 (First published on Write Like Me on 9/7/15) Last week, I had a moment. It’s one that I haven’t experienced often, but it was significant anyway. I was sitting in front of my computer staring at a blank screen, and I just couldn’t make myself write. It wasn’t because of the dreaded “writer’s block.” I had ideas. I had lots of ideas. But I couldn’t manage to form the words to get them on the page. My eyes were drifting in and out of focus, and somehow the (rare) silence in the room was deafening. The only thing I could hear was the clock on the wall ominously ticking away the precious moments of nap time that I so desperately needed. I soon found myself staring out of the window to my right and watching a cardinal flit from tree to tree. Then I found myself refilling my stale cup of coffee and wandering out onto the back deck. I stood in silence for several minutes and breathed in the warm, humid air. It was too hot to be outside, but I couldn’t make myself sit at my laptop for another second. I sat down on the deck with my legs crossed and sipped my coffee as I watched the cardinal continue to hop on the branches and chirp to his heart’s content. Even though the cardinal is our state bird, it’s often possible to go months without seeing one. That is, unless you live at my house. This little guy makes an appearance every few days, and there is often a female that joins him. Today, it was business as usual. He was chirping, playing, enjoying the sunshine. He had nothing to do except anything he wanted. Then I realized what I had to do to get out of this writing funk: Stop writing. I know, I know. It’s the opposite of what I was trying to accomplish. Writer’s write. It’s what they do. But my brain was in serious need of a break. I can only do so much research, scribble so many notes, type so many words before everything starts to run together and the screen starts to morph into a weird gooey blob. If you’re anything like me, you might find it really easy to shut yourself up in a room and work on your craft, whatever it might be, for hours on end. I know I’ve constantly got something new in the works, something I need to be writing, something I’m excited to finish. But this makes it really easy to forget one of the basics of writing (or any art for that matter): Writers build their craft from life experience. At some point, they have to put down the pen or shut the laptop and go out and experience life. There are times when I need to stop seeing everything as an opportunity to write and just experience what’s happening around me. Like a mother taking pictures of her child is in danger of missing the moment in her attempt to capture it, writers often focus too much on the experience as it relates to the next piece rather than the experience itself. So, I stopped writing. It was just for the day, and then I was back to work feeling more refreshed with a slew of new ideas. Take some time to stop writing - maybe for just an hour, a day, or even a week. Do some yoga, go for a run, take a day trip with your family, visit a friend. Stop writing and take the time to drink in the world around you. If the experience is significant enough (or even simple enough), you will have the opportunity to write about it when the time is right.
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 (First published on Facebook 2/18/21)
You guys know how every year a bunch of people are like, “To hell with Columbus Day! Tear down the statues!” and then a bunch of other people come back with “No! It’s our history! We can’t just forget it!” I’ve been doing a little reading about that history (although I’m told that monuments and flags are better sources than books), and I thought I would share some tidbits. (Quote excerpts from Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” originally published in 1980) Our story begins in 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue… financed by Spain in search of gold. He first set foot on land in what is now known as Venezuela. He was greeted by the Arawak (Taino) Natives and noticed that they wore gold ornamental earrings. Cha-ching! He was sure he literally struck gold on his first try. He yanked some of the men who came to greet him on board the ship and demanded they lead him to the gold. When they didn’t, he sailed to Cuba and then to Hispaniola (what is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic). This guy was convinced he was going to find fields full of gold. He captured some more natives for good measure and hightailed it back to Spain where he embellished his stories and convinced the court to give him more money, more ships, and more men. He promised them endless gold and slaves in the name of Almighty God. When he returned to his fort in ruins and most of his men dead or captured due to Arawak