First World Problems

And another-- Dec 9, 2010, incomplete

I am here to complain. I am here to complain and also to acknowledge that I would miss the very things that I complain about, were they taken from me. But I am tired of having to acknowledge that. I'm tired of pain and suffering just on my own level here in priveleged upper-middle America. I'm tired of thinking about how I'm such a selfish person for even thinking I have any level of suffering here.

For instance: Dear Internet Explorer, I will condsider hating you less if you will consider crashing less. Sincerely, Katie.

Dear Katie, isn't it nice that you HAVE internet explorer? A computer? Fingers to type search words? A mind to think of search words? An education to have formed that mind? Isn't it great that you're sitting in your warm apartment worrying about any of this instead of somewhere wondering where your next meal will come from or how you will clothe your child?

The lost art of napping

Oh, look. Here's something I wrote 2 years ago. Finding all kinds of drafts...



I read an article on napping the other day. It was a wonderful article all about the pleasures and joys of sleeping in the light. Indeed, the medicine fields are telling is more and more how good napping is for us (and sometimes not, because nothing can be clear cut) but this article is about the simple down-home, good feeling, deliciousness of a nap.

That said, I must argue just a teeeeensy bit with the author. She says that, "a nap is not a nap without light." As far as I'm concerned, sleep when one is not supposed to be sleeping, or when it is not a full night's sleep, is a nap.

Consider: Snoozing on the airplane on a one-hour 9 pm flight. Hunching down at your desk behind the towering inbox to catch a catnap. Skipping lunch everyday to, instead, sleep in your car in the parking garage, blanket and pillow at the ready. Or one of my personal favorites: falling asleep on your bed without getting ready for bed, thinking maybe you'll get up and finish a few more things. These things do not happen with the lovely afternoon light dappling your face through freshly bleached linen curtains. But, O! Those sweet long blinks over tired eyes. The slow relaxation of muscles in the face of "this isn't the time," or "this isn't the place, " or "no, not yet..." This is the stuff of naps.

Pain Management

Today I started a program through Kaiser called Pain Management and Rehabilitation. It is for people with chronic pain to retrain our nerves. I'm off of work for the 6 weeks that I'll be participating in the program.
Everyone was very welcoming and there was nothing at all awkward about walking into a room full of people who knew what they were doing. The ladies next to me were perfect about helping me to know what to do. We started with a little Qi Gong, which was ok. I'm sometimes inwardly rolling my eyes when things get a little too eastern, but am trying to keep an open mind. And the movement felt good. Then we did Feldenkrais for a while and that was really impressive! You can trick your brain and body so easily. Silly. My mouth actually dropped open. And the instructor was funny, which made everything more relaxing.
Did I mention that there are yoga blocks to put your feet on when you're sitting? So if you're short, like me, your feet are not dangling ridiculously. You can do all the exercises from whatever position you're the most comfortable with. There are blankets and pillows provided and you can get up, lie down, move around, stretch... do whatever you need to at whatever time to be the most comfortable. I wish every environment was like that.
After Feldenkrais we had group time where we just talked about what we had been feeling, what our frustrations are, what works well for us, etc. It was helpful and didn't feel like stereotypical group therapy. Then we went for a walk. Man, it was a short walk. I wish we had walked longer, but I had a nice chat with two of the other girls and my case worker. We chatted about shoes and pizza and I was invited out to lunch on Wednesday with everyone.
Tomorrow we do Yoga instead of Feldenkrais and I know I will miss the phase 2 people who only come MWF.
I'm encouraged by my first day. I hope I will want to move even more outside of class.

I've had a migraine almost every day for the last week. Don't know what that's about. I had been doing so well. I'm on a diet that excludes the 6 major migraine triggers-- caffeine, cheese, chocolate, msg, nitrates, and red wine. So I dunno about this one.

I could use another white chocolate Kit Kat right about now.

Mmm, yeah that's all.

Happy 4th Caliversary

This is from sometime in November-- the 8th? I just found it in drafts when I came to write something new, 9 months later.



