An examined life

What were your 3-5 greatest accomplishments? It’s hard to think of 3-5 accomplishments at all. I tend to underestimate what could be considered an accomplishment. Mostly, this question makes me wonder what I wanted out of this year. 1. Navigated extremely tough work year with an absent supervisor 2. Initiated a move into a more suitable apartment 3. Told my supervisor once I’d reached burnout 4. Participated in peer-to-peer coaching 5. Ran a 5k

What helped you achieve the above accomplishments? Insights from working with my therapist helped me have a greater sense of my needs and my contributions. A friend encouraged me to try peer-to-peer coaching, and the resources in the coaching program have been helpful for my coaching experience. Another friend encouraged me to start running and set an example for me.

What was the smartest decision you made? The smartest decision I made was to move to Capitol Hill. My roommate and I have both flourished in this apartment. I’m within walking distance of my other closest friend, which has been a lifesaver during this second winter of the pandemic. I just know if I was still in that Queen Anne apartment, I would feel so isolated and unhappy this winter. I leave home less now, but this new apartment is so much brighter and cozier that I feel so much more content. I also let go of a lot of the baggage that I was holding on to in the old space. One’s environment matters.

What was the biggest risk or moment of courage. My initial response is to say I don’t think I took very many risks this year, but if I think about what Connie would say, I think I took a risk my telling my supervisor that I was burnt out. I risked looking (in my mind) weak and unable to do as much as others. It was really scary to admit that my workload was too much. I felt weak and inferior. But in hitting that point, I was able to separate my identity from work, and started to feel less attached to overworking. I have more balance now.

What people had the most impact on your life? My therapist and certainly my roommate. I still struggle in therapy to open myself up to the relationship, but I wouldn’t be as healthy as I am without her. My roommate has become my closest friend, and has been my support throughout the pandemic. I’m so glad I have her.

What would you most like to be acknowledged for? My attention to details and my ability to remember what needs to be done and to do it right. Both my supervisor and roommate have mentioned my ability to take things in stride and remain calm during stress, which I appreciated.

What results did not happen that you wish had happened? I didn’t apply to graduate school. I didn’t find a romantic relationship. I still don’t feel entirely over past relationships. I spent way too much time wasting time on social media or TV. I still don’t feel like I have the fulfilling life I want, and I still self-defeat.

To what do you attribute your primary failed intentions? It takes a long time to learn to love yourself and be kind to yourself. I didn’t plan well and was not intentional with my time. I have low tolerance of uncertainty, so I procrastinated looking at schools. I didn’t regularly reflect and observe myself.

What new approaches come to mind? Planning better and carving out intentional time to reflect and journal. Observe myself and be more present. Starting real professional coaching.

What was the greatest lesson you learned? I learned more about defining the self and what it means to be who I am. I learned that the struggles and suffering I endure are not different or worse than what others go through, and that they don’t make me less than.

What is your biggest piece of “unfinished business” as you start the next 12 months? Graduate school.

What thoughts do you have about how to deal with this unfinished business? I need to figure out how to improve at tolerating uncertainty, think about the real reason I haven’t taken next actions yet, and explore possibilities that I may be scared to.

In general, what new practices do you resolve to take in the new year? (no more than 3) 1. Be more intentional about how I spend my time. 2. Journal more often. 3. Sketch every day.

What support will you get to assure you successfully engage in these new practices? Building in time for reflection. Finding productivity or accountability tools and implement a new one each month until one works. Use Panda Planner every week. Therapy. Professional coaching.

Writing once a month is better than none at all, right? I always tell my therapist, there’s so much to talk about. I feel that there’s so much to write about, too, so much I need to understand. But even in quarantine, I can always find something to do that, in my mind, takes precedence. Even when I’m forced to slow down, I resist the actual act of slowing as much as possible.

Even in a pandemic, life moves forward, and I have new big things to process. By not writing every day, I know I’m missing out on in-between processing, figuring out what I’m thinking about.

Place is so important to me. In some ways, I feel intimately connected to every place I ever lived. I remember how I felt in those spaces, the parts of my external life I moved through as I inhabited them. I’m moving in a week, to the first new apartment since I moved to Seattle. And as much as I complain about it, I am going to miss this apartment. I still remember what it felt like to arrive here on that first night.

The last light had just disappeared, and the ground and air were damp with the mist that you think of when you think about Seattle. I parked in the back lot, which was surrounded by trees, a container for my anticipation. The drive on that last day had been the most stressful by far, with a one-hour traffic backup, a dying phone, and misread directions. I was so relieved to have made it, and I loved feeling held by those trees.