resistance, he realized the quest for gold was futile. But he could still pay back Spain in slaves. He started raiding Arawak villages: “Trying to put together an army of resistance, the Arawaks faced Spaniards who had armor, muskets, swords, horses. When the Spaniards took prisoners they hanged them or burned them to death. Among the Arawaks, mass suicides began, with cassava poison. Infants were killed to save them from the Spaniards. In two years, through murder, mutilation, or suicide, half of the 250,000 Indians on Haiti were dead.” (p.4) The Spanish established colonies and estates known as “encomiendas.” They used them to keep indigenous people under control as a form of government sanctioned slavery. “They were worked at a ferocious pace, and died by the thousands. By the year 1515, there were perhaps fifty thousand Indians left. By 1550, there were five hundred. A report of the year 1650 shows none of the original Arawaks or their descendants left on the island.” (p.4) While the Arawak were violently wiped from the island of Hispaniola, their descendants can still be found in other parts of South America**. So there you have it - A very brief history of the guy credited with discovering America - in case we lose the statues honoring his memory and accidentally forget. Get the book for yourself here (not an affiliate): https://www.amazon.com/.../B015XEWZHI/ref=kinw_myk_ro_title  Broken. Shattered. The glass… it shimmered in the fragments of light peeking through the blinds. The floor, scattered with broken pieces. One fragment – the size of her hand – fit so well – came to a point. A tempting, sharp point. It pressed perfectly against her wrist. A nearly straight, vertical slice. Everything wet… her jeans… her feet… drenched. Dark… peaceful… … she couldn’t hurt anyone anymore. The picture frame lay shattered. The face… smiling. Bright eyes twinkled at her lifeless form.  (First Published on "Focus on Yourself" on 6/13/15)
This morning, I decided to spend some time playing Play Dough with my almost two-year-old. As you can imagine, this activity requires a great deal of vigilance on my part to ensure that the Play Dough doesn’t become a permanent fixture in the surrounding carpet and furniture. So, I pull out the cheap, red vinyl tablecloth that I got at Wal-Mart for about five dollars, and my daughter squeals with delight. I spread it out on the floor, and she immediately falls down onto it and rolls around on it screeching, “Yay, Mommy! Yay!” I place the container holding the little jars of Play Dough, and she immediately grabs one and thrusts it at me. “Open geen, Mommy! Open!” “What’s the magic word?” I say. “Pweeeeeese!!” she says at a pitch that I’m sure will break all the windows in the house. She giggles with delight when I hand her the ball of soft, green dough. “Sanks, Mom!” And so we begin to play together. I make easily recognizable shapes or simple, small creations using my limited imagination, and she smashes them between her tiny fingers amidst fits of giggles and says, “More! More!” I show her how to roll the dough into balls, and then I chase them as she launches them across the room. “The Play Dough stays on the mat,” I tell her. “Otay, Mom!” At one point, my daughter picks up two different colors of dough and squishes them together. I feel my pulse race and my vision go blurry as I hear my Mom’s voice in my head saying, “Don’t mix the colors! It’s a waste of dough, and you’ll never get them apart again!” Then I noticed that as we have been playing, I have been very diligent about keeping the colors separate from one another. When I make a shape or create a brand new animal, it is out of all one color. Well that’s no fun, I thought to myself. My daughter is currently ecstatic over her multi-colored creation. “Dat’s so pretty, Mom!” she says. Yes, yes it is. So why haven’t I done this before? Suddenly, I’m back in my parents’ dining room sitting on the floor on a similar, but different, cheap, red tablecloth. My sister is making “pizza” while I’m cranking the arm of an incredibly creepy Play Dough dolly and making her hair grow in yellow, spaghetti-like strands. Then I hear my mom. “Don’t do that! You’re wasting the dough!” I look up to see my sister committing the unpardonable Play Dough sin: she had rolled green and red together to the point of no return. “But it looks like Christmas, Mom!” she says holding it up proudly. But the damage was done. They couldn’t be pulled apart. They couldn’t be salvaged and placed in their correct containers as individual colors. There was no turning back now. No going back to the way it used to be. The dough was forever changed. “You’re going to be really upset when you’ve smashed them all together so much that all you have is brown!” my mom says. “And then we won’t be able to buy you more. And