Things That Shake Me

https://youtu.be/xoFlHMG6Wfo

I want you to listen to this. Quinn Christopherson wrote this based on his experience living as a woman for 25 years and then being suddenly thrust into a male world that confirmed the terrible experiences he faced in his previous life.

I want you to set aside the transgender discussion for another day, and imagine a world where people interacted with you not based on what they take in when looking at you: your face, your breasts, your hair, your voice, your ass - but based on what your mind holds, what your soul delivers.

I am an advocate for largely traditional gender roles. I do believe we were created with different strengths for good reasons. I am a proponent of stay-at-home moms and provider fathers. I believe biologically we have specific designations for caring and conquering that society can't mitigate or mute, for all of their trying. Not that men don't care and women don't conquer, but we are engineered for and driven by different strategies.

I also believe that any human should be able to do whatever they are capable of doing fully. I have been a firefighter in both the structure and wildland world but I removed myself from that active role when my physical performance could compromise the safety of myself or others. I am not against women doing whatever they are able do, or men for that matter, in non-traditional roles if they do it well. I have met some super stay-at-home dads that would put my mothering skills to shame and I have met women that can outperform 90% of the men I know on the fireline. 

I doubt there is a man that could relate to the lyrics of this song, and when I heard Christopherson tell his story, it broke my heart. It broke my heart because last week I sat in an office with a man who "listened" to me share my passion about the Veterans Service Organization and shooting team that I work with, and this man immediately converted the talk into one about my "brother's vision." Because he couldn't accept my voice. I am a woman. He kept offering his support of what my brother and the other men were doing, and offered to pray for me when I left his office. It ripped me apart inside. He's not a bad man. This is just normal for him, it's normal for most of the world I live in, and what really killed me, is the realization that it's normal for me and it barely phases me anymore.

I was raised being told that college, the workforce, etc, were "no place for women." I grew up believing I had one option. I took that option, and while I wouldn't change anything, it makes me angry that I didn't know better. I didn't know that I could chase my own passions and do anything I was capable of. Obviously my world has changed since then, or I have migrated toward a larger and broader world. But those ideals are still alive and well.

I am grateful that my children have grown believing that they can do it all, anything they're physically qualified for. Anything they work hard for. I am proud to know that they will never settle to only serve the vision of their male counterparts. I know that they run into the same faceless judgement, passed over because they have less  hair on their arms or don't look like a sawyer should look. But I know they are smart and resilient enough to push back and stake their claim on life.

We live in a time where women have more voice than ever, and when I have considered traveling back in time, there is no spot in history that I would trade places with. But we still have room to grow. Especially in our small, backwater towns, like the Alaska where Christopherson was raised, where education and growth and expansion still loom as threats to a ritual lifestyle of repression and entropy. I am still interrupted. My opinions are still second guessed. I am still occasionally told that I can't do things.

I am tired of people trying to erase me. It's my dream, it's my passion. I love my brother and back him and his vision up 100%, and he the same does for me. I will be a relentless and passionate supporter of the man that takes me as his partner in life. I love that. But he will be mine as well. I don't believe in the male privilege complaint, but I do believe that men who are not raised to respect and cherish the intelligent soul of women are deadly to our species. Men who cannot see us as intellectual and spiritual equals, and even physical equals in context, hold back the whole human race, just like women who emasculate and deface the strength of manhood do.

We are different, we are equal. Harnessing that perfect fit together makes us powerful. Why would one horse want the other tied behind the wagon instead of pulling alongside, or even pulling a relief shift? Where you lack, I compensate, and you do the same for me. It's how we're made. Erase one and you weaken the other.

Things That Don’t Measure Up

I’ve never been enough. 

I’ve chased my heart in circles trying to understand how it works that I have never been enough in a relationship. 

I’m starting to understand that it isn’t that I am not enough, it is that I attract people who lack so much that I can’t be enough for both of us. In fact, it might be my fullness as a person that draws them in, and it’s enough to get us pretty far down the road. 

I’m pretty good at loving without conditions. I’ve had enough broken hearts to make me resilient, so I bounce back quickly from small hurts. My mistakes have made me humble enough to own my shit in a conflict. My lonely times have given me enough bottled up love and affection and care to meet some of the greatest needs. 

I am self reliant enough that I have the liberty to love by choice and commit my whole heart, knowing I can survive anything. I am confident enough that I can find value even in unlikely places and love regardless of outside opinions and without fear of protecting an image. 

But I’m not Weak ENOUGH to fulfill their need for power and control. I’m not needy ENOUGH to accommodate their unrealistic want for shallow ideals or superficial algorithms for success. And I’m not desperate ENOUGH to allow their lack of compassion and kindness to thrive. I’m not enough of many things. 

Knowing all of this doesn’t make rejection hurt less. I hurt for the loneliness I face and the failure of another love. I hurt for the lack in them that won’t allow me or any other woman to be “enough.”

I know I’m strong enough to get through it, even when I feel like I can’t. 

I just pray that somebody who is as full as me comes along so that we can be enough together, wanting for nothing. Between the two of us we’ll have all the tools and strength to solve any problem and meet any need. ❤️

Things About Investing

Warren Buffet says that if you aren't willing to own a stock for ten years, you probably shouldn't even own it for ten minutes.

I've been reading a lot about investing in stocks, which from everything I have gathered, the only real way to really get ahead in the stock market is to buy and hold for an awfully long time

Before now, the stock market loomed in my mind like a giant, evil nemesis of All That Is Good in the world, partially because of my childhood obsession with the Great Depression and partially because I had to somehow feel OK about the fact that I would never have a single dime to even consider investing. But as I get older, the more I learn and the more "discretionary" dollars I have to tuck away for the future, the more stocks become a socially respectable form of gambling in my mind, and I have always said I would really like gambling if I ever got into it.

The few hundred bucks that I have invested into stocks since Novemberof '18 are at this point showing an 80% average gain - and while that average ebbs and flows, I get as giddy as my a Stecker at a barn sale when some stock I am mildly interested in takes a wild nosedive and is ripe for the picking. It's like a scavenger hunt, based half on gut instinct and half on the advice of scathing wall street commentators from both sides, and I like it. I pick stocks that make sense to me, products and programs that I understand or use. I bought Facebook even though I was counseled not to, since "it has nowhere to go" and it's already made me some money. My new pet is Tesla, which is bottomed out at the moment and waiting for a few hopeless romantics to jump on board and maybe be part of a big future.

I think smart investing holds a lot of parallels to relationships. We jump in based on gut instinct disguised as a crush, and fueled by the approval of our peers and family, or if we're rebels, the disapproval. But so many of us like to take the little gains we make and cash out fast, thinking we know so much and we can just upgrade to an even better earner, or when things start to dip we panic and cut losses and run. Not many of us buy and hold any more.

The stock market is rife with short termers buying and selling for a quick turn-around profit, but what about the guys like Buffet who buy at the bottom and sit on it for decades? That's my plan, with stocks, and with life, given the opportunity. It's good to avoid reckless investments into things that have no potential, but there's no way to foresee a dud every single time.

I've done my share of investing both emotionally and financially in things that I believed firmly would pay off exponentially in the long run, and some of those things have just deflated right out from under me. Maybe Tesla will too.

The biggest challenge with both stocks and relationships is knowing when it's really time to get out, whether it's been ten minutes or ten years -when you have maximized the potential of your investment and it's time to move on. Maybe there's a stock out there worth hanging on to until the bitter end when you're ready to cash it in and go basejumping in Australia - or pay your nursing home bill. I dunno. I'm just an infant in this money world but I like it, and so far it seems like I might be better at picking my stocks than I am at picking my relationships. But I'll keep gambling...

PS, if you want to play the roulette with me, go here:

https://share.robinhood.com/livias3

Things About Strength

It always starts the same way. 
He’s mesmerized by my energy, infatuated with my color, my power... 

all the things that make me strong and beautiful. 

Then after he has me for awhile the power begins to threaten him, 
or intimidate him... and 

like a Jenga tower, 

                                              he carefully, 

     strategically 

removes one block 

                    at a time 

with well placed destruction 

     until finally,

 the tower of me collapses

 and he says 

“see, I always knew you were unstable.” 

                           I need to know how 
to keep all my pieces 

and never let them be taken again.

Things About the Dark

I woke up in the early hours of the morning, gripped by a black terror. Some dream woke me up. It was innocent enough. I was meeting his new girlfriend. She was younger than me. She had little kids. I was trying to open the wine and suddenly overcome by absolute panic. It woke me up. My jaw was clenched in pain and a vice gripped my skull.

