How to Cry Over Spilled Milk

Step one: Hurt your back

Step two: Aggravate the injury by continuing to pick up your kid. Lift him. Hug him. Feed him. Change him. Bend and twist to get him in the car. What else can you do?

Step three: Sleep less. Between the injured back and the growing kid you're back to sleeping in 2 hour chunks. Only this time you also have to go to work and make dinner and walk the dog and on and on.

Step four: Stare at the clock. Count down the minutes until your husband gets home. Hate him a little for being at a bar in Japan while you're at home weighing the pros and cons of sacrificing half an hour of potential sleep to soak in an epsom salt bath. Yearn for a hug and his calm reassurance that this, too, will pass. Settle for the email he sent when he was trying to wake up and you were trying to fall asleep because that 12-hour time difference is killer.

Step five: Wonder if you can convince someone else to come over to the house and take care of the kid overnight so you can rest. But you'd still have to get up to feed him, so you might as well be the one to lift him out of the crib, too. Besides, you're too tired to do anything other than snap at them for failing to help in exactly the right way, and that just leads to guilt and shame and less sleep. Better to power through.

Step six: Pump less than usual and worry about it. Worry about your kid getting enough food at daycare. Worry about whether this is just normal ebb and flow or a sign of your milk drying up. Worry if it's stress or lack of sleep or the Tylenol you're taking. Worry about switching your kid to formula, the hows and the whens. Turn to the internet for advice only to find page after page of mothers imploring you to keep trying to breastfeed which does nothing to alleviate your stress. Or your insomnia. Or your back pain. Decide to table the decision until his doctor's appointment next week.

Step seven: Knock over a bottle of breast milk and watch the three precious ounces spill out and disappear in the crack between the stove and the counter. Wonder how you're going to clean it up. Wonder how you're going to replace it before daycare tomorrow. Wonder how you're going to make it through two more days before your husband gets back.

Step eight: Find the silver lining. You punched through the writer's block.

Progress

Between the summertime weather (hot, humid days, punctuated by thunderstorms) and Kevin being out of town (leaving me responsible for both of Kina's daily walks and Kevin's mom's cat's food and medicine), I've had a hard time getting bike rides in. I went two whole weeks with only one 7-mile ride. So when we finally got a perfect day on Sunday, Kevin and I decided to take advantage of it and go for a nice, long ride.

The problem is that everyone else had the same idea.

I don't do well with crowds. It's the reason I couldn't finish the 5K I attempted to run a few years ago. It's the reason I nearly had a meltdown in a Spanish train station. It's the reason I completely clam up at parties where I don't know many people. It's also, in a related way, the reason I used to fall nearly silent when I'd get high with more than 1 or 2 close friends. There's so much sensory input that my brain more or less shuts down any unnecessary functions (and then the necessary functions, like breathing). The difference is that pot also turned off the part of my brain that cared. I just let everything wash over me instead of stressing out about my inability to interact with the world.

Back to Sunday. We went for a bike ride, and there were a ton of people on the trail. It was difficult to pass anyone, both because people were going both ways and because there were large groups and families all riding together. West of Vienna there's a nice, long, downhill stretch of trail where I can typically maintain a speed of 17 mph for at least 2 or 3 miles. Getting to that speed, that feeling of flying through the world, is one of my favorite parts of riding my bike. But with so many people it was difficult to maintain any speed at all.

Anyway, this all culminated about 6 miles into the ride. There's a bump, and I usually enjoy flying down the back side of it. But there was a big family with a couple of kids who were wobbling all over the trail. And this had been going on the whole ride with no end in sight. And my heart rate was already elevated from going up the hill. And I was quickly losing sight of Kevin and getting dizzy and so I puled over and sat down.

It wasn't really a full blown panic attack. I caught it early enough and I knew what was happening and I was able to calm myself down. It also helped that I knew, in my blood knew, that Kevin would quickly realize what had happened and come back to find me. Which he did. I got my breathing under control and readjusted my mental frame. If we kept going, I'd have to go slower and accept that we'd be going slower, with all the people on the trail. The mismatch between expectations and reality is something else I don't always handle so well, and was another contributing factor to becoming completely overwhelmed.

