periscope

Dear Internet,
Remember, memory is a selective bastard.
I was an isolated child whose only comfort, and education, were books.
Last night I dreamt I was riding a bike near my childhood home with a few friends, whose names I’ve long forgotten. We came upon the house where my brother and I grew up and saw it was being completely rehabbed. We stopped to talk to a man who was trimming the bushes and I explained my family had owned the house for nearly 30 years and could we see it? The flamboyant man said, “Obviously not.” with no other explanation. We peeked through the windows where remarkable transformations were taking place inside.
I was in awe.
The house was a farmhouse, built in the 1860s, with two additions. The garage was a freestanding barn with a hayloft. The dream owners had completely overhauled every nook and corner so that nothing of what we had remembered as children was still there.
As we biked away, I noticed one of my boots were tearing (dreams are good reminders of things you need to pick up if you have forgotten. In this case: boots) and thoughts spun around to when I was living in that house and how I used to entertain myself.
(This next part is not a dream.)
These thoughts spun back to other times I was alone, which seemed like always.  There is me sitting on the back steps watching the stars shoot by, hoping to be an astronaut one day or there is me playing basketball with myself. There is me eating rainbow pops with my grandpop while we listened to the Tigers on the AM radio. During the summer months, I would drag every item I could onto the L-shaped porch and create my own home, only to have to drag it all back inside as the sun went down. I would take a lunch and bike down to the library, grab some books, and then bike over to the secluded areas near the river to eat and read.
I don’t recall anyone asking where I was for all the times I was gone or why I kept dragging my things outside. There is me and almost never an us.
There is no existence of pictures of me with some other child and rarely with my brother or cousins. True fact.
Recently, two unconnected people said I was deeply isolated and desperately lonely, except I don’t see myself that way. It’s similar to when people discuss Father’s Day or grand family vacations or something else not in my world. I rarely knew my father, I’ve never been on a grand family vacation, and most of these synapses people form with their experiences were never in the cards for me. So I cannot see myself as being desperately lonely or deeply isolated because I cannot relate to these things others do. But when these connections are outside the realm of normalcy for them, it’s hard to understand someone who doesn’t discern your same faiths.
For all of my isolation growing up, my socialization and behavior came from books. This is how others interacted with others, so this is how I must interact with people. These traits are bad, because bad things eventually happen to them on page 237, so I must not do these things. This is how romantic relationships work, so I must wait for someone who exudes these traits before I can take them seriously (and YES, I was accused of reading too many romance novels because I wanted every man to be Mr. Darcy). This is how friends treat friends, daughters to mothers and brothers, lover to lover. Every. Idealization. Of. Social. Interaction came from books. Despite my large family, there was no one person around long enough to shower me with what would form my psyche. There was nothing and then, there is everything.
Being freed from societal expectations can be considered a gift. It gives me the perspective of outsider in on day to day interactions. It allows me to be seen and definitely not heard, and it allows me to interpret right from wrong on a cleaner basis because I have no influence (because we all know bad things happen in Act 2 or page 237).  My moral compass is perhaps a little straighter and a bit more rigid than most.
It also allows me to travel without borders, without constraints, and without worry.
But it’s cyclic, for every experience shared alone, there is no one person waiting for me to come home, just like in my youth. There is no one person who is necessarily worried about me (i.e. there are those who love me, I know, but it’s not one specific person at home, knitting and wearing slippers in front of a fire, waiting for me).
Books taught me everything and with them, came unrealistic expectations and desires and this is one thing I’m very glad to have.
I’ve written of these things before; perhaps not as lucid but it has been said and will probably be said again. In order to grow, and to explore, we must challenge our boundaries and I’ll keep pushing until I feel that I am complete with that knowledge. But am I desperately lonely and largely isolated? Maybe. But if for all of this, I enjoy being me, why expect me to be anything else for that would alter the things you like about me? Would I be happier if I was part of a large social interactions, for I will not lie, there are times I long for such groups. And  if  I could change, be it my own happiness does mean it would preclude me from having large social interactions, why attempt to change the recipe?
As I was writing this, I was wondering if perhaps this growing up being socialized by books was perhaps the reason why my own books were stalling. Books gloss over everything in its pages and it’s difficult to write what you really do not know. I know what I would do but that would, perhaps, make for tepid reading.
Remember, memory is a selective bastard.
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2014, 1999

never be lost

Dear Internet,

Never Be Lost
I wanted to make sure I could always find my way home.