It's like most nights lately. And early mornings. I never get any sleep past 0600, which is ok. My days have been more productive. I try to fill them with things to keep the pain at bay. I am working on avoiding the things that numb the pain but then I find myself numbing myself to the numbing. I pick up my phone a billion times a day and stare at it, finding absolutely nothing I was looking for. Not that I know what I am looking for. I've grown a hatred for the little machine.

I won't say I'm ok, because I am not. I will be, at some point. I have ok moments. I can laugh sometimes, with friends. I can eat, sometimes. The only thing that feels good to me is physical pain, so the gym has actually become my salvation. There's something cathartic about struggling to breathe and wearing myself out to the point that I am too tired to feel anything, so it's really a new kind of numbing, but maybe it's healthier. IDK.

I keep thinking about reaching out to a counselor, or a friend, but choices I have made have left me fairly isolated in this tell-all town and I don't want to talk to anyone. I can hear the questions of every therapist I've talked to and they're the same ones I ask myself over and over while I lay, sleepless in the dark. I know the answers. I don't need to pay someone to hash through that shit again.

Is what you lost really what you wanted anyway? Do you think you are just in love with the idea of being in love? What is so terrible about being alone? What is the Worst Thing That Can Happen? This. This is it. I can't honestly think of anything worse. But I failed to plan for this. I blinded myself to the possibility of every endless day on this side of the Worst Thing That Can Happen.

I know that I will be all right. I know that I am learning each day, new things. Last week I battled through ages-old bitterness to a new level of pain in understanding my ownership in the outcome of my life right now. I did this. Me. I made this bed and here I will lie, facing the consequences of all of my choices - every sparse moment of sleep riddled with nightmares.

I believe I will love again. I have faith this isn't the end of my story, somehow. But it's mechanical faith. It's not feeling faith. Part of me feels dead, but the sting is still so intense that these days lack the relief of death. I ride waves of hurt toward a plateau of peace, but just when I land there, a new wave crashes over me.

There is nothing about this life, right now, right here, that I want. Nothing. Not this place or time or any of it. Maybe I will look back at some point and see the value of these days. But right now I would give anything to skip ahead to a space without this pain.

The crazy thing is that I thought I was stronger than this. I thought I was resilient. I thought I was level enough to handle whatever outcome, and here I sit, completely destroyed. I don't want to be here. I want to be tough and hopeful. My head pounds with the weight of all of it.

About Me

I am the 41 year old mother of four insanely smart and gorgeous girls who might be the death of me. I have worked in almost every field imaginable and studied all of the other ones, but I still haven't decided what I want to be when I grow up, other than not a grown up. I have an amplified Peter Pan complex with an accelerated imagination and I am often found in places I shouldn't be doing things I shouldn't do and saying things that probably shouldn't be said. I am predictably unstable and stubbornly bendable.

Things That Are a Workout

Going to the gym is really, really hard for me.

Not because of the workout, although that part is sucky too. In fact, just squeezing into yoga pants and tying my shoes feels like a workout most days, but lifting weights and numbing my brain on cardio equipment isn't the worst part.

I don't mind the gym when it's empty, which is why 2 AM workouts might be ideal for me, especially on nights I can't sleep anyway, but we've been going lately in the mid-afternoon, and I don't know if it's the furloughed federal employees, millennials that crawled out of their mom's basements, or a running start class at the community college, but there are always so many youngish people at the gym in the middle of the day. And I hate it.

I am digging deep into my twisted psyche to understand why I hate it, because it's ridiculous. I've been closing my eyes, and doing that mental exercise where you take the thing that is bothering you and don't try to ignore it, or kill it, but you examine it lovingly to find out why it's bothering you, but I just find myself swirling farther into anxiety and gym-loathing.

It's a weird mixture of "all those people are looking at me, judging me" and "all those people take themselves so seriously and actually look ridiculous," which is me judging them and probably the reason that I assume they are judging me. I can't touch a weight or pedal a bike without this sense of panic that the people who seem to be hovering around me like a cloud of condescension are evaluating my leg positioning and grip style, ready with a thousand helpful "pointers" about how I am doing it wrong. I have no idea what right looks like, so I know I am not judging them on how they're doing their shit, I just can't figure out why nobody is laughing at themselves when they try not to fart on the incline sit-up board.

They're all so busy making huffing sounds and looking in mirrors and it makes me feel so... something really awful that I can't even identify, as though I had endured some gym-centric trauma in my past that I can't seem to recall.

Every cell in my body wants to retreat to a corner where there are no mirrors and face away from everyone, but then I am worried they will be judging my butt in yoga pants, even with my shirt pulled down to my knees.

It's a real-live anxiety thing for me. I should be getting cardio credits for my elevated heart rate the minute I walk into a crowded (in Colville that's 5 people) gym. I want to die. WHAT IS MY PROBLEM?

The crazy part is I have yet to run into a single person at the gym that I know or care about impressing, but I am completely self-conscious about being watched or noticed at all. I try to turn my headphones up loud and drown out all of the panting, grunting people around me but it doesn't seem to help. All the girls are hotter than me and all the guys are watching the hotter girls and I feel like the whole thing is a like a flock of peacocks strutting around making obnoxious mating sounds and I am like an out-of-place prairie dog feeling like I came to the wrong party. 

It has been pointed out to me that I had a similar mental resistance to financial issues but have more or less pushed through and (pretend) to feel more comfortable with the decisions I am making about my money. It has been suggested that I will have a similar break through at the gym, and I hope to God so because it's getting worse.

I know I am frustrated that in the almost two months of fairly regular short workouts and yoga, mixed with a lot of walking on my trip and some time on the ski hill falling down since we got home, I have only gotten progressively more sore and tired and yes, even gained weight. I am trusting that I will have a break through there as well, but I'll admit my faith is shaky right now.

I also know I have a long history with narcissistic males "teaching" me how I needed to workout, telling me what I was doing wrong and going into great detail about their extensive knowledge of physical fitness and how clear it was that I had no idea what I was doing, which might have been true, but didn't feel great coming from the same men who lamented not knowing me back when I was "really hot" and thin, but were committed to helping me get there again, for the sake of our relationship and with the hope they could be more attracted to me (PSA: Don't marry guys like that. You're welcome). So sweet.

So I have some beef with the gym. And very limited knowledge and exposure, save some quick-and-dirty lessons that I was given in order to teach weight class for P.E. as a highschool substitute. I know I have SO much to learn, but I also know I am super resistant to most benevolent teachers.

I want to go to the gym with somebody who can also make fun of themselves in the mirror and laugh when they get really bad vertigo getting off the treadmill. I want to go with somebody who doesn't take it so seriously and knows they're as ridiculous as I am. I want to get healthy and strong but I don't want to have panic attacks doing it. I want to figure out how to enjoy it.

I am open to suggestions here, or psychological evaluations, hypnosis, lobotomy...  sign me up. I want to get into it like normal people. Maybe a personal trainer? I tried a few cross-fit type classes and it wasn't much better - even more personal attention and forced interactions. But maybe I should try it again.

Right now, I am forcing myself to go out of sheer discipline and commitment, and some times when it's emptier aren't so bad. But sometimes are really bad. Tonight I am going to a Zumba class with some friends and I am looking forward to being able to be ridiculous with them. Because there's no other way to do Zumba - it's impossible to take yourself seriously at Zumba unless you're Beyonce.

100% me at the gym.

Things to Sleep On

OK.

Here we go into the third week of January and so far, of all the new habits that I am supposed to be forming, the only one that is sticking is the gym, and only because a Certain Individual challenged me (by accidentally pushing a button on his Apple Watch) to a fitness competition which I CAN NOT lose. But hey, one habit forming is better than none. I have been doing more reading... and a titch more writing, maybe this week will be the trendsetter for one of those. I will work on it.

I spent a lot of time last week that would have been well used reading some of my six-foot shelf of unread books or writing the next bestselling novel,  researching mattresses instead. I have decided that after 6 years of blaming poor fitness habits, being overweight, bad genes and a variety of other innocent scapegoats for my chronic back pain, that it's actually the relatively expensive mattress that I bought on an ill-informed whim 6 years ago to help with, you guessed it, chronic back pain. My bed is nice, but there are two things wrong with it: 1) It is as soft as a sea of marshmallows and 2) it's a queen size.

