Me, just me

I'm sitting here in Madison halfway through my trip and already learned a big takeaway from this trip. As you know by now every single trip I take to Madison I have self-discovery, and this trip is no different. Tonight, was the big party night at Epic and I was all alone as I had been for most of the trip. Now the thing is that I am not the only one here from my company, there is a group of at least 10 other people here. Mind you, I am the only one here at my level, everyone else is in a formal leadership role and well above me. They're lovely people, but not people I interact with on a daily basis. They are the ones who judge and interpret my work (as well as my peers).

So, here I am all alone in a HUGE sea of people eating and crafting and hanging out. Guess what? It didn't bug me one bit that I was alone. I was quite content to eat my dinner, find a craft to do and then head out. There was no scanning the crowd to see if I might see them. There was no disappointment or anger at being excluded. There was no wishing that I was part of a big crazy group. I'm not saying I wouldn't have enjoyed it, what I'm saying is that it didn't bother me. I wasn't jealous or sad or frustrated. I was content. This is in direct contrast to last year where I was annoyed at being excluded and lonely. It's not to say last year I didn't enjoy myself, but there were underlying emotions impacting my night. Tonight there were none. It was truly an "I don't care" moment. I don't care that I'm one of the few singletons here in a sea of groups. It wasn't a let's show up and prove to myself (and everyone else) that I'm fine alone; it was just me being me. For that I am thankful and grateful.

Growth, it's all about growth.

Change

Life has a way of changing rapidly and unexpectedly at times. The truth is those plots twists, curve balls and change-ups can't always be an instantaneous "move on." There's emotions to process, habits to change and many other adjustments that need to be made. A month ago there was a curveball thrown my way completely unexpected, and it has been quite a challenge. It was of course complicated by my family's vacation a few days afterwards, so I had minimal time to process.

All that being noted, this twist is going to be good for me. I've spent the last few months wrapped up in other things and not working on me as much as I likely needed. I have taken this time to work on changing up my future and myself in the process. I am taking the time to get back to looking at those big dreams and making them into goals. I'm processing different parts of me that I have neglected because of other anxieties. It's become a season of personal growth.

I'm certainly not moving on smoothly though. There are moments I struggle, forgetting the change, and there are moments that I am hit so hard I have stomach pains and difficulty breathing. Then there are moments where I realize everything is good and I feel great. It's been quite a roller coaster ride. Truth is I started this post weeks ago but haven't had the clarity to complete it. A trip to Madison and my head is clear enough at the moment to find my ground.

There's not much to say except that even a "plot twist" deserves your time to process your emotions. If you're moving on quickly without processing then you're either deluding yourself or the "wrong" that happened wasn't truly that important to you. So I challenge you to look at your reactions to changes and honor your emotional response. As my therapist likes to tell me at times, it's ok to be sad and grieve, it's not ok to set-up camp there.

Parenting and Goals

A while ago I was talking about my parenting philosophy with someone that doesn't have children. My parenting philosophy summed up:

Kids need to have fun and freedom, but they need to have chores and responsibilities so that they don't grow up to be entitled adults.

It's how I raise my kids. They have activities they attend, but significantly less than many other kids their age so that they have time to be free to play outside, be bored and just be kids. We have so much scheduled, restricted time as adults that I really believe that children need freedom in their time. I'm not saying my kids run wild, but you're likely to find them outside running through the backyard or the neighborhood park or reading a book. This is balanced with their chores; sweeping, dishes, caring for the cats, etc. For the most part it works fine for my crew and I. Sure, they can be crazy and entitled, but they're kids! I want them to value hard work, effort, patience, family and love. I want them to learn how to balance fun and responsibility.

The other important lesson I want my children to learn is to chase down their dream and goals and make them happen. We all know that goals are only achieved by hard work, dedication and grit. This life lesson is something that they have to learn independently, but that I can model for them. They are too young to remember the struggles of me earning my PhD. My oldest may remember some of it, but for most of their life they know me as a working mom, and now a single working mom, juggling everything the best I can. But in my juggling they're learning how much I love them and how hard I work for them, not how to chase goals and dreams. Because let's be honest, my goals and dreams have nothing to do with juggling 3 jobs.

They've watched me train for half marathons and full marathons, which certainly gets to the point of dedication, hard work and grit. Though, if I'm honest some of that has slipped from my life in the past few years. In the past 7 months though I was reminded that I used to have big goals and dreams and that it was time to start chasing them again (read here). There is a lot of controversy about this funny enough. I'm not talking about within my own family, but in general. I have heard from a number of other moms that it's selfish to take large chunks of time away from your kids to pursue your dreams and goals; that you need to wait until they have graduated high school or college; that our lives are to revolve around our children from the moment they were born, otherwise why did you chose to be a mom?

At this point in my life after everything I have learned since having my kids and getting a divorce is that my life should not revolve around them 100%. They need to be an integral part of it, but I need to live my life, for what am I supposed to do when they graduate and move on with their lives? I don't want my life to suddenly fall apart because I am not a full-time mom. I will always be their mother in some capacity, but I am still me at my core, and motherhood is just a piece of my identity. Maybe I have this perspective now because I am divorced and have kid-free time to explore myself and my interests, but I think it's healthy to have time away. I won't say there isn't guilt about it, but I will not let guilt hold me back from my dreams.