I was in love with how new and expansive everything felt. My apartment was on the fifth floor, the top floor, and I hadn’t lived so high in a building before. Even my dorm room in college was only on the fourth floor. This was my first time living in a city over 300,000 people, and being in an apartment on the fifth floor nestled perfectly into my idea of big city. I had a call box so that I could buzz people in, something else I had never had before. When I ordered pizza that night, I had to ask the delivery guy how to operate it, because I didn’t know.

The apartment had a balcony with a view of Lake Union and, on the far side, I-5 and Eastlake, but I don’t know if I even registered it that night. I remember taking care of things that needed to be taken care of, and feeling like a new person doing it. I brought everything that was in my car upstairs. I put the comforter that Diesel had messed on in the wash. I must have gone to Safeway, because I remember seeing the sign that says “Serving Seattle since 1923″ and smiling at the word “Seattle,” because I was in Seattle. Or perhaps that was another night.

It wasn’t until 10pm that I ordered that pizza. Did I watch TV? I don’t remember.  My roommate wasn’t there that night, but she had left me a gift bag in my room, filled with her favorite local goodies, which touched me. It’s hard to describe how I felt as I sat there alone with my pizza. I felt lonely and far away. I also felt accomplished. I had done the thing, I had moved to Seattle on my own, I was there. I felt like I was taking my first, tentative steps into the world, as a child first learning to walk. I felt so full and large, but also a sense of anonymity. I knew I was in Seattle, but I didn’t know the city, didn’t know where in the city I was, how it related to everything else. I didn’t know who I was anymore or who I was going to discover I was.

I think I need to write. I used to with some regularity, but after I moved to Seattle three years ago, I increasingly retreated away from myself for reasons I have not yet begun to unpack. I’ve tried journaling with pen(cil) and paper, but it never feels satisfying and I never feel as though anything has been disentangled. My hands cannot keep up with my mind using a pen as they can with a keyboard (said the millennial). But, I need to write.

The world is in the middle of a pandemic. It is a reality that is almost impossible to grasp. A rapidly shifting reality almost impossible to keep up with. A reality that is not going to look the same tomorrow as it does today. I’m so tired.

And I am scared. And angry, and sad. Sometimes I am in denial. So many of the things that we love — the things that I love — will cease to exist. I don’t know what that world looks like or what any of this means for me going forward.

It seems that the one emotion missing is hope. I was on the verge of starting to figure out my future. Who I am, what’s important to me, what I want out of life, and how to get it. I was considering going back to school, exploring other fields, choosing a vocation. I was in the mindset of wanting more.

I had, of course, been procrastinating on those things. I had been unhappy for a very long time, but it was a comfortable place to be and I had time. Time for certainty before action. I wasn’t ready, I told myself. Plus, knowing myself, looking at myself, was hard and uncomfortable, and I avoided it. But when the choice is taken away, it is no longer comfortable and I’ve realized that there is not that much time. I don’t want this to be all I’ve done with this life.

But I don’t know where this leaves me. Do I continue to move toward something new, when so much is uncertain? Do I even prepare for a time when things are back to normal, when no one knows what normal will be? Or when it will be? It’s hard not to fall into the perspective that perhaps it’s all pointless, but I am also not ready to resign myself yet. Or is that the same as being in denial?

In some ways, though, I am also grateful that I had not taken any action yet. As it is, I am well established in my job, and as someone already working remotely, well set to continue working through the crisis. Physical distancing is not as hard for me as others who have had to make a more abrupt transition. I don’t live alone and I also have friends to video chat with.

At the least, I will keep journaling through the uncertainty. I can use this moment as a time of reflection, without any pressure to reach clarity. In some ways I feel that the way to respect this moment is to neither retreat from reality nor to despair, but to maintain a somber attention, generous humor, and inner freedom.

I read some great words in a biography of Montaigne today, though they were by Austrian Jewish writer Stefan Zweig. He was speaking about the Second World War, but the challenge also applies to our current moment. Sarah Bakewell, the author, paraphrases: “The question for any person of integrity becomes not so much ‘How do I survive?’ as ‘How do I remain fully human?’”

In his own words, Zweig writes:

“Only a person who has lived through a time that threatens his life and that valuable substance, his individual freedom, ... only he knows how much courage, how much honesty and determination are needed to maintain the inner self.”

Watching little seedlings sprout and shed their seed caps is always a wonder for me.

Nap level: Expert

Identifying.

Window of evening.

Where time has been I\II

Frozen.

Butterfly in black and white.

Curves.

Where time has been

Old books.

Sunsets and old houses.