What could possibly be wrong with a sea of marshmallows, you ask? Nothing, unless it is a queen-sized sea of marshmallows which you are trying to share with a Certain Individual who finds his sense of self dead center in a bed, either for fear of falling out or relinquishing space to Anyone Else (namely me). He says it's about cuddling. I say it's about a space-scarcity mentality, and spend my nights gripping the uber-squishy edge of my 1/8th of the mattress, all muscles clenched in an effort to not fall onto to floor. So my back hurts. Or maybe the mattress and the Individual are just more innocent scapegoats, but either way, I need something bigger and harder. AAAnd that's what she said.

ANYWAY,  I've been looking/shopping/researching/testing mattresses for a couple of weeks, and the only thing I decided for sure was that there are far too many options. Even after ruling out a foam bed of any type and knowing I wanted innerspring, there were still too many possibilities. I ran into a serious case of decision paralysis after spending hours combing through online reviews, consumer reports, Facebook polls and reading the mattress propaganda shopped heavily to me on Instagram ads the second the slightest thought of a mattress flitted through my brain. I heard a lot of good feedback about SleepNumber, but I don't like the idea of one more electronically controlled thing in my room, and my current bed is a Tempurpedic (also popular, but expensive), which is wonderful, but this model is too soft. I filtered all of the input down to a handful of major brands based on overall reviews/price combinations: Avocado Green, Saatva and Simmons Beautyrest. Hard core Insta marketing and the hipster-esque image of Avocado Green spoke to me, moreso than the matronly tradition of a Beautyrest, but as far as price point, long term durability, and the best broad-spectrum comfort for a side sleeper with back issues and a bedhog partner, I kept coming back to the Saatva.

Lucky for me, my sister in law just bought a new bed from Saatva, which started the whole thought process, since I got to sleep on her old bed (a Beautyrest, which I liked) when I stayed at their house in D.C., and I also got to help usher in the new mattress via the company's free "white glove delivery," where two nice young men carefully squished the king-sized masterpiece up her barely queen-sized stairway, into the bedroom, unwrapped it and vanished along with all of the trappings of mattress delivery, the whole while a small dog with certain paranoid tendencies told them loudly that they weren't allowed in her mom's bedroom.

So after numbing my brain with 600,000 mattress options and at least as many opinions, I hit the SIL up for her three-week report on the new bed. She told me that my brother insists it's just like the old bed, only bigger, which sounds exactly like something my brother would say, but for her part, she was happy with it. Being one of the only first-hand, recent-experience testimonials, and because it was impossible to find any bad reviews on the mattress that she had purchased, and because a Certain Individual was absolutely done giving input on the matter, I decided to follow suit and ordered from the same company.

I will report back in few weeks about whether A) the back pain is any better B) the whole bed-switching process results in any new drama and C) whether the mattress and/or company is really as good as they sound. I mean, the pictures look amazing, and if you know me, you'll know that it's irrationally important to me that the mattress no one will ever see looks as good as it feels. In the meantime, if you are mattress shopping, I have all the latest info.

Things About Being an Influencer

I'm learning a lot lately about gratitude. What it is, once you get all up into the ugliness and the light of gratefulness shows you the silver linings. I'm learning that gratitude doesn't mean no pain, and it doesn't mean perfection. It just means being able to have faith that there's something good in everything that happens.

We live in a world of competition and comparison. Never has this been more of a cultural force than with the advent of social media and the instantaneous flaunting of airbrushed, filtered and doctored beauty and strength. We are bombarded with images of what life should be, making us critical of our own pathway and the complicated beauty that surrounds us. 

There's an entire industry built around these so-called "social media influencers," beautiful people living their "best lives" surrounded by products and places that are paying for the exposure. What a great gig. I'd like to get beautiful and have a job like that, get paid to just be awesome and do awesome things, but when I think about how and what and who those people are "influencing," I am not so sure they're as big as they think they are, no matter what their follower count looks like. 

I have a love-hate relationship with social media, and the fact that a lot of my work revolves around Facebook and Instagram audiences sometimes makes me feel a little panicky inside, like there's no escape, especially when I measure myself against the perceived success of a lot of people I have never met. The hate side is compounded by the holier-than-thou sneer I feel from a lot of people who "aren't on Facebook" or some other such aloofness to the shallow happenings in cyberspace. I am not always there because I want to be, and to be honest, some days it's a lot more vulnerability than I care for, but I know two things: I need to keep building and I need to keep being real - vulnerability is my gig, and I am grateful. 

Some comments and scorn from people, even ones close to me, have caused me to shut down for periods of time, hiding in my darkened place of shame because my flaws are to glaring to be exposed. The funny part is, the largest part of that scorn doesn't happen online. Most of my biggest critics are live and in the flesh and too good for social media, judging me for daring to publish my inadequacies for the whole world. But the best social media influencers don't get hung up on their flaws, and that's what I am aspiring toward.

Recently, our community lost a great man. Tim wasn't the Sexiest Man Alive and he didn't live on a yacht in Trinidad, but as far as social media influencers go, I can't think of a better role model. Tim retired a couple of years ago from a lifetime of community service as a law enforcement officer, only to find out shortly after his last shift that he had terminal cancer. Tim used his last couple of years in the best way possible, and if anybody lived their "best life," Tim and Barb beat all those pseudo-celebrities to the punch, hands down. 

These are the last couple of posts that Tim was able to share. I miss his morning greetings. 💔

Tim became a presence on Facebook, in his last few months, every day that he could find the energy and strength he would send out a message of hope and joy, and most of all, gratitude, to the community. To us, the rag-tag band of Facebook followers that were lucky enough to know him, Tim delivered warmth and love and in his final days, we watched an outpouring back onto his Facebook page from all the people that he had touched that was overwhelming. Tim is maybe one of the few people who really understood the power that social media can have when used the right way. Or maybe he didn't understand, he just found a good way to spill some love around the community. But if there was every a good reason, or a good way, to be on Facebook, Tim figured it out. 

Tim was a guy who spent his whole life using his brains and brawn to help other people, and as he felt his strength slowly slipping away, he found another way to give to the people around him. Never a complaint, while he endured what was probably overwhelming pain, Tim only had light to give. He modeled gratitude that wasn't hindered by the pain he was in. Far too young to leave this world, he faced his end with only encouragement for the rest of us. This is how social media should influence us. Not the bikini bodies and the gourmet meals and the polished fake perfection that we've bought into. 

Tim and his Facebook world are one of the reasons I will remain a staunch defender of social media, in spite of its downfalls. The connections that I have built that I otherwise never would have are some of the most powerful in my life. I knew Tim from my work on the ambulance, but I grew to know who he really was in his last few months on Facebook. Tim encouraged me to keep sharing my pictures and posts, saying he was living vicariously through me, while perfectly healthy, active people were mocking my posts, Tim was getting a kick out of all of my imperfect adventures. Cousins that I now count as friends never shared a meaningful conversation with me until we stumbled across each other and our mutual struggles through Facebook messenger. Friends I have made on social media from around the world have opened up professional and personal opportunities for me ... Say what you will about it, but there is community in the cyber world. It's no substitute for the real deal, maybe, but in our jet-setting age, how precious to have a community you carry with you as you globetrot. 

We don't live in rural pastoral villages with generations of the same families intermarrying like it used to be - well, most of us don't (ahem, Stevens County...). We live in constantly shifting and changing family structures and geographic locations and professional scenes, it's the nature of our world now, and it calls for a new kind of connection. 

I am grateful for social media, and I am grateful for the opportunity to develop my own niche of influencing and enjoy the value, however flawed that I might bring to one person in my vulnerability. I am grateful for Tim and the role model he was, and I intend to mirror his gratitude and positivity in my own online world. There's no need for anything else, really. People complain about how fake or flawed social media is, but it's only as fake as we let it be. Tim made Facebook a real and beautiful neighborhood to live in. I want to be like Tim. 

Things That are Good For Me

Ugh.

I have a question for the universe: Why are bad habits so hard to break, and good habits so hard to form? Also, why does healthiness cost a fortune?

Like seriously. Is it not enough that all healthy food has to taste like crap and all exercise is pure suffering... can it not be just a little bit easy and/or cheap to do something to improve my long term well-being on a regular basis? Ugh.

