraid to ask.  But I think I am going to have to be proactive about this because if I'm not I have a feeling it won't go anywhere.  It's just at this point, I am not sure how to re initiate the conversation.

Anyway, every day is just another day that I get up and don't want to go to work.  I get up, get ready, go, be unhappy, try to leave early, get home, eat frozen food, and settle in for another episode of who knows what.  I have to say, I am getting a little sick of the cake competition shows.

I've survived too much, I'm too young, life is too short for this to be it.  This has to change.

But in the mean time, I'll be watching Cupcake Wars.

The ultimate OCD experiment, a failure

Or was it actually a success?

I've cured myself of obsessive compulsive disorder I think.  No really, I have.  Seriously.  I know people say oh I am so obsessive compulsive, but that's not the same as the disorder.  I've had it since I was 7, and suddenly, after all these years, I think I am cured.

I did everything just right.  I wore the right outfit and the right pair of shoes.  I took the stuffed bunny in my purse.  I had the letter that I wrote to myself that I just received in the mail the day before on Monday.  I parked on the 5th floor.  I didn't eat Skinny Cow.  None of it mattered.  None of it.

I did it all because I had a mammogram on Tuesday.  And you know, if you don't eat Skinny Cow and you carry around a cat toy, you won't have breast cancer again right?  I mean surely carrying the cat toy in your purse makes a difference.  Not so.

My mammogram came back suspicious.  There was a cluster of calcifications in my other breast.  Shit.  They wanted to biopsy them to see if they were benign, atypical, or one of two types of cancers.  Shit shit shit.  What am I going to do?  What if I have breast cancer again.  I took the bunny, I had the letter - clearly these things didn't matter.  Poof, the OCD was gone.  The food behavior/ outcome insanity in my mind suddenly seemed just as irrational as it actually is.  But fuck, I still have to go through this fucking shit again.

My very good friend Nina and I sort of had a little deal that if my mammogram went wrong she would get on a plane.  Well, true to her word, she did exactly that.  She flew out here and stayed with me, distracted me, etc. until we knew everything was fine.  The pathology report came back benign.  Thank you God.  I feel terrible that she flew all the way out here and I haven't figured out exactly how I am going to thank her, but I'll come up with something.  Perhaps it proves that my theory isn't entirely all right all the time.  Sometimes, people do show up for you.  She is the only person I really wanted to be with while I waited.

So as for the OCD I thought well, I did everything I did and my mammogram came out bad, then fuck it right.  My behaviors are irrational.  Not eating a cookie doesn't mean I am not going to get an urgent email at work the next day and be really pissed off about it.  Unplugging things is probably irrational too (though environmentally friendly).  So we had to wait for the results for over 24 hours.  That was agony for both of us I think.  Then we went to my surgeon to get the results and I had also put in an urgent call to my oncologist to have her watch for the results to come in also.

But before we left for the doctor's, Nina was debating what color shirt to wear, adopting a bit of my OCD I think and it was freaking me out.  Suddenly I wondered whether she picked the right color.  And I had been wearing the same special necklace since Tuesday.  I parked on the 7th floor when we went to get the results.  Maybe 7 is just as good as 5?  Then Nina asked me if I had the bunny, and I was like fuck, did I need to bring the bunny again?  Because shit I forgot it.  Maybe I will got a good pathology report because Nina wore pink and I parked on 7 and fuck the bunny?

This is the insanity that goes on in my mind on a daily basis.  Are you glad you don't live in my head?  So, was it a success, or a failed experiment?  Now that the whole thing is over, I would say a partial success.  I have proven to myself that bunnies and letters and necklaces don't affect the things that are entirely out of your control.  I've always known this though haven't I?  I've always known that my thought/behavior associations are totally irrational.  But for some reason, this incident has flipped some kind of a switch in my brain.

Anyway, it doesn't mean I won't be carrying cat toys on planes anymore though.

Leaving as opposed to being left

It is always better to do the leaving than it is to be left.  The key is knowing precisely when to leave.    

To me being left by someone I care about is the worst thing imaginable.  I care about the person and I think they care back, they seem like it, so I trust them, even if it is like a tiny little bit, and then they leave with your secrets.  It is devastating to me.  It is probably my worst fear - to be abandoned.  Of course intellectually I know it is possible to survive being left, it just doesn't feel like it.      

I keep a distance between myself and you.  I keep a wall around myself that is mostly impenetrable.  Other times it is paper thin but you just don't know it.  And if you just reach out and touch it, it would disintegrate.  Regardless, almost no one makes it through to the other side.  The truth is though you are a lot closer than you think you are.  A lot closer than I ever let on.  You really don't have any idea.  We are participating in two different relationships though.  My version and your version - they aren't the same.

I anticipate the ending.  I know when it's coming.  If I have erected the wall just right, when it all falls down around me there isn't anything left to feel anyway.  You can't be abandoned when you've already left.  Our lives are more tangled than you realize.  They are twisted up and intertwined.  You know me whether you know it or  not.  Better than I have let you believe.  You know things about me.  You know my secrets.  A few anyway.  Sitting across from you, over our conversation, I undo us in my mind.  I take back the pieces that are mine.  Right in front of you, without you ever knowing, I sever our mixed up lives into two.  It is a silent undoing.  So perfect that when you do go, you simply slip from my existence as if you were never there in the first place.  And I feel nothing. 

Moving on the brain

The only thing I can think about is moving.  I sure hope that changes by tomorrow so that I am actually able to concentrate and do my job.  I hate moving but I love the process of getting ready to move.  The process of throwing things away.  I purge as much stuff as possible before I move and I can't wait to get started.

This day 3 years ago

Every so often I like to look back at an old journal entry written on the same day however many years ago. I have a lot of old old handwritten journals from a long time ago and of course this blog.  I have been writing this blog for almost four years and it has really been more of a journal for me than anything.  I don't write about anything particularly interesting or anything anyone wants to know about.  It is just me and what is going on in my head and my life for the most part.  It helps me I guess, sometimes.  So anyway, when I look back at old entries I am sometimes surprised by what was going on at the time, or surprised about what I wrote.  I was looking back at July 10, 2007 this morning just to see and it's funny (or not actually), that I was feeling very much the same way then as I do today.  Almost exactly.  Nothing changes I guess if nothing changes.  The only difference this time is that I am trying to change it.

Here is what I wrote:

The lack of motivation is persisting. I don't have any. I've been working reasonable hours lately - i.e. leaving "early." I could have gone to a second meeting, found someone to go to coffee, found someone to hang out with. But no, I don't feel like it. I know this is probably a misperception on my part - but I don't really think that people want to be friends with me. They don't really put any effort into it, so in turn, I don't put effort into it either. In some ways AA here feels very cliquey - and I arrived on the scene well after people had formed their friendships. Plus, people know I work a lot so I think they assume I am always working. Anyway, like I said yesterday, there are things about my life that I would like to change - in fact, I think that part of the reason I gave in and went on medication was to enable me to be able to change those things. Ironic that the medication has made me not feel like doing anything or bothering to change anything.

It seems that I sit at work and fantasize about what time I will get to go home and prematurely put my pajamas on and sit in front of the t.v. and watch things like America's Got Talent and the Singing Bee, which are on the schedule for tonight. I will start 25 minutes late so that I can skip commercials, take intermittent breaks for things like figuring out what to wear tomorrow (in case I have to iron..so that I can be into my office parking garage by 8 to get the cheaper parking rate...yes, per my earlier post last winter, I am still driving to work, even though I live downtown), and packing food for snacks. Then at 9 when the bad t.v. runs out, I'll watch worse t.v. - episodes of Dawson's Creek that I have been recording on the Tivo.