The unforeseen future was approximately 23 days. Despite my rational breakdown on leaving, I missed this place. This place is something I have created, maintained, and nurtured. Cutting myself at the quick, now on reflection, seems a bit hasty.
Being hasty has been my go-to for nearly a year and definitely not something I want to keep on repeating. Because really, look at where it’s gotten me. Plus, leaving behind nearly 1200 posts? What was I thinking?
(As the trolling has slowed down to a damned near drop here and there, I’ve reinstated the contact form. Comments will remain off, forever and ever. Amen.)
Time is running out on this rabbitry of a life, for I will finally settle in one place after moving around every other month for the last year. Sure, I’ve momentarily got my own digs in Grand Rapids, but I’m never there more than a few days. Sometimes if I’m full of time, a week.
I’m thrilled and terrified about this next adventure but I am mostly upset with myself re: ThePlan. Both my fault and circumstantial, I have been struggling with maintaining some kind of status quo on my daily routines and failing. This is no fault to my hosts who’ve been the closest to me during all of this time, more like my own pure laziness.
Which leads me to something else I’ve been musing.
Even though I’ve been ensorceled with a cadre of people who love me during this nervous breakdown of a time, I do spend a lot of time in my head.
It’s nice here and we have cookies.
A pattern that keeps emerging in my thoughts regards that my platonic relationships are cyclic. Sure, I’ve got some long standing list of people I’ve known for ages but in the day to day routine of it all? In one location? Almost none. I see bits and pieces of my former lives on Facebook — they have moved on while perhaps I have not. I get it, I do. Where I go, drama eventually follows and truthfully, if I’d look out to my life from the outside in, I wouldn’t want to hang with me either.
Some of those people are toxic or perhaps we just grew away from the other, but in this beige time that is beginning, having a local support system would be grand. That has been, almost singularly, what I fight for and if I’m honest, also against. It’s tragic and textbook: terrible childhood, seeks to embiggen social life or hide from the world. I’ve been running so long that it is perhaps time, yes, I’ve said this before and will say it again until I get it right, to stop running and enjoy what I have. Being stripped of everything in the last year, from the dog to my job to my hearth and home, has drilled in that my previous life was not so bad and now I have a chance to rebuild it all over again for what I crave doesn’t exist outside of my own head and it’s time to stop fighting.
xoxo,
Lisa
P.S. Boulder Prep is using this site as part of their resources for a module on online autobiography. Hi!