We traveled to Colombia last month, and part of our quest was to create some new habits of exercise and better eating in a warm, sunny place with more options than Colville. Sorry Tony's and Mr. Sub, it's nothing personal. While we succeeded in walking a lot and going to the gym (under protest, for some of us with the initials of ME) on a semi-regular basis, doing the work to find not-deep-fried food was a little trickier. Still, with the price tag of about $5-7 on a good, Argentinian Parilla Steak  in Colombia, we did ok some days and I actually lost a few pounds and improved my stamina and endurance.

I got all my pounds back with interest and quickly lost my stamina and endurance as soon as we got back to the States, where a good, clean steak costs upwards of $20 and macaroni & cheese whispers seductive sweetness from every menu for a fraction of the price of a salad. Even gym prices in place like Florida and Washington D.C. were outrageous. It cost me $25 for one yoga class in D.C., and while it was (honestly) totally worth in my post-Christmas blobbery, we paid that same amount for four classes in Medellin. Being healthy in the U.S. is hard and expensive.

Which makes me think that the conspiracy theorists actually have it figured out. If we can only afford to eat chemical-laden garbage here, then we will inevitably fall sick with (COMPLETELY AVOIDABLE) illnesses that require medical interventions that we can't afford so we have to have insurance (which we also can't afford, but it's cheaper than health care) and all of the big chemical/pharmaceutical companies and their political/commercial cronies are the ones that are making out like bandits while we're just getting more fat and miserable by the day, voting for all kinds of random band-aid solutions that just line the aforementioned pockets even more. IT'S A TRAP! Which is why conspiracy theorists quit their day jobs, grow enough beans and peaches to live on and stockpile guns. Or move to Colombia and live on good, clean Argentinian steak.

I think I will join the latter camp, because I just spent $35 on eggs and milk and cheese at Safeway here which was consumed completely 36 hours later and now all we have left to eat are saltine crackers and top ramen. And I wonder why I am 35lbs overweight. Real food costs too much, and so does exercise.

OK, there are other solutions, I know. Like I can (and do) do Yoga with Adriene (I just started her 30-day Dedicate Journey if you want in!) on YouTube for free. it's just frustrating because I can't stretch my arms into a Texas T for a supine twist because one hand goes under a chair and the other hand hits the coffee table, and then Dagny puts her slimy ball under my buns when I am in bridge pose and also my floor is cold. I still do it, and I am determined to make a habit of it, but it's hard to really Savasana well when the dog is furiously humping her boyfriend 14 inches from my head. Seriously. No amount of essential oil fixes that.

I say again... UGH. We're doing the gym membership thing here which violates all of my sensibilities because I feel like it's a crime to pay someone to make you suffer, but it's the only answer in this sedentary life we life. So I am finding ways to enjoy the Machines of Torture and the abject humiliation of mismatched leggings and athletic shoes and walls and walls of mirrors reminding me why I am there as I stand frumpily next to that One Girl who looks amazing doing incline sit ups - the move that is more an exercise in trying not to express unintentional flatulence than strengthening my core.

So. Frustrating. HAPPY NEW YEAR. My low-carb, mostly soup diet isn't going so well. The offspring hates soup and that One Guy isn't a fan of most things that are carbless. But I will keep trying. There's a way to do this. I am open to suggestions.

I just read this Mark Manson article about habits vs. goals and it was a good reminder/inspiration, put into the succinct, manageable terms that Manson is so good at enumerating, where he listed of 6 habits to focus on instead of making goals for the new year. Some of them I am already working on dialing in... like the EXERCISE every day thing. Having an Apple Watch makes this fun for me because it is my new Life Aspiration to close All the Circles before this Certain Guy every day. Sometimes I think he has his watch set to cheat because he gets more calorie/exercise credits than I do for the same workout. But whatever.

Manson's other 5 recommended habits include COOKING (which is something I determined a couple months ago was an imperative skill/habit to re-form after my eating out budget was higher than my mortgage payment), MEDITATION (which I SUCK at but am determined to work into my daily yoga practice with lots of discipline), READING (which I used to love but have let go, apparent in the 6-foot shelf of to-read books), and WRITING (which is why I am here today).

These six habits are exactly what I know I need to establish to keep me on track - I have gotten lazy and written off the failure to practice of these things as self-exploration or self-care, blah, blah, blah (insert psychobabble justification here), and I have found myself floating adrift, without a sense of direction or even why I am opening my eyes every morning.

Writing is the biggest one for me. Since I was a kid, journaling has been my saving grace. The thing that kept me from (worse) insanity and maybe even saved my actual life. I have quit writing anything personal lately not from fear of who might read it, but more fear of who might NOT read it, and it's terrifying for me to think that NOBODY CARES. But the reality is, that nobody might care, and THAT'S OK. Because it's about me. It's about getting the words and the thoughts and the feelings out there and if somebody hates it or if nobody reads it or if it's all senseless babble, that's still ok, because it's my thing, and to be who I am and get where I am going, I need to use my words without self-censorship or fear.

So I've got my work cut out for me in the next few months, forming habits and finding creative ways to afford (and enjoy) getting healthy and whole - body, soul, mind, and wardrobe. I'll be looking for workout buddies and healthy recipes, so hit me up! And once I get my six-foot shelf done I will be looking for books too.

My mantra a few years ago was this: It doesn't matter, nobody cares. My new mantra has a lot more power to it: Nobody Cares, Work Harder. My only goal for 2019 is to set aside fear and pain and replace them with love and gratitude. Tony Robbins says that fear and hurt can't co-exist with gratitude, and while I thought I was pretty good at being grateful, judging by the fear I've been living in lately, my gratitude needs some gym time as much as my body. Robbins says to replace expectation with appreciation, so one thought at a time, I will learn the habit of swapping those thoughts. And for me, writing that shit down makes it real, so here's the first step of a journey to a bigger, better, brighter me.

Thanks for listening, if you did, to my ramble. And if you didn't, that's ok too. ❤️

Things About Going Places: The Colombian Edition (episode I)

Wherever you go, there you are.

I am here in Colombia - the country, not the outlet store - and the most striking thing about the place is me. That no matter how exotic and fabulous a place might be, if I am there experiencing it, I am also there bringing the experience of me to it.

It seems like most problems should be curable with a lot of sunshine, cheap beer and a solid tan line, but the reality is that those things only make certain issues more uncomfortable. Like being overweight for instance. I wonder how much less I would sweat if I was a healthy weight? Truth be told if I were thinner it would be harder to achieve the fitness goals that my Apple Watch seems to set and change for me randomly. While I am soft and pasty it seems to cut me some slack and congratulate me for riding a long escalator uphill.

But seriously. I am no cooler in Colombia than I was in Colville. In fact, probably less so. Apparently "white-trash noir" isn't a thing here in Medellin, and I would fit in better with some grandma print shirts and pleather pants, which I am actively in the market for. So maybe "white-trash noir" is THE thing here, but less white. Either way, I am definitely doing it wrong. I was SO PROUD of packing so lightly and with such versatility, reading no less than 8 blogs on "how to pack for a month in changing climates" since Cartagena is on the ocean and Bogota is in the mountains and our adventure was definitely not planned out for wardrobe efficiency. But for all my cock-sure packing, it turns out that one pair of yoga pants, one pair of jeans, and some frumpy shorts are not all it takes to walk the streets of Medellin. (And by walk the streets, I don't mean in the professional sense, although I do know where to go if I need to make a few extra bucks.)

So far, in the six days that I have been in this country, I have learned how to successfully communicate through sign language that I don't speak Spanish (did you know that it's the same as the universal sign for choking? Or at least it seems to work every time) and how to tell a taxi the wrong place to go. In fact I am probably the best at that EVER. Of ALL TIME.

I've also gotten a bit of a sunburn on my left shoulder, won all sorts of badges on my apple watch and been groped by someone on a metro that was more crowded than my parents' stairs on Christmas Eve.

this is my future.

Shout out to the dude over at Desk to Dirtbag for his tips on visiting Medellin. He's been spot on so far. Some of the best things I have seen since I got to Medellin include a guy walking 17 dogs at once, the cleanest metro cars EVER, ALL OF THE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS, Fernando Botero sculptures which made me feel oddly comfortable and at home with their gross disproportion in Plaza Botero, the fact that at least 45% of cars have reindeer antlers on them, and on Saturdays and Sundays, how the city closes one direction of their four-lane north/south thoroughfare until 1300 so people can walk their dogs and kids all up and down it for fitness. Or maybe just to show off those amazing Colombian butts. Either way it's cool.

