Lessons From Plants

I don't speak plant. I never have. That being said, I've got over 70 plants living in my house and on my balcony. I love how it feels to see them grow and thrive. Seeing them suffer causes me grief and anxiety. But my plants are teaching me a lot about life, and about myself...also about plants.

Not sure where to start, so I'll start with this guy who brings me great joy.

This is my Monstera Deliciosa. Also known as a split leaf philodendron... it is apparently not really related to the philodendron. In any case, he is a juvenile, so his leaves are not split yet. Supposedly, each leaf has its own genetic makeup that determines whether or not it will be split. So it doesn't split later. The leaf is what it is, and eventually, "split" leaves will start to emerge. He changes daily, which satisfies the impatient side of me. He has three new leaves unfurled, and another on the way. With each leaf, I look carefully to see if this one will be the first one with a split. So far, he's not old enough to get splits...but he is absolutely beautiful nonetheless. His leaves are so green and bright and glossy. I put a moss pole in there for him, which he hasn't taken advantage of yet, but he likely will as he gets older. This guy tells me I'm bad-ass and can grow beautiful plants.

This guy tells me I'm full of shit.

In a sense, he keeps me humble. In reality, several of my plants do that. This is a desert rose plant. He has looked like this for at least a month. He arrived bare root and bare leaf. Just like this basically. Exactly like this. I don't know how you tell one of these things is dead or alive. Apparently, when stressed, they drop all their leaves. Then magically come back to life. So.... I don't know. He just hangs out and occasionally gets watered. He's basically a soft stick.

This guy has been through so much. It wants a lot of light. And not a lot of room around its roots. It was doing so well before I moved down here- before I stopped giving it lots of light, and when it floundered, I decided it needed more room around its roots.

This is a China Doll plant, and it is teaching me that I don't get to decide what a plant wants. It wants to be in this little pot (for now) and it wants to be in this spot. I can't argue. It's been so resilient over the last 9 months. Now it's sprouting all sorts of new growth, so I just need to leave it be.

This guy. I don't even know what to do about this guy.

This is a variegated rubber plant. And he is not dead. I know this because when he's happy, his leaves point up (according to the internet). See those two top leaves? They're pointing up. Good. Great. So what's the problem? Since I've gotten him, he's lost a leaf, and developed brown spots on several others. And strangely, he has not grown since I got him. Months ago. I keep checking the little pink tip in the middle that should, in theory, start to grow. Nothing. In months. Nothing. Just up and down movement of the leaves. I obviously do not have this thing figured out.

His cousin (also quite new, so I just haven't had the chance to ruin it yet) a Cabernet rubber plant, is doing marvelously and is quite stunning. The picture does not do it justice.

Beautiful, glossy, healthy new leaves popping up left and right. It seems unconcerned that it is now left in my hands. It just does its beautiful thing. Which leads me to believe there is something going on with his variegated friend. Where have I gone wrong?

Because of my impatience, I love plants that change every day. That's why I love this guy. He's an alocasia calidora.... and he's supposed to get huge. Here he is on February 23rd:

Just a wee little guy. I put him in a big pot for a reason. A little over a month later (March 29th), he's sprouted a much larger leaf and has another on the way.

His old leaves are falling to the side, for comparison. I'm learning that too. With a lot of these, the leaves don't grow much after they emerge. You just keep getting bigger and bigger leaves emerging.

Then there's the Calathea. Calatheas are notoriously difficult to grow. As a beginner gardener, I didn't even know what it was when I got it. Most plants from Home Depot are labeled vaguely. This guy was labeled "Assorted Tropical Plant".

I don't know. I don't know what it wants. It refuses to tell me. You can see some yellowing (and browning) there. That's a hint at an issue. But the thing is, it tends to get droopy leaves when it's upset with me. Then the leaves perk up when it's doing well. The leaves have perked up, two new leaves have arrived (showing some sort of health, no?).... except one of those new leaves arrived with browning on it. What the heck? This plant has a wonderful velvety texture, which I absolutely love. But it is neither thriving, nor dying. I'm just not sure how to make it happy. Maybe it just needs time? Maybe I expect too much? Maybe I expect it to be perfect like the monstera in my living room.

So. I do a lot of research. I read tons of web pages, which unfortunately all say different things. I can tell you that a monstera is NOT a low light plant as some sites want you to believe. There's also no such thing as a plant that does not need any light at all. The whole thing about plants is that they do the photosynthesis thing. Photo=light. Sunlight to be exact. I do have a few low light plants, and they're doing ok.

