#reverb10 – December 31

December 31 – Core Story What central story is at the core of you, and how do you share it with the world? (Bonus: Consider your reflections from this month. Look through them to discover a thread you may not have noticed until today.)

On this last day of the #reverb10 experiment, I thought I’d do a word cloud of the past 30 #reverb10 posts and just throw that up here.  Except, after much copying and pasting, it turned out to be total crap.  I use the words “just” and “time” and “like” a lot.

Now I’m watching the clock.  I’ve just (haha) woken up from a two-hour nap and there’s an untidy apartment behind me and New Year’s Eve plans (albeit low key ones) to prepare for.  There’s an e-mail I want to take care of before I leave as well, and the thought of trying to figure out what my central story is and then write it down in some coherent way all in the next 75 minutes…really?  I don’t know if I can.  I don’t know what my central or core story is.  What does that even mean?

Okay.  Ping.  The one thing that comes to mind is a theme that’s come up in therapy many times this year, and that’s my need for acknowledgment.  I’m sure a lot of people feel like the odd man out in their families, so my situation isn’t unique–I just really feel like I was cut from a different cloth than the rest of my immediate kin.  I’m not even sure I’m actually made of fabric at all; if they’re cut from a bolt of cotton, I’m the leavings from some flammable wad of polyester.  Both materials have their uses but they are not the same.

Being around my family en masse almost always leads to tears on my part.  There is a dynamic that occurs when the whole family is together that is just so difficult for me to cope with that I usually end up feeling like I should be sitting at the kiddie table and that my ideas and feelings are completely invalid.  Rather than being the youngest adult in the house, I am reduced, once more, to being the youngest child.  Ultimately I feel invisible and unheard.

This feeling plays out in the rest of my life as well.  I am constantly wondering why no one cares about me or what I think, when the problem is that I haven’t spoken up and made my needs or thoughts known.  I forget that while there is potential emotional danger with my family when I stop letting myself be invisible, outside of my family people see me as an adult (apparently sometimes a pretty formidable one) and being visible is as easy as opening my mouth.

This is all a bit of a sad central story I realize, but there is an upside.  I sing and I write.  I am positive that I leaned towards these skills in my talent  tool box because they make me immediately visible.  When someone reads my blog or my short story or hears me sing in a choir or do a solo–I am immediately, undeniably visible.  I think that this weakness and need has also been my greatest asset, because even when I don’t want to produce or create, the desire to be seen keeps me doing it.  I can ignore the desire for a while, but it always comes back.

I’m working on making sure I don’t allow myself to be invisible by voicing my needs and thoughts and opinions wherever I need to do so.  I’ve decided recently that as easy as it would be for someone else to swoop in and ensure that I don’t feel invisible (like a boyfriend or a normal boss), there’s not much power in that.  It’s way more powerful to first acknowledge myself and then allow others to do it as they see me doing so.  But I’m grateful for the passions borne of my weakness.  I would never give them up for all the visibility in the world.

Happy New Year to all of my fellow reverberators; it’s been a fantastic ride!

#reverb10 – December 30

December 30 – Gift Prompt: Gift. This month, gifts and gift-giving can seem inescapable. What’s the most memorable gift, tangible or emotional, you received this year? (Author: Holly Root)

A couple years ago my sister and I decided to stop the gift-giving at Christmas time.  This caused a huge fight with my mother and she stopped speaking to me for about two months.  In fact, the only reason we made contact again was because of the mandatory Christmas Day long distance call.  Despite the fight, I’m glad I’m not caught up in it anymore.  Besides the fact that I no longer stress about money spent for Christmas until well into March, it’s also nice to not go through the stupidity of smiling pretty over heinous gifts received and gritting my teeth as I listen to ingratitude regarding gifts given.

Considering how few Christmas gifts I receive at this point, it’s kinda neat that the most memorable gifts I got this year were both Christmas gifts.  And both were books.  Following is the story of the one that takes the cake.

At the Christmas party of my writing group, we all bring a book wrapped and hand them out pretty randomly.  People can trade if they’ve already read the book or whatnot.  When I opened up my book I squealed and hung on for dear life.  A while ago, after a piece of mine was critiqued, one of the members came up and pulled a bright yellow book out of his bag and asked me if I’d read it; he said something about one element of my piece being a bit reminiscent of this author’s work.  The author’s name knocked around in my head for a while but I never got around to checking that book out of the library.

Imagine my surprise and delight when I tore off the wrapping paper and found that same bright yellow book within.  And it wasn’t even the same person who had mentioned the book to me who brought it to the party.  It does seem a bit like the universe wanted me to have it, eh?

The book:  No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July.

