Shells from a Beach

Stories of life, love, and learning

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Pedestals

March 3rd, 2023

Available as a podcast here: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/KHu6BJv00xb

I’ve been on both sides of pedestaling. Pedestaling sucks on both sides. If you find yourself on a pedestal, it’s disorienting. If you find yourself pedestaling someone, it’s compulsive. The person who is pedestaled feels like they shouldn’t be, and the person pedestaling them has an ideal picture of them that they keep expecting and praising. It’s rough, it feels wrong. When I was pedestaled, I felt like I had to be happy all the time – I had to be my best because the relationship was centered around me and if I wasn’t my best, my partner crumbled. When I was the one pedestaling, I was in a sort of mania. I fully believed everything I said in praise of my pedestaled person and I craved any closeness I could get. I took meaning from every interaction and I was enthralled by every thing they were willing to share. I was lost in limerence.

Limerence feels like love. It feels so true and pure to the person experiencing it. I can only imagine the other side of it, though. I haven’t experienced anything like the opposing side of my limerence. My love for people runs deep; my friends, acquaintances, family, and even strangers. So, when I think I’m in romantic love – it goes to 11. I’m in 100%, open heart, open mind, open everything. I don’t hold secrets, or hold back my affections. But, limerence shifts the landscape. I’m not holding anything back, but the limerence makes me blind to my wants and needs in a healthy relationship. It’s so easy to fall into if you’ve experienced similar trauma and have a desire for love.

When I was pedestaled, it was simpler. Y’know how people rank each other? Like, “She’s an 8 and I’m a 4.5, so she’s way outta my league!” My partner seemed to think that I was out of their league. That’s how I ended up being pedestaled. They feared losing the relationship because some day, I was going to “wake up” and leave them. That isn’t what happened. Their insecurities ate away at the relationship, and making me the center created an imbalance that ultimately led to resentment. From the outside, people thought our relationship was excellent. We’re both charismatic individuals that were able to build on each other’s joy. However, the imbalance ate away at our private life. Pedestaling is devastating.

At the end of the day, my partner sacrificed too much to try and make me happy. All that work was in vain because my happiness is not dependent on my partner(s). It’s dependent on me. They centered their happiness on mine, and mine was not stable. Every time I crumbled, there was nothing more they could do to fix me, and that broke them. It wasn’t their burden, it was always mine. By taking it on, they hurt themselves. They couldn’t fix me, that’s my job. It broke us. It broke them, first. Things started unraveling and I started feeling unsafe. We tried, but we were not on the same plane. (Math reference!) We were like two ships passing in the night. We saw each other, but we were never meant to stay together.

Unfortunately, the people I’ve pedestaled were not in relationships with me. It’s almost like that’s the trigger: the potential relationship. They never became relationships because I went all in too fast and they were not narcissistic enough to believe it. Any healthy, normal person, is not going to dive in at 100% immediately. Caution is important. Any sense of awareness is important. I lost those. If we lose ourselves in love, it isn’t real. As I said before, I can’t say I’ve found it, but I know that I will still be me if it’s real love. I won’t lose my interests, my drive, or my silliness. Any healthy relationship is going to support the sides of me that I love. Likewise, I’ll be supporting them in what they want and need, not just fulfilling my own wants and needs through them.

I managed to realize in therapy that my limerence is driven by my insecurities. The more I love myself and feel happy and stable in my core – the less I lose myself in such things. So, you can look back at the “Love Me?” post if you’re working on that, even I am still working on it. I think it’s a constant progression and not a finish line. If we stop working on ourselves, we stagnate. When we stagnate, we can fall into unhealthy patterns and lose ourselves. If real, healthy love comes from security in being oneself and sharing it with another… Find that.

This is a story about my cat.

We love our pets, especially in the US. My cat was like an animal companion in Dungeons & Dragons. We had our own language. I got him as a kitten, born on my boyfriend’s parent’s property. He was the oddball of the litter. There were 3-4 gray tabbies, 2-3 siamese-like kittens, and my gray and white poofball. Cats are so cool. It was a cool experience for me to see the kittens from the beginning, and being such an oddball myself – I wanted to keep the gray poofball as my own. When the kittens were old enough, we started checking their sexes, and it appeared that he was female. I named him “Maiden.” Within a week, we realized he was male and I changed his name to “Leo da Vin,” or Leo, for short. This is the point where I used to make a joke about him changing sex because I picked such a bad name; young S. had weird names for cats.

My first cat was Goldy, then came Snow White, Cinnamon Spice, and finally, Leo da Vin. Leo went with me everywhere when he was a little kitten. I took him in my car, which had no air conditioning, that first summer. Poor thing, he was so overheated in the car in summer. But, he was bonded with me well. He curled up with me, allowed me to carry him into places, and stayed by my side. He was my first baby, my fur baby. He learned to ask before leaping into my lap, and we would “talk” to each other in our own language every day when I got home, or got up, etc. He also drooled more than any cat I’ve ever met; he had a special drool blanket for cuddles. He would follow me around the house, respond to verbal requests; I loved him the most of all my cats. There are many stories about Leo, but I will share the funniest one – that isn’t my own.

Leo lived with me and a roommate in undergrad. This roommate is still one of the people I’m most grateful for having in my life. He wasn’t super-fond of Leo, but he liked him. Leo was an indoor-outdoor cat, so my roommate was somewhat annoyed by the constant need to open the door to let Leo in and out, because Leo was a cat, so he wanted in and out a LOT. One day, my roommate was coming back to our apartment when he saw Leo outside. He watched Leo jump from the ground, to the fence of a first floor patio, off a tree, and onto the roof of the complex. Like a ninja. He tells this story so much better than I can, but the part that always makes me laugh is his description of the dichotomy in the fact that my cat was capable of such insane leaps, but would also “Walk. Into. Doors.” Leo was like me, capable of great things, but also blindly dumb at others.

Love yourself, and avoid the blindness of limerence.

With Love, -S.
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Cognitive reframe

February 24th, 2023
Available as a podcast here: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/F4opkNp3Lxb

We all struggle with our internal critic. The one that instinctively uses negative reinforcement any time we are unhappy with something about ourselves. This post is about reframing things when we catch ourselves in negative reinforcement land, so we can become more confident and secure in ourselves – which leads us to more success. I ask my students to do this, too. It’s positive reinforcement time!

This is one of the things I talk about with acquaintances the most. Whenever I meet someone and I see their insecurity we usually end up talking about cognitive reframe. I get a read on them and I try to test whether such a conversation is on the table for them. It isn’t always. However, when it is a conversation they’re ready to have, it can set them on a path to finding their security and confidence. There is a relief of weight when we let go of our inner critic enough to believe in our ability. This is harder when someone is indecisive, but the core behind the indecisiveness and the insecurity is the same.