After finishing an avocado, I decided to try my hand at growing a tree from the pit. Just for fun. I planted 5 acorns back in December and they've all sprouted into healthy seedlings. How much more difficult can an avocado be?

Well for one, they're a little slower. But here he is!

I read that when he reaches 6 inches tall, I should cut him back 3 inches (or to 3 inches... depending on the website..which if he's 6 inches, that's the same thing....if you wait until he's 8 inches...what do you do?). There he is. Tall and proud.

And yet.... I was supposed to slice him in half. Oh the agony. The faith required to do such a thing (I read about faith with my dwarf umbrella bonsai, which I'll get to next) is pretty tough. The thing that makes this one less tough is that I just ordered a few more avocados to be delivered in my veggie box on Thursday, so if this thing dies, I've got backup. So I snipped him.

Not as far as I was supposed to, but I felt really bad. According to my research, avocado trees are apical dominant. So they get really tall and leggy. If you clip him, he's forced to spread out laterally and become more bushy. We'll see. In the meantime, I'll work on sprouting the next couple of avocados.

Oh the dwarf umbrella bonsai. Such a beautiful specimen. Reminds me of a palm tree in the tropics.

But he's tall and leggy. I found a forum that suggested a website that says I should just totally stump the thing. Several people swore by it. And apparently propagating the thing is fairly easily, so the top you lob off just becomes another plant. Oh how I doubt all that. But the website also talked about risk, and having faith that it's going to work out.  I can sympathize with that. I have taken a lot of risk in my life, and so far so good. So I brought him down to a semi-stump.

And now I wait.

That's lesson number one with all of these plants. Over winter, they really didn't do much. Turns out even indoor plants go dormant in winter. Big lesson there. But now that it's spring and they're starting to become much more active...I just expect them all to branch out into huge healthy plants. Turns out it's not that easy. A plant will find its way the best it knows how. I don't get to decide that. I can only pay close attention to how it responds to every change, and hope for the best.

Today I helped my Coastal Redwood seeds (and other seeds) chase the sun around my apartment as I waited for the painters to no-show.

Giant redwoods take time apparently....even to sprout. I watched how the sun moved across the room throughout the day. With the changing season, it's different than it was a couple months ago, and I haven't been home all day to see the changes. It was nice to spend the day chasing the sun and hanging out with my plants. Maybe that makes me weird. That's ok. I like my plants better than people anyway.

Morning Rain

Today I'm supposed to be breathing. Moving slowly. But habit builds itself a home and can't be broken down overnight just because it's a weekend. It's a house, not an easy-up tent. Besides, there is too much restlessness in these bones to sleep past 3:30 am. So I've instead been staring out the window at the rain, illuminated by a street light that is, in my opinion, far too bright and bears too much likeness to a sunny day.

I have recruited an army of plants as living souls to keep me company. They do not demand my conversation (although science suggest words of encouragement may actually help them grow). We're learning to communicate through drooped leaves, the reaching of a stem towards the light, and unexpected color changes. We're still learning.

This morning, like every morning, I crept around quietly, peering at each plant, looking for changes. Several have joints that move their leaves up and down and I have decided that movement is good. When they're still for too long, I wonder what's wrong. What have I messed up this time?

This morning, the calathea's leaves are slightly lifted (it's about time!), the prayer plant's new leaf is beginning to unfold, and the monstera's shoots are still rolled tightly but appear longer. It's the beginning of spring, and I wonder if those new leaves will be the first to have the coveted splits.

The night is fading to a lighter grey and the street lamp has finally turned off. Rain falls softly on the pavement and coaxes me "Find your slippers, pour another cup of coffee, bring your blanket out on to the balcony. You can breathe here."

My Brown Thumb

I kill plants. Not on purpose. I have recently concluded that I have a tendency to over-water my plants. I should've learned that a long time ago when a plant I was killing at my station suddenly thrived when the snow kept us away from the station for a couple months. Despite what my resume says, I can sometimes be a slow learner.

