Stories.
I’m high-performing at work, and I have 35 tabs open on my computer at all times. I rarely miss deadlines or appointments, and my desk looks like somebody spilled a trash can all over it. My desktop is as cluttered as my actual desk. I can tune out the noise and smell of the horde of teenagers in my house, and I procrastinate updating my phone’s OS. My purse is the size of a duffle bag and includes a lot of helpful items (pens that write, tissues, four chapsticks, tampons, mints) and many not so helpful items (pens that don’t write, tissues with old gum, three years worth of hardware store receipts).
What I’m saying is I’m used to a high level of chaos, dirt, mess, smell and noise. I’m prepared for many eventualities and when those arise I have to dig through all the unnecessary shit to get to the useful stuff. And that is pretty much my life.
Chaos comes in many forms, including ones that are culturally acceptable. I’m always multi-tasking (or more accurately, rapidly switching between competing tasks). I don’t like it and I don’t thrive on it, but it’s my default because it feels familiar. Never able to focus and go deep on one thing, because that means losing myself in the process and giving up vigilance for a minute. I know that half-assing a bunch of stuff at the same time doesn’t keep me safe and doesn’t bring good results. But my brain still tells me, no, no this is the way to go, constantly scanning everything, never fully paying attention to just one thing, is the way to stay safe. That frantic energy is just a different brand of chaos.
No wonder, the ballet studio, the painting class, the library were my favorite — they were all places where I could stop being vigilant, be in the moment, immersed in just one singular activity. I know this is when I am happiest and calmest. When everything seems to have an easy order and flow. And yet, I don’t structure my life and schedule to get more of these singularly focused chunks of time — whether that’s for work or pleasure.
I’m so good under pressure and looming deadlines and so bad at setting up consistent processes and systems to avoid getting into those situations in the first place. Then I scramble to get a project done skipping other things that I swore I would prioritize (like exercise or alone time or regular meals).
I make ambitious goals, go hard for a few days or weeks, inevitably fail (i.e. not live up to my perfectionistic standards), feel ashamed, say fuck it and go back to my old ways, only to start the cycle over again. I’m the one with the unused gym memberships, the stack of unread books on the bedside table, the unfinished creative projects, the notes scribbled on scraps of paper.
It’s not that I can’t be organized or don’t know how to streamline a process or make a schedule. It’s that I secretly don’t want to because I’m comfortable in chaos. Maybe not comfortable, but used to it.
And also, I viewed chaos as creative and exciting and adventurous, and order as boring. It has taken me decades to realize how vanilla I truly am. I fucking love a good vanilla ice cream. Don’t come at me with your chorizo caramel swirl ice cream, you savages. This is the first time in my life that I’m leaning into boredom and consistency. I didn’t get enough of it as a kid and I have a very real need for it.
Turns out being used to chaos is not the same as thriving in chaos.
As a kid, my parents’ lack of consistency and chaotic way to apply the rules felt destabilizing. It constantly had me confused and scratching my head, trying to figure out what was going on and why. Sometimes my mother would be affectionate and loving, then she would yell and call me names, walk out on a fight, or give me the silent treatment. She would be supportive of my hobbies and creative pursuits, working her ass off to make sure I could take the painting workshop and the dance classes, but we had no consistent mealtimes or curfews or house rules.
Things were changing constantly but I seemed to have little influence over how and when. I started feeling like I have to get it all, as much of it as possible, as quickly as possible, because who knows when it will come around again? Food, entertainment, relationships, attention. I inhaled them, gorged myself on them, obsessed over them, let myself be swallowed up. What is moderation? Why pace myself? You never know what will happen next.
Chaos is also connected to fear for me. I don’t enjoy the adrenaline rush of being in an unpredictable situation. It feels familiar but it doesn’t feel good. I don’t like horror movies or being startled. Adrenaline isn’t fun for me, because to my body it just feels like fear rather than excitement. I don’t scream. I hold my breath. Order on the other hand feels like peace. Calm. Steady.
I’m trying to balance chaos and order in my life. I celebrate that I’ve been sticking to my writing schedule for almost seven months now. I organized my desktop. I estimate my time for work projects with a buffer so I don’t get panicked and overwhelmed.
I’m practicing experiencing chaos in small doses to make some new memories connected with fun rather than fear. This summer I took my girls on a trip for the first time. It was a huge, loud city with insane traffic and so very many people. We went to a place with all the rollercoasters. I screamed a lot. I laughed more. I won’t lie. I still thought fuck this rollercoaster is going to derail any second and all of us will plunge to our deaths and become a gruesome headline. But there were also moments when I enjoyed the stomach flips and the wind in my hair and my girls next to me laughing hysterically.
Beauty.
This is a freezer full of beautiful, homemade vegetable broth. Yesterday I asked Rob to make me his veggie/bean chili. It’s one of the most comforting things I love to eat in the winter. It takes a million years to make from scratch, starting with cooking a bunch of veggies for the broth, and cooking several different kinds of beans, then cooking the actual chili. The process takes days…..and then it’s a hug in a bowl. Back in 2018 when I couldn’t eat, this was one of the only things I managed to get down. And every time I slowly worked my way through a cup, I felt loved.
Lightbulbs.
My first (bad) experience with an editor.
An online publication asked me if they could republish one of my articles. I wasn’t sure, because they’re a bit clickbait-y. Okay, a lot clickbait-y. But I thought it would be good exposure, so I said yes. My mistake. When I looked up the article today it was listed with an incorrect headline which I did not approve. The article was supposed to be republished verbatim.
I email the editor. I say I don’t appreciate that you didn’t ask me before changing my headline, so I’m withdrawing permission for the other two essays you wanted to republish. She emails back saying oh no, I would never do this, where are you seeing this? So I look up the article again and it’s my correct headline. I think am I fucking crazy? I email her back that it appears correct now but that I know for sure that it was incorrect earlier today.
