boundaries

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The Beginning

“The beginning is always today.”–Mary Wollstonecraft (feminist/writer)

My worry and laugh lines are embedded, but I’m still smiling.

A new year, a new you. Resolutions, beginnings, fresh starts. It all sounds marvelous, doesn’t it? And right now, at this moment, I have high hopes for 2023.

Like the past 5 years, 2022 had its challenges and health scares for myself, my family and some of my friends. A few friends suffered devastating losses of partners or parents, and others are waiting for those things to happen in 2023.

Although I expect some awful events to happen this year, I’m attempting to hope for the best and soak up many, many good moments that happen.

On New Year’s Eve, my husband, son and I talked about our goals and wishes for the upcoming year. The husband’s goal? Stay out of the hospital this year. (This is also a wish for him from my son and I!) My son has a few wonderful goals like getting his license, continuing to get fit and to be more of a leader within his LGBTQ+ community. My goal and wish were basically the same: to make and experience good changes this year. That’s a nice broad, vague goal, isn’t it? 😉

I made some significant changes to my life in 2022, including adding two major volunteer positions to my weekly schedule. Each is a 2-3 hour commitment each week, but I enjoy both of them and feel tremendously better about myself as a human being because of the work. I feel like I’m finally paying back the kindness shown to me over the years by paying it forward to those that need it right now. People often say how selfless volunteering is, but for me, it’s really selfish. There’s a high involved when you help others, and it can feel a bit like the running high. Typically, acts of kindness can increase your oxytocin and dopamine, which gives you a feeling of euphoria. This is actually called the “helper’s high.” Isn’t that awesome?!?

I’ll continue my volunteer work this year, but I’m also ready for some changes to be made within my career. I don’t know what this means yet, but I know my stress level at work in 2022 was higher than ever before. Some of that was due to staff shortages, but I also tend to spread myself too thin. That has to change this year. I’ve always told other library directors that your work is not your life, so sometimes you just need to leave this stuff behind, but I did NOT take my own advice. I just wanted my library to be better and better, and it is, but I don’t need to be involved 24/7. For my own wellbeing, a lot has to change there–more delegating, more boundaries, and maybe even a career change. I don’t know yet. I just feel like something big has to change in order for me to continue wanting to get out of bed each morning to go to work.

I plan to continue to run and train for a marathon again. Why the hell not, right? If my body goes kaput, it goes kaput. I can already feel something happening to my left ankle, so I doubt a marathon is in the books just yet. But I’ll still give it a shot. I hope to at least run 500 miles this year. Again, I’ll try but do my best to not be disappointed or discouraged if it doesn’t happen.

I’ll be traveling more as long as the universe allows it. Visiting my dear friend, Becky, in Mexico at the end of this month. A work trip to Wisconsin in April. Hopefully a drive out to the Christmas Story house in Cleveland this summer. Now I need a short trip for this fall. Or another summer trip to North Carolina to see my friend, Monica, and sea turtles hatching?

This year I hope to treat people a bit better or…differently. We just don’t know how long we have on this planet, right? I’m starting to treat some folks like it’s their last year. It may sound like a morbid way of treating others but losing people I love and working with hospice patients has made me look at my world in a different light. During my brother’s, father’s and mother’s last Christmases, I didn’t KNOW it was their last. Did I ever snap at them or lose patience with them that day? I hope not. Did I show them just that little extra dash of kindness? I don’t know. If I did, I wasn’t aware of it.

So, I’m digging deep to find a bit more patience and goodwill for my loved ones. Well, I don’t always have to dig deep, but sometimes it’s necessary. But within that good treatment of others, I’m defining boundaries for myself and for my relationships. I tend to love others with everything I have and I’m not sure I can continue to do that. Or maybe I can. As I’m writing this, I’m thinking about the people I love fiercely, and I can’t imagine loving them any other way. It’s dishonest to do so. It doesn’t feel right not to love them with my whole being.

Huh.

Maybe some things won’t change after all. ❤

Happy New Year to all of you. May your resolutions, hopes, or dreams be fulfilled. If none of those things happen, I hope you feel loved and appreciated. Because seriously, just feeling those things certainly feels like a dream coming true.

Hugs to you all.

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Hold On Hope

Habits are hard to break, aren’t they? I’ve bitten my nails for my whole life and I’ve finally stopped doing that…mostly. But now I tear at my nails instead. It’s marginally better? I drink coffee each morning before I do much of anything else. It’s not really the best habit because I use sugar and creamer. I’ve cut my sugar in half, but I can’t seem to get any further than that. Honestly, it’s a habit I don’t want to break.

What do you do when your habits seriously hurt your health? Smoking, drinking excessively, eating fatty or sugary foods–not to mention addiction to illegal drugs or pain medication–are all activities many of us participate in, but when your health is deteriorating due to these habits, how do you stop?

What if you are the partner, friend or child of the person with these harmful habits? How do you help the person? When is the time you step back…or turn your back?

In August of last year, I wrote this: “But…shouldn’t there be a time when we finally say, ‘I will no longer take care of you. I will remain your partner until death, but I can no longer help you if you refuse to help yourself.'”

I’ve discovered that there is indeed a time when I will say these sentences and that time is now.

