There's Nothing Wrong With Me, Why Do You Ask?

I started off this morning thinking about why it's so hard for me to accept a compliment, or even to believe it when someone says anything positive that involves me in any way. It's ridiculous that, at nearly 41, I automatically doubt these things when they come from others. So I spent a lot of time today thinking about why that was, and I think I may have a handle on it.

I have spent my entire life being told, directly or indirectly that there is something wrong with me. I have ektrodactyly, which for me translates as four fingers on each hand, three toes on each foot. Thing is, it's not who I am. There are very few things I want to do that I can't do because of it (okay, I can't get safety caps off prescription bottles, fair enough, but now they don't put them on in the first place -- problem solved). I write, I knit, I screw things into walls on occasion, and I do all sorts of other things that I and others manage to enjoy quite a bit. So do a lot of other people. Thing is, when I do these things, it's somehow a major accomplishment in the eyes of some, and that drives me completely insane!

I love my family and friends, truly, but I love some more than others. The ones I love the most are the ones I've never had to forgive even a little bit for treating me differently. The ones who have never used the words "birth defect" or "disability" or "handicap" in reference to me outside of a very specific conversation about my hands. The ones who haven't done a double-take when meeting me for the first time, haven't paused a beat or two before taking my hand when I've offered it to shake, haven't assumed that other, less-enlightened individuals than themselves may have a problem with my hands (though they don't, of course). Yes, I know it's strange (I look at photos of myself and get some sense of how things must look to you), or at least different, but the moment it's pointed out, it's also implicitly made "wrong."

When I am on my own, doing my own thing, I don't feel like there's anything wrong with me. I can do what I need to do. I've figured out how to live my life with what I've got (what other choice is there?), but it doesn't make me noble or special or any more amazing than anyone else. What it makes me is independent and capable in my own right, just like any of you. Telling me you are amazed that I knit doesn't make me feel good, it makes me feel like a specimen.

The fact that I "manage" as well as I do, that I'm not afraid to use my hands in conversation, that I go out in public in sandals in the summer and live the same damned life as anyone else I know should not be a surprise to anyone. If it is, then something is "wrong" with me, and I'm tired of living under the supposition that there's something for which I and everyone else in my life need to be compensating. Because, for once, I'd like to be able to accept a compliment without question. I don't think that's too much to ask, do you?

Reverb 10 #3

December 3 – Moment. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors). (Author: Ali Edwards)

I've been thinking about this all day, and the moment I keep coming back to is the one when I emerged onto 8th Avenue from Penn Station on my birthday trip to New York City in July. It was the first time I'd gone to New York on my own, and the first time I'd gone for more than a day in several years. It was one of the hottest days of the summer, the sun was shining brilliantly and it was just after 10 am (I'd walked to the train station in Lancaster fairly early that morning). There was the usual throng of people outside of Penn Station, waiting for buses, trying to figure out which way they needed to go, who knows. For once, I wasn't one of the confused. I came up the stairs, out the doors, and immediately turned right and pointed myself in the general direction of Union Square Park and the Green Market. I ducked briefly into a doorway and took a quick peek at my map to be sure of exactly how to get there, then threw myself into the flow of Saturday morning Manhattan pedestrian traffic.

This may not seem like such an extraordinary moment for most people, but that fact that I was where I was, on my own, confident in where I was going and what I was doing was a huge turning point for me. It was a release of a level of anxiety I wasn't sure would ever recede, and an expansion of life after six-and-a-half years of contraction, during which my life seemed to get smaller and more confined with every turn.

The four days I spent in New York (all but I few hours of which I spent with no one I knew) were a reminder that I have the whole wide world in front of me, and that I need not let it be taken away by myself or anyone else. That reminder began to gel the moment I stepped out into the July humidity that first moment.

Reverb 10 (#1 and #2)

I'm playing follow-the-leader with PoMo Golightly and Tea Leaves in deciding to give Reverb 10 a try. One prompt a day for the month of December, reflecting back on the year just past and looking forward to what could be in the year ahead. And, as a bonus, it could get me blogging daily.

December 1 – One Word. Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you? (Author: Gwen Bell)

The word for 2010 is, without a doubt, "change." Since January of this year I have: started a full-time job at a bank (ugh!), bought a house, moved, ended a relationship, attended the funeral of a college friend, celebrated a milestone birthday, conquered my NYC anxiety, left the bank job for my old art college job, had my freelance outlets die on the vine, returned to meditation (and, to a lesser extent, yoga), and become friends with my ex-husband. Well, those were the major things, anyway. It has been a year during which I have honestly never been quite sure what was waiting around the next corner or at the end of any given day.