We took a Real City Tour with a guide named Pablo of the city center that was totally rad. He explained that the metro cars remain pristine even with people crammed into them like sardines because the metro is a source of civic pride. The construction of the metro in the late 80s symbolized the emergence of Medellin from the clutches of a violent era of cartel wars and murder in the streets. It represents hope to the people of a cleaner, better future. Pablo shared his earliest memories of mass murders in his neighborhood in the 1980s when Pablo Escobar's reign of terror was at its height, and the evil that plagued their city at the time.

We spent some time in Botero Plaza, around all of these fat, funny looking statues, and later, as I read about the sculptor, Fernando Botero, a Medellin native, his perspective of beauty and reality was an odd-shaped breath of fresh air. The artist said once "Art should be an oasis: a place or refuge from the hardness of life," and for many reasons, his sculptures are that for Medellin, and that place was for me, as well. The most poignant of his statues is a fat bird that sits in San Antonio Plaza, a large open square with an amphitheater on one end that is used for large public gatherings. In 1995, an unknown terrorist placed 22 lbs of dynamite at the base of the bird statue during a crowded event. 30 people were killed and more than 200 were injured. The artist, upon hearing that the mayor wanted to move the fractured statue from the square and erase all evidence of the violence, called and demanded it be left as a reminder. He then crafted an identical bird which stands, whole and unscathed, next to the demolished one, as a tribute to hope and peace. This is Medellin. And I kind of love it.

The Birds of Peace by Fernando Botero (also kind of reminds me of a Madi bird)

They also have this alcohol here that is sort of like bourbon to Kentucky, or Fireball to Northport, called Aguardiente, which literally means "fire water." I did some professional research before getting involved and learned that most of the locals drink it "sin azucar" to avoid a hangover the next day. It tastes just like Good n' Plenty candy, but with less sweet. So basically, black licorice, but not in a Jaegermeister way. It's actually really good, especially with some good ol' fashioned American Country Music at the end of a long, weird day in a hostel room that you can't figure out how to use the air conditioner in. (Don't worry, we figured it out by day 3). Also Aguardiente, or "guaro" as the locals call it, seems to be a pretty sound remedy for a belly that has some reservations about the empanadas you bought from that one place on the corner that Pablo said was good.

Definitely do try this at home. (warning: might lead to bed-jumping-on Sammy Kershaw sing-a-longs)

Speaking of food, they have these things here called "buneulos." I feel bad telling you about them because you can't find them wherever it is you are, unless you are Colombian, and other than Pablo, I only know one of you (hi LUNA!), But HOLY COW. It's sort of like a savory donutty thing that is deep fried cornbread with cheese mixed in and quite possibly one of the four best things I have ever eaten, right behind steak, pizza and chicken chow mien. I've only allowed myself one buneulo so far, because (referring to paragraph one) I already have enough extra pounds to sweat off, but jiminy christmas they are yum. 

a BUNEULO! (P.S. that church behind me [in addition to being the oldest church in Medellin] is also where the professional streetwalkers hang out.)(P.S. II - that's another Botero statue behind me as well. She and I have some curves in common.)

Anyway, for now, I am going to go back to being me, here, and here with me, because it turns out I can't escape it, even if I have more tasty buneulos to brag about than beautiful Colombian butt (but I hear surgery is cheap here...). I know you all have a million questions, mostly about coffee and cocaine, so I will touch on those in my next blog. Ciao! 

Things About Avoidance

It's been a battle for me to write lately. I've been in a place of self-censorship and insecurity that makes me feel like my words are useless and have no meaning. I seem to be able to pull together 250 words about Maren Morris' new album, and other things that pay the bills, but when it comes to getting real and getting personal, I have had this hardcore block for awhile. It's straight fear based, and I hate it. I don't know what I am so afraid of, because like Morris says in her interview, there will be critics everywhere whether we act or speak or think or whether we do none of those things.

I guess I've had to work in jobs that required intense self-regulation and thought suppression, and it's hard to recover from that. I have also faced some conflict in recent months that has made me question the validity of my own thoughts. It's made me re-examine how I view things and my own worthiness to have, much less offer, an opinion. I've also had to work in jobs that required intense self-regulation and thought suppression, and it's hard to recover from that.

Don't get me wrong, humility is a beautiful thing, it really is, but unworthiness is an ugly monster that paralyzes. I hate being paralyzed. It's so inefficient. Hate it. There's such a fine line between the humility of knowing that your ideas and perspectives are never more than half-baked in this crazy world, and the harsh judgement of external (and internal) voices telling you that you're an idiot, or that you've been more wrong than right. Usually I stay sane by remembering that I never have all the answers, or the whole story, but lately, I have felt like I don't have any answers and I haven't even gotten into the first chapter of the story.

So I've been on silent mode. All the buzzing ideas and thoughts are muted and I push them down and away to avoid letting anybody know they're there, much less subject them for review. The worst part about this mode of operating is that I feel dumber every single day. If we aren't throwing our ideas and thoughts around and having them pitched back to us with tweaks and new understanding, our brains are just lying fallow, absorbing whatever tripe is funneled into them. That's where I've been. Absorbing tripe. Not sharpening, not reflecting, just becoming saturated with unfiltered blather that is shoveled at me. I'm so over it. I am so ready to be "woke." To start risking my own thoughts again. And to wrestle with the fear and pain of conflict if that's what they create.

I still have things to say. I've just been hitting the silent button for so long that I feel like I've forgotten how to use my words. I've lost my voice.

I'm setting out today on a month long adventure to new places, doing awesome things, and it's time to find my voice again. It's time to see the world and process it through my own flawed perspective and see what new things I can add to it. It's time to talk about it and hear all of the things I have missed. It's time to be sharpened again. It's time take my soul off silent mode and be grateful that I have one, trusting that the voice I have been given was so that someone could hear it. Silence is ok for a season of rest, but it's not ok for a season of avoidance.

Bear with me as I awkwardly blunder my way back into thinking, and stumble around the words that have become so foreign to me.

I missed NaNoWriMo, but I plan to write December into an epoch, one sentence at a time, and I think I will do it from exciting, exotic places. Because why not?

Things About Division

"If there is a country in the world where concord, according to common calculation, would be least expected, it is America. Made up as it is of people from different nations, accustomed to different forms and habits of government, speaking different languages, and more different in their modes of worship, it would appear that the union of such a people was impracticable; but by the simple operation of constructing government on the principles of society and the rights of man, every difficulty retires, and all the parts are brought into cordial unison." - Thomas Paine, Rights of Man

I’ve been sitting here, (mostly) quietly, watching. 

Watching, listening. Waiting to see. For two years, since the Man Who Would Be our 45th president was elected, I have watched, somewhat in shock and awe along with the rest of America, wondering what would happen. 

As our nation has slowly become more and more polarized left to right, more and more divided, I’ve watched the hate grow on both sides. I’ve seen extremes grow and become exacerbated.  Political and social swings become more and more violent and the space between grows ever larger.

I’ve been watching, mostly, trying to not pick sides, waiting to let the fruit of our actions as a nation to deliver the verdict. But here we are, at another election and there’s something I wanna say.

We have battles to fight right now. I’m a firm believer that “evil will triumph when good men do nothing” (not Edmund Burke) and I’m a firm believer in moral courage - standing up for what you believe in, and doing the right thing. 

I believe that these battles we face today need to be fought correctly. I believe bringing guns into a fight that should to be won in legislation is wrong. I believe that taking innocent lives in the name of "moral courage" is wrong. I believe that violence against law enforcement and other federal employees is wrong, whether it is radicalized offshoots of the Black Lives Matter movement or ranchers in eastern Oregon that are initiating the attacks.

That’s why I have to say this: I came of age in a “Christian community." I have been out of it for some time now. The belief system in that place dictates that those followers take dominion over the earth for the kingdom of God, beginning in the local community. One of the best ways to do this is by becoming politically involved in local government. That being said, I have a high level of respect for people from the community to which I formerly belonged who have chosen to run for office. I do not agree with their religious platform, but I support their right to believe in it and campaign boldly. 

In the last few weeks I have had to wrestle the demons of my own personal experience to find and understand this for myself. I've had to overcome anger at injustice that I have both witnessed and experienced, and separate my pain from the truth that there is strength in embracing our very different world views.

I won’t vote for them. Heck, I’ll probably lobby against them. But they’re doing it the right way and I will give the ones that do credit for it. Rick Johnson is running for assessor. I won’t vote for Rick, but I support the fact that he is managing his campaign with dignity and I respect him for what he’s trying to do. He's not storming the county courthouse with his guns drawn and I dig that.