We kept going and the trail cleared out as we hit less populous areas. We ended up doing a 23 mile loop, which isn't bad, though we maybe could have gone farther if I hadn't been scared of a repeat episode.

As scary as it was, it feels like progress. I recognized what was happening and forestalled it. I never felt like I couldn't breathe. I was able to keep going afterwards. As Kevin pointed out, I will get better at reading the trail, it just takes experience. And I'll become more familiar with that stretch of trail in particular. Both of those will help prevent this from happening again.

I've come a long way in the past four years. Keeping this blog has helped me see just how far, and it's provided the quick reference point I needed to help me see that quickly. Which also went towards making this feel like a more minor episode. So. It was scary, and I probably could have done a better job of recognizing the symptoms a little earlier. I still have some ways to go. But I'm counting this one a win.

Out of Whack

It's frustrating when the progress you're making doesn't quite match up with the progress you want to be making. It's even more frustrating when it feels like there's nothing you can do about it.

I still have yet to lose any weight. Whatever I do that scale remains stubbornly at the same level. I signed up for this slow and steady method because I know it would be healthier and more sustainable than trying to lose a bunch of weight quickly. But I really hoped and expected to have seen that number go down by now.

On the other hand, I am getting a lot stronger. I can lift more weight. I can do more repetitions. I have more energy both at the gym and after I finish working out. And with my new trainer, I'm typically sore for days after my hardest workout of the week.

Since I'm building muscles, I am getting smaller. I may not be losing pounds, but fat is certainly being converted to muscle, which is denser. And I can sort of tell that I'm getting smaller. My clothes are fitting a bit better, getting a bit looser.

Mostly.

The problem is that you don't get smaller all over in a uniform way. My breasts and hips are getting smaller, but my stomach is, so far, staying the same size. The result is that when I look into a mirror or try on new clothes, I look fatter than I did before. My proportions are shifting, and they aren't shifting in the way I was hoping for. When I do push-ups now, my stomach touches the floor before my breasts do. And never mind the fact that I can do a bunch of really awesome push-ups, the act of doing them makes me feel bad. It makes me feel fat.

It doesn't help that everything has felt off for the past couple of weeks. I haven't been getting to the gym as much as I want to. Part of it is my body feeling funky. Part of it is that work things have been coming up. But the biggest part has probably just been apathy.

There's a bunch of other life stuff that's piling up and distracting me. We keep getting these hints of Spring, but it's cold again before I can properly enjoy it which sends me back into hibernation mode (I've read almost twice as many books as normal so far this year). I'm stressed about work because my performance review keeps getting shifted back, and I'd like to just get it over with. I'm stressed about the wedding in the most frustrating way possible. Everything's under control, but I keep having these awful dreams where everything completely falls apart.

Basically it's just been a rough couple of weeks, and getting to the gym is both my biggest priority and the last thing I want to do. I feel like I'm right on the cusp of actually losing some weight, but I've also felt like that since July.

All I can really do at this point is keep on going. I need to get to the gym four times a week, twice for weight lifting and twice for cardio. And I need to figure out a way to intensify my cardio workouts without hurting myself. Maybe it's time to trade out the treadmill for the elliptical.

Wish me luck. Wish me the ability to look awesome in my wedding dress and still fit in it. Wish me time and motivation to put this plan into action. I can relax on the honeymoon. That's what it's for.

Hurry Up and Wait

After realizing how much we still had to do for this wedding, Kevin and I sent out a flurry of emails to a wide variety of vendors so we could start nailing things down. That this happened to coincide with a major deadline at work did not do good things for my stress levels. But now we're in that frustrating place where all we can do is wait for people to get back to us. Which makes it hard to see the progress we're actually making. So I'm recording it here to make myself feel better.

Rehearsal Dinner. Kevin called a bunch of possible venues. Some were already booked, some couldn't accommodate our (admittedly large) party. Why do we both have such big families? At any rate, we narrowed it down to two possibilities and went to explore on Friday night with Kevin's mom. We got drinks at one and dinner at the other, and we have hopefully made a decision. But there are a bunch of details to iron out, along with payments to be made and contracts to be signed, before I can say anything more than that.

Flowers. We have feelers out to a couple of florists. One email bounced back to me, which was rather disappointing. The florist came highly recommended, but without a working email address I don't feel comfortable using them. We have one appointment scheduled for next Saturday and are waiting to hear back from another place. Hopefully we'll have a better picture of what's happening after that.