Because I'm deeply saddened by the current state of my Nerve Plant (fittonia), we won't talk about that yet. Instead, let's talk about my leggy China Doll Plant. Apparently legginess is not a positive characteristic in plants, regardless of how it's viewed in humans. My China Doll Plant was not looking super spunky, so I did some Googling and decided it may be slightly "leggy" and needed a little more light. I positioned it near the balcony window, got it a bigger pot, and gave it some water (more water). I went to Home Depot to purchase more plants and more pots. I came across a China Doll Plant. I now get what leggy means. My plant has what my dad would call chicken legs (he always called me that). The plant in Home Depot was full and bushy. Hmm. My plant currently has leaves curling under.... a symptom of over-watering. Go figure.

My friend Carrie, who has an amazing green thumb, gifted me with a couple pots for my balcony railing. She wasn't able to put drainage holes in them since it would only drain to my neighbor's balcony below me. As she handed them over, she assured me it was fine if I killed them. I detected a resigned sadness in her voice. I did my best.

The Great Flood of December 6th, 2018 annihilated those plants... and others that were on my balcony. Pots filled to the brim under hours of deluge. Days passed before I realized they were drowning. I could put a goldfish in a few of the pots and it would probably thrive. I drilled drainage holes in the pots from Carrie and winced as putrid smelling water drained out for an hour.

By some strange miracle, there is still a little green in those pots. I have no idea how long they'll last.

Ok, let's talk about the Nerve Plant. Not only was it one of the flood victims... it is also apparently a tropical plant (also a gift from Carrie). I know this now that it has been subjected to near freezing temperatures (post flood). I have brought it indoors and pruned it. It does not seem impressed.

My Christmas Cactus that Mike got me about a year and a half ago (which turns out is actually a Thanksgiving Cactus), is my longest living plant ever. I decided to Google the care for this guy who continues to thrive despite my inadequacies. Turns out he doesn't like cold temperatures either. I pulled him inside for the night. We'll be down near freezing again tonight, and I'll be damned if I kill another plant.

I have invested in more succulents and a couple indoor "trees". I'm also attempting to grow oak trees from the sprouted acorns I collected in Mike's mom's yard. Every day I check them for movement. That's my issue... I expect more action from my plants. They aren't doing much. Having an actual pet is not for me (for various reasons) and my plants are not active enough for me to feel like I can leave them alone. I poke and prod them daily to inspire new growth. I'm not sure they like that. The baby Chinese Money Plant that I detached from its mother and put in a tiny pot is looking like it's not going to make it. Too much water, I've concluded. It's mother has received too much water as well, but she may be hardy enough to survive.

So I'm now working on training myself to leave my plants alone. I bought a coffee plant when I was at Mike's house (its name is Mr. Coffee, although Mike insists on calling it Sanka), and so now Mike is in charge of keeping the plant alive until he moves down here with it. At first I was apprehensive and told him several times not to kill it. The thing is, Mike neglects plants. He leaves them alone. He lets them be. Mr. Coffee is probably a lot safer with him than he'll ever be with me.

As I sit in my living room and stare at all my plants, I hear my friend Debbie's voice, scolding her golden retriever. "Leave it!"

"Leave it!" I tell myself as I'm tempted to prune or adjust or (god forbid) water my plants. I'm just going to not touch them for awhile and see how they do. They're just not very interactive and I may have to learn to accept that.

Holidays and Other Intrusions

I'm a weird duck.

I suppose it's a lot like when you sit back and start to contemplate your own mortality. When I consider my list of quirks, I realize it borders on psychosis.

This morning as I was sipping my coffee and staring out the window into the blurry morning that comes with hating my glasses but not being ready to put my contacts in, I started categorizing holidays by which was the most stressful. This started last night as I realized I have yet to make New Year's plans, which needs to be approached with care, as New Year's plans for me means finding the best way to sleep through New Year's Eve without being woken up at midnight. Top most stressful holidays (in order):

1. New Year's Eve
2. Halloween
3. Christmas

For the record, my favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. Nothing wrong with eating food all day in a low stress environment. But here's a brief explanation for the ranking above, which prompted me to explore my neurotic tendencies further.

New Year's Eve: By far the most atrocious holiday ever. I do not hate any holiday like I do New Year's Eve. That's right, I hate it. Probably the only holiday I actually hate, instead of "don't care for". First- it arrives well beyond my bedtime. I hate how people suggest that staying up until midnight one night of the year shouldn't be such a big deal for me. Why would you want to start the New Year feeling tired and sick? Isn't New Year's about starting your year off right? A clean slate? Why would I muddy my clean slate with exhaustion, a possible hangover, and the decreased immunity that follows? And the pressure. Oh my god, the social pressure that comes with New Year's Eve gives me a panicked feeling much like when that camera crew from the Chamber of Commerce stopped by a few weeks ago and everyone started pressuring me to do an impromptu interview. Everyone thinks I should do something for New Year's Eve, and my biggest pet peeve is when people think I should do something I don't want to do. I could go on... but just the thought of New Year's Eve makes me angry.