Today I decided to move to my fourth Bay area home. I will also be attending a new church and looking at the possibility of a new job. All this from a girl who hates transition. I like my cozy apartment, but am going crazy not having my own space. Sharing a one bedroom, sleeping in a bunkbed, and not being able to control the mess is just not working anymore. I love my job a lot of the time, but am increasingly frustrated when my coworkers throw tantrums, the head office disregards our needs, and my efforts are not appreciated. I could use more money, too. I love my church and my community there. But I love my boyfriend and our relationship is stuck as long as we attend different churches.

What feels most immediately painful to me is leaving my church. Though he did not ask me to. He doesn't know that he could. I offered to do it. It's not just the leaving, either. It's the stepping into the unknown and the imagined of his church. I feel safe and loved and nurtured at PBC. But NHCSC scares me with its similarities to Psycho Church and I know how the healing process is going to hurt and wonder if it's going to work at all or just be painful with nothing to show at the end. What if I start feeling better and safer at NHCSC because I start believing the very things that make me nervous now? Then it will be like I've been brainwashed or something. This sounds paranoid, but if you had come from a corrupt cult-like church, you'd be nervous too.

Also, I have so many friends at PBC. 99% of my social life exists because of my church. People at NHCSC aren't like me. They're... charismatic. I'm so nervous and scared and sad. But I love him. I will try and I will pray and I will think and pay attention and I will try. And I will be brave and I will hold tight to God.

On a happier note

If you recall January, I couldn't even get off the couch to do... anything. Eat, do laundry, talk to people. It is such a relief to be me again. It turns out I'm still here! The silly, slightly cynical, unique me is still here under all that depression and I can be productive! Not all the time, mind you. It was quite the battle to get some stuff done today and I still have things to do. Every day is still a battle not to fall back into depression but it's 3 million times easier than it was. Already today I've been to the gym, ate, cleaned the shower, put a bunch of laundry away, unpacked from a trip I took last week, made a playlist on youtube, and several other things that months ago I would have had to dig deeeeeep for the ability to attempt. I can't even count the gold stars.

Now it's off to the tailor and the grocery store before a good meal with protein, and evening walk, and some time to read. If only every day could be this good (sigh, work.)

Go, Katie! You can do it!

I must be careful not to be seen as I cross the parking lot from the drugstore to the alley where I'll duck in the back door to work. Once there, I'm happy to share my loot but as I dodge fashionable moms, grad students, and Jewish grandmas I'm glad that I changed my mind and got a bag to carry my purchase. It's one thing for a skinny chick to be seen carrying Oreos and milk. Even other skinny people think something along the lines of, "Gawd, I bet she can eat anything. Ugh, look at her and her stupid skinny legs." It's quite another for the fat chick to carry the Oreos. It's like a greedy little Gus the mouse in Cinderella trying to carry too much corn-- only not so cute. Even the other fat people look at her disgustedly thinking, "Doesn't she know how she got that way?"

Yup, I know I how I got that way. Instant gratification. I want milk and Oreos. I want it now. I want it more than I believe I can be skinny in 6 months, so snack time wins. Actually, it was lunch, but whatever. A meal by any other name...

Of course, there's a million and one ways I got this way. When I was 10, my metabolism got all freaked out because I nearly died. I hate exercise and always have. My knees are bad. I have fibromyalgia. I have no discipline, I have low frustration tolerance, and I cannot, for the life of me, actually see how I will be skinny in a few months unless I change everything. And I can't change everything. So I eat Oreos and hope my boyfriend still loves me and hope that I still love myself.

I wish a doctor would tell me that I have to change. But so far none have. Doctors have gone really soft these days. My last doctor visit was to a neurologist for migraines. She gave me a list of medications and told me that I should choose a couple and let her know what I wanted to take. Since when, I ask, am I the doctor? What do I pay her for? The problem with the weight/eating issue is that I can't tell a doctor to tell me what to do or I won't feel like they really have that authority over me.

In the meantime, I will probably continue to be consistently inconsistent at the gym, embarrassed to be seen in public, and will eventually look back at myself at this time and wonder how I was ever this skinny. How depressing.