The indecisiveness (for me) is an extension of a desire to not “step on any toes” or “be difficult.” Sort of hilarious, because it can really infuriate some people when I’m indecisive (hahaha!) I know a lot of indecisive people, like me. We can have these standoffs of indecisiveness that I always turn into silliness because, WOW, we’re ridiculous. Both of us, trying not to infringe on the other persons wants or needs and be a people pleaser. This is when the more confident side of me will sometimes step in and either suggest something or find a way to humorously make it their decision.

The insecurity is more an extension of a desire to be accepted, not judged. When we want something we do to be accepted, we are putting weight in the judgement of someone else. If we find security in ourselves, then their judgement becomes secondary. The approval of others is a rather alluring thing… when we receive that approval it can elate us. We know that there is grace in being humble, so no matter how much we like ourselves and what we do, that perspective lends us to believe that we’re only as good as what others tell us. If we think we’re good, but they don’t, then where does that leave us? Honestly, I would say: learn to trust yourself, love yourself, but still be gracious.

I love singing. I always have. However, it’s a place where I hold insecurity. I would audition for musicals and my voice would shrink. I can belt a ballad, I can sing opera through my whole body, but I couldn’t sing at an audition to save my life. Why? Insecurity. When I used to sing as a child, I drove my mother crazy. (Don’t we all?) She didn’t like me singing along to her music. When I would belt “The Power of Love” by Celine Dion, she told me to go outside to sing. In her defense, I’m sure my voice as a child was still learning and growing, but I felt like my singing was awful. I loved to sing, but I started singing less and less over time. I loved it too much to let it go, but I took those feelings to heart. It took me years to start singing in front of anyone.

I did seek out training for my voice in high school and college, it helped. But, my insecurity always held me back. I would lose composure if I sang with anyone nearby. One of my best friends from high school walked by a room where I was practicing “All that Jazz” for a vocal performance class in college, and he was smart enough to stay outside because he got to hear how I really sing. He stopped me the next time I saw him and complimented me on how I sounded while I was practicing. It made me cry. Y’know, the way a sincere compliment does when you’re used to criticism.

Finally, sometime in my 30s, I started letting go of my insecurity. Why? Because I like the way I sing and I love doing it. I stopped caring so much about how others felt about it. So, if there’s something that you enjoy doing, that’s reason enough to embrace it and do more of it. Period. If you truly “suck” at it, everyone else can take their opinions elsewhere. Do the things you love, folks. Find some joy!

Negative reinforcement is the action of “beating yourself up” when you do something you didn’t like. Positive reinforcement shifts the emphasis from what you did “wrong” to how to do it “right.” First, emphasize the things that you did well. Then, when you hear that negative reinforcement start barraging you with bad things, reframe them. “I messed up that note” changes to “If I can relax in my shoulders and throat, that note will come out.” These shifts will change your life. You’ll find yourself doing better and feeling better in these things. I know I do. You can, too.

I ask my students to do this in mathematics. Some of the ways I do this are in Participation assignments. On review days, I will often ask the students to write themselves a pep talk, or write out the content they feel good about and then a list of what they need to work on (emphasizing the actions – what they need to do to feel good about them.) Occasionally, if an exam has a low mean and median, I will ask the students to do a rewrite assignment. In these assignments, I ask them to rework the problem, and then write a sentence about what they learned when they worked through it. I make it clear that I want positive action statements like “When we determine an antiderivative, there is always an added unknown constant that we represent by C because the derivative of a constant is zero.” (Note: the negative reinforcement here is “I forgot the +C.”) This is backed by research. Emphasize what to do “right,” not what went “wrong” and you will find your outlook, performance, and security all improving. Love.

It took too long for me to find a story for this one. I decided I would lump together my tools for the scenarios when I find myself in indecisiveness standoffs. The scenarios make me smile, hopefully you will, too.
1. Point out the standoff. Laugh about it. “Neither of us is willing to make a decision… hahahahaha.” Sometimes when I do this, the other person jumps in and makes a call because I’ve pointed out our standoff. When they don’t, I know it’s my turn to jump in and suggest a decision. This one happens the most frequently for me.
2. Make a choice just to determine if either of you has real feelings about the outcome. When given options, if you don’t think you care, but once a decision is made you feel a slight “awww, darn.” inside yourself – you cared about the outcome. Change the decision. This one is an extension of the last one, if you look out for any disappointment from yourself or the other person in the standoff, you can quickly change the decision.
3. Be obstinate about your indecisiveness, but with good humor. I usually do this with a playful version of “I’m not making this decision. Your call.” with a big smile that shows how playful I’m being. Even the most indecisive person realizes this is a challenge and not a demand, in my experience. They might get flustered, or still try to get your input, but if you do as I do: stay playful while also insisting that I will not make the call, they usually come around. If I see anything resembling panic, I stop and help them. I’m trying to provide a safe space for them to feel comfortable making a decision, panic is the opposite of that.
With work you, too, can learn how to take up space to become more decisive.

May you reframe your disappointments into actionable improvements and find yourself happier. So much love, -S.
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Mermaid girl

February 17th, 2023

Available as a podcast here: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/ypbrY77rBxb

I wanted to be Ariel from The Little Mermaid. I mentioned this in my last post, so it seemed a good time to expand on the more serious sides of this desire. As I said in that post, I loved the ocean. The ocean felt like home to me, and I wanted to be a part of it. There’s a lot more to Ariel’s story, though, and it is directly tied to the trauma I carried.

Ariel didn’t fit in with her sisters. She was presented as quirky, gifted vocally, and her father’s favorite. Not to mention her sacrifice to pursue a love outside her world. Her hoarding of things. Ahem. I was quirky, I loved to sing, and I was a “daddy’s girl,” too. When I was little, my dad was my pal. There are pictures in my albums of my dad and I passed out together on the recliner – from the days I was drinking a bottle through the time leading to my parent’s divorce. We played together, napped together, and loved each other. He used to give me a back massage every night before I went to sleep. No one has ever loved me like my dad did when I was young.

I was so often the new kid that I never found a sense of “fitting in.” I didn’t have siblings for the first 10+ years, so the only way I could fit in was through friends (my family is small.) It’s hard to make friends when the friend groups at your new school are already made. In first grade, even the teacher treated me like an outcast. My parents moved me to a new school, where things got a bit better. Listening to Ariel’s sisters resonated with the way I was treated; I felt judged and rejected by my peers. These feelings carried with me into adulthood and became part of my trauma and anxiety. Only through the continuing love and support of my adult friends have I learned to trust that I am no longer an outcast.

Ariel’s sacrifice of her voice for a chance at love is the original model for the sacrifices in my relationships. She sacrificed precisely the thing that was presented as her strength. A lot of people blame the film for girls learning that they need to sacrifice who they are to find love. I don’t know, it’s possible, but I think the feeling that love is conditional is the true foundation for that (see earlier post: Love me?) Ariel wanted to be part of Eric’s world. She didn’t feel like she belonged, and joining Eric’s world appeared to be a chance at acceptance and love. This wasn’t a situation where he imposed the sacrifices on her. Perhaps, instead, it’s an example of the manic state of teenage love? Teenagers, in general, are manic about love. They will sacrifice to feel the passion and closeness without concern for the consequences or cost. It’s the madness of love that Shakespeare talked about. It worked out for Ariel and Eric in the movie, though.