This is what my life amounts to lately, bad t.v. And truly, I don't even care, or I am starting not to care. I know I'll never find a guy to be with if I sit here and watch t.v., but who cares. Every guy I date treats me like shit anyway and why would I want to give up my free time to take care of some asshole guy who will inevitably take advantage of me for my money and play video games all day while I work 50 hours a week and pay his bills and do everything for him. Yes, this has happened to me before, not once, but twice. Now granted I am at fault for being so great at picking boyfriends and so bad at getting rid of them. But still - what do I have to do to attract someone normal? Today I went to an AA meeting at lunch time that I had never been to before and this creepy guy was all over me as I was trying to leave. I must be wearing a sign that says if you are a complete asshole, and kind of creepy and really fucked up, please, come talk to me.

Anyway, I have about 10 minutes until my designated start time. Better go put my pjs on and situate myself for three hours of nothing.

The sky isn't falling

I thought for sure this morning when I said the word "move" that the sky was going to fall on top of me.  I thought there would be an element of shock.  A degree of panic.  Some freaking out and some definite alarm.

There was nothing.  Perhaps just a tiny little bit of surprise.  I made it very clear that I don't want to leave this job.  And he made it very clear that he doesn't want me to.  So at least we are on the same level.  He said he would give it more thought and think about how we should approach the head of the group.  He didn't say yes no problem at all, but he didn't say no way in hell.  He was supportive - just not definitive in either direction.  I think where we are with this is that he will support it but politically and strategically he has to figure out how to make it happen.  In all likelihood what is going to happen is that he will go to the head of the practice group without telling me and start the conversation.

I did this at 8:15 this morning so I guess it made the day a bit awkward.  He told me later in the day that he hadn't had a chance to really think more about it.  I think what I need to do is take a step back from it, chill out, and just let it unfold.  It's going to work out the way it works out.  It's pretty much out of my control completely at this point, except to the extent I am able to push back a bit or assert myself a bit, it's generally out of my control.  That's kind of hard because I don't do well with uncertainty.

Can you believe I did it though?  I can't.  There is one glitch that may prevent me from moving until January, but there may not be anything I can do about that.  I may just have to suck it up and wait until January.  I am actually really angry about this particular fact for reasons I won't go into now, but I am trying to let it go.  It went better than I thought.  Different than I thought.  Not perfectly, not just exactly right - but I should just be glad it went the way it did because at least right now I am really within the realm of yes.

Just remember, however you think it is going to work out - it will not happen that way.  It never does.

On which I turn my life on its head

Tomorrow is the day, supposedly anyway, on which I turn my life on its head.  This has been a careful and well thought out decision.  I think so anyway.  It has been a long time in the making - probably a year, at least.  I have tried to be logical, rational, reasonable.  I have tried looking at it from every angle.  I have tried at the same time to access how I feel about it as opposed to what I think or what seems to make the most sense.  I have thought about the consequences.  I look at the situation and I think - I've made the best decision that I can with the information available to me right now.  That's all you can do.  It takes a bit of a leap of faith I think because you can't know the outcome.  You just have to go for it.  You can't half ass a decision like this.  You can't be wishy washy.  You have to commit to the decision. You can't lack conviction.

So I have decided to inform not ask.  That may seem harsh but asking leaves the door open for a "no" and it makes it sound like a maybe not an absolute.  It is not a question of if, it is a question of whether they are going to support me or whether I will have to look for a different long term arrangement.  The truth is, I really don't want to leave this job.  Yes there are things that suck about it but that is true of any job.  All jobs sucks, they just suck in different ways and I think it is probably the case that the ways that it doesn't suck outweigh the ways that it sucks.

So tomorrow, supposedly, I am going to walk in his office and inform him that I am moving and that I hope they are willing to work it out with me.

More sure than the other day

Yesterday I had a pretty good, busy, and not anxious day which was nice for a change.  I almost always get anxious when I come home and I haven't really figured out why.  Friday I was feeling pretty anxious in the late afternoon and there really wasn't any reason for it.  Yesterday I spent most of the day running around town shopping.  I bought my little nephew clothes.  I found all kinds of things for practically nothing.  Things were already marked down and then there were sales for 40% or 50% off on top of the sale price.  Things were so cheap that I bought him a bunch of stuff.  Probably too much but since all of the grand kids in my sister-in-law's family are boys, I know they will get worn.

I also met a client yesterday.  That of course had me feeling a little anxious but surprisingly not bad.  I have this client that I communicate with on a daily basis (for the past year) but I had never met her.  Well she happens to be from my home town and was in town this week and weekend.  We decided to meet up so I went to her parent's lake house.  It was absolutely beautiful out there and so great to meet her.  I like her even more now that I have met her in person.  I just might take her up on her offer to come visit in LA at some point.  It's sort of weird when you have a client that you communicate with regularly.  Of course it is a professional relationship but I honestly feel more like I am friends with this person than outside counsel.  She happens to work for the one client of ours that I would love to go work for.  Of course that is in the wrong direction geographically.

Today I am going to meet up with my friend Claire and meet her little boy Teddy who she adopted from Russia.  I think it's awesome that she adopted him.  I just think about what an amazing life he will have because of her - he is so lucky.  He was in an orphanage in Russia and now he is here and anything is possible for him.

So I am feeling better today than I was on Friday night about moving here.  I think spending some time around town yesterday alone helped me kind of get the feeling of what it would feel like to be here again.  Going to meet my client actually helped too for some reason.  I was talking to a good friend of mine though about the situation and she wondered whether this moving thing is taking the geographic cure.  I can assure you though that it's not.  I fully expect all of my problems to follow me here.  It's not like I expect to move here and have everything be different.  I know there are things I need to work on and fix.  I don't think that moving changes any of that.  The question for me right now is just where is the best location for me to be in order to make changes and work on things?  Right now I am leaning towards home.

A couch burning party, are you kidding me?

My dad is going to a couch burning party tonight.  Have you heard of this before?  Yeah, me either.  Apparently this guy goes around collecting old couches off the side of the road that people have discarded and he sets them up around a bon fire.  He then invites a bunch of peole over and as people leave and a couch becomes empty, they burn it.  From what I hear, this party goes on all night.  Seriously.  Could this be more redneck?  Probably actually.

Not 1000% sold

Well, I am in Michigan, and I am not entirely sold on this idea of moving.  More later...

Last chance trip home

I've decided to go home this weekend as sort of a last chance trip before I pull the trigger on dumping my whole life over here and putting the pieces back together over there.  I don't know if I am trying to be absolutely sure, although honestly, I have probably been sure for a while now.  Almost no one is even around this weekend so I am not even sure what I am going to do or who I am going to hang out with when I get there.  I guess I am kind of winging it.  Usually I go into town with my whole schedule set up for the entire time I am there.  It is always way too busy and never that relaxing.  This time I guess I will just be there and see how I feel.  Sometimes I feel really anxious and crappy when I am there, sometimes I feel ok.  Hard to say what moving back there would really be like for sure.  One more weekend trip home isn't going to give me a lot of extra data, but I am looking forward to going.

 

I do have a couple of things planned.  For one thing get my dad a cell phone (yes he needs help accomplishing this).  With my grandmother being sick still, everyone is annoyed with him because he is basically unreachable (he only recently (like a few weeks ago) got an answering machine).  Well I found out that the only reason he wants a cell phone now is so that it is easier to keep in touch with this new woman he is dating.  That's another story.  I am glad he is having fun now that he is retired, but I hope he doesn't get hurt.

