Relaunch: Baby Steps

The other day in the bookstore, I saw a book called “Women Who Do Too Much.” Ha. I’d like to write my own book on the subject. Its title would go something like: “Women Who Try To Do More Than Any Human Being Could Realistically Accomplish In One Lifetime, and Because of This Fact, Become Anxious, Overwhelmed and Mired in Self-Loathing.” I wonder if anyone would buy it. Probably not. I wouldn’t even buy it, and it’s my life story.

Wanting to do too much is my curse and my downfall. Of course, on the silver-lining side of things, this surely indicates that I have a lot of hobbies and interests and ideas and aspirations. Right? But the tarnish on that silver is the fact that having too many goals and interests makes it difficult to be productive. If I’m not doing everything, for some reason, I find it difficult to accomplish anything. I’m staring at a self-imposed mountain of tasks, and I’m so overwhelmed, I freeze up and do nothing. It makes for a very scattered, unfocused and frustrating life.

“So why don’t you just do one thing?” a friend asked me recently. Of course that sounds perfectly logical. Unless you’re me. If I’m doing just one thing, what happens to the other things? What if I never get to them? How can I abandon them like that? It’s like telling me I can only have one friend. Or that I’m only allowed to eat chocolate ice cream. Sure, I like chocolate ice cream. I like it a lot. But what about black raspberry and mocha almond fudge? And butterscotch ripple and mint chocolate chip? I want it all. For example, if I’m focused on my writing, I feel guilty about not doing my music. If I’m doing my music, I’m not creating artwork. If I’m creating artwork, I’m not focused on my writing. And if I’m doing any of these things, obviously I’m not cleaning the house, organizing the basement, or paying the bills. Yes, this can be a torturous internal monologue. Yes, I drive myself absolutely crazy. No doubt I drive Hubby crazy, too. If there’s one thing harder than being me, it might be being married to me.

And so, I have come up with a potential solution. To sum up: Baby Steps. It’s like that old adage about every journey beginning with a single step, instead of trying to run a marathon in twelve directions all at once and finding out that the finish line is getting further away with every flail. Or something like that.

Taking baby steps means setting aside an hour to write, and allowing myself to enjoy the process, instead of being upset that I haven’t completed an entire draft of a novel, and its sequel, too. It means focusing on trying to learn one song on the guitar and find some joy in it, instead of being impatient with myself for not being ready to perform solo. It means cleaning out one box in one corner of the basement instead of reprimanding myself for not reorganizing the entire downstairs.

Baby steps means slowing down and focusing on one thing at a time, trying to enjoy the present, and reveling in the fact that at least I‘m further along than I was before. Even baby steps feel like progress.

Now, if I can only remember this…

-Callie

Launch: What Do You Do with a B.A. in English?

So it's about time for me to find a new job. A real job. With a salary. Hopefully a career. The trouble is that I have no idea where to begin. A lot of my classmates in college seemed to know exactly where they wanted to go with their lives, they had their career path picked out, and were applying to grad schools while I was realizing that I needed an extra semester to finish up my bachelor's degree. I'm about a year out of college now, and I still have absolutely no idea what I want to do with my life. It's extremely difficult to make a living doing the things I'm most passionate about, namely music-especially singing- and writing. But I need to find something that I can be happy doing, because this hourly wage business is just not enough. I love my job, but I'm barely keeping myself afloat.

The song "What Do You Do With A B.A. In English" from the musical Avenue Q pretty much sums up my feelings on the whole subject. I've been searching for jobs on all those job searching websites, from monster.com to Yahoo! Jobs, to the new marketplace feature on Facebook. It's difficult to put in what I want and get something back that fits my needs. I entered that I need something at an entry-level position, because as the song says, "I have no skills yet", and although I've specified that I don't have any experience in...pretty much anything, nearly all the job postings that come up in my searches require at least three years of experience in the field. I still have a few months before I absolutely NEED a real job, my lease is up in September, but there is a time limit on it, and as it is I'm living paycheck to paycheck. I'd like to be able to buy new clothes or go out to eat with my friends without worrying that I won't have enough money to pay next month's rent. I was thinking that I'd try to make this entry inspiring and...helpful or something, but the truth is that this is supposed to be a chronicle of my journey into adulthood or whatever, and right now I'm struggling a little. I have the utmost confidence that I'll figure it out, but I haven't, yet. Stay tuned.

~Fae

Relaunch: Please, tell me I have ADD!

"I am so scattered," I told my Life Coach during a recent appointment. "I can't seem to focus on anything."