I related to Ariel’s need for a cavern of things to herself. I also felt a need to have a safe space to myself, and almost everything I got was hand-me-downs so I hoarded my things. One could say that I also had a collection of discarded treasures, so to speak. I was incredibly lucky to live in a small town where there were trees to escape to, fields to run through, and dirt hills to race over. Back in the days of kids running around on their own, I could escape and just sit in the trees. Sometimes I would read or write, but most of the time I would just wander and take in the trees. I recommend trying that, if you haven’t.

By now, I usually analyze further. This post is different; I’m opening up about my experience and the connection to Ariel. I’m going to tell you a story that isn’t funny. But, I promise to end with something that is funny.

The first time I had real feelings and didn’t immediately run/implode set me on a path to finding myself (unfortunately, I still ran/imploded in the end.) I found out how remarkably true it is that we fall in love with people like our parents. Yeah, it’s a cliché, but it’s stunningly true. When I look back, I realize that I sought out the love that I once had with my dad. My dad’s an oddball. So, there aren’t a lot of people in the world like him. He promised to put me first, but then he got a girlfriend – I wasn’t first anymore. He promised a lot of things that never came through, but that one was the one that broke me. My dad had been my cheerleader, but one day I realized that he was surprised when I accomplished things that he’d been so confident about the day before. The lack of followthrough and consistency in a relationship is a red flag, but when it’s your parent, you don’t know any better. I felt like no accomplishment was truly “good enough” because I never received the response I was looking for.

I forgave him for the lack of followthrough and for how sad I felt when his support was misaligned, etc. I forgave him again and again. I gave so much that I was the one giving him unconditional love, and the parent-child relationship became flipped. My dad truly believed that I inherited his mother’s soul. So, the relationship was flipped. He looked to me for guidance, love, and support. This is probably why I’ve had friends look to me for the same things my whole life; I had to grow up quickly and parent my dad. Before I cut my dad off, we had a long argument (the same argument we’d had hundreds of times, but more intense because I was a pregnant adult and it was in person.) I managed to deescalate and genuinely address him about his burden. He heard me in the moment, but like all the other conversations, he’d forget by morning and respond with vitriol. It’s why we don’t talk anymore.

So, the man like my father had the same upsides and similar downsides. He loved, appreciated, and supported me more than anyone had ever done – the most like my dad of anyone I met in my life. He looked to me for guidance, love, and support – which I was happy to give. However, he didn’t follow through on things. He freaked out about any circumstances that might risk hurting one of us. So, we both got hurt. I moved into a trauma space when he told me he was in love with someone else, still. I jumped back in time to the days when my dad chose my stepmother over me, and I tried to win his love (like I’d tried to win over others’) with messages of appreciation and love that could all be summed up with a “Will you choose me this time, Dad?” as the underlying message. Will someone choose me? No. I have to choose myself.

That’s the lesson, and the ending of this particular story. You will likely also be drawn to the complicated and messy relationships like those you hold with your parents. Any unhealed parental trauma will show up in your relationships. Work to heal that trauma first. I’m still healing mine, so I’m not looking for love – at least, not for now. Also: you might not find your trauma without falling into those relationships and patterns. You also might not find it without therapy. Good luck, Love.

I’m going to follow up with a funny and brilliant story about my dad. He wasn’t all bad, not by a long shot. Like I said earlier, he was my pal.

Something my dad and I both severely struggled with in our lives was a nail-biting habit. My dad’s fingernails were always bitten as far down as they could go, and when he ran out of fingernails he would pick-fidget with his hands. He never found a way to break the habit, not in childhood or adulthood. In my reflection on his situation, I can see that he certainly had anxiety issues and that was one of the presentations of his anxiety. I was a child nail-biter (I also had/have anxiety…), but my dad decided to hold a contest to see which one of us could go the longest without biting our nails.

The winner would get to “pie” the other in the face. I think he always intended to lose. He was an adult who had not been able to break the habit, but he found a brilliant way to incentivize me to stop biting my nails. It worked. I managed to break the habit after we completed our contest, compared our nails, and I was the winner. I shoved a pie tin of whipped cream in my dad’s face, he laughed and had fun with it. Bonus: I got to hose him off after! As a kid, it’s a lot of fun to pie your dad in the face and then turn on the hose and rinse him off. I have a picture of how soaked he was after, and the memory gives me joy. We had so much fun together, me and my dad. He was great when I was little. It’s why he has a special place in my heart.

No matter who hurts you in this life, you won’t know you’ve healed until you can think of them and revel in the good times you had with them. I hope you get there.

With love, kindness, and healing, -S.
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Love me?

February 10th, 2023

Available as a podcast here: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/gG9Uzsxnoxb

This is a hard one to write. I struggle with rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD.) Which means that I can have catastrophic responses to feelings of rejection that come from small versions “no.” I think my dad has it, too. Any small criticism would cause me to feel like I wasn’t worthy of existing. I was often further criticized by my inability to take criticism gracefully. I was labeled as a perfectionist, overdramatic, and sensitive. However, the foundation of these feelings was in a deeply rooted insecurity that I was not “enough.”

People pleasers develop due to the human need to feel loved when in environments where they feel that love from their caretakers is conditional. If love is conditional, then it’s dependent on meeting the standards of those I want to love me. This creates a hole in my heart because it presents such relationships as entirely dependent upon the giver of the love and satisfying their desires. The inherent message for the people pleaser (receiver of the love) is that they are only worthy of love when meeting those desires, and unworthy of love outside of those circumstances. The insecurity and dependency formed in this imbalance causes anxious attachments and codependency in future relationships. That’s been my problem in all my relationships.

I read it hundreds of times, maybe thousands: you must love yourself to truly love others. There’s so much underneath this statement that is completely lost if that’s all you take away from it. However, until you truly “get it” (aka “love yourself”) there’s no way to know what you’re missing underneath that statement. Let me try to elucidate it for you…

Before you can love yourself, you have to know yourself. If you, like me, spend your life as a people pleaser who keeps following the approval of others instead of looking inside yourself for what you want, need, and feel – you probably don’t know yourself. I didn’t. I mean, on some level I did. I was so used to being a chameleon that could shift into any environment that I have too many versions of myself that seem contradictory – I wasn’t sure which ones were me because there were so many and I spent time in all of them. Which versions of you light you up inside? Which versions of you are just okay? That’s how I found my core.

Now, to be fair, it took friends that knew me over several years to reflect who I am for me to see this. Who and what make you feel a giddy glee inside? Who and what make you feel like you have to work to please them? The former is your key, the latter is what we learned was “normal.” For me, I have friends that I can talk to for hours on end without ever getting bored or wanting to leave their side. Those are my people. They reflect the parts of me I love and they remind me who I am at my core. Friends: I love you. I love you with a bursting heart overfull of gratefulness for your existence. I love you with a million hugs and a desire to make you feel as wonderful as I do just having you in my life. I love you.