 

I am also going to hang out with my good friend Claire who just adopted a baby from Russia which I think is so cool and I can't wait to meet him. 

 

Other than that, the real thing I want to do is just go to an AA meeting.  I really really miss the meetings at home.  I miss them and I want them back.  I want the AA community back that I used to have.  The great thing is, I know that even after being gone for 4 years, I can walk right back in to the middle of it.

Without 100% certainty

I've decided that I can't know the answer as to whether or not I should move with 100% certainty.  It is simply not possible to know things in life like that.  Rarely is there a perfect time for anything and things are never predictable.  You never know what is going to happen or how something is going to work out.  But almost never is it exactly the way you planned.  I've mentioned before that I have this piece of paper taped on my shelf at work just exactly where I see if I look up from my computer and it says "it will not happen that way."  That pretty much applies to everything.  I try to remind myself of that so that I keep myself from making up all the stories that I make up in my head about how it is going to turn out.  Whatever I am anticipating, it will not happen that way.  Not exactly.

I can't know if it is exactly the right answer, but I do know that it feels more right than wrong.  It feels more right to go back there than it does to stay here.  And one thing I do know is that if I do go back and it isn't perfect and it isn't everything that expect it to be and that I hope it will be, I will not be disappointed.  I will not feel like I made the wrong choice.  Whatever it turns out to be, I feel it is the right choice.  That doesn't mean I know it with 100% certainty though.  There is always an element of doubt.

Decisions decisions

I know I haven't finished posting about what happened at the spa, and I will, I'm just in the middle of something else right now.  I'm in the middle of a major life decision.  It feels like I accidentally walked right into the middle of it and I am about to turn my life upside down because of it.  But I didn't exactly just find myself in the middle of something, it's actually been on my mind for over a year.  I had this idea in my head that I would move and ask to telecommute once I had gotten myself into a position where they couldn't live without me.  I think a year ago I was already in such a position but now I think I definitely am.  But that doesn't necessarily mean they will say yes.  And besides, first of all, I have to figure out if it is the right decision.

Do I seem not so confident about making this choice?  I don't know if I am good or bad at making decisions.  I mean how many have I made really?  Where to go to school and law school was just an obvious choice.  The decision to be a lawyer was made by my 10 year old head (and believe me, I had good reasons) and the choice to move to Chicago for my current job also seemed to be an obvious one at the time.  Little decisions are no problem.  Like what to wear tomorrow.  I pick it the night before and never ever waver.  I always wear what I picked.  I never change my mind.  Ever.  On the little things I have no problem, I don't think anyway.  Oh wait, but there was the time that I didn't get married and that I put a lot of thought into.  And then there was the time that I did get married which I didn't think about at all.

But this isn't like picking an outfit or advocating for myself when I had breast cancer.  That I did on autopilot like I was advocating for someone else.  This is like taking everything I have and trading it in for something else.  Something better I hope.  Something I used to have.  But how can I be sure this is the right decision?  Is it one that I just have to make and then go with it and find out if I was right?  Cause I can't exactly take it back once I do it.  Do I need 100% certainty?  I'm wavering back and forth I think out of the fear of the whole thing.  What if they won't let me?  Then what?  My unhappiness continues and my ability to change it is, well, a problem, as it has been for a long time.

But I won't know if I don't ask right?  And what have I got to lose?  It's not like they are going to fire me because I ask to move.  So I should do it, right?

Flying yoga

I did flying yoga at the spa, it was awesome.  Here are a few photos.

Interlude

Sorry for not finishing the "experience" posts yet before posting about something else.  It's just taking me a while to write about it.  So much happened that it's hard to capture it all.

A while ago I was feeling desperate to move - move out of Chicago that is.  I'm feeling that way again.  I feel desperate to get out of here.

I've been unhappy for a while and trying to decide whether I am unhappy with work, unhappy with living in Chicago, or some combination of the two.  I have been toying with the idea of moving or of reducing my billable hour requirement down to 1600 (from 2000).  I went to the spa and came back desperately wanting to move.  I think being unhappy with where I am living is making me unhappy at work.  I know those things don't quite seem to go together.  I've tried to decide whether cutting hours and staying here would make me happy but I don't think it will.  I think the answer is to move.  I want to keep my job and telecommute.

Now I just have to figure out how to get them to let me.  And by the way, I think I will probably move back to Ann Arbor.

The "experience" day two part 2: the lies we tell and the secrets we keep

There could be a part 3, part 4, part 8 - who knows.

We talked about guilt versus shame.  I did something bad versus I am bad.  My entire childhood used to be one big bad secret.  It had an element of keeping up appearances.  No one can know what really goes on behind closed doors.  My mom's alcoholism was a secret although I know now that there were family members who probably knew.  Behind the doors we were not a family but we pretended on the outside.  At least I did.  I kept it a secret because it was embarrassing and humiliating.  Probably wrong emotions but the emotions of a kid who can't understand in an adult way what is really going on.  So I kept the secret.  But what I know now, and I know it from AA - it is your secrets that will ultimately kill you.  You are as sick as your secrets as they say.  I remember my dad in the summer time yelling at my mother and I to stop yelling or the neighbors would hear us.  How ironic.

I still carry a lot of shame about my childhood.  For the longest time it was very hard to talk about.  Even though I know now that I did nothing wrong.  It is embarrassing regardless of whether or not it was my fault.  My mother was mean to me when she was drunk and she wasn't particularly nice when she was sober either.  She told me she hated me, many many times.  And I blamed myself for that.  I thought if I could just do something right then she would stop hating me.  But it didn't matter what I did she drank anyway and she treated me terribly regardless.  I spent most of my childhood hiding in my bedroom.  My mother was a terrible mother.  There is no denying that.  She will even admit to it.  I didn't realize until I was an adult just how awful my childhood had actually been.  I guess years of pretending makes you forget.

So we were talking about shame and I was trying to get to the bottom of the feeling of shame that I have, the embarrassment that I still feel.  The facilitator challenged me to think about whether the shame is mine or my mother's.  Obviously it is my mother's.  I don't feel ashamed anymore.

The "experience" the day after

The more opportunity that I have to reflect on the experience, the more amazing it becomes.  I was thinking about what I had been calling it - the "experience" - I guess I could have called it a workshop, but it was definitely more of an experience.

A couple of people have asked me if they should read the posts in order rather than as I post them.  I am posting them all out of order, there is really no need to wait to read them.  They are all distinct.  They don't flow one from another.

I am actually going to try to post the rest in order so I can go back and correct the order later.  The reason there is even an order is because I made notes on what I had to post about each day.  There is really no rhyme or reason to it.

Anyway, much more to come...

The "experience" day three part 2: I would pick me

One the night of day three the one guy in the experience read a letter to himself that he had been asked to write and then read to the group.  I am not going to talk about the content of the letter though.  I am going to keep all these posts about me and not talk about anyone else to respect the confidentiality of our group even though you don't know any of them.  Anyway, the letter brought me to tears.

It reminded me of something that I had long forgotten about.  When I was little, maybe like 6, we had to write a letter to our hero for school.  You would think at that age people would pick maybe their parents or maybe even a cartoon character.  I picked myself.  I wrote the letter to myself.  I wrote "I am my most favorite person in the world," and I wrote about how I always wanted to be myself and that I never wanted to be like anyone else, among other things.  If I can get the copy of the letter from my mother, I think she has it, I will post it.