Halloween: While I don't necessarily hate Halloween (see above), I'm not a big fan. And there's a very simple explanation for this: I don't want random people knocking on my door. That's it. It stresses me out. There's a social anxiety component to this, that I'm completely aware of, but don't feel like it's something I, nor my therapist, need to address.

Christmas: I bet a lot of people would put this first, but Christmas in itself is actually a fairly pleasant holiday. One thing that gets me worked up a little is that I always want to find "the perfect gift" for my loved ones. Some people are easy to shop for, others aren't. So I get frustrated when I can't come up with something good. But here's the thing. Immediately after Thanksgiving, one of the local radio stations starts playing 24/7 Christmas music like it's an acceptable thing. All the stores get super packed. If I have to go to Target for coffee filters, I have to navigate the Christmas crowds. Maybe I should go to Vons for coffee filters. Avoid it altogether. I almost want to just order them from Amazon, that way the only person I potentially have to face is the delivery guy, but Amazon gives me a tracking number that sometimes lets me know how many more stops the guy has to make before he gets to my place, which gives me a heads up that someone may be knocking on the door soon and I should probably not be sitting in the bathtub or otherwise indisposed.

This thinking led me to start thinking about the 1 year birthday party for my friend's son that I was invited to. Super nice people. But the party is a pancake-Christmas music-pajama party... with bonus points for rocking out in holiday pajamas.

Umm....I love pancakes.

I just don't know how to approach this kindly. So here it is: I don't love kids. I don't love Christmas music. I don't love being around a bunch of people (67 families invited.... 28 have confirmed they are going). I really don't want to be around a bunch of people in my pajamas (I mean, would I have to wear a bra?).

My coworker (who has 4 kids) tells me that parents don't even like birthday parties for their kids. Like big ones, where you invite the entire school. So he's steered his kids into more meaningful celebrations like camping or Lego Land or something like that. Kudos.

For a couple months I fretted about how I was going to come up with an excuse not to go. Finally, I figured I would just politely decline, sans excuse. I went on to the Facebook page for the event, clicked "Not going" and guess what? It didn't even give me a space to explain why. I'll leave it at that.

Then the other day, I received a group text about a "mellow/relaxed" bridal shower/bachelorette  lunch and/or spa. 7 people on the text. Instant anxiety. This is where I start to realize (I know, even after all the above paragraphs) that I've got issues. And here's where my brain goes: first of all, 7 girls, all together in one location. (OMG!!!). High energy, happy, cheerful girls. (What is my problem?) Spa: this one is tricky. I don't like my fingernails painted, and I like them trimmed to stubs. Nails are out. Pedicures are out as well. My feet are so incredibly sensitive, that during my last pedicure, the lady finally gave up touching them and just let them soak. Also- because I run, my toenails need to be kept at a certain length as well as certain angles. I know what angle each toenail needs to be at in order to not become ingrown and to not cut into the one next to it. I also don't like my toenails painted. I used to. That stopped after nearly losing a few toenails after the Boston Marathon and having to monitor their progress closely over the period of a few weeks.

I wouldn't mind a facial.... by a licensed dermatologist. There are so many things that can go wrong with a facial, that is not easily hid under a hat or a long sleeve shirt. I also am not prepared to spend a few hundred dollars on a facial. I also think it's weird to get group massages. Isn't that like a group orgy? Do you hear the other girls murmuring about how good it feels? Um...?

Which made me suddenly think about how incredibly picky and rigid I am. I like what I like and I don't like what I don't like. This is probably why I don't fight Mike (much) about being so picky about food and microbes and shoes in the house. I get it. I get what it's like to want things a certain way and have people push and prod for you to do something differently. But I know how this makes me come across. I can read everything I just wrote. Not liking all these things others enjoy. It makes me seem difficult and stubborn. Maybe I am.

