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Done, I Swear.

Posted in travel1 Comment

You know how Facebook shows you your memories, and you get to see what things you posted 1,2,3, 4, even 5 years ago? Well it turns out most of my Facebook posts are about school. For like the entire time I’ve been on Facebook. Which is like 8 years. Because since I have been on Facebook, I have studied and earned 3 degrees. Yep. 2 Bachleors and now my Masters. And lately I keep seeing all of these posts from years past about school (which I mostly loved) and how much work I was doing. It made me realize a few things. 

First, I’m pretty impressive. 3 degrees? And a full time job 6 of those 8 years (part time for 2)? And kids? Wow. I can sure accomplish stuff.

Second, man am I tired of school. No, I swear. I LOVE school and learning, but man am I over studying. I want to do other stuff. Like bake. Or cook. Or exercise. Or read for fun. 

And last of all, I am still trying to figure out what’s next. My youngest just finished her first quarter of college (yay!). And I am working on my résumé. And I have two Europe trips planned. But other than that? It’s not entirely planned out, which is usually pretty stressful for me, but I am mostly relaxed about it. People at work keep asking me what I am doing next, what do I want to do next, and I have no solid answer. Classmates have asked me if I will do a Ph D. I don’t know. I am covering someone on maternity leave for the next 4 months. That’s the extent of my plans. Maybe we all need a little uncertainty once in a while. 

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Testing, testing

Posted in things that are hard3 Comments

Last Friday night I had an MRI. It was my first one. It was for my ongoing foot injury (now 5 months ongoing). And while I lay there, with ear plugs and headphones playing “top 40 hits,” I thought about a lot of things. I thought about how it was weird to get older and realized that things don’t just heal quickly. I thought about how I never realized how difficult it is to lie still for that long. I mean, I tell patients it’s hard and have empathy, but I didn’t actually realize how hard it is not to move “whenever the MRI is making sound,” which is almost the whole time. I realized that it really hurts to lie there, and by the end my foot was pretty miserable.

I watched the ceiling lights in the MRI room change colors every few seconds to red, orange, yellow, green, and so on. I also vacillated between being glad I might finally know what’s wrong with my foot and the fear that nothing is actually wrong with my foot. I wonder if anyone else does this. How many times have you gone to the doctor worrying about something and you turned out to be fine? And so far my injury has been fine, just a bruised bone. That stills hurts 5 months later. Ugh.

This injury is so frustrating for me because I love to walk and to run. I love to go places on foot. Most of my young life included walking. Walking to school, the store, to friend’s house. Walking to work. Once when I was pregnant, I had to walk home from work because it was too late to catch a bus. I walked about 4.3 miles home. I did not enjoy that. Even though I had to walk a lot of places, my feet were my independence. But today I tried to jog walk to catch the shuttle at work and my foot was sore the rest of the day from that minute of activity.

Sometimes I find myself imagining that I will never be pain free again, that it will go on forever. Other times I tell myself it isn’t that big of a deal. It’s not like I have a serious illness. Just foot pain. But I don’t want to spend the rest of my life not being able to hike, run or walk my dog without pain.

It feels like some kind of prolonged mental exercise of how much I can tolerate.

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Overchoice 

Posted in travel1 Comment

I just left my kid at her college two days ago. In a dorm with two nice girls from the bay area. I mean they seem nice. But the dorm hallway wall also had an informative graphic about how much alcohol a red solo cup holds. This is the time of letting them make their own choices with your fingers crossed.

These days, when kids are applying for college, they are frequently applying for 6 or 7 schools. Everyone seems frantic to get in to a school, and  they seem to think this means apply for as many as possible. But then they have to choose one. Which is very hard. And that is why my youngest was able to get in off of the wait list and get into the school she wanted. Because someone decided not to choose that school. And despite being accepted into several other schools, she really only wanted to choose from two in the end.

Isn’t that what we all really like sometimes?

Too many choices ain’t all its cracked up to be. I mean, a five page restaurant menu isn’t always better than one page. I don’t want a wine book, just a wine list. I don’t want 21 flavors actually, I want like 5. Otherwise, sometimes I just can’t decide what to do next. This happens to my husband and I a lot. We are like those two vultures from The Jungle Book. What do you want to eat for dinner? I dunno, what do you want? We could get sushi? No I don’t feel like it. How about Thai food? No. Pizza? Oh no, I’m sick of pizza.