After a recent hospital stay for my husband due to a medication failure, a diagnosis of congestive heart failure and a disastrous and degrading (to me) doctor’s appointment, I am stepping back. It is now up to my husband to take control of his life. He knows all of this now. We’ve had a “come to Jesus” meeting as my old boss, Bill, used to say. I won’t attend any more of his appointments unless he is physically unable to drive. When he asked if I would go to an appointment if he asked me specifically to go, I told him I’d have to answer that later. Right now, the answer is “no.” I have a list of his medications, but it’ll be up to him to let me know if anything changes. When he asked me yesterday if he should pick up canned hash to have for breakfast the next day, I told him I wasn’t answering those questions anymore. He could make that decision, that choice. And he did.

Does all of this seem too personal to put out into the universe? It is. It’s also really difficult. I know I have at least one friend who understands everything I’m feeling right now, and maybe there are more people out there who get it, too. You’re not alone.

Marriage is hard. Relationships are hard. Parenting is hard. Co-parenting is even harder. Watching someone hurt themselves when you know it affects more than just themselves, is rage-inducing.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve found myself falling back into that bad habit of emotional eating. I’ve always done that when I’m angry, and these past 2 weeks certainly proved that. Fortunately, I’ve been able to attempt running once more, and that has helped my moods tremendously. I wish it could help everyone, but at least I’m able to find patience as the result of my exercise and can listen to my son and husband when they need me. At this point I’m not sure I can do much else.

I know for a fact that some people will read this and think I’m heartless or selfish and should do more to support my partner. “You’ve been married for 25 years! You don’t just sit back while their health is in jeopardy!” But what if your own health, albeit mental health, is in jeopardy? What about your child’s? The old man can do this. He is completely capable of making good choices. I don’t care if you think I’m heartless or selfish. I know I’m not. I love my husband. I will until I die. I am still here. But right now, he is the only one who can help himself. Will I give him a pat on the back when he does well? Absolutely! But will I criticize him when he doesn’t? Nope. I’ll do my damnedest to just nod my head and say “ok.”

These changes will be damn difficult for everyone in our household. I will hope for the best, but expect the worst, which is my usual M.O. 😉 Now enjoy this song about trying to find some hope in a messy situation. Hugs to you all.

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Burning Down the House

I’ve had this Talking Heads song circling through my brain for the past week:

Burning Down the House

“My house
Is out of the ordinary
That’s right
Don’t wanna hurt nobody
Some things sure can sweep me off my feet
Burning down the house

No visible means of support
And you have not seen nothin’ yet”

When David Byrne wrote the lyrics, “the title phrase was a metaphor for destroying something safe that entrapped you. I envisioned the song as an expression of liberation, to break free from whatever was holding you back.”

When I first started to write this post, I couldn’t say that Byrne’s definition was what I was feeling. I was feeling burnt out and broken for sure. But breaking free? Maybe. I did want to burn everything down but not necessarily to start again. Just burn it all down and walk away.

I had several nightmares last week, which I haven’t had in a very long time. In one dream I was a passenger in a car that was going too fast and about to crash (easy to analyze that–I felt and feel like everything is out of my control), but I don’t know what happened in the other dream. I just woke up at 3:30am scared with my heart pounding. You know, the usual. Then I had a very unsatisfying therapy session on Friday. I just felt like I was spinning my wheels, talking about shit I had talked about before but won’t do anything about. I even felt like my therapist was a little frustrated with me, although she tried not to show it. (Of course, I was also her last client on a Friday evening and I bet she just wanted to get the hell out of there and go home!) That night I ended up burying what I was feeling in a bag of guacamole-flavored chips. I’ve been very good about not emotionally eating for months, but I blew it out of the water that night.

But now it’s a few days later. I finally finished a few things at work and let a few other things go. I know you should never try to be everything to everyone, either personally or professionally. But I suck at it. After all of the trauma my family has faced in the past 5 years, and all the kindness we received during that time, I do make an effort to help my friends when they’re hurting or even if they just need someone to listen. Does it take its toll? Sometimes, but it’s more the combination of being a good friend while trying to run a library that also tries to be everything to everyone—which you just shouldn’t do. Take it from a librarian of a small, rural library who has kept committing to programs and events and being on committees and boards while still running the library with a temporarily smaller staff. It’s nuts and things have fallen through the cracks. Don’t do it.

We all have to implement boundaries in our work, our relationships, and within ourselves. How many committees are you willing to participate on? How late in the evening will you keep texting or talking to a friend? Do you really need to get up at 7am on Saturday to fit all of your chores and errands in while still squeezing in a run? Or can you skip sweeping the floors and sleep in?

Tonight I can finally start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I go on vacation in four weeks. I have one large report to write still, but only two more programs to facilitate before then. I don’t have an exact date for my upcoming distal pancreatectomy and possible splenectomy, but I know it will be in June, and my body scans and extra vaccines are being scheduled. Life is moving along. Not always in ways I want them to, but that’s what life typically is, right?

Just hang in there, everyone. The world is shit right now I know. I have to stop watching the news and read about what’s going on instead, otherwise I end up crying every morning. Stay informed but if you have to distance yourself then do it. Don’t beat yourself up about it. You have to put on your oxygen mask before helping your neighbor, right? So do that. Take care of yourself then you’ll be able to help others.

Hugs to you all, friends. Let’s try to survive another day. ❤