A Secret

Well, hi. We know each other but we don’t really know each other, so let’s get down to it, yes?

Yesterday, it was realized that I may be passive aggressive.

It was also realized that this is quite common in women, as we’ve been raised to assume a certain posture, a certain persona, a certain portrait that smiles and blinks and nods, and never quite says precisely what she feels.

Here is why this is hard for me to swallow: I wanted to be the woman who says precisely what she means, without saying it mean.

There is a woman in my life who says precisely what she feels and she makes me happy, because she is truthful and kind, and she once told me I should consider eating more salad, because bread was doing nothing for my hips. But perhaps I am imagining this? Perhaps she was simply truth telling? I don’t know, I’m the one checking out books about passive aggression at the local library on a Wednesday morning after a particularly tricky conversation with my sister, so I feel I am not qualified to comprehend.

Still.

I am here, watching Monet bathe Poesie, and I have just read through the first few pages, no more than an introduction really, and I have found, graciously, I am not passive aggressive on every account there is.

But here’s the great news! I have a project now. I’m going to fix it, as if it’s a clogged toilet, a still-needs-to-be-hung-frame in the foyer, and I promise to let you know how it’s going, but can I first say this?

Passive aggression, I have read, stems from a fear of anger, a fear of conflict, a fear of upsetting the fruit basket.

And girls, I do not know any one of us who does not – from time to time – fear upsetting the fruit basket.

And so! To the passive aggressors in us all: we can do this, right? We can be both truthful and kind, can’t we? We can say what we mean, can’t we?

I will let you know. I’m on chapter two.

Build A Better Wardrobe

Specifically, my wardrobe.

Most of this perspective has manifested itself internally, choosing less for myself in subconscious ways: fewer opportunities, fewer close relationships, fewer appointments on the calendar. But I’ve also realized a more conscious, unexpected twist: Monet helped me in editing my things. 

I am happy to say I’ve been making progress.

Bins of unnecessary excess have been donated, new purchases have been thwarted. Getting dressed takes approximately zero time in the morning, and the laundry piles are considerably few. By wearing the same basics day in and day out, I’ve taken a red pen to my closet and ruthlessly edited the extra and the more and the plenty, all of which provided endless options that I’d tricked myself into thinking were necessary. More clothing does not equal more options. Smarter clothing does.

Lately

It’s been work and hockey, hockey and work. There is a thin layer of ice smattering everything east of Home Depot. I’m uncharacteristically nonchalant over the chaos. You know I’ve always had a soft spot for good old-fashioned hockey.

At night, she plugs her nose when she does a pose for the photo. I laugh for days.

—

Me: Last week, I’d meant to book his flight to Chicago, but I forgot the team is doing it this year. I’ve done this before, and you’d think I’d have learned my lesson (Max traveled with his team to Minnesota and, beyond), but this has got to be the third time this year? I blame moving. My head is in the clouds, on my patients, anywhere but here.

—

He: Finally ready for a crazed travel season.

—

Me: Finally home.

Do Not Lose Yourself

We do know each other, the two of us. 

This screen is not real life. Since we are ever so lucky enough to move beyond the pixels, I welcome it. (Head’s up: I’m a hugger.) And ever since we were little, my sister has not regarded me as a stranger, and take my words as such. Think of her as sanguine and spirited. Think of her as someone who exists beyond her thoughts and ideas, someone who is often-helping, always-learning. Think of her as me, today, a host of contradiction and chaos in a static, searching body.

Regard me as a simple, everyday human offering a small sliver of herself to a large chunk of humanity.

I promise to think of you the same.

Small Step No. 6

There’s a tried-and-true tip I’ve often heard from seasoned counselors, one of which is guaranteed to keep arguments fair, gentle and in-the-moment (rather than relying on cheap shots and past scripts), and it is simply this:

Avoid two words: (1) Always and (2) Never.

There are a few obvious reasons here, one of which being that neither of the above words are often true. Does your son really never do the dishes? Are you really always picking up dirty socks? Is your teen truly always on his phone? And so, as of late, I’ve made more of an effort to steer clear of these mounting exaggerations, certainly in an argument, but also in everyday language, and in my own self-chatter.

It has since, oddly enough, transformed my parenting.

It is no longer “You never finish your carrots!” or “You always forget your keys at your friend’s house!” and is instead, something a bit gentler, a bit kinder, a lot more true.