Bullet Point Blogging

10:30, Wednesday night. I'd love to go for a walk, but I don't have a big dog. Or a boyfriend. Or a pocket knife. Even the flashlight on my keyring broke.

I don't know if I can make sense of all the things I want to say today.
Maybe bullet points would be better.

• I have reached the level of weight gain where I am embarrassed to be seen walking down the street.
• I had to be No More Mr. Nice Katie (Ms. just doesn't sound the same) at work today when a coworker decided she wasn't coming to work.
• Someone told me today that I only like boys who are just out of reach. I'm afraid that she is right.
• My first boyfriend is engaged. I don't know why this has any effect on me whatsoever.

If I were not so extremely tired (and did not have benadryl in my system) I would elaborate on these things. It is not to be.
Goodnight.

Use it up, Wear it Out, Make it Do, or Do Without

Unfortunately, this is a different age. This is not the age my grandfather,the hoarder, grew up in. I do not want to keep using my laundry bag with the large hole and pokey-out wire. I will, but I grudge it. I do not want to use my dirty, holey tennis shoes. Well, I don't use them, actually, since I don't go to the gym. So never mind. I do not want to wear the sweatshirt that is uncomfortable at the collar and has a stain on it and isn't flattering. Ah ha! Pay-dirt.

Early in my life I had to wear hand-me-downs. Cheap is what mattered, not style or comfort. Then I got into comfort and I was always in trouble for lack of style. Baggy sweatshirts did not impress my mom. Why don't you wear something more flattering? Of course, now that my body is not-so-little I wish I had taken advantage of it, but I thought I was covering up my "fat" as it was back then. And as soon as I wanted style I could not afford it, my body would not allow it, and it turned out that style, comfort, and affordability were long estranged friends or, rather, sworn enemies.

Use it up? I'm trying to think of something I wouldn't normally use up but now do because it's uneconomical not to. I suppose I use stale flour, but that's only because you can't really get fresh flour in this humid state. OH and I definitely used some not super-fresh eggs in a cake recently. And as long as we're actually supposed to be talking about style here, I definitely use makeup products longer than I probably should because I can't afford them. It's too bad, too, since makeup and accessories are the only flattering things left to me.

Wear it out? My socks have holes in them that, in a previous life, would have had my mother tossing them in the garbage. My underwear has strings of elastic hanging pathetically by my thighs as if to beg the question: which has lost more youthful tautness and sex appeal?

Make it do? I stopped buying expensive Nordstrom bras and Target was getting me by for a while. Lately, though, my shirt is all kinds of not-human shapes in that general area and I spend half my day discreetly or not-so-discreetly yanking the straps back onto my shoulders. I blame the notcheap, notexpensive bra from the Gap. Oh, and my size and shape. Oh, and the fact that I have to wear one at all. Sure, I'm making it do. But it ain't perty.

Do Without. I don't even want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about what I do without that I shouldn't. I don't want to talk about what I should do without that I get anyway. I simply do not want to talk about it. The end.


I'm not going to be my grandfather. I will not save the rings from around the cap on the milk jug. I will not wash ziplock bags or flatten foil so they can be used again. (I think that means I will also not be my father.) I am not going to save the condiment packages from the restaurant so that I can save on groceries. My life is already run by this thing, whatever it is, in too many ways big and small.

I'm not saying that these are not good things to live by. I'm simply saying that I would like to be skinny and have money to buy things to dress my skinny self and not have to worry about saving milk-jug rings.

Not that I have any milk.

Everything Starts in the Middle

Whichever it is, or whichever one wins out... All I can say is that I think last time I felt this way I moved to California. Sigh. Oh, please, please don't let it be anything like that. I don't really have the energy to do anything big right now. Sure, part of me wants to be open to whatever God is up to and sure, he had to drag me half-way 'round the world to beat it into my head that he was gonna have his way. But... But... Sigh.

I feel like it's 2 in the morning and it's only 11:26 pm. I haven't eaten dinner (that is an entirely different discussion) unless you count the four Thin Mints and the five or so High Chew candies.

I feel like the week is never going to end and when it does it will only be the weekend for a brief flicker of glorious light. This weekend, in fact, will be eaten up by women's retreat at church, which by definition should be restorative but won't be.