#reverb10 – December 29

December 29 – Defining Moment Describe a defining moment or series of events that has affected your life this year. (Author: Kathryn Fitzmaurice)

I can’t believe there are only two more prompts until this is done.  It seems like I only started my first #reverb10 blog posts a couple days ago.

I’m grateful that defining moments can happen to you–that you don’t always have to create them.  Sometimes all the effort you have to make is to notice them.  And even if every post I’ve done hasn’t been a Pulitzer prize winner, this month of writing based on these prompts has been a bit like wiping off a layer of dust leaving my mind attuned to circumstances and how I can choose to react to them.  My December 13th #reverb10 post was the blow-by-blow account of a series of defining moments that left me with the idea that I will have to take risks–big and small–in the coming year if I want to end 2011 without regret; without feeling like it’s just another year gone by.  I’ve had a lot of years of that just go by and life is both too long and too short to keep letting that happen.

It’s been interesting to see how after the initial eureka moment has passed, the initial defining moments having gone by, how it’s hard to keep being excited about taking risks.  I wanted to check out a boxing class and I caved under the fear of taking that risk and stayed home.  I was tired and it had been a long and productive day, so it’s not a big deal that I didn’t go that day, but it’s a big deal that I caved to fear of the complete unknown.  I didn’t back down because I already knew I hated the class or the people or the location or any of that.  I caved out of fear.  I’ve gone back on Weight Watchers (fifth time’s the charm?) and so far it’s been going well, but today I fell to pieces a bit with a bag of popcorn that got pretty damn compulsive.  I couldn’t be bothered, in that moment, to deal with whatever was going on for me–shopper’s remorse, fatigue, guilt about a situation that’s niggling at the back of my brain–who knows?  And now I probably won’t know.  Because I inhaled a bag of popcorn instead.  That story I haven’t edited yet while I’ve managed to do just about everything else including try to renew my health card, get blood work done and brave the Apple Store to get an item I’ve been putting off for nearly a year–apparently it can wait.  That’s not to mention the job stuff I haven’t followed up on yet.

My point isn’t be a hard ass with myself about all I haven’t done–I don’t think that’s productive anyway.  Life is life and it gets in the way sometimes.  But at the same time I realize that *this* is the nitty gritty of risk in my every day life.  Doing those little things differently every day.  So that no stretch of days feels like a write off.  It’s not like you wake up at the end of a year and it just turned into a year wasted in one second flat, it’s an accumulation of days that were wasted doing what wasn’t important.

I’ve sort of gotten a bit off track with this prompt but I think this was the response that I needed today.  If I want to look back on 2011 as a year of defining moments, it has to be an everyday practice.

#reverb10 – December 28

December 28 – Achieve  What’s the thing you most want to achieve next year? How do you imagine you’ll feel when you get it? Free? Happy? Complete? Blissful? Write that feeling down. Then, brainstorm 10 things you can do, or 10 new thoughts you can think, in order to experience that feeling today.  (Author: Tara Sophia Mohr)

Sometimes I’ve felt a bit repetitious responding to these reverb prompts, but I realize that’s not a bad thing.  Well not for me anyway; I can’t speak for how you as a reader experience it.  The thing I want most in the next year, which has come up over and over in these posts, is to leave my job.  I don’t even know if I want a new one in the conventional sense.  I just want out of this one.

There are a lot of things I think I’ll feel when I leave my job, including fear of what will come after.  But I think the overwhelming feeling that I’ll have on the day that I walk away from that office for the last time, is a sense of incredible relief.  The kind of relief you feel when you’ve been running a long, long race and you’ve finally reached the finish line and you can lie down in the grass and your only responsibility is to breathe and to be.

So in no particular order here are ten things I can think or do to make me feel that feeling:

go for a walk in a quiet place
sit and breathe
take a bath
take a long shower
find some grass and lie in it
sing along to beautiful music
bring to mind how i felt sitting next to my mother in the window that day as a child
bring to mind what it will feel like to resign
paint
think about good things

#reverb10 – December 27

December 27 – Ordinary Joy Our most profound joy is often experienced during ordinary moments. What was one of your most joyful ordinary moments this year? (Author: Brené Brown)

There are a few moments from which I could choose, but one that sticks out happened in September.  My friend and I went for a walk in High Park and when we got to the huge hill that slopes down into Grenadier Pond, I insisted that we stop, lazy bugger that I am.  The hill was spotted with families and couples and people sitting alone just enjoying the gorgeous, warm, sunny day.  I watched a toddler try to climb up the hill on unsteady feet and fall down over and over until his father, laughing, rescued him.  I listened to a man serenade his friends with his guitar.  I saw a girl who looked pretty high maintenance, kick off her shoes and rub her feet freely through the grass.  And I laid back and stared up at nearly cloudless sky and then closed my eyes and felt the sun bathe me in warmth.