Many years later, probably like 8 years ago now, that letter was given back to me.  Years ago, when I first read the letter again, it made me cry.  I thought, how sad that at the age of 6 I knew I was the one who was dependable.  I was responsible for myself, independent and grown up long before anyone should ever have to be.  I knew that I could rely only on myself.  At least that's what I believed as a little kid and I have definitely carried that into adulthood.  I tried to look at the letter other ways, like maybe as a little kid I just had awesome self esteem.  Given how I grew up though, that is probably unlikely.  Even by the age of 6, I think my self esteem had been terribly, though not irreparably damaged.

Anyway, I thought about that letter for a long time on Tuesday night.  I thought about how the experience was changing me, changing my perceptions of myself and other people.  And while I know that there are good character traits that came out of the way I grew up (for example, I am successful, dependable, independent etc), those are not the things that we tend to focus on.  We tend to put so much emphasis on the things that are wrong with us as the result of the terrible events that have happened to us.  We focus on the negative.  And granted we need to work those things out but it's good to focus on what is positive also.  Those negative things do not have to define me anymore.

I came into the experience feeling many things about myself.  And I can tell you one thing for sure, I left this experience feeling better about myself than I did when I walked in.

If I had to do it all over again right now - pick my hero - I would still pick me, because I can do anything.

I'm sorry these posts are coming all out of order, but because I couldn't write them as they happened, I am just writing them as they come to me.  More to follow...

The "experience" day four: all out of order

I am afraid these posts are going to come all out of order.  I just haven't been able to write them as quickly as things have been happening here.  We closed the experience tonight and all I can say is that I have never experienced something so extraordinary or been with such an extraordinary group of people.  It was truly amazing and I learned something different from everyone.  The facilitator is a famous therapist.  We all felt in awe in his presence.  I only wish that we had more time with him.  I wish it wasn't ending - there is so much more to be learned.  I might consider doing a one on one session if I come back here, although I know they charge a small fortune for his time.  I would repeat this experience again in a heartbeat.

I walked into this experience thinking I knew exactly what I was walking into.  But I got so much more than I ever expected.

How annoying

I wrote a post about the experience and then lost it because something was wrong with my connection and it didn't save the changes.  Ugh.  So I am a little behind on posting about the experience, but I will - I just need more time.

The "experience" day two part 1: nearly crying in the van

It was the strangest thing.  We got into the van, all 11 of us, on our way to the experience, and I nearly burst into tears.  I can't really explain why but I think it is because I knew what I was walking into.  Most people had no idea.  I spent a little bit of time last year with the "facilitator" I guess we will call him, and I knew that what I was walking into was a world of pain so deeply rooted that it's hard to even dig it up.  It is the kind of thing that is so painful and so deeply rooted that you find a way to be numb to it, yet at the same time, it affects everything about your behavior.  You may not even realize it.  And even though the facilitator says he isn't psychic, and of course he isn't, he finds away to dig it up with just a word.

I wish that I had had the chance last night to reflect on what happened yesterday.  I think it would be a great exercise to reflect on it right after it happens and then after having a chance to think about it.  Last night when it was over I had a migraine and then a spa service so I just didn't have a chance to write.  I made a list though of the things we talked about with respect to me specifically so that I could really think about it and write about it.  So I will try to do that later - I'll try to write about today right after it happens.

But in the mean time I will say one thing, you learn as much from watching other people go through the process with the facilitator as you do going through it yourself.  Learned behavior, faulty belief systems - sometimes they really can be changed with the snap of your fingers.  It is incredible to see a person "get it" if you know what I mean.

More later...

The "experience" day one: starting from a disadvantage

I know I still haven't told you what the "experience" is.  Only a handful of you know - people I know in real life.  I may tell you what it is or may never tell you.  But I will tell you what happens.  Those of you who were reading my pre-trip posts know that this is the reason I am here.

I can tell you that day one has already opened my eyes to something that I know to be problem in my life.  I have known it to be a problem for a long time but I am acutely aware after last night just how it is affecting and preventing my relationships with other people.  And also realized that despite my inability to be truly close to anyone or form close relationships with anyone, I do want to figure out how to do that.  It is necessary.  Because how different life could be if I wasn't living it all alone.  I can't actually say I am close to no one because there is a person I am really close to and that is terrifying to me because of a fear of being abandoned and blaming myself for the abandonment - sorry I am off track - this is a topic for another day.

Part of the experience involves the ability to tell the truth.  The ability to put it all out there.  The ability to share your secrets and your fears.  The ability to be completely open.  I have historically been unable to do that with a few exceptions.  There are definitely some people that I have felt instantly comfortable with and that I let in a little.  Little by little but always carefully.  This experience depends upon the ability to first share your issues.  But I have an issue with sharing my issues.  I have an obstacle.  Nearly everyone else broke down crying and I was very emotionally flat, protecting myself.  Although this inability to tell my secrets feels like an insignificant problem (If I could get to them, I have bigger problems in comparison), it is actually huge.  If I can't get it out there I can't get it resolved.  I am at a disadvantage.

Zip zip zipping

I am zipping again today.  I can't resist.  I feel guilty going again because it means someone else can't go since they only take 8.  But isn't that true of anything that I sign up for here?  There are only so many spaces.  They only take so many people for every challenge.  I guess I feel bad about this one in particular because it is new and popular.  I was going to cancel and see if there was still a space this morning and then sign up last minute, but the guy I was talking to in guest services when I went to cancel was like just go - don't feel guilty.  So I am going.

I wanted to go again partly just because it is fun.  But also because unlike a lot of the other challenges on the course, I think I will actually get more out of this one the second time.  The first time I was so caught up in the safety of it and whether I was going to end up on the desert floor I sort of missed that moment of really being in it meaning I think I missed the fun of it.  You are present as you climb the 50 foot tower and you are as you stand there in the wind (it was really windy yesterday) and you think about falling off (even though you are tethered), but you aren't present in that moment when you jump unless you really try to be.  So many things were running through my head before I jumped.  I had that hesitation.  I guess I was present right up until that moment and then when I jumped I wasn't present anymore. My head was elsewhere - probably still wondering if I was going to some how end up on the ground.  I forgot to really enjoy it to fullest extent.

It goes so fast that it is easy to miss it.

There is only one way off the mountain and a post about zip lining

I guess technically there are two ways, because sometimes you hike it out.  But if you are going to climb, then you have to repel.  I could climb hundreds of feet and be fine, and then when it's time to repel back down I hold on to the rope for dear life as if I have any control at all.  I have no control.  My belayer has basically complete control over my descent.  But I tense up and grip the rope with all my force when really I should be able to just relax back into my harness and walk my feet down the side of the mountain.  I'm never able to do that.  It is hard to relax into the feeling of not having control.  That moment when you have to repel in order to climb up, that step backwards over the edge gets me every time, and I'm not even afraid of heights.  You are dangling over a cliff and someone else is hanging on to you.

That lack of control is not unlike doing the zip line or some of the other challenges here.  Some of the challenges here really challenge you mentally.  They are really mind games more than physical challenges.  Others are challenges in letting go which for some people are metaphors for letting go of things in life.  Both types of challenges are equally good but just different.  The challenges can be about a lot of things.  It's really about something different for everyone and for some people the challenges really bring up a lot of emotion or things that people didn't realize were there.

My goal for this challenge, for the zip line, was not to go last and not to hold on.  If given the option, I will always choose to go last.  And usually I hold on to things with a death grip like in repelling off the mountain.  I do this elsewhere in life - hang on tight like I have any control over it.  When in reality life is so much easier when you let go because for most things, you can't control them anyway.  So to go outside my comfort zone I went first and I let go.  I didn't hang on to the line connecting me.  I hesitated for a second before I jumped but the thing is, the only way off that tower is to jump.  Once you jump, there really isn't another feeling like it.