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2014

x-posted to Medium

vine/shuffle/jumping jack/hook

Dear Internet,
When I came up with ThePlan, part of the mind/body connection was to get in shape. I’ve been in shape on and off for years, but after being laid up for nearly 18 months from my surgery a few years ago, the in shape part has thrown me ever so far for a loop.
Doing ThePlan has been a massive struggle. I’ve started out strong, fall back, start out strong again, and fallen back again. I’ve made huge mistakes and have claimed some small victories, but it’s been hard to really gauge how I’m doing. I know the bipolar is a mess, even with the drugs it’s been so sporadic, I’ve often wondered if my best bet is to put myself into a psychiatric hospital. But then I’m not really sure what it will do for me outside of what I’m doing now, which is drugs and talk therapy. I am so desperate to have some kind of stability to get me moving forward that I’m willing to do just about anything to grab at it.
I do not want to be at the head space I was late in 2014. Never ever.
So many people are upset/angry/disappointed in me right now, that normally I would find myself begging for forgiveness. With some of them, I have. But the most important thing is to get my head and body into some semblance of stability so I don’t keep making the same mistakes over and over again.
Which is why I was at a 6AM kickboxing class this morning.
I have been walking the track at the local Y every morning this week, and meditating, even on the days when I felt like I could barely get out of bed. Yesterday morning was particularly bad as I felt like even doing my 8 laps around the inside track was going to do me in. Even having heart raising pop music to make it fun, wasn’t doing it for me. When I got home, my brain was on such fire, I planted my hands on the kitchen sink, huffing cold air via the open window to calm me down.
And like a switch, it’s off again and I start to feel better. I’m sure the Klonopin helped.
The issue with me is that for most of the time, I present as high functioning (as well as a medical curiosity). I’ve been able to accomplish a lot in my life that most bipolars cannot: I’ve finished school, not once but thrice. I’ve had long term relationships. I’ve held down jobs. I’m not on drugs and I’m not promiscuous (two massive bipolar traits).
But it’s a struggle. It’s all a struggle to do these things and stay on the golden path. I’m not sure where I get the strength to push myself forward, but it’s there and it’s real. I’ve grown up with having little or no support for this disease and the only person I could count on is myself. Even those who are close to me, who have given me support and understanding, can only do so much.
I have to continue to save myself. No one else can do this for me. At times, I’ve been wholly naive to think they could, but they can’t. I’m going to go forward and I’m going to fuck up again. But I have to recognize, really recognize, that I am human and I’m bound to make mistakes. The goal, then, is to catch myself during these mistakes and right them before they get out of hand.
Throw in my other conditions (borderline personality disorder, anxiety, ADHD), and I’ve got a delightful cocktail of fire happening in my brain.
TSTBEH recently finished my book and found it weird and insightful. Weird because he was there during that year in San Francisco, my love, and insightful because he was able to judge me then versus me now. Then I was careless, an asshole, out of control, and financially unstable. I’ve made extraordinary strides not to be that person and he did comment on that. I’m much more able discern when the crazy is coming and how to do some kind of self-care, even when it feels like I’ve fallen off the wagon. But there are a lot of patterns still being repeated, that I’m continually self-sabotaging my own happiness by believing that external things will make me happy (which, to be fair, I’ve discovered they actually do not). That I don’t allow myself to take pleasure in the small things or accomplishments (woo! I have three degrees! Who’d see that coming?).
I can do a lot of things.
Some have called this site nothing but navel gazing, which to be honest, it is. This site is a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it is my own form of talk therapy and a curse because it has all of memories from it all, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Most of all, it’s a crucial reminder of my own humanity.
I’m not asking anyone for forgiveness. I’m not asking anyone to stand by me, but what I am asking is that you understand. You understand that for me, daily existence is a struggle. That for what some of you seem like simple tasks, for me are sometimes monumental journeys.
But I can taste the joy. I’ve seen it and I’ve felt it, the closest I’ve come in a very long time, if ever. Working towards that joy, no matter what methods I use, is my new drug.
I hope to be addicted for a very long time.
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2014, 2003, 2001, 1999

daily entry: February 5, 2015

Dear Internet,
I’m at my destination so my schedule is a bit wonky. So in the morning it is,

  • Morning ritual: Wake up, use the facilities, pop contacts in, take drugs, get coffee, figure out breakfast.  With tea and breakfast in hand, check email, Facebook, Twitter. Respond as necessary
  • Shower
  • Print proof is in! Start editing the print proof.
  • Run various errands
  • Person I’m visiting decides to order Italian for dinner; Benadryl popped
  • Start watching Gotham
  • Fall asleep at 730PM
  • Wake up enough for bed ritual: take contacts out and wash fash; use the facilities
  • Sleep (again)

xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2004, 2000

daily entry: February 4, 2015

Dear Internet,

  • Wake up to a text from the airline that today’s flight has been “delayed” and that I need to possibly reschedule. Check and discover that I would have a 20 minute change between my two flights; able to rebook slightly later flight going to another hub. Fuck MSP
  • Morning ritual: Wake up, use the facilities, pop contacts in, take drugs, turn kettle on for tea, figure out breakfast. While the kettle is heating up, fill last nights Bopple and also the humidifier. With tea and breakfast in hand, check email, Facebook, Twitter. Respond as necessary
  • Shower, finish up packing, get dressed
  • Meditate using Headspace
  • Read RSS feeds (never caught up)
  • Get to the airport, check bag for flight (I know, I know; BUT, they were calling for volunteers to get off the flight so I knew it was going to be tight getting my bag in)
  • Flight is delayed because of weight issues; people are taken off the flight. Plane needs to be deiced, we’re now nearly 30 minutes late leaving GRR; which is fine. My original flight is now four hours delayed and I would have never made it to my destination. Fuck MSP. Again
  • Get to DTW and book cheeks to another concourse to make connecting flight.  Make it, but flight ends up being delayed for 1.5 hours due to maintenance issues, then more maintenance issues, then deicing. It’s like we’re flying on Gertie.
  • Arrive at destination
  • Sleep

xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe:

daily entry: February 3, 2015

Dear Internet,

  • Morning ritual: Wake up, use the facilities, pop contacts in, take drugs, turn kettle on for tea, figure out breakfast. While the kettle is heating up, fill last nights Bopple and also the humidifier. With tea and breakfast in hand, check email, Facebook, Twitter. Respond as necessary
  • Discover flight out for mini-break has been rescheduled, except it passes my connection so spend an hour on the phone waiting for Delta to answer to reschedule flight. Flight has been rescheduled for February 4
  • Contact all credit card and banking companies that I am not leaving out of the country and to turn travel notifications off
  • Attempt to contact unemployment about claim, told by auto-voice to call back later. This has been ongoing since December. Make mental note to go directly to the unemployment office upon return
  • Despite best intentions, get into pissing argument about the copyright of my article on Reddit. Because someone is WRONG on the Internet
  • Write
  • Read my RSS feed for a few hours to catch up. Never caught up.
  • Finish packing for mini-break
  • Work on back archives of the site, mainly in 2002. Most of that year is now online for the first time in years
  • Read my RSS feed some more
  • Bed ritual: refilled humidifier, grab Bopple for the night, take contacts off and wash fash; use the facilities
  • Catch up on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D
  • Sleep

xoxo,
Lisa
P.S. My little book is now #57 in Books > Computers & Technology > Business & Management > Biographies. Please buy it (and review it!)!

daily entry: February 2, 2015

Dear Internet,

  • Morning ritual: Wake up, use the facilities, pop contacts in, take drugs, turn kettle on for tea, figure out breakfast. While the kettle is heating up, fill last nights Bopple and also the humidifier. With tea and breakfast in hand, check email, Facebook, Twitter. Respond as necessary
  • Did laundry and shoveled out car (GR got 10″ of snow last night)
  • Put together todo list
  • Got hairs cut
  • Ran errands
  • Grabbed lunch, came home
  • Showered, fluffed new hairs
  • Caught up on Up The Women
  • Bed ritual: refilled humidifier, grab Bopple for the night, take contacts off and wash fash; use the facilities
  • Sleep

xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe:  2014, 2001

making happy: proairesis

Dear Internet,
There are two main reasons I’m locked in my turret of sorts,

  • Write
  • Figure out what I want from life

The first goal is easy as I’ve been writing every day; the second one, not so much. As someone whose been deeply unhappy for most of her life, trying to find happiness is akin to suddenly becoming a super model. But being happy is definitely an attainable goal (Elite, call me!), but how do you do it?
I decided to research this as much as I could and apply the techniques I found useful without judgement. I had to get over my cynicism that happy people were frauds, shamans to swill their products.  I wasn’t looking for a magic elixir, but there must be something that fit me, that I felt comfortable with, and could apply to my everyday life.

I’ve been following Gala Darling’s blog for a few years now; and was always curious about how she managed to have this amazing life she was sharing with the interwebs while remaining classy at the same time. Sure, there is a lot of woo-woo involved, but the one thing that hooked me into wanting to do her bootcamp, and it pleased the librarian in me, she provided sources for all of her claims. That was huge influence in pulling the trigger and moving forward with the project.
So what is Radical Self Love Bootcamp exactly? It’s a six week intensive course where three times a week she provides an essay on the theme of the week, worksheets to make that theme a habit (or to break that habit), and an interview with someone related to that theme. Because she provides sources for all of her claims, I was able to research further into what she was presenting.
I’m a bit behind in the classes, but the nice thing is I can do this at my own leisure. Additionally, much of what she’s purporting is stuff I already knew I should be doing but haven’t. Things like meditating daily, creating weekly and daily goals, doing positive affirmations. It’s all about retraining the brain, something we’ve discussed in my DBT classes. It’s about self-care, something I’m a huge fan of, and something I need to make happen.

