Where I’m from:
I am from pink footie pajamas, from JIF and cold Pepsi-Cola.

I am from the small white house with the swing set in the backyard and my grandfather on the front porch, waving to every car that passed by.

I am from the lilac trees, the tulips.

I am from Sunday dinners and earlier risers, from Bob and Ruth and Connie.

I am from the short and “sturdy” and the even tempered.

From “turn off the tv and go practice the piano” and “be home before dark”.

I am from simple “peace church” ideology and the Doxology. From Hanging of the Greens and Love Feast.

I’m from Central PA and from Germany and Switzerland, from pork and sauerkraut and apple butter on cottage cheese.

From my great great great grandmother Rebecca who saw signs and “took off” spells,from the railroad worker, from the farmer, and from the father of 21 children.

I am from boxes of musty photos and treasured albums, from afghans with colors that don’t match and dropped stitches, from mushroom bread and pocketbook sandwiches.

You can find the template for this here.

As compatible as the VIM and I are in other areas, we don’t mesh perfectly when we go for our walks.  He tends to look at it as exercise, and will push himself to go farther, faster.  I look around a lot – up at trees, down at flowers at the side of the path – pretty much anywhere except where I’m walking.  I walk through a lot of mud.

On Sunday, I requested that we walk on one of my favorite trails.  Although you can never be TOO far from civilization on that trail, it feels like a different world to me. The beginning of the trail heads down a hill into an area that is like a big bowl.  Once you get down in, there are pretty steep hills all around.  In the bowl the trees seem bigger and gnarlier, and the water in the little brook that flows through it seems clearer.  I can only describe it as primeval.  It always strikes a chord deep within me.  I love that area so much that I always forget about the second part of the hike – the climbing back out.

The beginning of the trail twists and turns, then suddenly becomes perfectly straight.  And perfectly uphill.  That area used to be part of an inclined plane system that pulled canal boats over the mountain.  The system hasn’t been used since the mid 1800s, and some of it has been taken over by the national park service, which maintains at least part of it as hiking trails.  So.  To get out of the bowl, we started walking up the incline.  It’s not impossible, but it’s long.  And I’m out of shape.  The second part of the hike isn’t nearly as fun as the first half.

Anyhow.  Because I wanted to not think about how long the incline was, I kept my eyes focused on the ground right in front of my feet.  About halfway up, I almost stepped on something that looked like a peeled potato with roots growing out of the side of it.  At first I stepped over it and kept walking.  Then I realized that it wasn’t computing.  A peeled potato?  On this trail?  Why would it still have roots attached if it was peeled?  Do potatoes even HAVE roots like that?

I went back and stooped down.  At first, it still looked like a potato.  Then I turned it over and saw this:

Did that creep you out as much as it did me?

I still can’t really figure it out.  I guess it’s been buried for awhile – it was filled with soil, and some of that stuff on it’s head is grass growing out of the holes.  I’m not sure why the back of the head is clean – maybe it was not completely buried, and the back was kept clean by rain.

I showed the picture to a friend, and he said I should have picked it up and brought it home.  He collects antiques and said it could be an old doll head.  I guess it could be, but I said I didn’t think I’d be able to find it again even if I DID go back out.  I didn’t tell him that the first thing I thought of when I saw that face was the Brady Bunch episode where Bobby picks up the Tiki Idol and becomes cursed, and that I knew from the moment I saw it that there was NO WAY IN THE WORLD I was going to pick it up.  I’m not superstitious, but, well, it doesn’t belong to me.  But I’m not superstitious.

Nope.  Not me.

The picture is the view from my lounge chair.  It was a little bit like camping because of the scent of the big pines trees around us.  Because of the way that area is designed,  we couldn’t see the people on the beach in front of us… although you can’t see it in the picture, there is a fairly wide sandy beach beyond that stone wall, just steps from the lounge chairs.  When the wind and shade got a little too windy and shady, I would just step down to the sand and find an empty chair there to warm my bones for a few minutes.  (The Bahamas in March wasn’t nearly as warm as I thought it would be.)

During the 4 or so days we spent in our lounge chairs – sometimes just a few hours, and sometimes most of the day – I was able to totally decompress.  Sometimes I read, sometimes I slept, and sometimes I just sat there are stared out at that blue water.  What I didn’t do was think about work, email, what I was going to eat for dinner, if my waistband was getting tighter, or what I’d pack in my carryon for the flight back home.  It was hours filled with nothing and everything.

When I’m stressed, or maybe can’t fall asleep as quickly as I’d like, I remember this view, then I remember the smell of the pine trees, and the feel of the brisk wind through my sweatshirt.  This is one of my Happy Places.

I just wanted to write this now in case I am unable to lift my arms above waist-level tomorrow.

