Tag Archives: negativity

My Friend, Ashley

Dont-believe-everything-you-think

OK, for about a week I’ve been in a slump.  

And kind of down in the dumps.

Try to write, but I get stumped.

With a case of the grumps.  

Which leaves me feeling like a big ole lump.

What a chump.  

For the last few nights, I have trudged down to that peaceful writing room in the basement so that I can sit in front of the computer and beat myself up for not having anything worth saying, not being able to say it the right way, not being able to…be able.  Or just be.  At 11 p.m., I clomp back up the stairs and put myself to bed, feeling like I missed my chance.  

The feeling of foreboding grows. Because on days when I don’t write, my brain gets mean.  It turns on me.  

I start to question myself.  I conclude that no one gives a shit anyway and if I just slink off to silence it won’t make a rat fart of difference.  I slide, in everything.  

The internal negative messages ramp up.  Constant judging.  I’m brushing my teeth and think, “Jeez, when’s the last time you plucked your eyebrows, Sasquatch?”  I help Vivi get dressed and think, “I bet other mothers don’t send their kid to school in socks they don’t like.”  When Carlos babbles something to me, my mind snarls, “There’s something you’re missing here and if you really loved this child you would fix it and he would talk just like every other kid in his class.”  I leave 15 minutes late–of course, because I’m a lazy slob.  My car makes a funny sound and that’s my fault, too.  I’m being too honest right now and that’s probably a mistake, right?  

After I drop Carlos off at his school (where he cries and doesn’t want me to go but I do anyway–I need to be a heartless mother so I can get to work late and mess up more things there, son!) I sit in the car waiting for a gap in the traffic.  A woman walks by with a cute turquoise purse.  She waves and gives me a bright smile but my first thought is, “It’s the wrong season for that color purse.  It’s still winter…for two more days.”  

Seriously.

Judging judging judging.  I instantly feel guilty for judging someone else so I bring the verdict down on myself.  “Or MAYBE she likes the color and it makes her happy and she gives herself permission to be delighted because she’s not as fucking rule-bound as you are!”  

And I burst into tears.  

(I sure do cry a lot in my car.  It’s like the only place I have privacy some times.  Is that wrong, too?  Probably.)

That’s when I finally say something to the voice in my head that has been hounding me all morning:  “Shut it.  That’s my friend Ashley that you’re talking about and you’re not allowed to talk to her that way.”  

The shit I say to myself about myself on a daily basis–would I EVER let someone else talk like that to a friend?  

So I’m going to be nice to my friend Ashley today.  I’m going to tell her that she’s doing tough things but she is tougher.  I’m going to tell her that she matters.  That she is allowed to be whatever she is this day, this minute, this life.  She’s OK and I’m proud of her.  

And now I’m thinking that I probably shouldn’t have spewed all this nonsense out there, but my friend Ashley told me it was a good idea.  Sometimes she’s brave.  

One Victory At A Time, Then Suddenly

Yesterday morning at boot camp, I teetered on the verge of crying.  Not from pain, unless you count the mental kind.  I could barely hear the complaints of my muscles over the cruel and negative messages in my head.

I was OK while we were warming up and doing squats.  I joined in the banter and the commiseration about it being 5:30.  Then it was time to run laps and my brain started thinking things about myself that no one should have to hear.  I imagined anyone ever saying things like that to my daughter.  Telling her she was fat and hopeless.  Telling her she shouldn’t bother.  Telling her it was never going to get better.  Telling her she probably didn’t deserve to feel better about herself.  That’s when I wanted to cry.

Because I was last.  Slowest.  The only one having to stop to walk in six minutes of running.  Marissa, who started coming to boot camp years ago because I encouraged–she lapped me.  I couldn’t catch up with April, who used to be my running buddy a couple of years ago.  New people, tiny people, genetically predisposed to speed, zipped past me, carrying on conversations with each other as they bounced along.  I lumbered down the lines on the basketball court and lurched around the corners.  Trying not to cry.

Here’s the kind of junk that rang between my ears:  It’s been TWO whole weeks since I started back to exercising and I’m STILL not in shape!  Everyone notices when I have to walk.  I’m really too fat to do this.  And it’s probably too late to turn this truck around–I’m 45.  I weigh twice what that girl who clocked a 3:30 marathon weighs.  I could be asleep but I’m out here embarrassing myself.  It’s never going to get any better.

Since there was no one behind me, I tried to think about the legions of people who aren’t there because they decided not to try.  That’s something, but it wasn’t enough to stop the chatter in my head.  The song from our coach’s ipod switches to Pink’s “Sober” and I truly hear the line:  “When it’s good then it’s good, it’s so good till it goes bad Till you’re trying to find the you that you once had.”  Yep.

That’s when April, the founder of WoW! Boot Camp hollered the thing that got through to me:  “One victory at a time!”

That was it.  I gave myself a tiny bit of credit for the victories I had already racked up since 5:01 when my alarm went off.  Getting out of bed.  Getting myself dressed.  Getting there.  TRYING.  Not rolling over and quitting.

My head was hanging at that point, but I looked at my feet in the running shoes that I bought for my last half-marathon, the one before Carlos was even on the radar.  I willed my right foot to run a step and it did.  Victory.  Then the left foot.  Victory. Each footstep a victory and I ran two fresh laps with my head up instead of walking because I was only thinking about the footstep that I was making, not the last one, not the next one, not the one I ran five years ago.  Not the one I will run six months from now.  Just this one, this victory.

waddle

While I ran, I thought about other “one victory at a time” moments.  My sister who chooses every day to stay sober.  My friend who doesn’t answer the phone when it’s a person who makes her feel bad about herself, even if that person is her mother.  The friend who can sit next to a smoker and not bum a cigarette.  The friend who resists the bait when a coworker fires an email at her with red caps and lots of exclamation points.  The mom who chooses talking over yelling.  The friend who sleeps in the center of the bed because it’s hers now.  One step at a time, not the whole race at once.

I finished the workout–at my own pace–and by 6:30 a.m. I was feeling euphoric.  I sat in the car, waiting for my butt heater to warm up and reading my email.  The daily message from Seth Godin popped up on my phone:  “Gradually, Then Suddenly.”  That’s a quote from Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises:  “How did you go bankrupt?  Gradually, then suddenly.”  Seth’s message was about how businesses fail that way–making small bad decisions that no one worries about along the way, then a sudden collapse that everyone sees.  The good news is that careers can be made the same way–years of slogging away, worrying that your tiny efforts aren’t having any impact then BAM.  You become the overnight success who’s been working hard at it for ten years.  Like when Shelby Lynne won the Grammy for Best New Artist for her SIXTH album!

That’s when I finally cried all those tears I had refused to cry when I was feeling bad about running in last place.  I sat in the dark parking lot, in the privacy of my car, and cried with relief that I might still have a Suddenly in my future, even if the Gradually was tough.

Gradually, then suddenly.  One victory at a time.

victorious