I described to Coach a typical morning in my pathetically unfocused life. I start washing the dishes, then stop to write an important e-mail. In the middle of the e-mail, I remember I have to put the laundry in the dryer. After loading half of the damp clothes into the dryer, I recall the urgent phone call I need to make. Somebody left a voicemail, so I listen to that, hang up, and completely forget to make the call. I'm upstairs making the bed when I remember I never finished making that call, or putting the laundry in the dryer. Once downstairs, the sight of my computer reminds me that I've neglected this blog for way too long and need to write another installment. I sit down to write, and meanwhile, never finished the dishes, the email, or made that call, and my laundry is starting to smell funny so I will need to wash it all over again.

"Scattered," I repeated. "Can't get anything done. Driving myself crazy."

"Hmm," said Coach. "Is it possible that you could have ADD?"

Attention Deficit Disorder. Wow, did that ever ring true. I definitely have a deficit in the attention department. It was redeeming and somehow comforting to put a name and potential diagnosis to my dilemma. And, I realized, there are drugs for this. A pill to take, to make it better. The thought of being able to take a get-organized pill was incredibly compelling. So I went to a specialist, and I took a detailed written test, to determine the extent of my ADD.

I got a 96 on that test. The overachiever in me was proud. But the fact is, that number allegedly revealed that I am more scattered, unfocused and spacey than 96% of women my age. Only 4% are worse off than me. Yikes.

With this test in hand, I then went to see my primary care doctor, in the hopes that he would write me a prescription for that magic pill. Adderol, perhaps. Or Ritalin. Something to make my fuzzy brain think and plan more clearly. After a few weeks or so, surely I'd be able to finish my latest novel, master my complicated voice-over software, land that fabulous new job, and organize all my closets. I wanted that prescription, bad. And since I scored an A+ in ADD, how could he say no?

"No," he said, peering at me over his glasses. "I don't think you have ADD. I've been your doctor for ten years now, and I've never gotten that vibe from you." I showed him the test again, told him how unfocused and unproductive I've been lately, but he shook his head. I wanted to cry. If I didn't get a pill for ADD, how was I going to handle my attention deficit?

There was still hope, however. My doctor sent me off to a different specialist for an evaluation, a psychiatrist he trusted who also screens people for ADD. So off I went, and the first thing she did was give me another written test. Again, I aced it. Feeling vindicated, I waited for her to hand over the prescription and send me on my way.

Instead, she looked me over, and asked me some pointed questions. Did I have trouble focusing as a child in school, or have trouble graduating from college? Well, no. I mean, I was distracted from time to time, (what kid isn't?), but I did just fine. And when I got my masters degree a few years ago, I had no trouble fulfilling the requirements. In fact, I reveled in the whole experience.

Clearly, I had no history of ADD. And, the doctor pointed out, it's not something you "catch" one day out of the blue, like a virus. So she asked what was going on in my life. And I told her. About all the changes. About moving, and children leaving home, and job losses and personal losses and perceived failures big and small. And without meaning to, I started to cry. I cried through most of my explanation.

When I was finished, the psychiatrist nodded thoughtfully, and asked, "Tell me, could you be depressed?"

I stared at her through my tears, completely stunned. "No, I'm not depressed!" This set me off on a brand new crying jag.

"Feeling scattered and unfocused can be symptoms," she insisted. "Not everybody is immobilized and stays in bed all day when they're depressed. You can be fairly functional, and yet still suffer from depression."

Depression? This came as a shock. I have always seen myself as a cheerful person, someone who could take just about anything life throws at me, emote through it, and move on. Depression is something other people have to deal with. Not me.

Well, apparently, there are different manifestations of depression, and this is mine. It could be situational, brought on by too much change for me to handle all at once. It's possible that I will move beyond this unsettled phase in time, and all will be well.

In the meantime, I got my prescription. Not a magical get-organized pill, like I was hoping for, but a low level anti-depressant. It hasn't made me wildly productive, but it has eased a bit of the scattered turmoil in my soul. I cry less, find that my emotions are easier to navigate.

Another step in the right direction, I hope. A humbling one, at that.

- Callie

Launch: Broadening Horizons

About three years ago, my paternal grandfather passed away. He was 95 years old and lived a full life. He loved to travel and he and my grandmother traveled all over the world until he was no longer able. That's why I decided to use a portion of the money he left me to go on a trip. From January 8th until the 15th, my roomie and I went to Reykjavik, Iceland.