She gives me some half-baked story about an intern uploading the incorrect headline and publishing it without her approval. She throws in something about how her word means everything to her in the publishing world. At that point I think, oh, I’m such an asshole. I was probably wrong anyway.
But then I remember the wayback machine, an internet archive that collects screenshot data from websites so you can view older/original versions before any changes have been made. Sure enough, according to wayback the incorrect headline was posted for three and a half days already, when I saw it earlier today. It wasn’t corrected until later in the day after I pointed it out. And of course, a different headline should have never been uploaded in the first place. I only gave permission for verbatim republishing.
So now the editor’s first email feigning ignorance and asking innocently “where are you seeing this?” becomes a little more irritating, because the headline was changed after I pointed out the problem. If you make a mistake, just say it. Also, when apologizing don’t tell me you’re sorry I’m upset. Apologize for your actions, not my feelings.
This is so dumb and didn’t need to be a problem. But if you can’t admit something small like that, I don’t want to deal with you on a professional level. There is no moral other than that I love writing but my first experience with an editor of a publication has been one long eye-roll.
PS: Secretly I’m blaming myself because I should have seen it coming. It’s a shit publication and I knew it.
Wordles (Words+Doodles).
Today I needed to remind myself of some of the words I picked earlier in the year to guide me. At the time, I was writing about fear and how it had driven many of my decisions. I wanted to choose other concepts to guide me.
I picked curiosity, flexibility, and clarity.
Curiosity, because I had a tendency to assume I knew everything about a situation or person. For much of my life it was a good coping mechanism to make snap judgments because I had to determine what kind of person I was dealing with or what kind of situation I was in. It would not have been a good idea to be open and curious, when I had to assess threat levels.
Flexibility, because I often found safety in rigid ideas or perspectives. I liked to live on the extreme, opposite ends of the spectrum. I felt those hard lines, black and white, gave me safety. Flexibility reminds me that I can adapt. That I don’t need to immediately categorize everything. That I can live in the messy middle, the gray area, the ambiguous.
Clarity because one of my main emotional states used to be confusion. I didn’t know how I felt about things. I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t know what I liked. I got confused in arguments, not knowing what was my part and what was the other person’s. I was confused about reality, questioned my memories and judgments constantly.
This one has been the hardest and most beautiful. Settling into myself, not straining to figure myself out, but trying to quiet my mind enough to listen to myself. Paying attention to my body. Validating my emotions. Gently questioning my beliefs. Trying things out, trying things on, see how they fit. If they feel like me. Coming back to myself every time I want to adopt something someone else says or thinks about me.
New friends (real or imaginary).
Leslie Knope of Parks and Rec. She’s not real. I wish she was. Then I wish she had a baby with Ted Lasso. I love her idealism that’s backed up by action. I love the kind of friend she is to Ann. I love the way she interacts with her boss Ron Swanson at the parks department, who is a self-proclaimed anti-government, extreme libertarian (working for the government). They have nothing in common, except their love for breakfast foods, but they make it work.
Leslie (getting waffles): Why would anyone ever eat anything but breakfast foods?
Ron (eating bacon): People are idiots, Leslie.
I love her thoughtfulness (she gives the best gifts), her passion for making her community a better place, and her ability to reflect on her own (sometimes shitty) behavior. She is fully herself and gets excited about random stuff, like the census and color coded binders.
She makes me feel more hopeful about humanity.
Cake Wrecks.
I’ve always wanted to make meringue out of bean juice. It just seemed so magical. I can’t believe this actually worked. You just take aquafaba (the liquid in canned chickpeas) and some cream of tartar and whip it up. Add sugar and vanilla and ta-da! Vegan meringue. It even passed the Blizzard test!! It tasted great just like that before baking. I piped the little blobs with a giant ziplock bag because I’m not fancy. They took forever, because they have to be baked for a long time at low temperatures and then cool down in the oven slowly so they don’t crack or deflate. They turned out absolutely perfect.
Until I put one in my mouth. How do I explain this? It sounded like biting into styrofoam. The texture was that of marshmallow flavored sidewalk chalk. They were so bad the kids refused to eat them. Except for one who apparently likes weird textures and chewing sounds. By far one of the worst things I’ve ever made in my life.
Thanks a lot Lovingitvegan for getting my hopes up only to viciously destroy them. Literally every commenter is falling all over themselves praising this recipe. I don’t know what I did wrong.
Soundtracks.
Blue Sky Mind by Trevor Hall. I had a good cry to this song this weekend. I listened to it on endless repeat while crying in the bathroom. Then I listened to it while baking these terrible meringue cookies. Then I turned it off to sit on the couch and watch a bad Netflix movie. This happens every November. I read about horrible, heartbreaking, difficult stuff all year.
November comes around and I’m like, all I will consume is the Great British Baking Show and every goddamn Netflix Christmas movie there is. I will put up all the lights and make all the treats and wear my fluffy pajamas all day, while listening to All I want for Christmas by Mariah Carey (don’t even argue with me). I really don’t handle the dark and cold well (as you know if you’ve been reading for a while). I basically start dreading winter June 21st when the days start getting shorter. Anyway, this song helped me drain all the tears. It’s strangely meditative and calming, more like a chant. Or like a song a kid made up. You know, where they just repeat one phrase over and over, pretending it’s a song.
That’s it for today! See you next week!
PS: I think it would be funny to go to the gym and work out really hard, straining to lift the weights, grunting, and panting. Except not actually holding any weights. I wonder how long it would take for someone to comment.
Bucket list item: go to the gym with Juliane.