I keep not-writing this post. What I have written over the course of a couple of days feels stilted and inauthentic. My intentions were the right ones, I’m sure of that. And I was surprised, when I read my intention setting post from 12 months ago, how well I had understood what paying attention and having fun might mean. That wisdom slipped away over the course of the year.
But I can’t summarize this year through my intentions as I’ve done in the past. This year was so absolutely the start of something, and it’s still happening, still unfolding, still realizing. I’m so not finished. I suppose all intentions are unfinished, which is what I like about them. The best ones take years to flower, and it’s lovely when they do. But these are really, really, really unfinished, so it’s hard to pull out and think of them.
So what follows is more like notes from the very early stages of the walk:
Pay attention: I am deeply grateful that I started using a meditation app this year. I’m still a bad meditator — my mind simply will not sit still. But off the mat, the effects have been tremendous, even though I’ve been meditating on my own for a couple of years. Having a teacher, even though it’s not personal, is so much more important than I thought it would be. It helps me release my mind. Now, I have that precious second before action that often leads to non-action. (Sometimes.) I was much better at observing myself, too, and saying “I am feeling {whatever}” rather than getting swept up in the feeling. Or, when I did get swept up in the feeling, I could say, sometimes, “Oh, here I am in the middle of this feeling,” and even though I couldn’t put the brakes on it, I may be able to eventually. One day a few weeks ago, I thought, “Wow, I really can’t do what I’m supposed to do, and there’s nothing new in my work, and I can’t pull this off,” and I saw that and said, “Okay, what an unhelpful story I’m telling myself now. That means it’s rest time.”
I’m not sure whether this is about attention or not, but for the first time in years and years, I felt I had access to all the parts of my brain. I’ve always been good at making connections between disparate things, but this year I’ve been able to remember and connect many many more disparate things. My memory has been weakening as I age, and not getting enough sleep (it was a terrible year for sleep) compounds the bad effects of aging. And yet, even though I forget names and faces and can never find my cellphone (I’ve done this, really), I can also weave together a whole lot of what I’ve learned in more than 15 years in my field. That’s been incredibly gratifying, and I think it’s a result of the stronger meditation practice.
With Daniel, paying attention still doesn’t reliably look like doing what he wants me to do, and paying sufficient (to him) attention to him. Sometimes it looks like that, and it’s very pleasant, in fact quite lovely, when that happens. Usually, though, it looks like me thinking, “Oh, there you go again, and I’m not responsible for your mood, and it will pass, and rather than feel responsible and feel angry about being responsible and doing a bad job being your wife, I’m going to let you know that it’s not okay to act in an ugly way.” And I do, and nothing terrible happens. Daniel seems rather relieved that someone is putting a brake on his tantrums — not that it’s my responsibility to do so. A huge realization this year was that I can insist on being treated well and with exquisite respect, even when (even though) I am imperfect.
There is a link between paying attention and feeling empowered (or keeping and using my power). One of the meditation books I read years ago mentions something about this — which I had forgotten about until just now. The author says something along the lines of, when you are in the moment, and not overwhelmed by emotion, you can make better decisions. When I pay attention, really pay attention, I can hold my ground. I can choose what happens next (well, I can choose what I can do next). Empowerment may come from my circumstances as well: in my previous job, I had very little power to make consequential decisions, and now I have all the power to make consequential decisions — and I like it! The outer environment may be as relevant here as the inner environment. But that boundary between inner and outer is really permeable.
Other useful tools for my professional life have been Evernote, for everything, and taking a few minutes before a meeting to set goals and think about what I want to happen and how I want to show up, and then taking 30-60 seconds after meetings to summarize the most important points. (I don’t know that I believe the origin story, but it’s a good practice.)
Have fun: I was about to write, “I wish there was an app for that, too,” but then I realized that most apps are about that.
I’m definitely having fun at work, which is inextricable from being the boss and paying attention. My job, though exceptionally challenging, is a joy. Most days, I really love what I do. I hang up the phone after talking to one spectacular person after another and say, “I am so lucky to be able to do this.” It’s been wonderful to observe myself do this job, and to see myself do things day in and day out that I could not have done a year ago, certainly not two years ago. So, yea for me. I have a hard time celebrating what I’ve done and how far I’ve come this year — in part because so much lies ahead. But I’m even better at that. I am the person, professionally, that I knew I could be and that I wanted to be, and it’s even better than I imagined. That’s huge. Yea for me.
At home, it’s up and down. I think of home as a place of work or rest. I like to do both. I actually like to cook and wish I did more of it. I like to restore order by doing laundry or tidying up. And, although it’s hard for me, I do enjoy rest, which takes the form of reading a novel (sometimes of cooking). But I don’t seem to find fun at home.
I struggle with fun. I had FOMO back in the ’90s, before it was a thing. Dance parties are reliably, awesomely fun to me. Particularly if they take place between 1992 and 1994. But there are not so many dance parties in my life. None, in fact, and certainly none 20+ years ago. I had amazing fun on a girls’ weekend in August with my very best friends from grad school — something we’ve done twice in 12 years. Maybe my standards for fun are just too high. Perhaps where other people say “fun” I say some other word that seems more specific and resonant to me, like lovely or winning or delightful or great, e.g., “It was great to see them.” (I’m not sure I convince myself). The real problem with me and fun is that every action needs to be both valuable in itself and contribute to some other worthy goal. That burden crushes all fun. Teleology is a real buzz kill. I’ve spent so much effort trying to be mindful — how I can be mindless?
I need to figure out local, daily fun. Micro fun. What is micro fun? Texting, Instagram — there are apps for that! The app I really need is “fun for introverts who like to go to bed early.” Yeah, the more I write, the more I reveal the depths of the challenge. Worse: “Fun for middle-aged introverts who wake up at 5:53am and just want to get away from all you people and read a book and what, really, is so wrong with that?” Expensive chocolate is micro fun. Delicious tea is micro fun. Listening to NPR while I do my physical therapy exercises is… WHO AM I KIDDING? (Well, it is pleasant. I do look forward to it. It’s so clearly the right thing to do on many levels — so many boxes ticked, all before 8am.)
Blogging is fun. Enough said.
Another Door 