Now, you're probably wondering, Why Iceland?, and I know, it seems completely random. But there's a story behind it! My roommate was looking for work abroad programs with the intent of maybe getting an au pair job in England or somewhere else English-speaking (she's a preschool teacher), but as she was looking through the listings, she stumbled across a work abroad program in Iceland for Americans and Canadians. The program involved spending a few weeks in Iceland building troll houses. In Iceland they're big on their mythology and a lot of people still insist that trolls are real. My roommate and I thought that the program sounded both hilarious and fun, so we looked into it a little more, and it turned out that we'd missed the deadline by a couple of days. So instead, Roomie went looking through vacation packages, and as there was an economic crash in Iceland recently, the price was great.

So we got our passports all sorted out, my parents gave me cold weather gear for Christmas and the two of us set off on my first trip overseas, and the longest vacation I'd ever taken without my parents.

And it was amazing. The country itself lies on the border between tectonic plates, so there are active volcanoes and earthquakes that shape the land. We visited waterfalls, glaciers, geysers, and fissures created by the plates moving apart. We went horseback riding through the countryside on Icelandic Horses who have been isolated on the island since they were brought there hundreds and hundreds of years ago. We went caving in a lava tube and heard a traditional ghost story in compete darkness. We ate traditional Icelandic food and fell in love with Skyr, a yogurt-like product famous for being high in protein and low in calories. We bathed in thermal pools. We stood on black sand beaches and watched the waves roll in. We went hunting for the Northern Lights. The sun rose at 11am and the sunsets seemed to last for hours. The entire experience was exhausting and neither of us have fully recovered yet, but it was definitely something that will be a lifelong memory. A once in a lifetime adventure. I think my grandfather would be proud.

~Fae

Relaunch: My Career Coach (Part 2)

One of the first things my new Career Coach did after listening to me ramble on and on about my unfulfilled plans and goals, was ask me to take a Myers-Briggs test.

Most people are familiar with Myers-Briggs, because it is well-regarded test to help assess an individual’s personality type. After identifying that type, it is presumably easier to zero in on jobs that would fit. Funny, but at first, the results of the test sounded like my horoscope, which usually goes something like this: “You are a Gemini. You are restless and gregarious. You seek adventure and you are a good friend. Your earth sign is air and your lucky number is 5.”

But unlike a random one-size-fits-all horoscope, the Myers-Briggs bases its conclusions on a multi-question test assessing a person’s actions and feelings in various situations. Therefore, I am not only a Gemini. I am also an ENFP. And (very) strangely enough, they’re somewhat similar.

The “E” stands for Extraversion, the “N” for Intuition, the “F” for Feeling, and the “P” for Perceiving. Without getting too deeply into these categories, (since you might already know, and/or can research them elsewhere), an ENFP is typically an enthusiastic innovator with a lot of imagination for starting new projects, but not so hot at follow-through. (Wow, do those people know me??) As it turns out, ENFPs are also energized by being around other people and are good with inter-personal skills. (Figures, I have a job that requires me to be alone much of the time.)

Then Coach asked me to do something kind of strange. She asked me to sign my name on a piece of paper. After I did, she asked me to switch the pen to my other hand (I’m a lefty, so I switched to my right) and sign my name again. Sticking my tongue out like Charlie Brown, I concentrated on trying to write my name, and it still came out looking like a preschooler’s attempt.

Coach explained that this exercise was to illustrate that there are things that come naturally to me, like being creative and people-oriented. But there are also those that I struggle with, like marketing myself or following through on tedious details. But I have to make myself do the things that don’t come easily, she said, even though I don’t like them, in order to be successful. It’s not that I should berate myself for the things I suck at. (Even though I often do.) Just as I was born left-handed, I was born with certain skills. And without others.

So, my challenge right now is to do the things I don’t like, in order to get to the things I do. Of course, the thing I want most is to have an interesting, creative job, where I can work with interesting, creative people. But unfortunately, the thing I hate most, is looking for it.

- Callie

Launch: Social Networking

I am clearly a child of the Facebook age. When Facebook was first created, it was only for college students, and you had to wait for your school to be added to the network before you could join. My freshman year of college, my university was added, and I created my Facebook profile the moment I found out. Since then it's been five years, and I have over 600 Facebook friends from a ton of different places. I've got my college friends of course, but not just them. Facebook's horizons have expanded and now I'm friends with people from high school, my middle school in the Chicago area, the kids of my parents' college friends that we used to meet up with about once a year, family (including both my parents...and a lot of their friends), and even my best friend from kindergarten, who I haven't seen in over sixteen years, since we were both seven. I've even added internet friends that I've never met in person, and most recently, half of the people who work at the bookstore with me.