Cake. Much to my surprise, Kevin has decided that he wants to be in on this decision. Even though we are definitely getting a chocolate cake and he hates chocolate. So my plans to drag my Doctor of Honor, Sarah, along on a girl's day full of cake eating have been scrapped in favor of trying to squeeze in a tasting or two between everything else. Luckily, the place I contacted said we don't need to schedule anything until January. So I made an appointment, and I'm officially not thinking about this until next year.

DJ. Honestly, this was the easiest thing to scrap. It turns out I care way too much about the music to let someone else pick it. (Much to my horror, I'm mimicking my step-mom's behavior here from when she married my dad.) Plus this is an easy way to save money and (for now) sanity. Check back with me in the Spring when we're frantically trying to pull together a playlist, and you can laugh and say "I told you so" to your heart's content. But I've been to a few weddings that used iPods instead of professional DJs and I couldn't really tell the difference (except that the iPods tend to let the entire song play, I hate that mixing/fading thing DJs always do that cuts off the end of a song), so we're going to cross our fingers that this works out. It sounds like a perfect problem for future Caitlin and future Kevin to deal with.

Invitations. Um, well, I've looked at these. I think we have an idea of the design and all that. But we need to figure out what they're going to say and actually order them. I believe the plan is to send them out in early January. That means we probably need them by Christmas. Also, there is a surprising amount of work that goes into these, not to mention all the different pieces. At least this can be done during the week.

Honeymoon. Kevin's mom recommended a travel agent who we've been in contact with. Plans are becoming more solid, but they're still pretty up in the air. We probably ought to buy tickets soonish, though.

I believe that's everything we have to worry about now. There are a few things, mostly gifts, that are on the horizon, but can probably be put off until after Thanksgiving at least. I'll feel a lot better when we can check some of these off our list.

Microaggressions

They're the little annoyances we deal with every day. The things we mostly just shrug off because they happen so damn often that we've basically come to expect them. Over time they add up, drain us of our energy. And every now and then you get a day like today when they all happen at once and it feels like the universe (or half of it) is out to get you personally.

The man who walks directly at me on a wide-open sidewalk and snickers each time I change course to avoid crashing into him.

The man who sits next to me on the metro and spreads his legs as wide as possible so I'm crammed up against the wall.

The man who brushes up against me and "accidentally" touches my ass in the crowd to leave the metro station.

The homeless guy, calling me "pretty girl" in an effort to get my attention so he can sell me a copy of Street Sense.

The guy on the park bench who whistles when I walk past.

The man who leers at me as if I can't see him, or maybe just doesn't care that I can.

And then the asshole at the end of it all. Yelling at me to smile; life isn't that bad. Getting angry when I walk past him without acknowledgement. Offering me a dollar if I'll just smile for him. Continuing to shout at me as I do my best to ignore him. But it is my face, damn it, and I will look tired or angry if that's how I feel, and I will smile if I feel like smiling but not because some stranger wants me to.

Taken individually, each of these is a minor incident. Something I'm able to brush off as I go about my day. At least one of these things happens every day, and every one of them has happened before today. If I got angry every time I'd never be anything but angry. This is the world we live in, where men feel like their mere existence gives them some right to a piece of the women around them.

So we learn to ignore the unwanted attention, the trespasses on personal space, the judgement based on looks alone, the infantalizing comments. Because saying something would likely result in escalation, increase our risk. It's easier, safer, to just pretend it didn't happen.

But then a day like this happens, and I'm exhausted before I even get to work. It's days like this that I wish I never had to leave my house. Or that I was actually invisible. Or that I could just make all the men disappear.

It days like this that I actually have to say something. Because these so-called microaggressions are a big deal. They add up to so much more than the sum of the parts, reinforcing the idea that women exist for men to look at, comment on, toy with, touch, possess. That we should be grateful for the attention. That our feelings don't matter. That we are worth less. And that attitude needs to stop.