I think I can't, but I always do

I wish I had something insightful to say but I don't.  So I'll just ramble.  Today I am doing the zip line which I think is going to be fun, but maybe slightly scary.  When doing these challenges you always have that brief moment when you say, "are you SURE this is really safe."  Cause I did have to sign a waiver and all.  I had to sign a second waiver just to rock climb outside.

I am not the adventurous type at all.  Not really.  As we have figured out, I like predictability.  I like to know exactly what is going to happen next.  I don't embrace the unknown readily which may be something to work on.  The most adventurous I think I have ever been is to start rock climbing and maybe to come to this place alone.  The person doing my pedicure said I am adventurous because we were talking about how I have done most of the challenge course, go rock climbing, and am doing the zyp line.  And because I came here alone.  Is that adventurous?  Maybe it is.  To me it is simply me trying to expand my boundary, for example overcoming fears on the challenge course.  Trying to erase the "I can't" voice in my head.

When I was rock climbing on Wednesday the guide who took me out challenged me to stop saying "I don't know where to put my hands."  And I did it, I was able to stop saying it.  Doesn't mean I figured out where to put my hands on the rock.  It didn't make it any easier but I really want to get rid of that "I can't" attitude.  Who the hell ever told me that I can't?  And when did I start believing it?  I was always thought to be the (won't say dumb) but less, should we say, likely to be successful as compared to my brother.  From my perspective, I was treated that way.  I was treated differently.  And whether it was intentional or not, probably not, my parents made me feel stupid.  This only had the effect however of motivating me (among other things that motivated me).  And some where in the process of becoming who I am and having the career that I have, I proved to them that I can in fact do whatever I set my mind to (so there!).  Or maybe I was proving it to myself.  I think I can't, but I always do.  Yet I still have this tape, this old old tape playing in my head saying you aren't smart enough, you aren't good enough, you can't do that.  But you will never know if you don't try.  Like I said, you have to one, two, three go for it sometimes.  I one, two, three hesitate.

You don't try out of a fear of failure (which is what it usually is I think).  What if you don't succeed?  But what if you do?

This place is like a little mini world where you can explore your boundaries safely and change them if you want to, or not if you don't.  At least acknowledge them.  You can learn things about yourself that you don't necessarily learn in the outside world for whatever reason.  For me, coming here is just very eye opening.  And it is challenging.  I am challenged in my every day life to apply what I learn here about myself.  The most difficult thing is the thing I want the most and that is to live in present moment time.  To me, there is nothing as good as being present in the moment.  What an amazing way to experience life.  Not in the past playing over and over what you would have done differently, and not in the future playing out the many possible scenarios and outcomes, but right now, this second.  What I want to achieve is to live every day like I am rock climbing because that is the most present in the moment I can possibly be.

This trip can be life changing if you want it to be.  This trip is whatever you make it.  So is life.

As true in life as it is in climbing

I am trying to remain open in this experience to whatever may happen or whatever I may feel.  Trying to use everything as a way to, at the very least, learn something about myself, if not change (hopefully) some things too.  In climbing yesterday we figured out that at least in climbing, I have a real (or imagined probably) fear of the unknown.  I will stick my foot in the water so to speak but I have a really hard time standing up on it.  In climbing, I like to know what my hands are going to grab onto.  I like to feel the rock before I stand up.  This is often impossible, especially climbing outside because you simply cant see or feel the next move.  It is like a puzzle that you have to solve and solve as you go, you have to simply trust your foot, stand up on it and know you are going to find the next right move when you do.  Like in life, there are things you can't know in advance of making the move.

All of the challenges on the challenge course are really great metaphors for how you respond in life to stress, fear, the unknown etc.  Most often the way you react to these intense challenges and feelings on the challenge course is exactly how you react in life to the same feeling, for example fear.  It is eye opening to do the challenges the first time and figure out about yourself exactly what those reactions or coping mechanisms are.  It does not have the same effect the second time around because it is a known istead of an unknown.  The second time I tried some of the challenges it was either fun or scary but nothing much more than that.

What I found out through all these challenges over the past few years, including rock climbing, is that although when facing something like the unknown I doubt myself, I even express that self doubt repeatedly, I always keep going, I persevere and I usually finish whatever is in front of me.  I am persistent in the face of the unknown but I have a hard time committing to it fully.  I like to know outcomes.  I like to know what the end game is.  I think that probably in life I face the unknown more easily than I do hanging of the side off a mountain 120 feet in the air.  I have an unfounded fear of falling outside even though I know that if I do fall I will only fall a few inches.  The thing is though, unless you try, unless you just one, two three go for it, unless you make the move, you are never going to know what might be possible.  You are limited in all ways unless you go for it.

I  hope in life that I face the unknown with more grace than I do on the side of a mountain.  The experience, the self doubt, it made me think of something someone said.  The guy who runs the "experience" that I can't wait for mentioned the last time (the last time I did the short 3 hour version of the 4 day) that most of the time we are operating under faulty belief systems and making decisions based on those faulty beliefs.  How true I think that is.  Part of the "experience" is to correct your faulty belief systems - it is to overcome self doubt.  When you correct those faulty beliefs about yourself, the voice in you head sends a different message and  your behavior changes.  Anyway, maybe more on the "experience" later.

Don't get me wrong though, climbing outside yesterday was really awesome.  We (I) climbed 5 routes.  There is no other word for it than awesome.  Oh, and I am going to do a rock climbing retreat/camp in October - more on that later.

Inspired

You know the wall hangings that I was talking about below with all the words you can pick from?  Last night I left my room for dinner and as I walked up the concrete step "inspired" was laying on the ground in front of me.  At first I stepped over it and kept going.  But I went back and picked it up and put it in my pocket.  It's in my pocket.

I'm off to rock climb... more later I am sure...

Okay seriously people, I can't believe I am admitting this

I am at one of the number 1 ranked spas in the world and I just watched the history of deodorant and the development of touch free bathrooms.  I have to agree with the program, the Dyson (you know, the vacuum people) hand dryer is the best.  I know because they have one here.

Day one: reflections

I haven't even been here that long, like we are talking about 4 hours, and already I am reflecting on things.  As I was wandering around the store contemplating what t-shirt to wear rock climbing (this is an important consideration.  There are weather considerations, and do you want to get scraped up or not.  I personally prefer to climb in a long sleeve shirt.  But crap, the only long sleeve shirt I brought is black and that's not going to work in this weather... and on and on), instead of attending the pilates workout, I realized that although I am having expectations about what I can get from being here while at the same time trying not to have any, this is more about my comfort zone and stepping outside of it - like way outside of it.  That is the point of this.  That is what made the first trip so amazing.  So I am going to have to figure out how to find the perimeter and then push the limit.  I'm not in the zone yet.

So here I am, twiddling my thumbs, having selected the proper sports bra and two t-shirts for rock climbing, trying to figure out how it is possible that I could have anxiety about the fact that I am having a hard time getting rid of the anxiety.  I can't win.  I mean seriously.  I am at a spa.  I am paying a small fortune to be here.  And I am anxious about when the anxiety is going to go away.  Only me right.

Anyway, here is a photo from the first time I was here.  They have these boards in the rooms and these cards with different words written on them.  You can select the ones you want or like and put them on the shelves.  This was what I was looking for the first time.