And this is where it's difficult to ascertain whether it's my anxiety holding me back from these things or if it's that I just don't like doing these things. In response to me not wanting to go to some sort of party, Jen said "I thought your anxiety was getting better." It threw me a bit. I was thinking I just didn't want to go to the party. Jen was thinking it was a great thing to do, but maybe I was just having too much anxiety about it to feel like I would enjoy it. I don't even know how to properly think about that. Big get-togethers sound like a horrible thing to me. Is that because I'm anxious around groups of people or is that because I just don't enjoy big get-togethers. Or do I not enjoy big groups because I'm anxious around big groups?

When I start contemplating that, it feels a lot like trying to grasp dark matter in the book I'm reading about astrophysics by Neal DeGrasse Tyson.

Ativan and Whiskey

I don't normally order beverages on the plane as it's usually a time devoted to my thesis, and you can't fit both a laptop and a drink on the small trays that fold out from the seats. Today I am breathing, because I can feel myself holding my breath intermittently, followed by the need to hyperventilate to replenish the oxygen. So I order a tomato juice and think about how when all this thesis madness is done, I'd like to go back to being the type of person who sips beverages on the plane.

When you take an anxiety class, they teach you how to breathe. As I stood in line on the jet-way, I practiced my breathing. In to the count of 4, hold for 7, out for 8. We were told not to do it more than 4 times as it can make you dizzy. I decide I'm going to do it more than 4 times, just for fun. Just to see what happens. But as I start number 4 I'm already light-headed. So I finish number 4 and turn my attention to the "no food" sign on the jet-way controls. I wondered what malfunction prompted that sign, and I picture a spilled milkshake that causes the jet-way to retract prematurely.

With Santa Anas over the service territory last week, we all worked overtime over the weekend and the first half of the week. After a few 12-14 hour shifts, I had completely pushed my thesis aside, and felt zero guilt. At 2 am on Wednesday, I rolled over in bed and glanced at the wind speed and humidity in our backcountry, felt satisfied that we were okay, and lay my phone back on the nightstand. I closed my eyes to try to get in a little more sleep before my 3 am alarm.

Thesis.

My eyes opened and I stared into the darkness as I realized tomorrow is the day I defend my thesis and I haven't even practiced my presentation. And I'm up. I shower and head off to work. I scan my badge at the entrance to the parking lot, and as the security arm lowers behind me, I glance at my watch. 3:45 am. Geez. It's still the middle of the night.

My nerves escalate throughout the day, and I decide it's okay to take my medication to keep them under control. I know my doctor would agree. I picture not passing my defense, and I'm holding my breath again. During our afternoon Skype meeting, I watch my leg tap rapidly on the screens in front of us and I wonder if anyone else notices. As I excuse myself to catch my flight, the director smiles and gives me a fist bump, my manager gives me the thumbs up, and I wonder how they'll react if I come back with news that I failed my defense.

I take another anti-anxiety pill as I wait at the airport, and anyone watching would think I'm afraid to fly. Somehow, crashing is the least of my worries. I work on my presentation as I wait for my flight.

I have a plan, and put it into action the next day. I take an Ativan two hours before my presentation- to make up for my lack of preparation. I don't remember the logic behind that idea, but it works. It's mostly a blur now, but I managed to make it through a 45 minute presentation with some difficult questions from the audience in the 15 minutes that followed.

Then I retreated to a conference room with my thesis committee to get the real scoop on the status of my thesis. Two committee members would sign me off right then. My advisor would like me to put off graduating for another semester so I can add more content. Again, I forget to breathe. Read Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. In an instant, I am panicked. I see myself trying to maintain the workload I've been carrying for the past year and despite the Ativan, my heart pounds in my chest and my stomach turns in knots and part of me says to relax: "Don't drink the poison". The other part of me says to fight. To squash the idea before it has a chance to bloom. I keep my expression blank as I've been trained to never show weakness. The 4th committee member agrees that it's not a big deal to defer graduation for another semester. My advisor chimes in "Is it the 300 dollars? If so, I'll pay the $300."

I do not tell him how I've forgotten how to breathe. I do not tell him how this has landed me back in the psychiatry department, and how this is the second time in my life I have needed to be medicated in order to make it through the day and the only other time was due to a traumatic experience. I cannot do this for another 6 months.

I calmly tell him it's not the $300. It's having this thing hanging over my head constantly. Knowing that when I leave work, I have to go home and start work again... on my thesis. It's spending all my time off working. It's affecting my health and well being, and I need to graduate.