Why should I wait 10 years until my youngest has graduated high school? There will never be a perfect moment to pursue my dreams to make them goals and my reality. If I can find a way to achieve them that still allows my children to feel loved, secure and fit with my parent philosophy then I don't need your approval, but I would like your support. I just find it interesting that a community of moms who are all reaching for similar goals would be so harsh to a fellow mom (it wasn't me) telling her to put her dreams on hold for another 11 years, or to take her kids along. The point of some of these dreams, goals and ambitions is to learn about yourself, and let's me honest- it's difficult to learn about yourself when you're still in the full-time parent role. So let's stop judging other parents for their choices and support them when they are already making difficult choices.

Fears

Let's be real- we ALL have fears about something. Even that super secure person who you know has a fear somewhere, it's part of the human existence. It's what we do about our fears that's important. And me? I have a number of them, but for the most part I've learned how to recognize them and work through them. There has been one that has plagued me though: loneliness.

Even before going through this crazy divorce process I have had issues with being lonely. I know no one likes to be lonely, but I was especially sensitive to it, likely from my anxiety. As I started the separation and divorce process I suddenly found myself with lots of alone time. At that point in my life alone time equated loneliness. I couldn't see how to be alone and content, unless I was engrossed in a book; being alone meant being lonely. Thankfully, with the help of my therapist and the work I put in I learned how to separate the two and learned to be alone and content. There are still moments where I struggle, but the majority of the time I do just fine. Now, there are times I crave the solitude and peace that comes with being alone, that chance to be alone with my thoughts, feelings and just be.

There has continued to be an underlying issue of not wanting to be alone, which I assumed stemmed from the separation/divorce. It wasn't until very recently I uncovered that it's not a fear of being alone or being lonely, but of being forgotten. It's a fear of not being seen, acknowledged, included. I think we all struggle with this on some level, and primary caregivers especially. When you factor in that I'm now a single mom to 4, work a behind the scenes desk job, and was raised with mobile roots there are moments when I feel prone to invisibility. I know now when I feel invisible I am more likely to trigger feelings of loneliness and abandonment.

All of that begs, what am I going to do about it? Well, to be brutally honest I don't know yet. Knowing the root cause helps me logically, but I still have work to do. For now when the feelings hit I remember all the times that someone has remembered me, made me feel special and included me. It's certainly something I'll be addressing in my therapy sessions and working on at home. I will not let this fear rule me or interrupt my life any further. I don't have to be Nelson Mandela, Gabby Douglas, or Rosa Parks to be remembered. I just need to be a genuine me.

Beaches and Mountains

It's always a debate:

Beaches or Mountains?

Me? I considered myself both. I love the water and the beach, but there's something amazing about being up in the mountains and the solitude. So, like other deceptively simple questions it defied me. That is until this past summer where I had time to spend at the beach after just having had that little bit of time up in the mountains backpacking.

I had the opportunity to be a beach bum this summer. Lounging, reading, napping and enjoying the sun, sand and surf; it sounded like heaven. It was wonderful, restful and a chance for me to just be. I enjoyed my time on the beach, listening to the waves and soaking up the sun. I enjoyed swimming in the ocean and being carried by the salt and the waves. I stood knee deep and focused on the horizon line in a contemplative state, trying to recreate the meditative state I was able to achieve last year at the beach. Surprisingly, it never arrived.

I was confused. I tended to consider myself more of a "beach" person than a mountains person, but I wasn't finding that inner peace that I had previously. Sure, I was able to meditate, cleanse and reset, but it wasn't grounding. I found myself looking back to that weekend backpacking and my weekend trip to western Massachusetts, and in those thoughts I felt centered, grounded.

Now I was really confused. How could I feel more centered and grounded with my thoughts than actually being in the place that I thought was a grounding point? It was pure craziness. I spent my time reflecting on those differences, trying to reason and logic may way around things. Anyone who knows about these things know that logic and reason doesn't always prevail- it's what speaks to you and touches you that is important. But, me being me needed to analyze it all, understand it all. As I was seeking to understand it I grew to understand a few things.

1. I am connected to the water. I always will be. There's something about the rhythmic sounds of the waves or the melody of the river that will call to me. The sunshine reflecting off the water that creates a unique beauty all to its own.
2. There can be peace at the beach. I can rest, recover and heal at the beach.
3. There's something unique about the mountains that isn't found at the beach.
4. The mountains speak to me and my soul and it is here that I am grounded and at peace.

All of this was reconfirmed upon my recent vacation. We did not go to the beach, but the mountains, both the Great Smokies and the Blue Ridge mountains. While we were blessed to spend a day rafting down the New River in West Virginia and playing at Summersvillle Lake, my soul wasn't peaceful until we were up in Shenandoah sleeping at the top of Loft Mountain and hiking along it. Despite the chaos of hiking with 4 noisy children I found points where I was centered, at peace and grounded. Mountains are my grounding point and soul place, while the beach is blissful, it does not and cannot rejuvenate me like the mountains. It's now knowing that I can seek true healing in the mountains to find myself again. 

mountain views while backpacking on the AT

Beach Bum in the Dominican Republic

Beach views

Summersville Lake in WV

New River in WV