It is a small difference, the tiniest shift. But it makes for a giant space between frustration and exasperation, between correction and shame, between simple mistakes and complete failure.

It is surprisingly hard to do, leaving out the two words.

Last week, as I'm coming home from work, I’m buttoning my coat and adjusting my seat belt and re-buckling a shoe and starting the car when Markus announces he is up snowboarding with his friends.

Why do you always forget to tell me? flies through my mind, and before I can embarrass myself, the littlest voice in the back of my mind reminds me not to say “always.”

(Sometimes, parenting is little more than training a 40-something-year-old to sound precisely like your conscience.)

Small Step No. 2

And so, a small reminder for myself...

Be the thermostat.

My friend Kelly taught me this once, and her dad taught her. While I’m prone to measuring the temperature, to reading the room, to quietly adjusting my own layers to better acclimate, a thermostat declares the room cold and makes it warm.

We all hold in ourselves the power to transform – in ways small and large – a room, a year, a Christmas Day. We can make it hot or cold. We can make our homes into caves or havens; we can make our days stretch or crumble.

It is ours to decide, and we can decide.

Yesterday, we all woke up in stormy moods. The clouds hung low outside the window, mocking our attitudes. I puttered around per usual – frying eggs, washing pans, wrapping presents – and as the day went on and the coffee wore off, the sun still hadn’t come out. My responses were shortened, strained. Morgen carried a furrowed brow. Markus grew grumpy.

I practiced deep breaths, spritzed some rosewater on my face, willed myself to snap out of it. The Christmas dance party playlist wasn’t cutting it; I found the extra noise to be annoying.

Be the thermostat, I reminded myself. Set the tone. Rise above. You’re the grown-up. Make it warm.

I dug out an old puzzle for Morg, did 20 sit-ups for myself. Read Christmas Stories. Made a few silly faces for Max, then a few more for Preslee. In very little time, with very little effort, the energy of the room offered teenage smiles and grown-up giggles yet again.

Eventually, the sun peeked out from behind the clouds, but it didn’t matter: the house was warm enough without it.

—

Tell me: how did you spend your Christmas day? I’d love to hear!

p.s. These are a series of small steps that will (hopefully) provide one giant leap to greater things. Not for mankind, but for me, and perhaps for you, which will always be good enough in my book. More to come.

P.S.

p.s. These are a series of small steps that will (hopefully) provide one giant leap to greater things. Not for mankind, but for me, and perhaps for you, which will always be good enough in my book. More here.

Small Steps

A Small Step

To Kick Our Multi-Tasking Habit

Boone Pickens perhaps said it best: When you are hunting elephants, don’t get distracted chasing rabbits.

This week’s rabbit: Stranger Things.

I’m not a TV watcher by nature, but every now and then, a show will grip Markus or Max so tightly that it becomes a focal point for conversation after conversation, theories and recaps and findings passed around the dinner table with the mashed potatoes.

The show sounded fascinating enough, even without the 80’s factor and the Indiana plot and of course Winona’s hair. And this is precisely how I wound up staying up waywayway past my bedtime last Saturday night hitting Play on Season 2.

I have been searching for pockets of time to hit Play ever since.

Earlier this week, while I needed to make dinner, so I chopped cauliflower while watching Joyce Byers trash her own house again, and of course, it wasn’t twenty minutes before a pot of spaghetti was bubbling onto the stove and I still hadn’t figured out where the heck Hopper was.

I turned off the TV, realizing there were enough rabbits for me to chase without adding a virtual one to the mix.

And so, a small reminder for myself, courtesy of this simple trick my therapist friend shares with his patients:

Pay attention to your hands.

It’s the perfect cure for multi-tasking, he says. When you’re writing an email, watch your fingers on the keyboard. When you’re folding laundry, watch your hands sort through the whites. When you’re at the park with your children, pay attention to your hands pushing them in the swing, brushing a leaf from their hair, holding their bike helmet as they run wild in the grass.

When I do (or think of doing) a million things at once, I do them less well. When I multitask, I'm teaching my brain to distract itself and things just take infinitely longer, my fuse growing infinitely shorter.

But there’s something inherently lovely about single-tasking, about focusing on just one thing at a time for as long as we’re able. And it turns out, I only need to retrain my brain with what I already have available: our hands.

It’s a small trick that snaps my mind back to the present and – better yet? – preserves energy for my next task.

(Like hitting Play on Stranger Things the very second those little dishes are done.)