Arrival: seamless, well almost

Post relief, uh no

I am officially on vacation, since, well, I walked out the door of my office.  My blackberry is buzzing and although I am resisting the urge to look at it, I have not been able to let go of the stress of my job.  And I need to let go of it damn quick because these days are limited in number.  These days are so few and far between that I really want to take advantage of them.

I was so anxious all day I could hardly stand it.  I have to be the only person anxious about going to a spa.  I think it's the little things about traveling that make me nervous but once I am underway I am fine.  I think.

I have been waiting an entire year for this trip.  Against my better judgment and the judgment of others, I have pinned my hopes on this trip.  I know what it's like to go to this place with expectations and without expectations and I can tell you it is absolutely better to go to there without any.  For sure.  No expectations open up a world of possibility.  Expectations are just plain dangerous.

So I am wondering if the opportunities that this trip is offering me, with the "experience" and all, I am actually having expectations about it.  I need to get rid of these expectations.  It's just that when you have waited a year for something, it's hard not to expect it will go a certain way.

At this point I would say I am open to this being life changing but not betting on it.  But ask me when I get there.  I might have changed my mind.

Pre-relief, or not

Yesterday I was writing a post about how I was feeling totally relieved, laid back, totally chilled out, no anxiety, no worry about work, now worry about my vacation.  Well that didn't last.  I mean it was great while it lasted.  I thought, this must be how normal people feel on a average day.  It's really unusual for me to feel relief in advance.  Usually it takes a couple of days before I feel relieved and decompress.  Sometimes the relieved feeling never comes.  It was awesome, it was like pre-relief.

Anyway, I guess I am more anxious about this trip than I am about work tomorrow.  I mean, I have X number of things to do tomorrow and approximately 8 hours to do it in.  I did work a bit this weekend to try to get a few mindless things done so tomorrow wouldn't be quite as bad.  But I am having a hard time motivating myself today to do any work.  I did do most of my packing so that's good.  Really I just feel restless.  I feel like organizing things and throwing things away.  I am having a hard time just sitting here.

So I leave in two days - early Tuesday morning.  The whole trip is planned.  I am going rock climbing on Wednesday, the day after I get there.  Everything is all set.  Why the hell am I anxious about going to a spa?  I'll never understand that.  I think it's just that traveling stresses me out until I get to my destination.

Yikes

I just checked the weather in Tucson during my trip.  It's over 100 every day.  Now duh yes I know it's hot in Arizona in June but last year it was only in the 90s.  Eek.  I think I need to go buy tank tops.

More later...I know I haven't posted in a while...

Stressed

Going out of town is just plain stressful.  Things always blow up at work.  It's inevitable.  Clients don't go away just because you do.  And frequently they don't give a shit.  They just want what they want and it's always immediately.  I turned my out of office reply on this afternoon.  I have to leave at noon tomorrow and I just didn't want to get another email from someone wanting something from me before noon.  I only have so many hours tomorrow to do X number of things.  I simply can't add anything else to the pile.  You would think they would lay off a bit considering the fact that it is a holiday weekend and all.

So I have stress coupled with nerves which makes for a fun trip home as you can imagine.  I just can't figure out what the problem is with going there.

Anyway, I'm going.  I'm going because I have no plans to go there again this year.  This may be the last time I go there until next year.  Seriously.  I doubt I'll go for the holidays, although I guess that is a possibility.  The holidays are always uncertain.  There are definitely people that I would like to see and I guess I see it as a way to see my grandmother - hopefully it won't be one last time, but it would be nice to see her just in case.  I know that I posted way back in March that she was sick, well she is still in the hospital - long long story.  Anyway, it is impossible to predict what is going to happen with her.  My dad is optimistic, others are less so.  I told my dad that if God forbid something happens while I am in Arizona, I am not coming back.  I know some people won't agree with that decision, but my dad does and that is what matters to me when it comes to that one.

So I am a ball of stress right now and probably will be until I arrive there.  Honestly, the only thing I really want out of this trip is to go to the 5:35 AA meeting tomorrow at the Alano Club.  That's all I want, is to make that meeting.  I'm not going to meetings enough, which has nothing to do with whether or not I will drink, because I won't, it just has more to do with my ability to cope with stress generally and to just be in world comfortably.  I want to go to this meeting so bad that I might even try to leave earlier and just take some work with me.  I just feel like I have to make this meeting.  I have to.

I haven't booked a hotel yet though.  Do you think that's a sign?

Nerves

Every time I go home to Michigan I get nervous.  I question whether it is really a good idea to go or whether maybe I have lost my mind.  Usually I think maybe I have lost my mind.  I am thinking I have lost my mind.  I get nervous to the point of feeling physically nervous like days in advance.  Doesn't that kind of make it seem like I shouldn't go?  I feel that way every time and every time I go anyway.  And I get about half way there and think to myself, yup, this was a mistake.  Yet I continue because I've gone too far to turn around and go back.  I don't know what it is about the place.  I don't have all bad memories of living there so it can't be that the bad ones outweigh the good ones.  I just don't know exactly what the problem is.

I am planning to go to Michigan this Memorial Day weekend.  It's a good time to go (or is it) because it's a long weekend and honestly, I have no plans to be a in Michigan at any other point this year.  The holidays are questionable, likely I won't go home for those, and if I take any time off during the rest of the year it would be to go to Vermont to visit my brother and his family or to New York to visit a good friend of mine.

Anyway, I am going.  But I don't feel quite right about it.

Two weeks two days

Shockingly, that's how close my spa trip is.  I just booked the last piece of it which was to sign up for the zip line.  My spa services are booked, my rock climbing is booked, my "experience" is booked, my ticket is booked.  I'm good to go.  Now I just have the stress of packing and traveling.  I find the getting ready to travel part stressful for some reason, but once I am underway I am fine.  I am going to try to rock climb twice this week and next week.  I need to get some more climbing in before I go because I am climbing outdoors the second day I am there.  Oh, and the partner was like you should finish all of your projects before you go.  Awesome.  He is starting to panic that his vacation starts the day after mine ends so we have no overlap in the office to transition projects.  That means I won't see the partner for an entire month.  Awesome.

Happy birthday to me!

Today is my birthday and the anniversary of when I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  Let's forget about that part.  Today is my birthday.

Now all my eggs are in two baskets instead of one

My spa trip is coming up.  I just got the plane ticket.  10 nights it is.  I have to go for 10 in order to be able to rock climb outside and do the "experience."  It's just the way it worked out.  You are probably all wondering what the "experience" is and I am not going to tell you until it's over.  I may never tell you.  Anyway, I fully admit that all my eggs were in that basket.  I am counting on this to change me, in whatever way it is meant to change me.  I am quite sure, if nothing else, I will have learned something about myself.  But I know that sometimes it doesn't matter what you know, or how much self awareness you have, it is impossible to change it.  Nevertheless, for some reason, I feel drawn to this.  I am hopefully not foolishly optimistic.

And then I found out that the guy who is taking me out rock climbing the day after I get there is a licensed therapist, among other things.  For various reasons, I have to do a private rock climbing outing rather than a group (although I am sort of hoping someone else signs up but I doubt it) because it just worked out that way.  So I got to thinking, I get to spend 8.5 hours with a therapist while I rock climb.  Hmm, what better way to squeeze in a little therapy while rock climbing which to me is like therapy in itself.  Could be interesting.  I'll be curious to see what this is all about.  This rock climbing thing that I am doing is different than the one I did last year.  They have redone their outdoor climbing experience completely and they have this new guide that I don't already know.  I'm curious how much I could get out of this.