This country works because we have different beliefs. If we all believed the same thing, we'd wipe ourselves out in pretty short order (see Idiocracy). We need diversity to move ahead and we need conflict to affect change, but conflict needs to be resolved the right way. Not by killing police officers. Not by pulling guns on federal employees or occupying federal property - but by changing legislation. By voting, by campaigning, by being active in our communities and swaying the vote in a direction that we believe in strongly with powerful words and intelligent actions, while at the same time respecting those across the fence from us.

“I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an ass of yourself.” - Oscar Wilde

What we’ve lost in the last few years isn’t a moral compass, it isn’t good intentions - what we have lost is respect for each other. We have lost self-control. We have lost patience and understanding with each other. We have taken our own personal hurts and turned them into the reasons that we condemn and judge people who are different than we are. I am as guilty as anyone of this. We lose a loved one to senseless murder by gunfire and all gun owners become our enemy. We lose a loved one to an officer-involved shooting and all cops are bad. Our personal liberties are threatened, new taxes and laws imposed and our frustration becomes personal. 

We have lost sight of the differences that make us powerful. Our founding fathers understood this and set into place guiding standards for our governing systems. 

“... for where there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and persecute the rest.” -James Madison, Federalist #10.

The pendulum swing of our political climate has become emotionally driven by hyper-excited media and showboating politicians on both sides. We have forgotten that our neighbors are good people, (unless you live next door to a serial killer) and they want what's best for all of us too. 

“We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” - Thomas Paine

Vote your hearts out, friends. Vote conservative or liberal, democrat or republican, or howeverthehell you want, and share your beliefs passionately, but find some love in your heart for the ones who challenge your thoughts, because in the end, they can either sharpen your mind and build your compassion or they can make you dull and obnoxious and earn you a hefty filtering on social media. 

Stand up for what you believe in. Do it the right way. Love your neighbor. Be a better human. 

Be a better human, or if possible, a pirate.

“Think as you please, and so let others, and you will have no disputes.”- Thomas Jefferson

Things About Bright Spots

I can't say that this summer was the best of summers.

It certainly wasn't the worst. But it was far from the best. 

In spite of a mediocre and almost disheartening summer, I learned a lot. And a lot of good things happened. And I think that all of those little bright spots are really the best. Because a bright spot can make the worst day better. 

Sometimes life is hard. Like when you have to wear something other than sweatpants. Or you run out of cream for your coffee. But sometimes, when life seems like it's the hardest ever, somebody shows up with the Little Ray of Sunshine that you just needed. And the jeans don't choke you quite as much, and the black coffee almost tastes good. I learned this summer that people do change. Maybe it isn't the people that you were hoping would change, but somebody did. I think I have changed a lot this summer. In some ways I have gotten stronger. In other ways I have come to terms with my weaknesses. And in both ways it's good. 

Things About This Week

The Important Things.

The first week of October used to be a good one. 15 years ago on October 3rd, I gave birth to my fourth and final kid, and for once, I was in a hospital with a real doctor. I even had drugs. Granted, I was afraid of being paralyzed by an epidural (nobody messes with my CSF!), so I opted for something else that I had never tried. The doc gave me Stadol when I got to The Best Part of Labor (clearly sarcastic), and while the painkiller never seemed to touch the pain, I was transported to this alternate reality wherein I was some ultra-hot and feisty Latina Gangster, bossing my minions around the birthing room in my flippant New-York-Hispanic accent.

Luckily my delusion didn't transfer over since the nurse later said I was just glaring at her really meanly the whole time, but I remember having very fancy fingernails while Montgomery Gentry's "Hell Yeah" blared from the little alarm clock radio, followed by Faith Hill's "Breathe," which I remember thinking was ironically appropriate, even though I could not express that to the people in my room because I was far too busy telling off my putas (don't look that up, mom) and making drug deals in my head.

But that was 15 years ago.

And then 8 years ago, the first week of October became something else. My sister and her (then) three kids were in a terrible accident, and we were about THISCLOSE to losing most of them. She was almost full term with her fourth child and her first daughter. The baby didn't survive the wreck.

I got a call from an EMT friend with a scanner who knew it was my family. I'll never forget that call. I lived in Bend at the time, and I remember rounding up my kids from their various and assorted schools and leaving town in a big hurry. Kizzie still had her Volleyball knee pads on when we left town. We drove like hell to get there, because the only thing I knew was that it was bad. We weren't even sure we'd get to say goodbye. My sister and one of my nephews had been flown by fixed-wing air to Spokane and the other two boys were in the hospital in Colville in various stages of being transported south for treatment of multi-system injuries.

I'm an EMT, right? I've been on some bad wrecks, I've dealt with the blood, the guts, the limbs postured in unnatural ways, even the dead bodies that I've had to work on, to try - just try, for families. But nothing could have prepared me for the sight of my own sister, an unnatural shade of greenish white, bruises all over her body only hours after the wreck, in that hospital bed. Before I could even say hi, I had to step back out of the room and put my head down by my knees. The whole hospital hallway was spinning out of control. It took me a couple minutes to be able to stay upright long enough to hold her hand and weep with her.

In the days and weeks and years leading up to that event, my large, very close and very opinionated family had seen turmoil. Division and hurt and events that give even the most loving families pause in their close-knit relationships. That moment erased all the petty differences that had created wedges between us. The reality of life's brevity and the tiny instant that can change everything suddenly make nothing as important as loving others and knowing you are loved by them. No points to prove, no issues to discuss, not even being right is important in a moment like that. We are all stripped to a level of equality that is based entirely on the humble experience of the fragility of life. None of us has got shit to defend. Period. There is nothing so important that it should break love - death does that soon enough.

A couple years later, a close friend was badly injured in a fall during the first week of October. The sole provider for his family, it sent all of us close to him back to the trenches, pulling together to get them through some of the scariest moments of that we've had to endure. These moments, when our human frailty is paramount to our goals and plans and dreams, are the moments when the truth of who we are as humans prevails.

Since then, the first week of October has brought us mass shootings in Roseburg, Oregon in 2016 at a community college, and last year the murder of 58 people in Las Vegas at the Route 91 Harvest Festival. If a random slaughter isn't enough to make you stop and think, then you're doing it wrong. For many people, the first week of October changed forever 25 years ago today, when one of the most intense 15-hour battles in U.S. military history took place in Mogadishu, Somalia. One hundred American Soldiers held a force ten times their size off in an attempt to rescue the crews of two downed Black Hawk helicopters. 17 Americans were killed, and the bodies of slain soldiers were dragged through the streets. The violence was captured on film and changed the landscape of our recent military memory forever. A new generation of heroes was born when those images infiltrated living rooms across America.

The first week of October has become, for me, a moment to remember what's really important. And maybe I am overly dramatic, but even that thought process triggers an avalanche of conflicted emotions for me. I'm about 36 hours home from 80 days on fire assignments this summer, a record for me, but even as the paycheck posts to my account I reflect on the summer and I wonder if I am doing it right. Should I be here more? What am I missing out on? How would I pay the bills otherwise?

I listened to Warren Buffet's 5/25 principle, the idea that if you don't focus all of your energy on the five most important things to you, all of your efforts and investments get watered down and diluted to the point of ineffectiveness. I sat kind of dumbly after listening.

What five things are the most important to me? Making sure my last kid gets turned loose into adulthood with a reasonable hope of success? Traveling? Not being in debt? I feel like the truest answers to the Five Important Things question are maybe the irresponsible ones. What if the most important thing to me is saving all the dogs? Can I put my kid up for adoption to facilitate that? Or what if my Number 1 priority is not being alone? Then I'd have people lined up to counsel me about the Joy of Loving Myself and offering to pay for therapy. I realize I am off on a total rabbit trail here, but it's been a Very Long Time since I wrote anything for myself, and there's a lot of words bound up in this head.

Anyway, today is my first and maybe only "day off" in awhile. Obligation free, other than some cupcakes that need making, a few articles I want to write, and a doctors appointment to see if they make a drug that helps one discern the Five Important Things. Is that Adderall? If it is, I want it.

But for today my five things include: Loving My People, Taking the Steps, Making the Birthday, Fixing the Broken and a lot of quality couch time with my one Tiny and Insecure Dog. What are your Five Things Today? I hope at least one of them includes some cuddling.

Things About Broken Hearts

Let's be honest: none of us get out this unscathed. We've all had our hearts broken. From the first time that our mothers swatted our hands away from a hot stove and we didn't understand how the nurturer became the bearer of violence against us, we've experienced the pain of betrayal.