If you’re like me, now is about the time you might be thinking: “They don’t know the real me,” “I don’t deserve their love,” etc. STOP. IT. I was there, too. YOU are worthy of the love that people give you. They are choosing to give it to you of their own free will, and when you embrace their love instead of running from it – your heart will fill and grow. Realize that when you push back, or resist (hey, remember the post about flow? If not, go read it, it’s relevant here!) their love 1) you’re rejecting them (yeah! I said it), and 2) you’re not in flow. It’s important to be humble, but when someone gives you love, it’s important to accept it. Not just for you, but for them.

Rejection never feels good. Acceptance is the goal. Accept the love, and give in to the flow. Stop working so hard to please people (I need to hear that, too.) If you have to work hard and sacrifice to earn love, it’s probably conditional on you being outside yourself. If you know yourself: your values, goals, interests, style, etc. and people are asking you to compromise those things for their love: those are not your people. If you can be your wild, weird, crazy self (without hurting people!) and people still love you – those are your people. Those are probably the people in your life giving you the love that you are resisting. You are worthy of that love, and if you embrace it, it’ll all make sense later.

I tried, many times, to be the version of me that other people wanted. I love acting, so it was easy to play the part. But, if the part you are playing isn’t the real you, it won’t last forever and it will only eat away at your heart. Being someone else’s version of me ate away at my heart. It made me feel repressed, trapped in a box that seemed to grow smaller every day. Every time I chose to be someone else’s version of me I eventually realized I was depressed. Every time I ended a relationship, I would gravitate back to the real me – until I fell into another relationship. Friends are more likely to know the real me than romantic partners. Most of my friendships growing up were fleeting because I moved so much, so the fear of losing a friend was quickly relieved.

Romantic love, though. Remember when I said that I sought love in such relationships to meet the love missing in my childhood? Right. In childhood, those that raise us are “supposed to” love us unconditionally. Even if they do, the belief that love from our caregivers is conditional creates a hole. That was a hole that needed mending, for me. The people pleasing needed to be recognized and addressed. To love ourselves, we need to not just know ourselves, but also recognize and heal the holes that made us feel unworthy. I hope you recognize your holes, and that you know you have the strength to heal them. Love does not need to be conditional. You deserve people that love you for the real you, the you that lights YOU up.

It took becoming a parent for me to truly believe I was worthy of love. I hope, dear reader, that you find your worthiness before I did. Divorce is hard. Coparenting is hard. But, honestly? I’m the happiest version of myself because I have friends that love the real me, and I know now what I love about myself. I still love all the accomplishments that people pleasing got me. But, I love my heart; I love people. I love connection, openness, and seeing people. I love seeing people do things that make them happy; I revel in their happiness. I love being silly; I’m happiest when I can be ridiculous with people and know that they enjoy it. Ridiculous outfits, dancing in inappropriate locations, shouting excitedly, etc. I’m all about absurdity and physical comedy; it’s how I get my students laughing when things seem too awkward. What is it about you that makes you YOU? Revel in it.

My story this week is just a short story of me being me, because that seems fitting.

I grew up in the time of The Little Mermaid release, and I lived on the West coast near the beach. I love the ocean with a passion greater than a thousand suns (okay, how do we even measure passion of the sun? I’m just being poetical.) The ocean is like a mother to me, I grew up with her, I go back and visit her, sometimes I even talk to her about my life and ask for advice – it’s grounding for me. I think I loved The Little Mermaid so much because it was a movie about an ocean girl, like me. I wanted to be a mermaid because the ocean felt like home. I wanted to become one with the ocean, and becoming a mermaid sounded like the way to still be me, but also be with the ocean. Throw in the love story (which you know I was ALL over…) and it was my movie. I love to sing. I don’t talk about it much because it was severely repressed due to my RSD whenever someone would critically evaluate my singing. I sang all of Ariel’s songs, but my favorite was the “ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah” part when her voice is stolen. So, child me, used to find a rock on the beach and perch on the rock as Ariel to sing that. I wanted to be her. (There’s some underlying stuff here that isn’t funny, so I’ll skip over it – maybe post about it later.) It was cute, and gave my mom a laugh, for sure. The funny part about this story is that my mom encourages me to recreate these moments almost every time we go to the beach together. I indulge her, and y’know, when I was younger I thought it was embarrassing. Today, now that I love me, I indulge in those moments too. I embrace that child version of me, and I will sing “ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah” on a rock for that child, and for my mom. If you happen to see some strange adult singing on a rock like Ariel, you’re welcome. That’s my kind of ridiculousness. I love it 🙂

Love that has to be earned is not the love you seek.

I love you – for the real you. Find those in your life that do and embrace them. -S.
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The power of flow

February 3rd, 2023

Available as a podcast here: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/WcjxKZkmoxb

Perhaps you’ve heard of it: Flow. An almost trance-like state experienced when you are so present in the moment that what you’re doing is in flow, or in other words, so natural and connected that you feel “in it.” It’s common in arts, sports, and teaching. I love flow. I experience it in my research, teaching, dance, theatre, singing, and even in writing these posts. I might be a flow-seeker… if that’s a thing.

I seek flow in life. Not just my job, or my artistic interests, but all aspects of my life: Driving, skiing, walking, making dinner, cleaning a toilet… everything. The opposite of flow is any situation with a force and resistance interaction. Flow feels right. It’s the feeling you get when you feel like you’re “on the right path.” When we try to force something to happen, or we resist something that’s trying to happen – we fall out of flow and we, even if it’s lightly, suffer.

I’m guilty of forcing and resisting, we all are. We’re human, we’ll never be perfectly in flow. That doesn’t mean we can’t seek it, though. There’s a sense of calm joy that comes with flow, like the pieces of the universe connect and join you through the action. I was never particularly religious; I was raised secular. However, I did take the time to consider my spirituality and beliefs. I defined my ethics and morals based on principles of being a good human. However, I imagine that regardless of the religious or spiritual background you hold, dear reader, you can relate to an interconnectedness of the universe. That’s how I think of it. I think what we do matters, and we feel the connection when we find our flow.

I keep talking about trauma because it is a foundation for so much of my work and growth. I recognize that most of the times I tried to force or resist – the urge to do so stemmed from trauma. Feelings of fear or desire, mostly. I’ve admitted that I lost myself in my search for romantic love out of a desire for love that was lacking in my childhood. I forced puzzle pieces that were never meant to fit mine because I wanted that love so intensely. I tried to make it happen, again and again. I lost myself along the way every time. I wasn’t in flow, I was treating it like a goal-oriented task instead of a natural flow of life.

Love comes so naturally to me, but not that kind of love. When you combine obsession with a goal-orientation and apply them to love – it’s never going to go well. I can’t speak to finding real love, every time I thought I found it – I didn’t. I can say that it requires a sense of flow, because all the grand things in life have a sense of flow. May we find that someday, if you seek it, too.