The How of Happiness, by Sonja Lyubomirsky, was one of the titles mentioned by Darling. It provides a scientific approach to happiness and was to promote how you could change your life, aka be happy, by using scientific proven methods. Lyubomirsky has a doctorate from Harvard, and provides qualitative and quantitative research results, so this isn’t all woo-woo. Her approach is that happiness is a 40/10/50 split, which she calls the 40% solution. 50% of our happiness is set (namely environment and genetics), 10% by circumstance, 40% by intentional activity. So is it possible to change your life and happiness structure? Lyubomirsky thinks so. She provides several questionnaires used in the studies to gauge how someone is feeling and then based upon some mathematical equations, you are to work on the top matching activities. Thus, by practicing said actitives, you’re changing your 40% to make you happier.
As this book was recommended by Darling, there is a lot of overlap (Darling modifies the questionnaire and just asks you to choose what you want to work on rather than have you do some complicated maths bullshit). The book, however, I found to be a science-y version of stuff I’ve known for years – great, science has proven that happiness is attainable by using the techniques found in the 40% solution. But the problem I have with this book is that Lyubomirsky thinly veils that deprssed people can simply change their lives by following this technique. Oh she gives the standard, “Consult a clinician before starting this or any other activities, this is not medical advice, etc” but! BUT, she makes the claim that clinically depressed people were able to pull out of their depression by following her techniques. People who are clinically depressed have a chemical imbalance, you can’t woo-woo your way out of it by doing a self-affirmation every day; that’s like someone having cancer can cure it by eating chocolate. With that, I stopped reading.

Another book I found, How To Be Happy, is not actually a book on being happy, but a graphic novel about various vignettes of what could and could not be happiness. At a 149 pages, the art work is varied  and persuasive. There is very little dialogue, but that doesn’t detract from the stories. For the art work and concept alone, this book is definitely checking out.
The techniques I’ve culled from my reading so far are:

  • Saying positive affirmations
  • Building a daily routine/rituals
  • Meditation
  • Building a daily/weekly ToDo list
  • Journaling every day

As par usual, I’ll keep everyone updated.
xoxo,
Lisa
P.S. I discovered last night that my little book is #82 in Books > Computers & Technology > Business & Management > Biographies. Huzzah! 

This Day in Lisa-Universe:  2014, 2001

daily entry: February 1, 2015

Dear Internet,

  • Morning ritual: Wake up, use the facilities, pop contacts in, take drugs, turn kettle on for tea, figure out breakfast. While the kettle is heating up, fill last nights Bopple and also the humidifier. With tea and breakfast in hand, check email, Facebook, Twitter. Respond as necessary
  • Cleaned up a few blog posts, started a fresh one
  • TSTBEH updated the server and OS software for the blogs; I updated plugins across the sites and edited a few of the pages
  • Ate lunch
  • Worked on ThePlan a bit more by reading and working on some of the activities
  • Caught up on The Musketeers, Last Tango in Halifax, Mr. Selfridge
  • Wrote. A lot.
  • Bed ritual: refilled humidifier, grab Bopple for the night, take contacts off and wash fash; use the facilities
  • Sleep

xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011

daily entry: January 31, 2015

Dear Internet,
HEY! My eBook is officially now live on Amazon and you can LOOK INSIDE (that part cracks me up):

  • Morning ritual: Wake up, use the facilities, pop contacts in, take drugs, turn kettle on for tea, figure out breakfast. While the kettle is heating up, fill last nights Bopple and also the humidifier. With tea and breakfast in hand, check email, Facebook, Twitter. Respond as necessary
  • Started prepping for the trip for Toronto by booking my flight (it was cheaper for me to book 1st class ($950) then economy ($1700)), upgrade my phone to work internationally (we all know Canada is the 51st state), locate passport, start calling credit card companies and phone company to notify I will be out of the country
  • Do some updating across my websites
  • Meditate for 15 minutes
  • Start packing for the trip
  • Shower and get dressed for the day. My brother called to invite me over for dinner that night at his place
  • Eat lunch
  • As promised in ThePlan, I built out a daily todo list for the week, breaking up days I’ll be at the coworking facility, gym, and etc.
  • Worked more on updating the websites and cleaned up a short story which I submitted to an online magazine.
  • Had dinner with my brother and his girlfriend; hung out for the evening
  • Came home, depanted, watched Banshee
  • Bed ritual: refilled humidifier, grab Bopple for the night, take contacts off and wash fash; use the facilities
  • Woke up at 5:30AM to one of my neighbors shoveling the apartment parking area, which is basically just my car. Thanks neighbor!

xoxo,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe: 2014, 2011, 2001

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