Tag: depression

Push, Pull

Twenty-five years ago, I went kayaking as part of a group outing. I had kayaked a few times on fresh-water lakes in Wisconsin but had never experienced the cold waters of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Oregon.  It was a bit daunting to launch into the cold water, starting off in a sheltered bay and heading out into the big blue.

Luckily, we had a good leader. Micah. He taught us the basics, how to get in and out of an overturned kayak in cold water, how to paddle. This basic instruction has turned out to be quite handy.

Tidbit #1:  You will need to paddle back. Do not blow your wad outbound, you need to make it back to shore. (Your guide is NOT going to drag your sorry ass back!) Pace yourself. This is especially important if you are stupid enough to go into deep water on your own. There is no guide to drag your sorry ass home. It was nice knowing you.

Tidbit #2:  Master your paddling technique. I was struggling with my paddle, trying to pull the oar to me to try to get somewhere. Micah pointed out to me that it is much easier to push the paddle away. A person can push all day, while pulling will exhaust a person very quickly. I use this technique every time I paddle a kayak and it works beautifully. Push, push, push… listen to the water glide past your boat.

I am so glad I figured out that pushing is easier than pulling. Pulling gives you blisters.

Pushing and pulling is not just for kayaking.

Over the years, I have had a several different positions in my career. Years ago, I had switched to a new clinic with expectations of improved hours, pay and professional satisfaction. A year and a half later, it was not as expected or promised. Several meetings with management had produced no change.

After a bit of anguish, I quit my job. It was terrible but afterward I felt a sense of calm. The manager asked me how I had decided to quit and out of the blue I quoted Kris Kristofferson’s Me and Bobby McGee, “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose…”  

The manager smiled. She got me. I moved on. They had a hard time replacing me and lost more money than they would have if they had worked it out with me.

On that occasion, I would say that I got pushed. I needed a push. I think management thought they were pulling me into line, but what happened is that they pushed me a little too hard and I returned the favor by jumping overboard.

Speaking of jumping overboard- remember Jaws? That movie has scarred me for life. “We need a bigger boat.” Or not.

I have had the experience of paddling both a one-man boat and a two-man boat. Now that is a terrific experiment. I recommend it.

My Sister and I took a two-man kayak into Monterey Bay. It was a delightful trip and we saw a baby seal get born. It was amazing, until our guide yelled, “Paddle!” The baby seal was getting too close to our boat and we had to maintain a proper distance. We paddled and got to a safe distance. Whew.  The guide told us to follow him.

So, I started paddling. I was paddling hard and making no progress. I looked back and my sister had her paddle dug in to keep us where we were… she had not heard the new directions and was keeping us steady.

I wanted to thump her on the head with my paddle. I had exhausted myself! For naught!

Note to self… when you are in the same boat make sure you know where you are going and make sure both people are paddling. For me, the better choice is to paddle my own boat. It only took me 50 years to figure that one out.

It is not just me in case you were wondering.

On a different trip about a decade later, I was invited to go a group kayaking tour of Ding Darling Nature Preserve in Florida. It was mostly a couple’s thing, but my friend who invited me said there were two single boats and I would have one and her boyfriend would paddle the other one. The other boats had a variety of sisters or married couples put together in boats. She apologized that I would have to paddle alone. I told her I would be more than happy to go it alone.

The boyfriend and I were the only ones who enjoyed the trip.

The rest of the group came out of the water ready to kill. It is not easy to paddle in tandem. I was paddling around and easily able to navigate the boat and glide through the water. I saw mangroves and birds and other lovely things. I could go close to the shore or out into the middle of the stream. Towards the end, I was ahead of everyone. I waited at a buoy.

One couple caught up to me and the husband said, “We beat everyone!” I laughed and said, “Not everyone!”  He gave me the evil eye. I could tell that from his point of view the little girl alone in her boat did not count. Asshole.

Twenty years later…

I am still pushing. I occasionally regress into pulling and wear myself out. It happened a bit this year. The pandemic has not been kind to me. My profession was impacted by the pandemic and it has been a struggle to keep it together. Quite a few of my colleagues are retiring. I am too young, so that is not an option for me. In a way, I think that is good because when the only option is to keep going… you keep going.

I became a bit too socially isolated and danced with depression. Luckily, my friends and family recognized that I was losing it and brought me back to sanity.

I find it ironic, that I crave time for myself and for my creative pursuits but at the end of the day I require social interaction. Who knew? Now, I know. I also need to exercise daily, and I now recognize that working is good for me. I need a sense of purpose and do not do well when I have too much time on my hands.

“Too thinky” one friend would say. (“No thinky” is also bad…but that is for another story which ends with a person who shall not be named doing the walk of shame with her bra in her pocket.)

I often walk with my Sister, the same one I wanted to whack with my kayak paddle.

We talk about many things on our long walks. We talk about hopes and dreams, we talk about work and day to day minutiae, we talk about how to navigate life.

We are back in our kayak. Only this time, we each have our own kayak and paddle together. Sometimes we are side by side and sometimes one of us leads. It goes back and forth. On a rare occasion, one of us will pull the other one. That kind of pulling, I do not mind. The rope is strong. It will not break.

GGJ

*This story was inspired by Ruth Bader Ginsberg who passed away yesterday. I could not sleep so I wrote this story. This one’s for Ruth.

Wabi-Sabi Christmas

It’s that time again. Christmas.