He tries keywords, but I catch them for what they are: sharp hooks. And I'm not biting. "Thesis-lite" but I know it's bullshit. He can't believe I put in all that work and it only came out to 55 pages- he expected more. But I know better. I know it's sufficient. "And you really don't have very many references", but I am unfazed and stand my ground. My reference section is over two pages long.

He tries telling me how important this work is. How tons of people are going to be downloading my work and he wants it to be as complete as possible. I maintain eye contact and blink, saying nothing. Normally, this would work on me. I'm driven by guilt. But I've got a year's worth of painful anxiety sitting on my chest, and Ativan and Zoloft pumping through my bloodstream. I will not budge. I reiterate that I need to be done. The two committee members I respect the most are behind me. They think I've done a great job and just need to add a couple more things that I can get done before the November 2nd due date. My advisor finally agrees that if I can get those additions in by the due date, he'll approve my thesis.

We go up to the lab for shots of whiskey. Later at dinner he tells me he's being an asshole because of how important this work is. It's just that so many people are looking forward to reading this. The Ativan and whiskey has gifted me with enough apathy to let him drone on without much of an emotional stir from me.

The next day, Mike and I drive to Paso Robles so I can have a much needed break from everything. I leave my laptop at his place, but see I've got 4 emails from my thesis committee. I leave them for the end of the weekend. Bits of anxiety pop up like a whack-a-mole game, and I hit them each time. One week to get my thesis to my advisor's approval (whack), the formatting that I know grad studies will take issue with (whack), what if he doesn't approve it (whack), how can you take time off like this without working on your thesis (whack). I keep pushing them down all weekend.

As I board my flight back to San Diego, it's all back. The churning in my stomach, the gasping for air. I've been swallowing mouthfuls of salt-water to keep my airway clear and here I go again. One more week. Hammer down for one more week. Exactly what I've been saying for a year now. I'm no longer fooled by the light at the end of the tunnel. One day I'll find myself out in the daylight and wonder how I got there. One day I'll breathe without having to check it off my to-do list. One day I won't need reminding. And I'll be the person who drinks tomato juice on the plane and stares out the window at the clouds. Who comes home from work and stops working. Who breathes without needing to be told how.

Self Care

I'm not a fan of solicitors or salesmen, people who want me to sign petitions, or really anyone who wants to get me to do something I didn't first seek out myself. (Sidetrack- did you know in Ireland, solicitors are like lawyers or something? Imagine when they come to the US and signs are everywhere saying No Solicitors.)

When people try to hand me a flier out on the street, I just keep my hands in my pockets so that they actually cannot hand it to me. I realize this is viewed as rude. But 99.9% of the time, I don't want what they're handing me. So they're just handing me trash to throw away for them. To me, that's rude.

Where am I going with this? Well I'm going to take the long way around this one. A couple weeks ago, a lady at work (we'll call her Lucy to protect her identity) asked us if Katie and I could come talk to a group of high school girls for a science workshop. Just an hour, then someone else would talk, then they'd do a tour, etc. So we agreed. Then a week later, she emailed and asked if we could each talk for an hour, totaling 2 hours. We agreed to try to stretch it to an hour and a half, but now we're pushing it. We were agreeing to come in for free on a Saturday, when we've been stretched pretty thin as it is. Then, a few days later, she threw us under the bus to come up with hands-on activities, and cc'd the person in charge of the science workshop. So that it was all on us to come up with something when that was never part of the agreement.

Combine that will all the pressure from my advisor to add more analysis and plots to my thesis. And what keeps coming back to me, is how he told me Sunday night that for the next few months, I'll be working on papers for him to publish.... for free. I was cut off from the funding when I came down here, but apparently I can still do the work.

After a near catastrophe with my email shutting down Thursday night and me being up late with help desk trying to get it fixed, I woke up Friday morning exhausted. I rolled out of bed and tried to make sense of weather data for the briefing. We've got a potential storm coming, which meant I had to get it right. I barely got it out on time at 6 am. I looked at the clock and figured I probably should get ready for work and skip my run. But then I thought about the meetings I had scheduled for that day, and having to come in on my Saturday to do more than I agreed to, and being pressured to do more writing and data analysis with my thesis and research papers than I feel is reasonable. I decided I should probably be good to myself and actually go for a run, make breakfast, and roll in late for work.