Even as I write this incredibly imperfect post (and think that there must be a much better word, something literary and eloquent, something like "dithyramb,") I think of how much else there is write and how I shouldn't post this because I haven't written the other things. But I am learning: Everything starts in the middle.
That will be the title for this post EVEN THOUGH I would rather use the title for some other, better piece. Ah, dear.

Finally getting sleepy. Another night on the couch, where it is ever-so-slightly cooler.
Here's to tomorrow, the almost almost middle of the week.

Should

I've found life to be a bit overwhelming as of late. The other day my friend called and found me crying. I hung up rather quickly and wrote him this email trying to explain what was going on.


Hey Friend,

In order to not be crying while I tell you all of this, I thought I would just email you.

I'm just, as usual, totally overwhelmed with my life. With my pain, I don't know what is too much activity, when to go home from work because I don't want to be the girl that goes home and I don't want to be the whiner who stays at work and I don't want to be the girl who stays at work through the pain and then grudges the people who go home with a cold.

I don't know when or how to ask for help. I don't want to be needy (you've heard this from me before). For instance, one thing I often need is a massage. That is a particularly hard thing to ask for as some people are just plain bad at it, but more importantly, sure everyone wants a massage.

I feel like if I skip things, I'm skipping because I can, not necessarily because I should. Sometimes I don't know my own motivation. Because I am not practiced in taking care of myself? I don't know. Even the phrase "taking care of myself" feels loaded and selfish. Sorry, I can't, I have to take care of myself. It makes me feel like people are resenting me just sitting on the couch, curled up under a blanket. Maybe I resent myself. Maybe at those times I feel like I could do more. I probably could, but what should I do? I have no idea. *

And there are so MANY shoulds in my life. It is a wall. I should go to the gym. I should eat vegetables. I should drink a lot of water. I should keep better track of my finances. I should tithe regularly. I should read my Bible every day. I should work in a soup kitchen. I should go on a mission trip. I should trust God. I should reach out. I should read more. I should not buy so much. I should not have so many books. I should floss every day. I should be more private. I should play guitar. I should play piano. I should think I'm smart. I should love better. I should be more like Jesus. I should weigh less. I should do my physical therapy. I should change my eating habits completely. I should have a better vocabulary. I should journal more. I should write poetry. I should go to bed. I should use my CPAP. I should be on time to work. I should use less sarcasm. I should figure out how to get married. I should give that up and let God figure it out. I should learn more about my camera. I should back up my photos. (Are you getting the idea?)

I should delete some email.

I should keep in touch with people.

I should visit some places.

I should save better so I can travel the world, or even just visit a few friends.

I should take lunch instead of buying it.

Okay, I'm stopping.

And in the mean time, I wonder how on earth anyone will ever want to be with this person when she cannot even figure out how to deal with life? I'm 28-freakin-years-old and cannot manage my own life. Thus counseling, etc. But still. How am I supposed to find someone that's not terrified by that? First they have to not be bored by me and then they have to not be overwhelmed? And all by meeting me online? What are the chances of that?!?!

I've enjoyed the last few weeks of a slower pace. No rehearsal, no small group, no teaching, no YAF, no counseling, no community group... man, it's been great. But if I were to give something up, how would I choose? There's no way. Anything I give up, I give up community. And I'm just too relational to do that. It's hard enough to think about the relationships I'm not building, but to give up continuing to build the ones I have... I can't even think about it.

And so I cry. I'm overwhelmed by sickness and life and relationships.

All there is to do is take it one second at a time and hope I get to the next sleeping time. Which I will do soon. Unfortunately it leads to a waking time. Alas.

There you go.

Also, men are stupid.
That is 70% of it. And my life being overwhelming is 87% of it. I'm aware that doesn't add up. The heart disregards math, which I appreciate since I think math is difficult.



*post script written at the time of this blog post
Am I just being lazy? If I'm going to go somewhere do I also have to put out the effort to be helpful and social? If I'm going to a friend's house can I arrive and hunker down instead or should I have just stayed home?