Too many people running for a political office, and you end up with Arnold as the Govenator or Trump, right?

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I can’t take the overchoice. And I am not the only one:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overchoice

Lately, as I plan whatever it is I am going to next with My Life, I have a million ideas. Twenty different paths. I just watched a documentary on people who work in Antarctica. Did you know that was a choice? Now you do. Along with volunteering for an NGO, Peace Corp, Travel Nursing, Teaching in Asia….You can do anything, but instead you just scroll through pinterest thinking about what you could be doing.

I mean, it’s not all that I do, but yeah.

In order to force myself to do something, I bought some plane tickets. In 2107, I have two trips to Europe scheduled. One is 7 days and the other is an entire month. I got them cheap, basically two trips with airfare costing me about $1100 for both. I figured there is no time like now. Before I get settled on a job, or a path, or something. And now I am locked in. Can’t back out now.

Trip # 1

Belgrade, Budapest, and Vienna in the Winter

Trip #2

Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Italy, and Switzerland in May

If you are thinking I am just procrastinating, then you are correct. I finish school in December. I am going to Europe twice. Then I’ll figure it out. Right?

 

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Reflection on Things Past

Posted in family, growing up, parenting, pastTagged 2 Comments

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

Marcel Proust, A Remembrance of Things Past, 1913–1927

I make no promises that this reflection will be helpful for those currently knee-deep in parenting.

Successful parenting is a moving target. Nothing in life is static and neither is raising children. At the beginning goals may include keeping your child alive, but over time it morphs into various ideas of success. Years pass, and goals move. We want polite kids, nice kids, kids who do well in school, or kids who go to college. Maybe we imagined them married or in a career one day.

But life events happen and we see that those were our goals.

The other day I told my friend I have learned to see success differently over the years. And I think about that when I see and hear what people hope for their own kids. My comment about success not being what I used to think of it as was followed by my friend commenting that success may be just raising kind people. And I couldn’t help thinking that wasn’t exactly it. I realized that whatever success we imagine is our idea of success. Of course we want our kids to grow up sharing our values. And doesn’t every parent love their child and hope they will be their version of good? I’ve just realized that my idea of good or my values may turn out not to be theirs. All this time we spend parenting, we are  measuring success by our standards of success.

An example is a time when my youngest was in grade school. Maybe junior high. That same friend I mentioned before was babysitting Katie for me. Later she told me that she tried to buy Katie McDonald’s for breakfast and Katie said she couldn’t eat McDonald’s. She said she bought her the same food but paid more fr it at Starbucks. In terms of success, a parent might find this successful because she stood up for a family value we instilled in her to be mindful about food. You could say this was a failure because she should have been a better guest and taken what was given to her. But after more reflection, I realize our kids spend of lot time as children seeing themselves and their world through our eyes. Perhaps, Katie would have loved McDonald’s but decided my disapproval wasn’t worth it. Perhaps there was no success or failure, she just judged that my friend’s disapproval was not as bad as mine. And now, as she heads off to college, she will actually decide on her own if she wants to eat McDonald’s.

We have a lot of ideas early on about who our kids will and will not become. The other day, I saw a social media posting with a photo of a toddler with a caption about their potential future love interest. Again I was reminded we have expectations of our kids lives way before we even know who they are. Way before they know who they are. These things aren’t terrible, it’s part of procreation and the nurturing process. This is how we love them, dreaming and hoping for their future. But in the Bhagavad Gita, there is a part about Karma Yoga that sticks with me. It says not to be motivated by the fruits of your actions but focus on your action without attachment to the results. This is so hard for a goal oriented person like myself. I am all about results. But now I see the wisdom in this for parenting. My kids version of success may not include world travel, marriage or even their own children. They may be happy with whatever form of relationships they make. Or five cats.

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Dear Internet

Posted in bittersweet, me myself and I2 Comments

I raised my kids. I read books. I got the magazines. I PTA’d and volunteered. I baked and silent auctioned. I complained and laughed and cried. I did band aids, dislocated elbows, and wisdom teeth removal. There were panic attacks, leave of absences and psychologists. I argued and worried and felt defeated.

I got the exchange student. I did the vacations. I sewed, painted, even tried to garden. I myspaced/Facebook/instagram posted the moments. I pinterested the hell out of that. I handed over keys. I prepped for interviews and help with applications. I paid, paid, paid for things. Soccer? Softball? music? dance? SAT prep?

The days were long but the years flew by.

And now what?