I spent much of the past four years in various unhealthy stages:  burning frustration, low-grade panic, hair-on-fire insanity.  I suffered a nasty case of insomnia for several months, and I gained a good bit of weight (hey, I’m a stress eater!).  My relationship with the VIM and with my family suffered.  Short tempered?  Heck yes.  Did I overreact to various and sundry situations?  Maybe.  Did I need to just put my big girl pants on and get over it?  Perhaps.  Was it me and not them?  Could be.  In the end, I recognized what was happening.  I was spiraling.  I looked into different types of stress relief.  I tried to talk to my supervisor.  I tried to use time off wisely (not checking email, etc.)  I started seeing a professional life coach.   In the end though, I couldn’t pull it together.  Looking for another job was sort of scary, because I honestly DIDN’T know if it was me or not.  What if I was never going to be happy at ANY job?  What if I were suffering from, say, depression, and I didn’t recognize it?  What if it were something as simple as menopause?  I did try to broach the subject with my doctor, but he just wrote me a prescription and sent me on my way.

But I did get a new job (I still can’t believe they liked me as much as I liked them!).  It’s a little closer to home, and I actually knew several of my co-workers already through professional affiliation.  So far so good.  Actually, so far, REALLY good.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

When I put in my notice, I gave a six week notice.  I worried that that time period was too long, and that I would really regret my decision.  New Job Remorse.  In the end, though, I didn’t even have a twinge.  I did hate to leave the friends I had made – I still miss seeing them everyday – but those last 6 weeks really just sort of confirmed my decision.  They were insane.  Unspeakable.

On my last day, a Friday, everyone else in my department left at 4pm.  Everyone else on my floor was gone by 5:30.  I was there until 7:30 tying up last minute items – email forwarding, notes to the person taking over my tasks, leaving gifts for the cleaning lady.  The entire building was quiet as I taped up my last box and gathered my stuff for the last time.  I had a moment where I wondered if I had stayed so late because I didn’t want to leave – that I was putting it off.  As I walked down the steps for the last time and headed toward my car, I knew that wasn’t it.  I stayed because I needed to.  The job needed to be done.  And it was.  To the absolute best of my ability.  I truly believe I left that department just a little bit better than I found it.  As I got into my car and started driving out of the lot, I felt like I might cry, but it wasn’t sadness.  It was relief.  For the first time in nearly four years I didn’t feel the weight of what I didn’t do or couldn’t do.  I wasn’t fretting over the to do list for tomorrow or wondering if I could get through Saturday without checking my work email.

The feeling as I drove away is almost indescribable, and it’s something that I hope I remember the rest of my life.  Whether that job was the root cause of so many yucky personal things for me or not, I’ll never know.  What I DO know is that I recognized that I wasn’t fulfilling my potential – either at work or in personal relationships or even in just living my life to the fullest, and I finally took steps to make changes.  The feeling as I drove away wasn’t relief because I was leaving something unpleasant behind.  It was relief that I was finally heading toward something healthy and (hopefully) happy.

At my last coaching session, I expressed fear that I couldn’t come back to blog writing.  That I wouldn’t do it “right.”

“What if I don’t have anything to write about, Coach?”

“What did you write about in the past?”

“I wrote about memories of childhood springtimes, when my grandfather would mow over new tulip shoots from bulbs that my grandmother had planted the fall before.”

“Are those posts ‘right’”?

“Yes.  At the time I’m writing them, they feel like throwaway posts.  Like I’m just typing for the sake of typing, but when I look back on the post six months later, or a year later, I realize that the post is saying something much deeper to me.  It’s like I don’t realize it at the time.”

So the Coach admitted that he doesn’t know if I can get back in the groove, or if I can do it “right.”  He can only ask me to commit to Just. Doing. It.  And I did.  I committed that I would try to write five days a week, and at least three days a week.  It’s a big commitment for me, because I’m afraid I don’t have anything left to write.

This is a big hunting area.  I’ve lived here all my life, so I get it, but I still can’t shake the sadness I feel when I see what was once a graceful, powerful animal tied down to the tailgate of someone’s pickup truck.

I really am enjoying the holidays this year.  We hosted the VIMs family (mom and brother’s family) for a Polish feast, then then next day visited my mom for the traditional turkey dinner.  WAY too much food, but just the right amount of hosting and being hosted and talking and laughing and being together.  I just seemed to happen so much FASTER this year!

Last night the VIM and I took a walk around a nearby town to look at Christmas lights (that’s one of the few bad things about living in the sticks…we have to drive to take a walk).  During the walk we talked about New Years Eve plans.  Although we’ll have some friends up for the Steelers Game, we will spend most of the weekend by ourselves, and we’re coming up with all kinds of ideas on how to make it special – a picnic, a car ride, a walk in our favorite state park, a round of Scrabble and some homemade cherry brandy, crepes and fancy coffee.  The possibilities are endless.  One of the things I am most grateful for in the world is after all this time, the VIM and I still love spending time together, and although we search for ways to make it “special”, we are both content to just be.  Together.

For the next few mornings and evenings after work I will be cleaning, laundering, rearranging, fretting, fluffing, and generally getting ready to host the VIM’s family for Christmas Eve dinner, then gathering everything for dinner at my mom’s house the next day.  When I’m in the thick of such things, I enjoy it.  I do.  I enjoy the process of preparing, and I love spending time with both of our families, but it’s this present moment I always disklike – that moment where I feel like I’m standing on the starting line waiting for the starter’s pistol, and my coach Santa is standing beside me giving me last minute performance advice for the upcoming sprint.