Of course that just brings to mind something that my favorite professor of all time said, which is that you get out of life what you put into, and that applies to everything you do.  So true.  But for some things, there is simply no "half assing" it.  You simply have to go for it.  This is trip is what you make it, that's for sure. 

Newbie

So I mentioned that the partner told me he started the process of getting us a new person.  I thought it was going to take forever.  Well it didn't, although it's not the ideal situation.  As things went, the firm had a whole incoming class of first years but we had no room for them.  We had no work for them.  Some of them have delayed start dates, some of them are placed at various clients for the year.  But the employment group took 3 of them and as it turns out, employment is over staffed.  So basically we are stealing (uh borrowing) a first year from employment.  It makes a little sense because some of what we do is employment related but it's also a little arbitrary.  Nevertheless, I wasted no time - I gave her two projects immediately.

Like I said, this is all a part of the partner's master plan, he becomes equity partner, I become partner, and someone becomes me.  Ironically, me and this new person have the same name.  The only thing that I am not sure about is having this person on loan.  What happens when the employment group gets busy again and we lose her?  We lose the person we just trained.  The kind of projects we do, we can't just give someone a one off project, you really have to be trained in the practice area.  In any event, I am going to train her as if we are keeping her, because I really need the help and I really need someone to know what they are doing.  We have a partner, one full-time senior associate (that would be me), one part-time senior associate and a staff attorney that we use when we are busy and another staff attorney that we sometimes use on certain types of projects.  The one staff attorney is pretty dedicated to our group and has learned really quickly and is trained pretty well, but even giving her work isn't lightening the load, at all.

Anyway, whenever the partner gives me a project, the first thing I ask myself is whether there is some possible way that I can get someone else to do it.  Now I have more options.

I have to be the only person on the planet

Because who else would possibly be overwhelmed with uncontrolled anxiety in the process of planning a spa vacation.  A spa trip for God's sake.  A relaxing vacation and I am almost so anxious in the process of planning it that I can't even get it done.  Who the hell would be stressed about planning a spa trip?  It just makes no sense.

Last night I went online to look at the schedule, pick my spa services and see if I could get in everything I wanted to during the dates that I selected to go.  Unfortunately the definite June schedule doesn't come out until the end of May.  Well when I found out I might miss outdoor rock climbing that was about it for me, I started to get anxious at the thought of changing the dates of my trip.

Part of the problem is, I can really only go to this place once a year, so I have to fit in the things I want to do.  This year I am doing the 4 day "experience" that is going to change my life as you know, but that takes up 4 full days.  Then there is the new zip line which just sounds like a lot of fun and of course I have to go outdoor rock climbing.  So how to fit these 3 things in is tricky when certain things are only offered on certain days.  So I just got stressed when I realized that I might have to change the dates and gasp, go for 10 nights.  Have I lost my mind?  10 nights?

Maybe he's on to me, or maybe he's not

The other day the partner told me that he is putting into motion the process of hiring a junior associate - a first year - for our little group.  Someone we can train.  He openly admitted that he wants a gunner, someone brand new who wants to work late every night.  Honestly, he will probably be able to find one of those amongst all the incoming first years who don't have placements within the firm yet.  They always want to impress, they are always willing to work late.  Except for the occasional fuck up.  I think he has clued in a bit to the fact that I am not willing to work the way I used to (late that is).

This is all a part of his grand plan.  We train a first year into a midlevel, he becomes equity partner and I become partner.  What he doesn't know (or maybe he does know), is that I am about to throw a wrench in his plan.

Probably one of a couple of things is happening.  Either he is putting the wheels of his plan in motion, or we are so busy that we absolutely have to have another person and it only makes sense to start with a new one.  He said he is turning away work because we don't have the capacity to do it.  We don't need another senior level associate (personally that would help me), we have two of those.  It only makes sense to start with someone we can train.  But ugh, training someone is painful.  Anyway, one of those two things is happening, he is trying to push his plan forward, or we are so busy that we just need another brain.  Or possibly a third thing is happening.  He might be on to me.  He might know that any day now I am going to sit down in his office and tell him that I am reducing my hours, thereby throwing the wrench in his plan.

I hate to make it sound like I am really important, because the reality is, if I died today, they would find a way to get the work done.  But still, without me, his operation grinds to a halt.  If I reduce my hours, well, we are all screwed.  So maybe he knows, maybe suspects, maybe he is trying to get another pair of hands before I do it.  I'm not sure.  I think he is probably not on to me actually.  I think he is probably clueless about this for the most part.  Unless HR told him which they weren't supposed to do.  I think he realizes that I am, for one reason or another that he doesn't know about, unwilling to work late anymore.  And I think we legitimately do need to train a new person.  It's just that his grand plan that he is trying to execute on - at some point - I am going to have to tell him I don't want to be a part of the plan.  It's just that I can't tell him that now.  I have to act as if this is what I want.  Reducing my hours though would also slow me down for making partner.

I don't want to be a partner.  I want to stay a senior associate forever.    Work the hours I want to work, keep my workload manageable and be left alone.  I'm willing to work reasonable hours, and I'll do the work.  I'll get it done and I will do it well, correctly, on time.  But I just don't want to be partner.  And if I have to leave at some point to avoid it, I guess I'll leave.  What usually happens is if people last this long, and decide to leave for a company, it is right before they make partner.  It is a prime time to go in house.

I feel bad about it though.  Whether it is now or later, I am screwing the group over.  And I feel a bit of loyalty to this group of people.  They were great to me when I had breast cancer, they gave me my leave of absence with no difficulty, the person I work for is nice and for the most part, easy to work for, he is laid back and never stressed.  He's never said a word to me about the time I take off, the days I leave early, the days I want to work from other states.  I can't really say that there has been too much bad about  my job.  Yes there are continuing communication problems and yes the pressure about hours these past 4 months has been difficult to deal with, but all in all, I can't say much bad about this job.  So whatever I do, and whenever I do it, I am going to feel bad about it.  That is probably part of the reason I haven't been able to get myself to do it - to tell him I am reducing my hours.  I keep delaying because I feel bad.  But I have to watch out for myself right and do what is best for myself, right?  Even if it isn't the best for the group?

On the last day of the billable year

I feel like I should celebrate or something.  I can't figure out how though.  Now if I could drink, that would be a good way to celebrate.  But obviously that isn't an option.  Do I really have anything to celebrate anyway?  I mean, I didn't hit 2000 hours.  I guess it's just that the pressure is off.  After 4 months of trying to hit 200 hours a month every month, it's finally over.  I didn't quite make it.  But honestly, I didn't try that hard.  I tried in January and February because I knew I could do it.  I stopped trying in March and April when I realized I wasn't quite going to make it.  Shit happens, you make choices, and I went to Michigan when my grandmother first got sick and I went to Vermont at the beginning of April.  Right there are my 55 hours that I came up short.  I don't really feel one way or another about it.  I don't care that I didn't hit 2000.  I could have done it if I had really really really wanted to.  The hours were probably there, I just didn't want them.  I couldn't see myself putting in 12 hour days and 10 hours on a Saturday just to get there.  It doesn't matter that much to me.  I am kind of over caring at this point.  They can give me a bonus or not, give me a raise or not - all things dependent on hours.  Whatever.  At least I have profitability going for me.  I am always the most profitable associate in my group.  But that's not because of me, that's because I do big projects for big clients who pay the bills.

Anyway, whatever, it's over.  It's a new kind of pressure now, a different kind.  The kind of pressure where you know you need to front load your hours into the beginning of the year so that you aren't trying to cram them in at the end like I was this year.  It wasn't my fault though.  We were just slow the first 6 months of this past billable year.  Anyway, the ideal way is to be about 150 hours ahead at Christmas time.  Then you can basically coast through the holiday and straight through the end of the billable year with no stress about hours.  Plenty of extra ones to lose.