We can never force anything that involves other people. We can try, but the reality of this dynamic is that it will harm one or both parties. In the case of force, it can become abuse, or a drain (as in my last post.) In my experience, force is compelled by desire, and resistance is compelled by fear. We resist the things that give us fear. It’s funny, (actually, it’s not funny) I’ve resisted love nearly as much as I’ve forced it. I resist those that have the potential for real love, out of fear. I forced those that didn’t have the potential for real love out of a desire to just “make it happen.” Like baking cookies: throw in the ingredients, combine with careful precision, do the work, put them in the “right environment,” then let them bake… you get love, right? No. Sadly, Cookies != Love…

Both the desire and the fear are stemming from, you guessed it, trauma (at least, for me.) The desire was trying to fill a hole in my heart, and the fear was of rejection by someone I genuinely cared for. When I write it out, it kinda burns… WTF was young S. thinking?! I don’t know. Young S. still had some stuff to work out, but let’s be fair: older S. still has some stuff to work out. If you declare you’re done working on yourself someday… I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but you’re probably missing something. This life isn’t about winning the game (ha! If you know what I mean, you just lost “the game.”) For me, this life is about connection. Someone else said it, but it’s a journey and not a destination. What you do matters. Intention matters. The love you give matters.

Where am I right now? Love. It was rather recently that I said to people “Fuck love, I can’t do it again.” or “I don’t want to feel like this again. Every time I open my heart to someone, it’s promptly smashed.” or “Next time I have real feelings for someone, I’ll just rip out my own heart.” Resigned to my fate of single parenthood until someday I’m just old, living alone with 12 cats. I hope it’s obvious that this is extreme. I am a master of hyperbole. Because I fall in love every day with the idea of real love. I try to date people that are kind, but not in the search of loving them. Somehow, it still gets stoked and I have to recognize the fear and calm it. I hope you, too, can recognize your desires and fears – and calm them to find flow.

To wish you luck, I will use my favorite alternative from dance: “Merde!”

My story today is about a time that was sincerely lacking in flow, but the result was hilarious:

I’ve been dancing for as long as I can remember. I love to dance. I started ballroom dancing when I was 16, and when I went off to college I soon gravitated to the Lindy hop community at my school. Lindy hop is a fast-paced swing dance that is extremely dynamic, bouncy, and full of crazy lifts and tricks. As someone with a gymnastics background who LOVES flying through the air, I loved Lindy hop. So, I started dating the instructor… I was really dumb about relationships, folks. (Hahahaha… facepalm. FTR: that wasn’t why I dated them, at least not intentionally.) They weren’t that much older than me… okay they were 7 years older than me and I was 19 (shame face. You can laugh, I’m laughing about it now.) Cool. So, that came with the bonus of learning the dance quickly, getting extra practice, and opportunities to perform rather early in my progression. I got to dance with some great partners and perform cool tricks that were super fun and genuinely impressive – I’m super grateful for all that I did in that time. One of the performances that I choreographed, I was partnered with my best friend’s boyfriend. The only reason this story is funny is because there was absolutely no attraction or relationship between me and her boyfriend. One of the tricks we planned to do involves the follow jumping in a straddle, and the lead pushing the follow over his head… only I didn’t go over his head. I’m sure you get the picture. We were not in flow, our timing was off, and best of all: it’s on video in my archives! No, I’m not going to share it, and I’m not sorry about that. Your mental image is sufficient.

Stay in flow, and you won’t get hit in the face.

Love to you, but not the forced kind, -S.
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Oh, rumination

January 27th, 2023

Available as a podcast here: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/iRfU7V4q4wb

I’m obsessive. My mother tells me so, far more frequently than I appreciate. I think it’s a trait I inherited from my father, but my mother was determined to push me past it. Surprise! I still struggle with it.

Intrusive thoughts are in my nature. I will likely struggle to find perspective repeatedly in the rest of my life, but I’m working to reframe things when I notice this happening. I’m seeking pause, calmness, and growth. Checking in with myself and finding another viewpoint for my situation. My brain rarely turns off. Rumination is nearly constant because I struggle to turn my brain off. I’m lucky, though. I can fall asleep most of the time, unlike most people that struggle with this.

What’s hard for people to realize is that this is how I am about everything. Yes, EVERYTHING. I will ruminate on the order of actions I took in loading the dishwasher, folks. Why, or when, would that ever matter? Why spend energy recounting the actions of loading the dishwasher? I mean, it’s done, I walked away from it. My subconscious is not currently providing the answer to such odd obsessions. Maybe it just really likes dishwashers?

Where this becomes a true problem is in my interactions with people. I can obsess on a topic in conversation that I should have let go. I can obsess about my feelings, or the specific words I chose, or the feelings I picked up off another person in the conversation. Some of this is a part of neurodivergence, some of it is anxiety, and I’m sure there’s more than those contributing. Neurotypicals often struggle with my forms of conversation, and I feel their sense of alienation and distance. Likely, this is due to my tendency to fixate on specific aspects of the conversation instead of flowing with the conversation from topic to topic. I bounce around like a laser pointer toy for a cat, and I’ve always struggled with letting go.

Hmmm. Why do I cling to things? Why do I ruminate? In short: a deep sense of loneliness. A lack of belonging. Again, it’s taken a long time to realize this. I have belonging now, in ways I didn’t dream was possible for me. 5 years ago, I would have said that belonging just wasn’t meant for me. I was meant to suffer; I didn’t deserve that kind of happiness. These are intrusive thoughts that stemmed directly from those feelings of insecurity and loneliness. They may never be fully gone, but they get better over time.

This is the first time in my life that I’ve really embraced myself, and loved myself intentionally. How did I get here? Short answer: therapy and friends. My friends loved me, even at my worst moments lacking love for myself. I realized that I used helping others as a way of lifting myself from my darkness. If I could brighten someone else’s world, maybe then I would be worthy of love. We know this is flawed (you, beautiful reader, and me.) This is a trauma response: thinking I am only as good as what I can give to others. If you’ve done any work on people pleasing, fawning, etc. then you know that this is not true. If you are not aware: you are worthy, regardless of your contributions externally.

It sucks to say this, but the biggest thing that helped me find and love myself intentionally… was removing the people who didn’t make the space for me. It’s the hardest part. As someone who sees the good in people, loves them, and supports them – removing them is the opposite of my instinct. We’ve heard the quote “you can’t pour from an empty cup.” Those people drain the cup. No matter how many people you have to fill your cup, if you keep those that drain your cup – your cup will always empty before you share it with all the people you want to. When I removed those that drained my cup in ways that could affect me for days after, I was overwhelmed by the support and fullness of the friends who filled my cup.

I was so immersed in a life full of people needing me to fill their cups that even with my vast friend base filling my cup – it wasn’t enough to balance. I love filling others’ cups, it’s one of the best parts of my job. I meet new students every semester, I teach them new things, I help them make decisions about their degrees and careers, and then I get to watch them go on to new things. My job drains my cup, but I wouldn’t change it because it fills my cup to see them succeed. That investment is worth it. Much like raising a child (but a lot less work!) the investment is not draining in the same way.