One is Silver and the Other's Gold

It recently came to my attention that I've now been living in Virginia for over a year and have yet to make a single friend. Which sounds sad when you actually come out and say it. It's not that I don't have any friends, it's just that I don't have any friends here. Mostly, I'd rather read or watch TV than try to be social. I can go several days without craving human contact, which means that my motivation to meet new people is pretty low. But my social life lately basically revolves around Boyfriend and his friends and family, and that isn't entirely fair to Boyfriend.

The problem is that making friends is hard. And exhausting. And terrifying. I have to find a place to go, work up the energy to go out, figure out how to introduce myself to someone, make small talk, and eventually exchange contact information. Then I have to wait for them to call me or somehow figure out a way to call them and invite them to something. Which involves coming up with an activity I think might be mutually enjoyable and trying to find that balance between calling too soon and waiting too long. And every single one of these steps requires a ton of energy and a million opportunities for me to embarrass myself and I usually end up paralyzed by social anxiety and decide to just watch some TV instead. Buffy can't make fun of me.

Realizing that I've been stuck in this pattern for over a year sent me spiraling into a bit of a depression, hence the recent increase in book reviews. But moping around won't make me any friends. And those hypothetical future friends will be worth the ridiculous amount of anxiety I must overcome to meet them. Right?

Boyfriend is going to be out of town for the entire month of June, and I'm going to use that time to try and meet people. This has not gone well in the past. I left an alumni happy hour in tears because I couldn't think of one single thing to say to anyone. I occasionally go out with my co-workers, but usually end up listening to conversations instead of joining them. I joined a book club but didn't want to talk about the same things as the other members. I tried to join a ballet class, but I only made it to one class because getting home and eating dinner before 7 consistently is really freaking hard.

But the time has come to pick myself up and try again. I discovered a board game night at a local game store that looks feasible. They have weekly meetings that go until 10, so I'm making an effort to go to that every week.

I actually kicked off this Make New Friends project last night when I inadvertently scheduled myself for two social activities. A coworker was leaving to join Teach For America which necessitated a happy hour, and I had agreed to attend my first game night.

The happy hour was pretty much a failure. I got a glass of wine and tried to join a conversation, any conversation. Eventually three separate conversations had sprung up around me, and none of them involved me. I tried to at least pay attention to one so I could jump in. But I have so little in common with the people I work with and such a vast inability to operate in a group setting that this never happened.

I'm great one-on-one. But throw another person or two into the conversation and it takes most of my mental capability to follow the conversation, try and come up with something to say, and double check that it's not stupid or awkward. This process takes long enough that I usually miss my opportunity to speak. Sometimes I can keep up for a couple of minutes, but it never lasts. It's much easier for me to express myself in writing, since I have time to read through and edit myself a few times before anyone else sees it. I can complete ideas without being interrupted and follow my train of thought wherever it leads.

Anyone who's ever gotten high with me can tell you that I stop talking. I simply lose the ability to both follow the conversation around me and contribute to it. And the THC-induced paranoia only increases my natural anxiety that I will say or do something stupid. Which is ridiculous when everyone is high and doing/saying stupid things, but there you go. The self-hatred this situation inspires in me is a big part of why I no longer smoke. (The fact that I would also lose my job helps me maintain that decision.)

Unfortunately, that same self-hatred is now causing me to avoid social situations altogether. That's not a good thing.

Anyway, the happy hour was a bust, but game night was better. I learned a new game with a complicated enough strategy that it carried the conversation through the night. I didn't have to invent small talk, because I could ask what might happen if I played here instead of there. I met three people and exchanged emails with one. Less than an hour after I got home, he sent me information about a few other board game nights in the area. So I'm calling this one a success. And I think I actually managed to make a friend. Good conversation + shared interest + invitation to future activity = friend, right?

I think the board game night is going to be more successful than any of my previous endeavors. I didn't find myself awkwardly at a loss during conversation, and I didn't want to smack anyone I met. And it fits into my schedule pretty nicely. So I'll keep this up and see where it leads.

Vicious Cycle

This is a cycle that I find myself stuck in.  When it comes to working out, I can't seem to get past the awful chore to the fun activity, past the self-loathing to the self-love.  Because exercise sucks.  A lot.  Especially when you're completely out of shape.