I forget all too easily how being in nature has a way of bringing about an immediate calm and peace and even joy.  That moment lying in the grass in High Park was a truly joyful one.

#reverb10 – December 26

December 26 – Soul Food What did you eat this year that you will never forget? What went into your mouth & touched your soul? (Author: Elise Marie Collins)

Chicken livers.  The first time.  A friend in my choir invited me to join she and her friends at Southern Accent after a performance.  I’d never been before and I was skeptical when everyone raved about how I needed to try the chicken livers.  “Liver” and “good” are terms I generally consider mutually exclusive.  But not this time.  They were to die for.  To.  Die.  For.  The first time.

I have dinner with three of my girlfriends two or three times a year and I thought, we’ve got to go back to Southern Accent and have those chicken livers.  I suspect they were garnished differently than they were on my first try, though I can’t be sure of it, but they just didn’t speak to me this time around.  This is not to say that you shouldn’t go to Southern Accent–the restaurant is fantastic and the food is great.  You should even try the chicken livers at least once.  But I just wasn’t bowled over this time.  I didn’t even finish them.

This reminds of me the first time I had ceviche.  I nearly fell down.  I thought an atomic bomb had gone off in my mouth, it was so good.  And every time I’ve had it afterward, it’s been good, but not as good as the first time.  Creme brulee has also been a case of diminishing returns.  Dark chocolate with almonds has slowly become ho hum.

It’s dawned on me that novel foods lose their novelty as soon as you’ve had them and then they just become regular foods that cost you more.   Soul foods though–they are the ones you can eat over and over and over again, and while they’re never a culinary atomic bomb, they do soothe your soul.

My soul foods are much more mundane:  that one brand of caprese sausage that I have to have in my fridge at all costs; 4-year old cheddar; movie theatre popcorn; A&W Baby burgers with cheese; french toast; bacon, eggs and home fries; BLTs; chicken souvlaki on a pita; grilled cheese sandwiches on white with bacon; perogies and bacon with sour cream; a good Caesar salad with real anchovies and lots of garlic; my own chili; heart-burn inducing Domino’s pizza; the chicken club at Ace Bakery; Max’s Market chicken enchilladas and bean dip; kalbi beef ribs; vermicelli and pork at my favorite Pho restaurant; cherry pie; frozen President’s Choice spanakopita; my sister’s Christmas turkey, stuffing and roasted vegetables (which I will enjoy two to three times daily for the next week–oh how I love leftovers).

I could go on and on and on and on.  These are not the foods that bowl me over the first time I have them or ever, for that matter.  But they are the ones that make me fat because they absolutely do soothe my soul.  It’s nearly impossible for me to eat any of these things in moderation because of the sheer dopamine dump they cause in my brain.  I mellow right out and feel a sense of calm and happiness that kind of makes everything seem OK.  These are foods that touch my soul any day of the year.

#reverb10 – December 25

December 25 – Photo – a present to yourself Sift through all the photos of you from the past year. Choose one that best captures you; either who you are, or who you strive to be. Find the shot of you that is worth a thousand words. Share the image, who shot it, where, and what it best reveals about you. (Author: Tracey Clark)

So this was taken at my birthday dinner earlier this year and I can’t be sure, but I think it was taken by my sister.  But the picture was a ruse.  One of the girls had pointed out someone interesting in the restaurant and she wanted the rest of us to get a look without being obvious.  So my sister took the picture of us to sort of divert attention from our gawking.

What I like about this picture is that I love my lips in it.  I’ve had a long, love/hate relationship with my lips.  I grew up being the only minority in my school for years at a time and one thing that I came to be ashamed of really quickly were my lips.  One of my siblings used to constantly tell me to make them look smaller by basically tucking them in my mouth.

It took me until well into my late twenties to have any appreciation for my lips at all.  And the fact that I can look at my lips in a picture for which I did not pose and really like them a lot, gives me hope that I can learn to love the rest of me that way too.

Merry Christmas!

#reverb10 – December 24

December 24 Prompt – Everything’s OK What was the best moment that could serve as proof that everything is going to be alright? And how will you incorporate that discovery into the year ahead? (Author: Kate Inglis)

For some reason I’m staying up stupid late to catch up on all these prompts.  Right now it seems really important to not have to think about reverberations of any kind again until Boxing Day.  Don’t ask me why this is important–it just is.