If there’s anyone in your life that turns your positives into negatives – this is the kind of drain on your resources that is not an investment. If there’s anyone in your life who constantly reminds you of your flaws – that’s another drain on your resources. If there’s anyone in your life asking you to live by their rules and standards instead of your own – that’s a drain on your resources. Full stop. These are drains we cannot sustain. Someone we see very rarely, perhaps we can weather it – but it wears on us. Consider the weight; the wear and tear on you.

While living through these things myself, I did find one tool that really helped me regain perspective and preserve some of my cup. Every night, I did a check in that was similar to rumination – but actually helpful. In my interactions with those that I recognized were draining my cup, I took time to review exactly what happened. In that review, I would recount things without emotional attachment (to the best of my ability), articulate where the drains occurred, then analyze why they occurred, and reframe the interaction with that context.

I will provide an example. A partner I once had, long ago, made a rule that was roughly “anything that doesn’t fit in the spaces I’ve provided for you will be thrown away.” This caused consistent turmoil for me because the spaces were a cubby and a drawer, and I was living there. I only earned the cubby after pleading for more space because a single drawer for me to live out of was not enough. This was a very controlling relationship with several other drains, but let’s just focus on the impact of the rule so I can break this down for you.

For this example I will use an instance of this partner throwing away something of mine that happened to be outside of the allotted spaces. That’s the action done by the person draining my cup. The drain emotionally comes from a loss of something that was mine, and that I cared about. I didn’t have much in my possession, so every possession held value to me. There was some amount of grief in the loss. The emotional toll was both that grief and an underlying sense of punishment for my actions. Why did this “partner” do the action that caused the drain? First, they made a rule, and they were following through on the promise (threat?) that came with that rule. To them it was essentially business, not emotion that drove their actions. They did not choose to throw things away to intentionally drain me. That knowledge helps, but it also hurts because it shows that they couldn’t understand their impact. The emotional response to this was to feel punished intentionally by the “partner.” The reframe is recognizing that, this “partner” is not acting from an emotional space, and that their actions do not define me or what I did as bad. There is far more context to these kinds of interactions, but taking the time to reinforce my center – my stability – went miles to withstanding the drain of my cup. Try it? Let me know how it goes. But, with the caveat that this is intended as a temporary tool for a transitional period or to assist in healing from past experiences. Don’t live like that, please. I’m begging you to consider the toll on you – it won’t fix the damage if you are unable to get away from the drain. Love.

OOH! Here’s a short, but funny story about my obsessive nature…

When I was quite young, I LOVED the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, maybe I still do… I didn’t have many of their toys, though. I had a happy meal toy that was a TMNT shell that slid open and I took it with me everywhere. There are no words to express the sincere, obsessive, love that I had for the TMNT as a kid. I was living on the West coast at this time, in a small town. We flew out to the East coast and I saw city streets and sewer grates… for the first time (at least, in my mind it was the first time.) The TMNT lived in the sewer, so I recognized the grates and became obsessed with looking for the TMNT in the sewer grates. I was carrying my shell, and I wanted to show it to them (adorable, right? Kids are so sweet!) If you’ve ever been to a city, you know how frequently you pass the sewer grates… I stopped at Every. Single. One. My parents and the rest of the family we were visiting quickly lost their amusement in my search for the TMNT and had to convince me to stop. “Maybe they don’t want to be found? Maybe they’re off fighting crime?” I don’t remember exactly what they said, but I was moved toward the center of the group and corralled to our destination. Believe me, I tried to escape. I was (and still am) more stubborn than anyone I know, and I wanted to meet the TMNT because I loved them.

Obsession and rumination can be cute when you’re a little kid… Turtle Power!

May your week bring you peace and love, -S.
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Be kind, but firm

January 20th, 2023

Available as a podcast here: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/mXl1xW4q4wb

Kindness is the heartbeat of connection to others. Understanding is the warm hug. Boundaries define who we are willing to be when we connect to others. I wasn’t always bad at boundaries, and sometimes I wonder what happened. That’s what this post is about.

I’ve mentioned before that I love everyone I know. I spent most of my life hoping to find someone to love romantically. In kindergarten, I stared out the front window hoping to catch a glimpse of my crush at school. I was one of those people that forced puzzle pieces that didn’t fit because I wanted that kind of love in my life. As I write this, that part of my life is on pause. I’m not seeking that kind of love anymore. Why? Because that search destroys my boundaries. Also, I’m old, divorced twice, and genuinely don’t know if I have a third marriage in my heart. It’s still healing. I need to work on rebuilding my boundaries first.

I remember being a kid with boundaries, but even then – they were not firm, well-known boundaries. Part of childhood is exploring and experimenting to find out who you are. There was plenty of that, which was a healthy part of growing up. I feel like I never lost that; I did things that people wanted me to do even if I didn’t want to do them, and I didn’t speak up when I disagreed with things. As a child, these are realities we live with, but as an adult they become habits to unlearn. Some of you rebelled. I didn’t. I’m still more of a “do no harm” rule-follower; on the alignment chart I fall in the Lawful Good corner. Sometimes I wish I was more rebellious, but I’ll settle for a rebellious wardrobe – it’s more my style.

I believe some of you will have already drawn the conclusion: people pleaser. So many of us became people pleasers in our childhood because it was how we survived. If we didn’t please our parents, we were punished. If we didn’t please our teachers, we could also be punished. We were small and inexperienced at life and we were surrounded by walls of potential punishments for our actions if we stepped over the line. I envied the people who broke those lines, but not enough to change my actions. As I’ve mentioned, my life was dark chaos. Crossing lines broke me, every time. I had a friend over without permission once, got caught and punished. I only broke the rules a handful of times in my entire childhood. Why? Chaos…

The hardest and best thing I’ve done for myself is take space and live alone. I’ve always had an odd joy doing things by myself. I like going to a restaurant alone, or a museum, or a concert. I revel in that time – probably because I was an only child for the first 10+ years of my life. I didn’t have siblings, and I didn’t have a lot of time or freedom to hang out with friends. More on that someday. However, this search for romantic love – I lost myself in it. Why? Because it was a reflection of the sought love at home in my childhood.

Why did I stare out that window in the hopes of seeing my crush when I was only 5 years old? Probably because my parents weren’t happy with each other, my dad was locked in his office all the time, and my mom was working her ass off all the time. Throw in a little Hollywood romanticism from the entertainment available in the day, and poof: S. is lost in a desire to find that kind of love that is missing at home. Now, it took over 30 years for me to realize this. So, I spent that 30+ years continuing to seek that kind of love and yielding all my boundaries to find it. Bad plan, S., BAD PLAN.

Living alone brings me peace because the people in my home caused so much chaos as a child. But, you know what that chaos gave me? Resilience, strength, and determination. I’ve been through enough hell to know that I can weather the storms, because today I’m not a child and whatever is done to me as an adult is unlikely to surpass what was done to me as a child. May that be true for you, too.