So whatever.  It's over.  Tomorrow, we start again.

In 3 days, and for 600 dollars

There are all these little sayings in AA.  "Fake it 'til you make it."  I hate that one.  Fake what exactly?  Isn't pretending how we got here in the first place?  And if you can fake it, then why can't you do it?  Anyway, one of the steps talks about restraint of pen and tongue.  Acting, not reacting.  I can't remember which step - bad me - I haven't read the Big Book in a while.  Anyway, someone said to me, that sometimes the hardest thing to do, is to just do nothing.  That's been in my head since I heard it.  And it's true I think.  The hardest thing to do is nothing when you want to do everything.  Anyway, I am off track in think.

I've been thinking about the comment on my last post and the guy at the spa.  The guy who is going to, in three days, and for 600 dollars, change my life (yes, I have al my eggs in this one basket).

I got to spend a little time with him the last time I was at the spa last June.  And ever since then I have felt this pull to go back there and be a part of the "experience" that he offers 4 times a year.  I feel drawn to doing this.  I have ever since I met him.  I have known for the past year that this is something that I have to do.  I have to do it.  I didn't want to wait this long but I couldn't work it out work wise to go any sooner.

Anyway, I remember talking to him about where our behavior comes from, why we do what we do.  And it's obvious right.  And while we were talking about how our actions are often not even based in reality because what we think and what we feel isn't always real, we talked also about how we try and then we try harder.  And we keep trying the same thing and getting the same result.  Which is another AA thing.  He is sober also, has been for like 30 years or something.  So I get what he is talking about in a different way I think.  So we talk in AA about trying the same thing and getting the same result.  The answer of course, is that if you try something, and it doesn't work, then you something else.  Duh, right.  Not for most people.  Most people just keep trying.

 So all of this time that I have been trying and trying and trying, I am starting to think I have been doing the wrong thing all along and that the answer might be to not try at all, but to simply give up.

I am out of ideas

People in AA always say that expectations breed resentment, or some other way of saying the same thing.  And that's true.  They definitely do.  My expectations of other people are usually where I run into trouble.  I am playing a game with everyone, and nobody can win, because no one knows the rules.  I don't tell people what I want or need, but I definitely have expectations.  And when they aren't met, I find myself feeling really hurt.  Not angry or anything.  Just hurt.  Like my feelings are hurt when people don't meet my expectations.  But like I said, it's a game you can't win, no matter what you do.  And it's really not fair to you.

Expectations can also lead to major disappointment.  For me I guess that hurt feeling of disappointment is coupled with the feeling of the person not caring about me.  I have to keep my expectations in check, otherwise I get hurt even if the person isn't trying to hurt me.  Sometimes I feel hurt anyway, even when I know it's me and it's not them.

I booked my spa trip.  I haven't exactly completely settled on the dates, but I booked a block of days surrounding the time I need to be there.  I say need because there is a particular "experience" that I am going there for and it is only offered once every three months on specific days.  I thought I wouldn't have any expectations about this trip.  I had hoped not to have any because it seemed like that was the way that I got the most out of it the first time.  I had no idea what to expect and it was eye opening in ways I couldn't have imagined.  I learned so much about myself even if I haven't been able to make all the changes that I vowed to make when I left.

Anyway, I am starting to have these expectations that this experience that I am going to the spa for is going to change me.  That I am going to go and come back someone else.  That I am going to simply wake up different.  Expectations aside, honestly, that is really what I am hoping for.  Is it possible though?  I don't know.  Is it possible to become someone else in three days?  People have told me that this experience is life altering.  I don't doubt that it is for some people, but will that be my experience?  I feel like if it isn't, I am going to be really disappointed.  I might be setting myself up for disappointment and failure, but there are things in my life that really need to change.  Things that I need to be different.  There are ways that I need to change as a person.  Things that I need to get over, old things.  I have tried things to "fix it."  I have tried moving.  I have tried different jobs.  I have tried AA.  I have tried praying to a higher power,  I have tried medications.  I have tried therapists, 4 different times I think (4 different therapists).  I have even tried pretending.

I am out of ideas.  I am pinning my hopes on this.

Baby Blues

I guess my older nephew (almost 4), pictured in the bottom picture, lobbied pretty hard to name the new baby Blue's Clues after the TV show.  His parents of course game him a real name (Maddox), although Blues seems to have stuck.  On more than one occasion I heard my brother refer to him as "Blue."

I am not a Kleenex

So I am out here in Vermont visiting my brother, my sister-in-law, my two nephews (one almost 4 the other one born in February), and my one of my sister-in-laws's sisters.  My older nephew is so funny.  The things that he says crack me up.  Today though we were playing on the couch.  His nose was obviously really runny and I had asked him a couple of times if he needed a tissue and he said no.  Of course he said no.  So again I said, I think you need to get a tissue for your nose.  He bent over, wiped his face across my jeans and proceeded to play.

And now I know why

I am historically anti Facebook, and I still am.  I just didn't know what the basis of my being against it was.

I know that nearly everyone is on it and everyone loves it and blah blah, it's just not for me.  I don't understand what all the fun is about.  Maybe I have missed the point.  I was conned into joining it.  I say conned because various people were lobbying hard to get me to join.  And no, there was no gun to my head.  I willingly made up the password and clicked submit.  I decided to just kind of see if it was interesting.  I haven't bothered to set up a profile or anything and I haven't really bothered to search out people to connect with.  I can see how maybe it is fun to see what certain people are up to, my brother, my cousin - but I already know what those people are doing because I talk to them otherwise.

My preferred means of communication are gmail chat, occasionally text messages, and god forbid we pick up the phone and have an actual conversation with one another.

If the point is to connect with people from my past - the thing about that is that if there were people I wanted to be in touch with, I would be in touch with them.  There is a reason I am not in touch with these people.  I don't want to be.  But why is that?  Why do I feel so strongly about it.

I did do a search today.  I did a search of my high school and my graduating year.  I found about 260 people 75% of which I didn't even recognize.  And then there were those that I did recognize.  Married names and photos of children.  And it dawned on me.  Maybe it is a jealously thing or it is something else that I can't find the word for.  I know what it is, I just don't have the word for it.  All I know is that I don't want to know what everyone is doing, who they are married to, that they have children, that they are happy.  I'm not interested in knowing how their lives turned out.  I don't want to know that everyone has the things that I wanted.  Other people have the lives that I thought I would have.  They have the things I wanted that I have given up on ever getting.

Sure I can say that I have a successful career but I have failed at everything else.  And I would rather not have to tell anyone that.  And I would rather not have to pretend like I am happy with the way it all turned out.  I am not interested in pretending and I am also not interested in telling the truth.

The people that I want to be in touch with I am in touch with.  My friends in AA and a few other people.  And that's it really.  I don't want to be in touch with my past because it is a painful reminder of my present.  Yeah my world is small right now.  It is contained and I am isolated and yeah maybe I need to do something about that, but I don't want to.  I'm fine really.

I remember back in the day (I say that like I am so old) nearly 21 years ago when I was 12, my best friend Heather and I would write letters to each other.  Long long letters.  Pages and pages.  We wrote letters because our parents' wouldn't let us talk on the phone for more than 5 minutes at a time every once in a while - the reason was because it was just too expensive to make a long distance phone call.  Can you even fathom that - too expensive to make a long distance call.  I wish I still had those letters.