We've had our hearts broken as small children when your friends don't let you join them at the potato stamp table in kindergarten (this is me sharing my most vulnerable moments with you), and again as middle schoolers when your BFF tells the cute boy about that one time you picked your nose and ruins you FOREVER.

Your heart is broken again and again in high school when your One True Love turns out not to be and dumps you for the girl who snuck out of the house in the ultraminiskirt. Every disappointment grows in importance as you sense an ever closer approach to Destiny...

And then your heart break again when the Forever that was supposed to be Destiny end in abysmal disaster. Or even if you find some version of Happily Ever After, there are always the ups and downs and mini heart breaks, and the major ones. The days when some hurts feel like they are unbearable.

The more people you love, the greater your odds are, statistically speaking, to face more heartache in your life. Even the happiest of families have their dark moments. We unintentionally inflict pain on the ones we love the most because it's in those spaces that we are the most real, and the most insensitive sometimes. There is no love without hurt. It's the hurting that love causes that gives us art and music and poetry and philosophy.

Even Tim and Faith, with their decades of shining perfection in marriage, have broken each other’s hearts, I guarantee it. With an unkind word, a poor karaoke choice, or that mid 90s turtleneck trend. Even the perfect ones among us inflict a little heartache on each other now and then.

If you're not a sociopath, the question isn't IF you'll get a broken heart, the question is when, and your investment into the lives around you will be rewarded in equal amounts of heartache when those lives inevitably face hardship. 

I've wrestled a lot lately with the whole idea of parenthood as something that is anything more than perpetual heartache. Since my kids were babies it feels like it's been a non-stop freight train speeding, out of control, of things that can (and often do) go wrong. It picks up speed and momentum the older they get. The momentary glimpses of triumph and joy get overshadowed by the hard things. By rejections and  breakups and failures and dashed hopes. Happiness and success come at the high cost of hard work and stress and heartache. 

I watch other parents and I wonder ,when they proclaim the joy of parenting, what it is I am doing wrong as I lie awake night after night and worry whether one kid's firefighting career will be ended by a knee injury and whether there is any earthly way to pay for another kid's college tuition, and just exactly how many sporting events have to be attended and how many phone bills have to be paid to ensure that I am doing my parently duty. As they become adults and make adults decisions, there is little comfort in the knowledge that I am not legally responsible for the grown-up choices they make, because it doesn't exempt me from feeling the pain of the consequences they bear. Raising kids is just an ongoing evolution of breaking hearts. 

But it's worth it. Just like falling in love, knowing the life expectancy of any relationship these days is pretty pathetic, is still worth it. And you step up to bat again and again because those momentary highs are worth it, and even more, the people that you love, that you believe in, are worth it, even when they hurt you. Sure, there are limits. There's a time to pull the plug and walk away. There's even a time to disconnect the phone line and draw boundaries, but in this era of disposable everything, there are still people worth taking the hits for. There are bigger stories than the trauma of a moment. 

What parenting, and love, and being related to other human beings has taught me, is that heartbreak is survivable. It can be endured again and again and again. The real tell of a human being is whether they will get back up and love again after each break. The character of a person lives in their willingness to walk headfirst into the next round of heartbreaks for the people that they love. 

Even in the last few months I have felt the weight of heartache that I didn't think I could bear, and while I struggled to walk the steps of each day in the darkest moments, I knew it would not be my last time in that valley. I knew that I would run back into the fray, I would open up my barely healed heart and I would do it again, because there is no life without love. 

I know each time that I feel like I can't carry another burden for one of my loved ones, somehow there's a second wind and we pick up the pieces and move on. History has taught me that I am resilient, and hopefully that resilience is something that the people I love can learn with me, as we break each others hearts again and again with the mistakes we make. 

The only thing I can promise them is that I will never, ever, EVER, be caught up in a turtleneck craze, and they're always welcome at my potato stamp table. 

Things That ACTUALLY Help During Fire Season

Noisy Creek Fire, Washington State, 2017

It's officially fire season. If you want to know how you can ACTUALLY help out during a wildfire in your area, here are some ideas: 

If you want to do something to help out firefighters working on the lines, here are some tips to help keep the mayhem in fire camp at a minimum: 

- Firefighters are required as part of their job to come FULLY equipped for a two week assignment, with all of their personal gear, toiletries, socks, toothpaste etc. Everybody likes free stuff, but nobody in fire camp should be here unprepared.

- Most camps will turn away donations because they don't have the manpower to deal with distributing them and stuff will just get shuffled off to local food banks, shelters, etc. at the end of the incident. If you INSIST on donating stuff the most useful, most asked things are preventatives like Emergen-C, vitamins, or coffee (see below). 

- Firefighters are provided with over the counter medicines like Tylenol and DayQuil, Gold Bond Powder, foot care items, chapstick, sunscreen and insect repellent through the medical unit. 

- Homemade/baked goods can open Incident Management teams to health liabilities and will usually be turned away as well. They also violate the contract with food caterers in fire camp who provide everything necessary to meet the firefighter's 6000 calorie a day requirement, including snacks. This is for firefighter health and safety.

- Gatorade, water and ice are all provided. Don't buy this stuff for us.

- Contribute to local volunteer departments who have limited funding and face the toughest job during the first hours of initial attack. The volunteers often have to buy their own boots and supplies without any reimbursement, and they don't get paid like professional wildland firefighters who are on the clock, paid, for 14-16 hours a day.

- Fire camp coffee is brutal. If there is a fire camp near town, pay a few coffees forward at a local coffee stand for the firefighters that will be coming through. Or again, if you insist on bringing something to camp, instant coffee packets (like Starbucks Via) are like gold out here.

- Donate to the Wildland Firefighter Foundation (https://wffoundation.org/). They will be there for the firefighter when they, or their families, truly need it the most.

PLEASE SHARE!

P.S. - I know that everybody is an expert, so if you're wondering, I am speaking from 15 year of fire experience in both volunteer and paid positions as a Fireline EMT and a Public Information Officer. I have worked all over the U.S. (even Alaska) for every level of Incident Management Team, including running the medical unit for Type 3 firefighting organizations. 

Things About Appropriate Footwear

even breakfast laces don't make these more fun to wear

Here's the thing. I hate being told what to wear. It probably has something to do with denim jumpers and verses in Leviticus, but for whatever reason, biblical or otherwise, it's a trigger point for me. Stand to reason of course, that my life would be made up of a series of questionable wardrobe choices and violating societal mores that result in being told, more often than not, to go change what I am wearing. I even got sent home from school one year when I was teaching because a visiting parent didn't like a fire hoodie I was wearing.

When fire season rolls around, I have to brace myself for the inevitable wearing of the required uniform. The anti-airflow Nomex pants (there is a reason Gold Bond is so popular out here) and frumpy, scratchy shirts (unless you score an old school yellow off an aging DIVS who has outgrown his), and as a Public Information Officer, the dreaded POLO SHIRT.

Someday I will write a blog about polo shirts and how they fall into the same category as capri pants and visors. But footwear. Footwear is the greatest struggle for me. I prefer to live wild and free with as little confinement on my feet as possible, like flip flops. Fire boots do not fit this lifestyle preference. Nor do many other fire camp shoes I have tried.

Traveling doesn't count, Jim.

I have discovered, through more than one helpful talking-to from people in logistics, safety, or occasionally the IC himself, that flip flops are not acceptable footwear in fire camp, even if I call them tactical (this designation helps the moccasin, however, see below). So, being the careful rule-follower that I am (ahem), I gave up trying to get away with wearing flip-flops in fire camp years ago (even though some of my direct supervisors may say otherwise [JIM]), but I will confess pushing the boundaries in my choice of fire-camp footwear in lieu of my go-to standard.

Coming off the line after 12 hours of sitting in my truck (ok, sometimes I hike too) in stuffy fire boots that stifle my creativity and inhibit my cross-legged sitting habit, I am eager to get into something more comfortable as soon as safely allowable, or sooner, if nobody in overhead notices. These are some of the fire-camp footwear frontrunners that I have either experienced or seen.

The Crocs

Lightweight, easy, ridiculous. Sure you can, but why? That's all I will say here.

The Outdoorsy Keen

I have several friends who can or will only wear Keen shoes. I get it, they are versatile, and they scream "I am an avid outdoorsperson who also values comfort and durability." What's not to love, right? Keens are OK, but I have tried over 20 pairs and haven't found a single style that fits my foot correctly, so these aren't a great option for me. 