This is a story sparked by a student in my office one day. It’s my version of “Fuck around and find out.”

I always had an uncanny hand strength as a child. I always won hand war, partially due to strength, partially due to strategy. I could hold onto the monkey bars the longest, gave deep tissue massage before I knew what I was doing, and generally proclaimed that I had “baby-strength hands.” (Seriously, babies have strong hands for their size, check it out!) I changed schools a lot in K-12, so I was back to being the new kid in 7th grade. It was always hard, but I got really used to being a loner on the playground – like, seriously, it didn’t bother me by then. Anyway, being the new kid resulted in a lot of pranks, teasing, bullying, etc. That sucked, but it had been happening since I started school, so I just figured it was normal. (Resilience!)

This one kid, though. In English class… He got into this habit of poking me with his pencil during class while the teacher was talking. I hated it, and I don’t use that word lightly (see my first post.) I started by asking him to stop. Then later I started swatting at him. Then I grabbed his pencil and refused to return it during class. Then, I grabbed and broke his pencil. One day, I got so irritated that I finally turned around and grabbed his finger instead. I didn’t just grab it, I yanked it upwards with my wrist. Luckily, I didn’t break it, nor did I get into real trouble (the teachers were reasonably understanding), but he never poked me with anything ever again. I earned his respect with my baby-strength hands! (Cheers!)

This story is a good metaphor for boundaries, in general. Be kind. Don’t sprain their finger after the first poke, right? Not even necessarily the second or third time. But, know your boundaries well enough to make them firmer as you go. And, if that person pushes a boundary that should never be crossed – maybe you should sprain their finger? I know when that time came for me, I didn’t, but I’m working on setting harder boundaries. Using the knowledge of a time when I had boundaries, and nearly broke a guy’s finger in English class as a result.

Don’t go breaking any fingers, please. But likewise, don’t let firm boundaries be crossed.

Much Love, -S.
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Like Parent, Like Child

January 13th, 2023

Available as a podcast here: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/W9ErUW4q4wb

My mother was an artist, my father was a scientist. I could never decide which of these I really am. Probably because I’m both. I wish more people viewed themselves this way. In teaching mathematics, “I was never good at math” is the most common phrase any person says to me when they find out what I do. Heartbreaking, folks. Absolutely heartbreaking. Why limit yourself? That’s a rhetorical question, because I believe it’s a combination of our societal views on mathematics as a discipline and a socially acceptable “failure” to be “bad” at math that results in this perspective. Mathematics teachers all over are trying their best to combat this view. I think there’s something deeper at the core here, though.

I read somewhere, long ago – so I’m sorry there’s no citation, that from a psychological standpoint, humans like to categorize things. So, for example, when people meet me and learn I teach math – now I’m in the categories of “teacher” and “math-person.” Too many categories and it sort of overloads the system… I do that to people a lot. Our brains like order (even if you’re saying “not mine!” In your head right now. Your brain has a sense of order no matter how disorganized it feels.) Categories allow for order (but I am chaos and I will destroy your catalog! Muahahaha… Like the quote “Nobody puts Baby in a corner,” nobody puts S. in a box.) However, this extends beyond my conversations with individuals because people categorize themselves.

Why would you want to put yourself in a box?! Are you Schrödinger’s cat? No. That’s a bad reference to make my point because the cat is both alive and dead simultaneously, which is really more of what I want you to accept about yourself rather than reject. While yes, there are extremes upon which we will never be “good” at something, why must we limit ourselves by these assertions? I am bad at basketball, but if a friend wanted to play with me I would play and I would have fun, too. Sure, I’ll never play professionally, but I can dabble with the dribble, get caught taking a shot, or laugh hysterically at myself when I miss the entire hoop and backboard as the ball goes off into the forest wonderland (maybe I could find Fae there?) I wish we could think of math this way, too. Honestly, I wish we treated everything that way: find the joy in it, regardless of how “good” you are at it.

We are products of our parents. No matter how hard we try to become different, more, or better than they were. I cannot lie because my mom lived honestly, even when it was abrasive (but most of the time it was kind.) I actually struggle to understand intentional lying, but with my age I realized that people often lie without realizing it themselves. Sometimes our reality shifts and we think we’re telling the truth even when we’re not. The mind gets messier with age, I think. There are too many memories, too much knowledge, and the system starts to overload. The thoughts and experiences blur and blend to form a fuzzy reality that we sometimes believe is crystal clear, even when it isn’t. Like “rose-colored glasses”, but more like prescription glasses because we may not realize the prescription has changed over time until it gets too fuzzy to see things we used to see clearly.

Additionally, our memories rewrite each time we review them. It’s not like pulling a book off the shelf and then putting it back. It’s downloaded and then uploaded with the new context from the most recent download. (Thankfully, because those of us with PTSD use this process to recover and heal from our traumas!) So, our realities shift from more than just the overload, they also shift based on the current perspectives of our experience. Fascinating, right?! So, the greatest abuse of my father is founded in precisely such an override. There are things about ourselves that we almost cannot face – for my dad, that was always fault. To be at fault was a fate worse than death because it would have made him bad, in his eyes. I tried to explain to him that even good people can do bad things, but his perspective was fixed. These things that we cannot face define us in ways that shape our perspective. See, I will always feel at fault, because I see the perspectives and pain of those around me. I understand their pain, and I want to fix it. I know that my father couldn’t accept the fault in his actions, and that was the core that caused the behavior that ended our relationship. He’s still not ready to face that and make a change, and maybe he never will be. However, this has shaped his experience of events so drastically that his narrative of what happened shifted over time. Memories change as we revisit them and the present perspective is imprinted onto the memory as it is uploaded into storage. We all must remember this, because it is a downfall.

See, I mentioned that my life is dark. So, my narrative shifts similarly to my dad’s. Only, I am always somehow abused in my relationships. I was abused so much as a child, that the abuse inevitably comes. Either because I am bad at picking romantic partnerships, or because I create the environment of my abuse within relationships – I honestly don’t know, because memories are fuzzier than we want to believe. All I can do is work to change. Work to heal. Keep in my mind the knowledge that I suffered a lot of abuse, and not to assume it or go looking for it. Use reality checks, phone a friend, and question my feelings without the potential abuser involved. Sometimes I’m so used to being abused that I let it go too far, but likewise; sometimes I’m so used to being abused that I expect it. I think this is a key piece to finding peace. The perspective and healing is necessary. (Think about it: what is something about yourself that you almost cannot face? That is where you’ll find your growth.)

A good time for a story… my favorite story about my mom:

The company my mom worked for went on a ski trip with the families of the employees. There were two houses that were rented and the people were divided between the two houses. I was in the house full of kids and parents of those kids. I think I may have been the oldest, and tasked with making sure things didn’t get out of hand? It’s also entirely possible that I was just isolating myself. Not sure. Anyway, the adults had all gone over to the other house, ostensibly to party their asses off while the kids were sleeping (I think they were drinking – so I’m exaggerating.) The adults decided to play a prank on the other house because the other house had less people and twice as many bathrooms – they stole all the toilet paper out of the house. I was a ridiculous nerd, so I think I was still up doing homework or reading when they all came back boisterously laughing. I remember sitting on the couch as all the (drunk?) adults were laughing around the kitchen and dining area.