So yesterday’s prompt.  I’ve been thinking for a while now that I wanted to bust my way down from weekly sessions with my therapist to biweekly appointments.  I even put this in my list of 11 things I wanted to do in 2011.  Well, I managed to fit it into 2010.  I gathered up my courage after a weekend of risks taken, and told her what I thought.  And it was fine.  It was more than fine.  She’d been thinking the same thing.

I know I’m the employer when it comes to therapy; I’m the one in charge.  But it doesn’t make it any easier for me to stop thinking of my therapist as the authority in the situation.  So it was scary and risky for me to bring this up.  It turned out be so easy though, that I thought to myself “maybe there are a lot more risks that are this easy in the end; maybe there are a lot of goals that aren’t as difficult to achieve as I think they are.”

I don’t fundamentally believe that it’ll all be OK.  I’m really, really scared that it won’t be, in fact.  But I will keep trying to at least act like it will be, taking the necessary risks and chances that might lead me to that belief.

#reverb10 – December 23

December 23 – New Name Let’s meet again, for the first time. If you could introduce yourself to strangers by another name for just one day, what would it be and why? (Author: Becca Wilcott)

Am I allowed to admit a little #reverb10 exhaustion?  Can I say that seeing all those future tools attached to each prompt from here on in is actually just overwhelming for me?  Is it kosher for me to say that reading all those different ways and means of planning the next year of my life (seemingly to death) just makes me tired?  Or am I just supposed to blame it on having so many late nights this week?

The last prompt didn’t exactly speak to me but I worked it through anyway.  And I suppose it was a cool writing exercise but it was information I kind of already had so…I dunno.  It didn’t do a lot for me.  And as for today’s prompt, I have no desire to move through life with another name.  It took me a long time to accept the one I have and now it’s an integral part of me.  I have no wish to entertain the idea of being someone else.  I’m trying to get comfortable with being me.

And then there are these future tools.  I’ve just watched part of the video that is the December 25th future tool, featuring Mike Dooley and I’m just bugged.  I think it’s such an arrogant and out of touch idea that we can just think our preferred existence into being.  It utterly silences the legitimate suffering of so many people.  And I don’t say that as an excuse for my own lack of achievement–I think that’s mostly about my fear and unwillingness to risk one thing for another.  But to pretend that there are not people who simply have fewer options, who suffer not because they won’t think their fucking way out of it, but because they are not in position to actually change their circumstances on their own, is just wrong.  It denies the existence of people who are in a certain place entirely because of the actions of others.  And frankly Jesus (for fuck sakes it’s Jesus Christ, not JC) didn’t say life was easy or that we just had to think our way into what we wanted.  He said the way was narrow and he said we should bring our burdens to him because the assumption was that we had them.  He said our great reward would be in heaven–not here on earth.  While there are shared ideas, conflating the teachings of Buddha and Jesus and Plato as if they are completely the same is both idiotic and incorrect.

This way of thinking also begs the question–does this dude actually think all the good that comes into our lives is because of our own influence?  That no one has ever been lucky?  What an amazing lack of humility.

So in closing, I’m annoyed by Mike Dooley and I’m sticking with my name.

#reverb10 – December 22

December 22 – Travel How did you travel in 2010? How and/or where would you like to travel next year? (Author: Tara Hunt)

*How* did I travel is such an apt question.  The first trip I took this year was utterly hit and miss.  This was my third trip to Cuba so I knew the drill by now:  the food is going to be bad, bring your own toilet paper, change plenty of money for tips, and then just lay back and enjoy the sun.  But we got unlucky and and picked a resort with breathtakingly bad service.  When we got on the plane to come home we were thrilled to hear the Canadian pilot apologize for the weather.  Thrilled to hear someone take responsibility for something even if it was something that person had no control over (I love Canadians).

I seriously wonder if I’ll ever set foot in Cuba again.  That one bad experience seemed to somehow nullify the two reasonable ones I had before it.

That was April.  In August I took a 2 hour bus ride to north-ish Ontario and stayed at a B&B for two days.  It was almost beyond words how wonderful those two days were.  I read and slept.  I swam in the lake which was tranquil and warm (unlike frigid Lake Ontario at that time of year).  I ate enormous breakfasts and shared comfortable silences with the proprietor (and then forced her to watch Fringe with me).  It’s been a long time since I’ve come back from any time away so relaxed.  It was the first time in a long while that a vacation had it’s intended result.

I didn’t spend a lot of money or effort to go there.  It was less impressive than getting on a plane and setting down in a tropical environment.  But *how* I traveled on that trip was the way I always want to travel.  With peace and calm.  In this coming year I don’t want to travel to hustle and bustle and bright lights and big city.  Take me, instead, to peace and quiet and stillness.