The Running Shoe

This is the fire camp standard. This is anyone with an O number that wants to convey the message: "I am fire qualified (hence the nomex) but have advanced in years and/or experience to the level of daily comfort footwear. But I am also ready to run."

I have worn various iterations of running shoes which invariable make me feel like a poser (since I don't run unless it's to save my life) and although they're lighter than boots, they still require tying and all of the difficulty of putting on that every laced shoe demands. The payoff is in comfort and good pedal support for long days on concrete, wood chips or a folding chair.

The Chucks

I guess you could pretty much call me SOF

Over the years, I have worn baldies (Chuck Taylor's, for the uniformed), which are ok until late season wet fire camp grass or soggy sawdust penetrates the canvas and they never dry out. This year I bit the cost bullet and got a pair of Altama Low Tide Raid Shoes from Grunt Style because they looked really rad. Like baldies on steriods. Like I am actually a badass, and not just a wannabe. These are pricey (I can get you 20% off if you're interested), but they are water resistant (kept my feet dry in a torrential downpour) and if they do get wet, which they're designed to do, it drains out these cool little spots that double as breathable vents (making them cooler than your run-of-the-mill Gortex footwear), and they dry STAT, which I think means really fast in emergency-room-tv-show lingo. Also they are worn by actual badasses, so there is that.

The Tactical Moccasin

This is my absolute favorite, when I can get away with it. Depending on the fire assignment, the management team, and how many effs I give, these will pass muster. For about the last four years, I have been wearing Minnetonka Cally Moccasins. The first couple of years, I wore one pair into tattered little pieces of unrecognizable leather. Now I bite the bullet and get a new pair at the beginning of every season because they get trashed around camp all summer, and because when they're brand new they're SO SOFT AND SQUISHY inside that it's like wrapping your feet in baby bunnies. If I have to explain why this is a good thing then there isn't much point in continuing this conversation with you. In the medical unit, these have been a lifesaver. Or a footsaver, at least. I have been asked to refrain from wearing them in some camps, but I will keep trying until Tactical Moccasins are universally accepted as camp-appropriate footwear. Maybe I can work in a diversity argument and my Native American roots... except I haven't got any.

So there it is. Everything you never wanted to know about what to put on your feet in fire camp, or any camp for that matter. And lots of pictures of my feet, which are fairly important feet as far as feet go. The have a lot of traveling to do.

Things About Wannabes

We're all wannabes. 

I was told a long time ago that I was a wannabe. I was told again and again by insecure men and women. The ones who were wannabes themselves. Wannabe religious icons. Wannabe conduits of the Holy Spirit. Wannabe idols. Wannabe controllers. They told me how I was a wannabe wife. A wannabe mother. A wannabe Christian and firefighter and EMT and everything else I’d ever imagine being. They kept me in submission with the constant reminder that I’d never quite arrive. 

It took me years to realize that none of us ever will. 

You show me somebody who’s the shining star of confidence in his chosen field and I’ll show you somebody who’s lying awake at night wondering if anybody else noticed the glaring flaws that are keeping him up all night. Dollars to donuts even Donald Trump returned from Helsinki wondering if the whole world was actually right, and how he can convince them otherwise, even if he secretly agrees that he fucked up. 

It’s the over-confident ones that are the most wannabe of all. The ones who really have something to prove. The blow-hard name droppers who can’t let their actions speak for themselves. The ones who claim to have God’s own corner on truth. Those are the real wannabes. 

Either that or they’re just straight narcissists. But that’s a whole different blog post. 

It’s the perfect wife and mother who struggles the most with her inadequacy. It’s the most successful businessman who can never make the ultimate power play. It’s the most pious priest who hides the most depravity. 

We’re all wannabes. From Donald Trump to Mother Theresa. We all know there’s a next level that we haven’t hit. But the ones with the most power are the ones with the humility to own it. To wear it proudly like a key to adventure slung heavily around our necks. When there’s always something to learn, there’s always somewhere to go, and life is movement. Life is nothing without growth and exploration to see whats around the corners we haven’t turned yet. 

Hell yeah, I’m a wannabe. And it’s wanting to be that has led me through a thousand new doorways into places I never would’ve imagined. I’m happy to have arrived on the neverending path of curiosity and unfinished business. 

I have definitely arrived when it comes to beer. Beer level = EXPERT.

Things About Manifesting (And Me Being Always Right)

I recently had an argument with a friend about the whole idea of manifesting goodness in your life. You know, that hinky, feel-good contrivance about imagining how you want things to be in your life and making them magically unfold through boundless optimism and faith? Like what that silly book The Secret was pushing.

Anyway, my friend was insistent that it was working for him, because he had some good things fall into place once he decided that they were going to happen. The argument basically went down like two one-sided discussions where I told him he was wrong because what REALLY made things happen was his hard work and focus, and he ignored me and continued heralding the praises of manifesting things out of thin air through nothing more than optimistic thinking. Whatever. If it works, it works, I guess, although I still maintain that he passed an important test because he actually studied and worked hard, and not because the Cosmic Powers decided he was joyful enough to grant him an Advance to Go card.

I don't think manifesting is the thing. I think what really helps is the DECIDING part, where you completely settle on what it is you want, and then start moving forward to make it happen. It's the waffling indecision that holds us back from plunging head and heart first into the Really Important Things. I mean, you don't get a job by sitting on the couch and imagining how great it's going to be. You get a job by convincing an interview board that you're the BOMB, because you've decided that you want. that. job. But you still have to go through the hellish interview process and iron a suit or decide which eye shadow is the least whoreish.

You don't build a strong relationship by hoping things work out and waiting to see. It takes risk and hard work and pain and digging in your heels.

Just like you don't pass a test by believing that the answers will mystically emerge from your noggin, you pass a test by studying hard and removing distractions that block you from accessing the information that you've put in there. Or by taking Ritalin. Either way, you've decided it's important, and you make it happen but going there and doing the thing and feeling the stress and overcoming.

no easy button

Last year I read some self-help book that I can't remember now that changed my way of thinking about how I went after things that I want. I've always been trapped in this learned helplessness of predestination and The Will of The Lord for my life that is completely ensconced in happily-ever-after fairy tales and meant-to-be bullshit. It's only in the fortieth year of my existence that I am really coming to terms with the ownership of my own "destiny" and the importance of my decisions and choices - not necessarily on what happens in my life, although as much as possible I am learning to exercise control where I can, but more on how I respond to the things that happen around me.

I'm slowly evolving from the intimidated position of choking down the sludge that I am dished out in belief that it's what I deserve based on what I have been told by the outside world, to knowing and believing that I am the one who gets to decide what I deserve and can digest the consequences of my actions accordingly, along with the rewards of the fearless taking of what is mine without remorse. Crappy things happen in life. Sometimes we don't deserve them. Thinking I can avoid them by imagining good things is just a setup for major disappointment.

But good things happen too. Not because I imagine them, but because I have decided to move forward one (sometimes painful) step at a time in the direction that I know is right and that opens doors. Sometimes, occasionally, or, if I am honest, often, The direction that "I knew" was right ends up being slightly off course, but I have learned from experience that there is something down every path for me, even if it's the wrong one. Because no wrong turns. Because sometimes the wrong way ends up being the adventure you didn't expect that changes your life. Sometimes it seems like a lucky break, but most of the times I've been lucky it's because a step that I took somewhere along the way put me in the position to run into an opportunity. Seneca says that "Luck Is What Happens When Preparation Meets Opportunity," and I want to be prepared for the opportunities, not just wishing for them.

If manifesting works for my friend (who is still wrong), then that's great, but I see the hard work that he's doing, the steps he's taking, to "manifest" the good things and open doors in his life. If he wants to give credit to some higher mystical powers for his wins, that's his choice, but I plan on taking credit for the shit that I have to slog through to get where I want to be.

I believe in good things alright, I can see them in my mind's eye, but imagining and hoping isn't the thing. It's the getting back up and dusting off your ass when life kicks you square in the gut and tells you to stay down - that's what wins the day. It's the courage to ask for what you know you deserve, and not apologize, which I am still learning. It's the balls to keep going, step by step, down a path that sometimes seems bleak and endless and lonely, knowing that right around one of those corners all the trudging will pay off for a little while. But it's the trudging, not the dreaming, that gets you around the corner.

So what he calls manifesting I call manual labor, or hard work, and we can agree to disagree. (But I am still right.)