I have always had a hard time at Christmas. When I was a kid I would always think that this would be the year where we would all get along and there would be a pile of Christmas gifts from Santa waiting for me under the tree. In my fantasy, my Dad would not drink too much and become a morose person lecturing us on how “We did not know what it was like” to grow up poor. My Mom and Sisters were okay and we all tried to make it through with no damage done. Thankfully, we are all bookworms so a few new books in each of our hands and we would retreat to our neutral corners. Nancy Drew saved the day.

 
I would open a few gifts, maybe a game or two along with some socks and batteries in my stocking. I laugh now thinking about getting batteries, but you know… that is kind of crucial to the whole new toy thing working out. I have memories of driving around our little town looking for a place that would be open so that we could get batteries to fire up the new Merlin game. Thank you, Holiday gas station.

 
Later in the day I would call my best friend, Elaine, and I would ask her, “What did you get?” and she would say, “Nothing…. What did you get?” I would then reply, “Nothing.” We would then agree to bundle up in our snow pants and meet half way between our houses and go freeze our asses off skating or building snow forts. We did that for many years. One year, Elaine got a diamond necklace for Christmas. It was very pretty. I was jealous. I was also happy for her because she deserved a diamond necklace for Christmas.

 
This year has been a year for changes. My Mom has had a series of health issues and decided to go live in assisted living. It is for the best and I think it increases her chance of surviving to see another Christmas. Earlier this year, I had thought she might not make it to this one. There have been some bumps along the way. These types of changes in life are tough on everybody.

 

 

For my Mom, I am sure it has been difficult. She has been incredibly fortunate to be athletic her entire life. For 88 years she was a rock star. She has always walked many miles, been a great golfer, and just a year or two ago was lifting weights at the gym. That is all gone now. Her heart is broken. Literally. The valves are leaking, and the rhythm has gone haywire. The frustrating thing is that her will is not broken, but the physical parts are not cooperating. She told me a month or two ago that “Getting old sucks.” It is true. Thankfully for her it did not hit until age 89. Still….

 
What happens when the head honcho/matriarch isn’t physically/mentally/emotionally able to boss everybody around? The shit hits the fan. That’s what happens.

 
My Mom has always been a huge influence on me. I am the youngest of three daughters. My Mom has been my Mom/best friend/head shrinker/drill sergeant…. My whole life. I have made most of my biggest decisions in life based on her advice and my desire to please her.

 
When her health began to decline it affected the three daughters in different ways. We failed to communicate and our differences in opinion regarding her health and her care resulted in a major falling out between myself, the Sisters, and Mom. My feelings were hurt, and I was offended to the core of my being. Words were said that can never be forgotten. I felt that no one could hear me or see me. Nothing I said had any value and nothing that I did was appreciated. I was drowning in my despair.

 
I am pretty sure that the Sisters and Mom would argue that I was the asshole and was the one causing the problems… I have thought about it for many seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months and I have finally found some peace with the whole thing. I did what I thought was best. I offered up what I could and would have been able to do. Done. It did not work out, but I did the best I could. That has to be enough. It is enough.

 
I know, I know! Merry Christmas, right? Wait, it gets better.

 
So, what happens when you are 48.5 years old and you get pushed out of the nest?

 

You fly. You fly.

 

I have learned a few things these past few months. I have been making some choices. Choices that are all mine. When things get ugly, when times get tough… how are you going to respond? I responded by taking care of myself. I increased my yoga sessions, increased my water intake, cooked some good, healthy meals for myself and tried to go to bed early. I reached out to some old friends. I opened myself up to making some new friends. I made myself available to accept the invitations I had been declining because I was always going back to my home town and my Mom every weekend. I grew up. I got a life.

 
I set some boundaries. Boundaries for myself and for others. I have forgiven myself for screwing up. I have forgiven others for harsh words and actions. I am entertaining the possibility of mending broken relationships. For me, I cannot and will not pretend that nothing has occurred. That is the easy way out…but not the way out for me. I am wondering if something that has broken in many pieces can ever be repaired? Can it be functional? Can it be better than the original?

 

There is a term in Japanese culture called wabi-sabi.

 

I have a Pinterest board on it. Basically, it is the art of finding beauty in things that are broken. Picture an old tea cup with a crack in it. The crack has been filled in with gold. The tea cup was not thrown away. It was painstakingly repaired, and it is now more than a tea cup- it is a work of art.

 
I was broken. I am being repaired. I am being repaired by the love and kindness of old friends, new friends, and strangers. Is the new GGJ going to be better than the original? I hope so.

 
Last night, I went to Christmas Eve mass with some old friends at their Church. It was a beautiful old Church filled with dark wood, Tiffany stained glass and a massive organ. The service was filled with music. There was a beginning part where the huge organ was playing a funky mix of Christmas carols but with a steam-punk kind of attitude. I pictured a mad person wearing a leather duster and goggles running the huge organ while smoking a cigar. Later, it turned out that the organ player was a sweet little old lady who came out to read the story about Mary having Jesus in a manger. Who knew? She rocked that organ!

 
We were sitting in the pew waiting for the service to start when a young friend came in with his parents. He saw me and said, “There’s Jill” and he sat next to me. His parents ended up sitting one pew up and over. I think perhaps that he thought that they would join us in our pew. I give him credit, he stayed by me. I did not know some of the hymns, but there were a few of the classic Christmas carols. I was singing what I knew… and then I heard his voice join me. The sweetest, clearest 13 year-old voice in my ear.

 
The finale was the best when they turned off the lights. We were holding candles and one by one they were lit. My young friend lit my candle. We sang Silent Night, Holy Night. It was beautiful.

 

Merry Christmas,
GGJ