The changes have been a blend of good and bad, and most of them have had significant lessons attached to them. I've tried to ride all of them out with as much equanimity as I could muster, but, I have to admit, it hasn't always been easy. It certainly won't be a year I'll forget too quickly.

As for 2011, I'd love for the word this time next year to be "equilibrium." I don't want to be static, by any means, but I want to be at a point at which I feel as though I can handle what is coming at me with grace. I want to not be upended by each new thing, good, bad, or indifferent. I have to believe that this is not too much to ask.

December 2 – Writing. What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it? (Author: Leo Babauta)

Most of what I do each day doesn't contribute to my writing. I find practically any excuse to put it off, or to shelve it altogether, because part of me is convinced that it doesn't have enough value to bother doing. I know that's not true, and if I would work consistently at writing, rather than frittering my time away with things that have even less value, I would see the truth of it more clearly and devote more time and energy to producing work and putting it out for more than just my own eyes.

Forty is the New Fifteen

Of course, that's only because I'm just getting over one of those terrible, wonderful crushes that I, at least, associate with high school and cheesy teen romance. I was astounded to be hit with something like that now, when I'm allegedly supposed to be a real and true adult with a mortgage and a job with actual responsibility, but hit I was. Now that it's (mostly) run its course, I'm trying to look a bit more objectively at my singleness to see what, if anything, I want to do about it.

I don't mind being single. This time it's been nearly seven months, and that's seven months truly single, no backsliding with a convenient ex, not even any dating. Nothing but the one intense crush that seemed, for a month or so, fraught with potential. I am a woman who likes having my space. I like living on my own: I come home to things the way I left them, I make up my own schedule and I cook or don't cook and unpack or don't unpack as the mood hits me. Of course, this leaves me with a spare room full of boxes, Raisin Bran for dinner two nights in a row, and way too much consumption of Netflix.

There are times when I miss having someone to bounce the events of the day off of, especially when I've had one like today. When my feet are cold (even in wool socks), there's no one around to help warm them up. And every once in a while it'd be nice to go to a reading, lecture, or music performance with someone else.

The problem is, I have no idea how to go about getting out there. I've never really dated in the broad sense of the term. Everyone I've ever been involved with I've known in another capacity before we began a relationship. I've looked at the possibility of online dating sites -- I know people for whom it has worked out beautifully -- but it just doesn't feel like the right way to find someone. I go out for a drink occasionally and have ended up striking up conversations, but it takes a lot of effort to get there, because I'm shy and not very good at stepping up. I'm also not entirely sure I want to meet someone in a bar.

For now, I'm not really looking that hard, and I probably won't change that anytime soon. I'll try to get better at mixing and conversing when I'm at social events, but unless someone comes along and sweeps me off my feet (or that crush finally wakes up and sees what he's been missing), I'll keep toddling along in my own little single world until I'm comfortable enough with myself there not to care whether anyone else comes along at all.

Sitting

Right now I'm sitting on an old wooden kitchen chair in the no-man's-land between my living room and dining room portions of the main room of my first floor. I also happen to be in front of an antique mirror that used to hang on my grandmother's wall, so every time I look up from the screen I see myself, which is admittedly odd. Sitting here, now, I am trying to unravel the effects of sitting more formally earlier.

The past couple of months have found me returning to the local Zen meditation group, which meets every Sunday night in the basement of the Unitarian church in town. I have attended this group on and off for years, but the last time I stopped it was for much longer than before. I get something out of sitting with this group, even though I'm not entirely sure I'd absolutely call myself Buddhist, but sometimes I get too close to things I'd rather not examine and I find myself running. I want to get past that.

Sometimes when I sit I can tune into my breath and fall into whatever space it seems meditation should tip you into at least for a few minutes at a time. Most often, though, all I really discover is just how noisy my brain really is and how much energy I devote to thinking about mundane and trivial matters.

Tonight I found that I had to sit with my eyes open -- I usually prefer to close them for the bulk of the sitting period -- because every time I closed them I found myself welling up and stifling sobs. I couldn't put my finger on any one source of upset, and as long as I kept my eyes open it wasn't a problem. My best guess is that I need to take a look at the ongoing sources of stress and anxiety in my life and try to figure out how to resolve them.

The anxiety I feel when I look up and catch a glimpse of my 40-year-old self in the mirror has less to do with being 40 and more to do with still trying to figure out how I've managed to disappear into myself and what I need to do to break the surface again. Sitting with the questions, formally and informally seems to be one way to get there.