I'm glad I did. It was the first step in making myself a priority. After the workshop today (another near catastrophe), I came home, ate a bag of donut holes, drank a cup of coffee, and passed out on the couch. When I woke up an hour later, I drank another cup of coffee. I thought about my thesis and how I've got so much to add to it. I thought about the vegetables going bad in the fridge and how lately, I haven't had the energy or motivation to cook meals. I had carne asada nachos two nights in a row. Before that, I had bread and cheese for dinner a couple nights in a row. I looked out at my balcony that needed to be swept and straightened up. I thought about my bathroom that needed to be cleaned and laundry that needed to be done. And the routine is to push all of those things aside (again) and finish my thesis plots. My mind shifted back to the second night of carne asada nachos. What about me? What about my needs? What about my limits? Multiple therapists now have recommended that I be nicer to myself. After several months of struggling with that, today I finally realized what it means.

I got up from the couch and made dinner out of the farm fresh vegetables that are delivered to my door every two weeks, and the pork I bought at the farmer's market that came from the ranch about an hour or so north of here. While it cooked, I cleaned my bathroom and balcony, and swept, vacuumed, and mopped all the floors. I decided I was going to put aside my thesis to care for myself and my needs and wants.

Back to the people handing out fliers. If I don't put out my hands- they can't hand me one. My advisor has already said that my thesis is good enough for it to pass through graduate studies, but that he thinks I should add more analysis and more plots. And he thinks I need to spend the next several months writing papers for free (after graduating). And there's a fine line between obligation and my own personal limits, and sometimes it's really hard to know where that line is. But outside of getting my thesis approved and submitted to grad studies, he can't put more work on top of me than I'm willing to accept. I don't have to take my hands out of my pockets.

I'm slowly working out what it means to be nice to myself.

Stand up eight

I think back to 2013, as I made my plans to head back to school and decided getting my master's wouldn't be too difficult. Closing up my computer for the night, I have to chuckle. For the past 10 or 11 months, I've been slowly deteriorating. There's a great Japanese proverb:

Fall down seven times, stand up eight.

And I try. I've been getting knocked down my entire life, and eventually you just get used to getting back up. It becomes habit. 

Last weekend I worked 12 hours on Saturday and 8 on Sunday to get my thesis done and turned in to my advisor. Let me backtrack. Over the summer I had an emotional collapse. Too much pressure over too much time. I reached out and got help and am slowly trying to pull myself together, or at least keep from drowning. On Wednesday I graduated from anxiety coping skills school. At least I graduated from something. 

Back to last weekend. I was exhausted. I converted my thesis document to PDF and sent them both over to my advisor, 20 minutes before bedtime on Sunday night. As I scrolled through the PDF document, a feeling of calm passed over me like I hadn't felt in at least 6 months (medications excluded). I sent the email, got up from my desk, and began getting ready for bed. I started thinking about how on Monday after work, I could just come home and relax, instead of my usual routine of picking up my thesis and beginning work again. It was a soothing thought. My phone signaled a text message. It was my advisor. 

"Can you chat?"

I looked at the time. No. No I cannot chat. It's nearly 7:30 pm and I have to be up at 3:45 am to prepare the weather briefing. 

"Yep."

 I started to prepare the coffee pot while he skimmed my thesis and listed things that needed to be changed. Then he started adding more data analysis and more writing, and more papers, and more plots. An hour later I was barely able to mutter "Ok" to each of his demands. I felt myself slipping underwater. I didn't even struggle. (Turns out in the distraction I also neglected to put coffee grounds in the coffee maker.)

I hung up the phone and slowly sat down at my desk, and stared at the screen. Then promptly lost my shit. 

It's now been 5 days and it's been tough getting back up from that one. Maybe I'm halfway up. I feel like I'm dragging a 200 lb weight around. With no end in sight. I've learned something from all of those "light at the end of the tunnel" speeches. It's the same thing I learned when I was on a hotshot crew hiking to the top of the mountain. Every peak before the last one was a false peak. It looked like you were reaching the top because you could only see sky beyond the hill.... until you crested the hill and it was just a step leading to a steeper hill. And so on. The light is an illusion. Sometimes I say it's from an oncoming train. In any case, it's not really there. Throughout my career as a grad student, I have seen that light at the end of the tunnel at least a dozen times- then quickly everything goes black. At this point, an oncoming train would be a blessing. 

So. I'm getting back up. I think. I don't know exactly why, although self-preservation rings a bell.