put the lids on the ones you’re not using so they don’t dry out.” My sister shot my mom an annoyed look then made sure she slapped the proper lid back on the purple container. (How else would we know what color we were choosing when we played again?) I shook my head as if to say, You know better than that and returned to fitting a yellow Play Dough bow around the bottom of a yellow braid on the creepy doll whose plastic “hair” was already yellow. I didn’t know why it was so important that the colors not be mixed (other than that brown or gray Play Dough was supposedly an unholy abomination to Play Dough lovers everywhere). I just knew that mixing them upset my mom. Looking back now, I realize how bizarre it was that she was so adamant about Play Dough segregation (and yes, I am acutely aware of the racial symbolism to be found in this story, but that’s not where I’m going with this). Maybe it was because we lived well below the poverty level, and she was trying to preserve what little we had. Maybe she struggled with needing things to be a certain way (in fact, I know this was a struggle in many areas of her life). Or maybe her mom never let her mix Play Dough colors either. Whatever the reason, I was unaware that this was not a universal rule among all Play Dough enthusiasts until I saw others mixing colors. Even then, I stuck with my upbringing and kept mine separate. When I come back to present day and watch my little girl having the time of her life on a cheap mat with a few balls of dough, I realize something. I’m the mom now. I get to decide the Play Dough rules, and I won’t hear my mom’s exasperated sighs or scolding because “the red one dried out, and now we can’t get more!” So, I resolved to do the unthinkable. I took a green ball of dough in one hand and a white ball of dough in the other and rolled them together until they were entirely inseparable and formed a marble-like pattern. And you know what? No one made me stop playing. No one yelled. I didn’t fall through the floor into the fiery pits of Play Dough Hell, and the world didn’t spin off its axis or collapse into itself. Instead, I was praised for my work: “Oh! Dat’s so pretty, Mom! Bitty play? Mine?” I handed the swirly ball to my little one, and she exclaimed, “Oh wow!” and promptly squished it between her tiny fingers. I suddenly realized an element that had been missing in my rigid upbringing: Impulsivity. While it is true that it is the parents’ job to teach their children to control their impulses, completely stifling impulsivity can also stifle creativity and lead to anxiety over such trivial things as mixing colors of Play Dough. Give yourself permission to be impulsive. Stop conforming to an idea that someone has for you and your life. This is your life, your work time, your play time. Free yourself from your anxiety-inducing inhibitions and mix those colors with wild abandon. You will be a happier person for it.  (First Published on "Focus on Yourself" on 7/26/15) Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Have you ever watched it? If you have kids, you have. If you haven't seen it, count yourself lucky. All you need to know is that Mickey and his friends find themselves on a bunch of different adventures that require “tools” to complete - Mousketools, to be exact. These mousketools can range from a pair of scissors to an elephant in a bikini (I'm not kidding). If the characters find themselves in a pickle with a problem they don't know how to solve, they simply call out, "Oh, Toodles!" and a colorful Mickey Mouse head flies out of the trees, lake, sky, etc. to save the day. He ALWAYS has exactly what they need. They only need to choose the proper tool from the present arsenal. How convenient. To be honest, I'm a little jealous. What I wouldn't give to have access to a flying mouse-shaped head that gives me tools to complete any job. Out of laundry detergent? "Oh, Toodles!" Need new sheets on the bed? "Oh, Toodles!" Car broke down? "Oh, Toodles!" Lost baby's favorite pacifier? "Oh, Toodles!" You get the idea. Unfortunately, real life isn't equipped with such a thing (unless you count Amazon Prime, and I almost do). The last time my car broke down on the side of the road, I was forced to use my limited knowledge and resources to remedy the situation. Imagine my dismay when I realized that I had, in fact, NOT added roadside assistance to my insurance policy. "Oh, Toodles!" Oh, wait. I have to handle this shit myself. As I'm sure you can deduce, this story has a happy ending. Husband, toddler, and I are no longer stranded along the side of the road, and I'm not typing this from a dying smartphone and the depths of despair. I managed to contact the appropriate people who came to our rescue. The vehicle runs (most of the time), and my daughter is napping happily in her crib instead of under a tree on the side of the road. There may not be mousketools in the real world, but we have everything we need. When I started this post, I had planned to lament the fact that mouseketools would make life so much easier and that there are no quick fixes for our problems. While this is true, it’s also true that we are much more capable than we give ourselves credit for. It is amazing what we can do when our back is against the wall. When we are sure there is no other recourse, no other options for our rescue, we come through for ourselves. There is no need to wait around for someone else to rescue us from our problems. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it, but you have to take action too. Your friends could be pushing your car out of a ditch, but if you’re not steering, you’ll just end up falling over the hill on the other side. You are stronger than you think. Challenge yourself. You may not have mouseketools, but you have everything you need to succeed. You were born with it. Trust me - it's there.  (First Published at "Focus on Yourself" on 5/15/2015)
I’ve been searching for a blog topic for a long time. I knew I wanted to start a blog. I just wasn’t sure what I wanted to write about. I had several different ideas. Every time I thought of an article idea, I made a note of it. I’ve since returned to those notes several times and written a few small articles that I shared on a separate account. But my topic ideas were scattered. They ranged from typical “mommy blogger” topics, to how-to articles, to deep, philosophical ponderings. Some of them turned into stream of consciousness that read more like a journal entry, so I never published them. Despite my writing and experimenting in the midst of my paid freelance work, I was still struggling to find a topic. And then it hit me. I have been doing some serious self-reflection these past couple of years - ever since I found out I was pregnant with my first child. I learned that I have a severely co-dependent personality. I learned that I have been spending my life as a people pleaser, terrified that I’m going to upset and alienate the people I love, leaving me alone and destitute. But no matter how hard I have tried, I have failed to please everyone. When my stepfather passed away, I caught a glimpse of the truth that lay beneath my relatives’ “happy family” exterior. My mother seemingly became a different person – one that I now realize was always there, but my father’s death brought it into focus. She no longer had her buffer. When my mother passed away nearly five years later, the true colors of some of my relatives shone through bright and bold. It’s amazing the side you will see from people when there is life insurance money involved. I slowly pulled away from them, but it took me nearly another three years and the birth of my daughter to finally decide I was done with them. I was done with their toxicity – with the stress they brought to my life. I decided that the negatives they brought to my life far outweighed the positives. Shortly after my daughter was born, I began to learn about setting boundaries with the other people in my life. I began to speak up for myself, ever so softly. I still feared what they thought of me, and that fear was compounded by motherhood. I feared that I was being viewed as a bad mother. I made parenting choices that my and my husband’s parents didn’t make, and the not-so-subtle criticisms took their toll on me. I worried about whether or not my mother would be proud of the choices I had made. She wanted me to finish my education degree and become a teacher. Instead I worked in mental health for a few years and then transitioned into being a stay at home mom. When my precious little girl was four months old, the depression set in. I was with her all the time, but I never felt present. I mulled over the passive aggressive comments from my family and in-laws and often cried believing that I wasn’t doing enough. I began to fear that my child was going to die, and it would be because I had unwittingly done something to cause it. If I had to be away from my daughter for even an hour, I feared that there would be some horrible accident because I wasn’t there or that I would die with my last words to her being “I’ll be right back, baby.” I began to feel that I was being tortured by my own mind. My efforts to communicate my feelings to my husband were met with comments like, “It’s normal for a mom to worry about her baby.” Except this wasn’t normal worry, and he didn’t seem to understand. I felt desolate and lonely. I felt ashamed of my thoughts and believed that if my own husband didn’t understand, then no one would. I was convinced that if I sought help, my child would be taken away from me. Our families would point at me and