Shortly thereafter the phone rang, which caused a lot of commotion, and my mom answered it. “Hello?” Some of the other adults were like “is it them?” in whispers “don’t tell them!” stifled laughter, etc. My mom gets a look on her face like a sweet 4-year old who just got caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to *long pause* “… Uh, no – um, yeah. We stole your toilet paper. Sorry, we’ll bring it back.” Some of the other adults exclaimed that she ruined it, some of them were mildly frustrated, one of them came up and patted her on the shoulder. My mom didn’t lie in that moment, and it’s a critical memory of mine because it reminds me why I don’t lie. Yes, it was a prank and no one got hurt. But, it’s also sort of cruel to remove all the toilet paper from a house – imagine being one of those people and needing toilet paper: not cool. Some of you are laughing right now, that’s okay. It’s a funny image, but it’s not funny to be in that position. I think that’s the reason I would do exactly as my mom did – admit it, apologize, and repair (give them toilet paper!)

Remember folks, give the people what they want: toilet paper!

Much love, -S.
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Hello Internet

January 6th, 2023

Available as a podcast here: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/TBVdsX4q4wb

I’m S. I write a lot of things out for myself. This blog was started by conversations with friends (mostly via text), and sharing things I’d written out for myself. My friends say I’m eloquent or something, but I think you’ll find that I write colorful, crafted stories. Stories of my experience. You get a peek into my mind, how I process and think. My friends like it (which is probably why they’re my friends.) For anyone who someday reads this, I will add my perspective and lessons learned as much as is possible. I find seeing through others’ lenses is often the most enlightening of media to extend my own perspective.

What makes me a good author for such a blog? I don’t know, really. I have a PhD, if that’s worth anything to you. It’s not in writing; it’s actually in math. Perhaps it’s my artistic background? No, that’s all in the ethereal nature of the performing arts. They don’t last the way words do. One of the reasons the performing arts hold their value is the fact that every performance is unique. We, as human beings, do not produce the exact same vocal notes, nor do we deliver the lines with exactly the same intonation, nor do we land in exactly the same location on the stage, etc. Each performance is subtly different, like ripples on the water; creating a magical nature in the artistic form.

That was a fun diversion. I do that a lot. It turns out I’m very high-functioning for someone with expressions of ADHD, ASD, and CPTSD. Expect random tangents, and not just the kind that lie tangent to a curve. Oh, yeah – random math references are likely to be a thing. I also enjoy the absurd, so don’t be surprised if I tell you about my favorite dream and it sounds like a completely whack-a-doodle nonsense thing. I love the absurd. Maybe I’ll tell you my favorite dream at the end of this… we’ll see.

Honestly, I’m only starting this blog because I enjoy writing and many people have spoken of how “beautiful” I write… I felt like there must be something within me worth contributing to the world. I mean, outside of mathematics and dance. I create a lot within those fields already. In this blog I want to focus on life. I seem to stand out in my perspectives on life, people, and connection.

See, I’m one of those humans that people sit next to and open the cracks in their walls. And no, I don’t mean those cracks… c’mon people. (Hahaha) We all hold walls to protect who we are from those who might reject us. If there is one aspect of my person that would win the prize for “most positive comments” it would be my understanding. I think that means I make people feel seen and accepted. So, I want to share my mind. Maybe it will help you open the cracks in your walls? Maybe it’ll just make you laugh, or cry. I’ve seen many tears over the years. The tears of people who needed someone to see them. It makes me think of Amanda Palmer’s story about being a living statue… Standing still, but seeing people. The acknowledgement of being seen is a remarkable exchange. When you see others, you find love in them.

I love everyone I know. Not, like, “fall in love and get married”-love. Philia and agape, or friend-love and universal love. I had to cut my dad out of my life due to abusive behavior, but I still love him deeply. I see his pain, I understand why he is who he is and why he did what he did, but I couldn’t be hurt by him anymore. My stepfather was an abusive alcoholic, but I always saw the underneath. I saw that he was a child of an abusive alcoholic that taught him to be tough. I saw that he was tormented and seeking escape from his shame. I saw that some of the things he said and did were not “of” him, but reflections of who he thought he was supposed to be. None of these things excuse the abuse I suffered at his hands, but they give me peace in understanding. They save me the fate of hate. I see hate as the darkest part of our existence – a thing to work past whenever it arises. No hate here, ever. Always love. My first tattoo says “Love is the only solution” because it spoke to who I am at my core. Love, always.

That got dark for a minute… I should warn you that my life is dark. It’s extraordinarily messy. The worst stories will likely never see this blog because enough of my friends would like to beat up people from my past… I’m not going to set the internet on fire to defend me. I’m okay. I understand the reasons for my trauma, and I’ve spent a lot of time healing my pain. If anything, I hope I can help you with yours. Because, if I met you – I’d love you. You’re a beautiful human, you know that, right? At the deepest core of ourselves is something beautiful. If I can help you find it, I will. I see it in every person I meet, but not everyone is ready to find that in themselves. Love.

This post was not as silly as I would have hoped… so here’s my silly dream story:

Sometime around the chaos of my parents’ divorce, I had the most memorable dream I’ve ever experienced. It was utter chaos, much like my life at the time. It was an epic chase scene involving cars and monsters, and an umbrella for some reason (why did I have an umbrella?) Anyway, this Godzilla-like creature (and I’d never watched Godzilla) was going to kill me, a car was vrooming towards me, and a weird witch-lady landed on the hood of the car with a vacuum. The car stopped abruptly (like, it didn’t even seem consistent with physics, dead stop.) So, witch-lady on top of a car, Godzilla on the other side, I’m holding an umbrella (what? Why?!) The witch lady starts swinging the end of the vacuum (one of those ones with the motor in one part and the actual suction end attached to it by a tube), by the tube. Then she proclaims “I’m going to suck you up!” At which point the dream lost all sense of terror. However long I’d been running away from monsters in that dream, it all dropped away by the complete absurdity that had climaxed at her threatening to suck me up with a vacuum. I woke up quickly, confused. No longer scared, but on the edge of laughing. It’s the only dream I still remember because it became a story then. Afraid of Godzilla? Check. Afraid of moving vehicle? Check. Afraid of a witch? Check. But, a VACUUM?! No. Sorry, this dream lost its validity at the vacuum. I’m out. – S.

Thanks for reading! That was longer than expected, but that’s true of all my writings. Expect ridiculous randomness infused with love, humor, and (on my good days) wisdom. I hope you find my stories like shells on a beach; perhaps you leave most of them behind, but maybe you’ll find at least one that is so preciously beautiful to you that you take it home in your heart. Love to you, -S.
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January 6, 2023
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