Lessons in Limitations, or What I Learned From Wet Birks

So, yesterday just at quitting time, the skies in Chicago opened up and poured down rain for the evening. My cursory check of the forecast in the morning had not revealed any chance of rain, so I was unprepared - no umbrella, and my customary Birkenstocks instead of a sensible, closed shoe.

There are few things in life I dislike more, in terms of physical comfort, than walking in wet sandals. I'm klutzy on dry ground with bare feet, let alone wet pavement in soggy flip flops...and I have a long history of skinned knees and bruised shins and scraped hands to prove it. So, as a rule, when it's raining, I like a nice closed shoe that keeps my foot dry and offers a little more stability than a wide-open sandal that doesn't even buckle on.

But yesterday I pretty much had no choice. Walking, in the rain, in wide-open sandals.

I was a little prepared for how slippery the whole affair would become, so I went very, very slowly. In fact, I went so slowly, I found the whole thing sort of meditative. I had time to consider what this experience might have to teach me.
It was frustrating, because moving slowly meant I was getting rained on pretty fiercely, and that's no fun. But, I mused as I plodded sloshily along, better wet clothes and hair than a slip and fall and scrape or bruise or crack or wound.

And, yeah, that's kind of a good metaphor for me right now. I get frustrated with myself and how I work since Nervously Breaking Down last year, but the reality I'm faced with is that the pace of my life before that was toxic for me, and I can't expect to go back to that toxic pace and those toxic habits without expecting that I'll also go back to having panic attacks every day and un-fun bouts of depression. I am frustrated that I still have limited energy for my social life, that work takes so much out of me (and must, what with the whole need for a paycheck and all), that music is next on the list and takes its pound of flesh, that my commitments to re-connecting with my family in the hinterland and to my closest friends here in Chicago is next on the list, and then whatever's leftover is for everything else I care about in my whole freakin' life.

But, the fact is that I have limited time and energy, and running myself ragged or trying to squish a bazillion things into every minute will not somehow give me more time or energy. I can either plod along slowly and carefully, and get where I want eventually, if a little wet...or I can push-push-push and hurry and wind up slipping and falling and hurting.

Not much of a choice, when you really look at it.

Shitty economy? Not exactly hypothetical.

The economy sucks. I've seen I dunno how many posts and articles and graphs showing how much it sucks, no matter what Washington or Wall Street might want to tell themselves and the rest of us.

The housing crisis? Still crisis-a-licious.

Unemployment? Still sky high. (And then there's the "speedup".)

...and so on and so forth. There's plenty of information out there.

The numbers are irrefutable and stomach-turning for me, and all things considered, I am incredibly lucky - I still have a job, I still have health insurance, I still have time before retirement for my 401k to bounce back, and I even have a small pension that took less of a hit than my 401k. But, even for me, a single woman who doesn't own a home or carry any debt, this shit is not hypothetical: the awful economy has been like a repeated punch to the gut. What does it say about the horrible-ness of it if someone like me, who ought to be relatively insulated from the crisis, is still feeling it significantly?

What do I mean, though? How has it hit me?

Well, first, let's talk about the fact that I work for a big multi-national corporation. In the past five years, we've paid cash to acquire two other companies and sponsored one of the world's most popular sports franchises to the tune of $20 million. Every quarter, our shareholder return grows. This year, my CEO got $6 million in bonuses alone. Meanwhile, hundreds of jobs here in the U.S. were eliminated and then replaced by offshoring operations in India and Mexico. That small pension, which should've been growing more every year, was frozen last year. My health benefits decreased, my deductibles increased. My salary, unlike shareholder returns, didn't increase enough to keep up with cost of living increases. On my little six person team, two of us have taken leaves of absence for major health reasons. I'm pretty sure all of us have been on anti-depressants and/or anti-anxiety meds at some point, and we're all working harder than we ever have, trying to keep up with expanding workloads and decreasing support. We're using outdated hardware and software that further challenge our efficiency, and management has become more and more draconian, because we're all supposed to be so grateful to even have jobs anymore.

So, yeah, I am luckier than a lot of people have been in this recession. I still have a job. But it's becoming less of a blessing every day, and I don't see much of a chance that trend will change anytime soon. I'm still holding on, but I'm not sure how much longer I'll still be able to say that.

"Conscious tending to well being."

I had a hermity weekend last weekend. The previous two had been spent away from home, so this was a bit of catch-up on housework and downtime. I’m being pretty careful about giving myself plenty of downtime these days, having recently recognized just how very toxic notable parts of my life are….and since they can’t quite be jettisoned just yet, I’m walking a very fine line in trying to balance the burdens they create in me.

(It turns out that spending 40+ hours a week in an establishment that is a poster child for everything that’s wrong with capitalism, corporate greed, and patriarchy…..um, reallyreallyreally sucks. If you can imagine.)

So, yeah, I’m being super gentle with myself, since I’ve decided to carry on with the corporate day job for now.

Saturday morning, I tried a few new yoga routines. I have one I cobbled together that I’ve been working for years, but sometimes I like to see what other poses and techniques might be out there. During one of the routines, the lady running it was really explicit about keeping poses comfortable and making adjustments as needed for the yogi’s particular body. She kept coming back to that in each pose, talking about “conscious tending to well being.”

Boy did that phrase strike a chord with me. It’s become my whole modus operandi these days, trying to always be conscious of where I am and what my needs are – and then to actually make those needs priority enough to take care of them properly. This seems like a no-brainer, but I have found it pretty challenging in surprising ways. Like…I am so very tired, but rather than sleep, I can always come up with something else to do – some book to read or list to write, some show to watch or chore to take care of. Or I’m super thirsty, but can’t get a drink till I take care of just this one thing. It’s fucking stupid, and it pisses me off when I see myself doing it…but these are patterns I’ve spent my whole life creating, and they’re not going away without a fight. So, you know, I walk that fine line…compassion, gentleness, comfort….and pushing, stretching, shifting.

Sometimes my life feels like a yoga pose, like I’m balanced in downward facing dog, feeling the stretch in my hamstrings and calves, balancing on my arms, feeling my spine opening and stretching, breathing and holding and pushing just that tiny fraction further into the pose, and breathing and holding again.