say, “See! We knew she was unfit to care for a child!” I spent my time alone crying, and I didn’t always know why. I had brief thoughts of suicide to end the pain but never seriously considered it because I was so terrified of being separated from my precious baby. I felt inadequate. I wasn’t contributing to the home in a tangible way. So I got a job babysitting. I loved every second of it. The little boy I watched was an absolute joy and I loved seeing him and my daughter learning together and becoming friends. But I still felt empty and numb. Bringing in a paycheck soothed my issues for a short time, but it soon became apparent that not making an income was not the main source of my feelings. So I began to dabble in freelance writing. I loved it, and it felt amazing to make extra cash doing something that I enjoyed and has always held my interest. But that feeling in the pit of my stomach was still gnawing away at me. I would frequently fall into cycles of depression where I could barely function. I accomplished the bare minimum. Took care of the kids, met my deadlines on time, kept the house as clean as necessary for babysitting. I was functioning, but barely. There were times on the weekends that my daughter would wake up and play in her crib, and I would go back to sleep because I couldn’t bear to face another day of the pain. Eventually, I would get up and go through the motions of breakfast, lunch, dinner, bath, bed – lather, rinse, repeat. When my daughter was fourteen months old, I finally admitted to myself that I was likely suffering from postpartum depression and needed to seek help. The intrusive, impulsive thoughts were growing increasingly worse, and I was finding it difficult to focus on anything else. I soon began therapy and medication, and after a few months, I noticed a world of difference. Throughout my self-examination, I came to a realization: I have been living my life for everyone else but me. Martyring myself for my daughter will not benefit her in the long run. I need to set a positive example of what it looks like to be a strong, confident woman. At last, I realized that my blog topic should be about living selfishly. In the past year, I have learned that saying “no” simply because I don’t want to do something is OKAY. Refusing visitors because I’m busy is OKAY. I don’t have to rearrange my schedule to accommodate other people unless I actually want to. It’s OKAY to want the last piece of cake and be honest about it. It’s OKAY to be direct with the people in my life and tell them exactly what I need or want. It is OKAY to give a direct “yes” or “no” and not only mean it, but enforce it. It’s OKAY to refuse to accept things that make me uncomfortable. I am learning to trust my instincts and not question myself so often. I am learning to be gentle with myself and not judge myself so harshly. I am learning what it means to live selfishly without causing harm to those around me and still fulfilling my obligations and responsibilities. I am learning to ask myself what I need or want in a variety of situations. I am learning to set boundaries with the people in my life, including my husband and child. I am learning when to draw the line and say “Enough is enough!” The world could use a few more selfish people. I don’t mean selfish in the inconsiderate sense. I mean selfish in the sense that it is unproductive to disregard your own thoughts, feelings, and opinions. Ignoring yourself is the easiest way to build resentment and hostility in your relationships. Failing to speak up for yourself and allowing others to violate your personal boundaries will eventually erode and destroy your most important relationships. You will hate them. You will hate you. But you will see no way to resolve the issues without blowing up. You can be a kind, loving, giving individual while still living life to the fullest and putting your own happiness first. In fact, feeling happy and secure will almost guarantee that you are kind and loving, truly giving to others out of the goodness of your heart rather than out of obligation. Self-loathing is incredibly unproductive. If you spend a large amount of your time regretting your choices and beating yourself up over your regrets, you will prevent yourself from moving forward. If you have hurt someone you care about, confront it – especially if that person is you. So, it’s time to apologize to yourself for neglecting your own happiness. Come out of the FOG (Fear, Obligation, Guilt) and see that it is not your responsibility to keep others happy. You are the only person you have to live with forever. Make sure you love and appreciate the person you become. |
AuthorI'm Deidre. I exist in organized chaos and occasionally write about it on the Internet. Archives
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