I am instantly connected to over 600 people that I've met throughout my life with the touch of a button. I've even been posting to Facebook when I update this blog, and while I know not all 621 people I have friended will read it, if they really want to know what's going on with me it's easier than ever. People used to have to wait for Christmas cards with newsy letters about family goings-on to stay connected with friends and family, but with Facebook, keeping in contact with people is so simple that thousands and thousands of miles barely matter at all.

The trouble I have with social networking sites is that when I'm connected to so many people with so little effort, it's difficult to remember to actually take the effort to get together with people in person. Why drive four hours back to my university when I can check up on all my old friends in a matter of minutes on Facebook? Why bother to leave the house at all when I don't have to go anywhere to have a meaningful conversation with somebody? I'm a huge fan of laying around my apartment in my pajamas, so being able to keep connected with so many people without even having to get dressed seems like a blessing, right?

Except that social networking isn't a replacement for a good face-to-face conversation. One of my goals as part of being sucessfully launched is to create a strong social network in real life so that I spend less time being a couch potato and letting my life pass me by while I follow everyone else's on Facebook. And this is a huge challenge for me! I've never been good at instigating events with friends and when I was in high school I'd never call my friends, preferring to wait for them to call me so I'd be sure I wasn't imposing myself on them. So part of what I need to work on is realizing that I'm awesome and that people actually enjoy spending time with me so that I can take action and make plans with these people that I care a great deal about but haven't seen in such a long time. I need to learn to use Facebook as a tool to keep connected to people rather than as the only means of communication at all. Maybe I'll use the Events function to invite people to a holiday party or finally organize a trip to a karaoke bar for me and a few of my coworkers. With Facebook there's really no excuse to let these things slide.

~Fae

Relaunch: Are We There Yet?

So now that Fae and I are in the midst of orchestrating our respective launch and relaunch, we thought it might be helpful to sit ourselves down and identify exactly what it will mean to us to each of us to arrive. A glimpse of what the destination is supposed to look like, so we can know we’re there once we’re there.

For me, a few things will need to have fallen into place before I can say I have been successfully relaunched. It’s about a fulfilling, rewarding, creative job. It’s about a paycheck I can be proud of. It’s about community. It’s about finding and maintaining a calm center so I can be a strong presence for children who are waxing and parents who are waning. (I was tempted to make a salon joke around the “waxing” thing, but I refrained. You’re welcome.)

This is how I envision my successfully relaunched self: I have a great part-time job; maybe something like writing and voice-over work in the media center of a college. There’s that whole office-life camaraderie, making jokes and talking about what was on the news last night. I miss co-workers, and I miss the structure of a job outside the home. Free-lancing is totally self-generated, and when I’m writing, I’m alone. I’m tired of being alone so much. If I can satisfy my need to be around people in a structured job, it seems it would be easier for me to focus on those creative endeavors that require solitude. Writing magazine articles and getting them published, for example. Finishing novel #2 and pitching it to agents. Setting up that home studio.

The “community” part of this equation may have something to do with a church, but it may not. I’ve belonged to churches that were our social center, and I’ve been at churches that fall short of providing any feeling of community at all. At the moment, we are between churches, and as a preacher’s daughter who has always been part of a church family, I feel the lack of that. But along with everything else in my life, I’m looking for something new, including a church that feeds and nurtures this new self, and I haven’t found it yet.

As for the calm center part, I could write a whole blog about that. I used to pray. I used to be able to close my eyes and breath deep and feel some sort of peaceful well inside from which to draw strength. Over the past several years, I feel like that well has gone dry. Trying to go inward has only made me anxious and restless. My Life Coach is teaching me meditation techniques. I’ve started a gratitude journal and am seeking one of those calming indoor fountains. Every day I try to quiet my mind by taking deep breaths, listening to soft music, and trying to be mindful. It’s not easy. My brain is always latching onto distractions that take me from that center. But I’m working on it.

There are many puzzle pieces in a life, and it helps to remind myself that some are already in place. For example, there is music in my life, both my band and the a cappella group. We have good friends. We feel settled in our home of two years, and are getting acquainted with our neighbors. And although my parents are failing in big and small ways, I am doing a fair job of being there for them. (Can one ever do enough?)

So, “are we there yet?” No, not yet. But we are on our way, for sure.

Callie