I decided to go for a bike ride today.  Riding a bike is more fun than going to the gym, which is why I bought one.  I figured it would help me get out and exercise if the method was somewhat enjoyable.  This sort of worked a couple of summers ago.  I lived in Boulder and rode my bike to work every day.  This was great in the summer.  But sumer in Colorado doesn't last long and soon enough it was too cold and dark to commute on my bike.  I stopped exercising

I planned to start small today: the shortest path on the roads around my apartment.  This worked well at first.  I was flying down the road, wind streaming around me, having fun.  Then I turned the final corner and started up the long hill back to my apartment

I was already breathing heavy.  Winded due to my lack of exercise for the past six months.  But I kept pedaling.  Moving up the hill.  Trying to control my breathing.  Heart pounding in my ears.

Is the hill getting longer?  Is it really this steep?

Take another breath.

The traffic is muted. It sounds like I'm listening to it from underwater.  Is it the wind?  Is it my heart beating in my ears?  Is it something else?

Another breath.  Try to slow my pounding heart.  Keep pedaling.

Why can't I do this?  The hill isn't that steep.  It can't be more than a quarter of a mile long.   What's wrong with me?

I'm slowing down.  Am I going too slow?  Do the people driving past notice how slow I'm going?  I can't speed up, though.  It's all I can do to keep my legs moving.

The bike wobbles.  That's not good.

Keep pedaling.

A five year old could do this.  I could have done it two years ago.  How did I let this happen to myself?

And now I'm panting.  I'm having a hard time getting enough air.

Another wobble.  Time to get off and walk.

But my legs are wobbling, too.  They feel rubbery.  I'm not sure they're going to keep supporting me.  I'm not even sure which way is up.  One step at a time.  Trying to trust that my body is still vertical, that my legs can hold my weight.  That the laws of physics haven't just decided to stop working.

The sidewalk becomes distorted and wavy.  I can barely hear the traffic at all anymore.  My heart won't stop pounding.  It might actually burst out of my chest.  I can't catch my breath.

I veer to the left, drop my bike, fall forward on my face.  Gasping, dizzy, scared.  Trying to banish the feeling that I'm drowning by the side of the road.

What's wrong with me?  Why can't I complete a simple half-mile bike ride?  How could I have failed so utterly?

I still can't catch my breath.  Can't slow down my heart.  Can't even move.  This isn't just exhaustion.  This is the beginning of a panic attack. That's why my lungs won't do their job.  That's why resting isn't leading to relaxation.  That's why my body still seems convinced that it is trying to pedal a bike up a long, steep hill at the bottom of the ocean.

Recognizing that it's a panic attack helps.  I can deal with that, ride it out, calm myself down.  I stop panting.  Hold my breath for a second.  Let it out.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

My heart slows.  The tightness begins to loosen.

Breathe in.

I can smell the grass my face is buried in.  Feel it, dry and coarse against my cheeks.

Breathe out.

Turn my head.

There are the cars.  I can hear them again.

The drivers are probably looking at me.  Wondering at my failure.  Witnessing my own private shame.

It doesn't matter.  I don't know them.  I'll never meet them.  Their opinions don't matter.  May not even be their opinions.  Just my projections.

Let it go.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Rise to my knees.

Still dizzy.  But it's different.  I don' feel like I'm floating in a pool, wondering where the sky has gone.  It's like I'm butter in a frying pan that someone is trying to coat.  At least I know where the ground is.  Gravity has meaning again.

I kneel for another minute.  Locate my bike.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Heart still pounding.  But I'm not scared it's going to burst out of my chest.

I stand, pull up my bike, start walking.

I'm not going to get back on.  Even though I can see my apartment.  Even though riding would be faster.  Walking is safer.

I'm leaning on my bike, putting one foot in front of the other.  Baby steps.  The panic is gone, replaced by exhaustion, shame, and a sense of failure.

I can't even ride my bike around the block.

Now I'm sitting on the couch staring at the bike.  Wishing I were just a little more in shape.  Wishing I could get in shape without triggering a panic attack.  Wishing that exercise, the thing that's supposed to make me healthy and happy, didn't leave me feeling so discouraged and awful about myself.

And tomorrow I have to get back on that bike.  I have to try to make it around the block again.  I have to risk that awful, pressing feeling of not being able to breathe or see or hear so that I can work past it.

Someday this will get easier.  It has to.

I just hope that day comes before my frustration causes me to quit.  Again.