The Honesty-Dignity Equation

November 29, 2011 by ·

If you were around here in the summer you may remember that I put myself out there on video and managed to land an opportunity to speak at a Bloggy Boot Camp in Dallas in September 2012. Well today I’m not here – not because we’re moving in to our new house (woo hoo!) but because I’m over visiting my SITStas. (Is that a word? It is now.)

I’m guest posting on SITS today about how to blog honestly without losing your dignity. (What? I only posted about my underwear once.)

Everyone has a line. Even me. I know where my line is and what I’m not willing (or able) to post about, but I might be willing to post more personal stuff than a lot of people. Doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter where your line is, I just think sometimes it’s a good idea to push it a little bit. And doing so is less scary than you might think.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last 11 months it’s that, no matter what the struggle, we’re never as alone as we think we are.

What do you think – are you ready to step into the light?

Come and read my guest post and let me know what you think.

bridge sunrise

***

If you’re here from SITS (hi & welcome!) and you’re looking for the juicy stuff, here’s where you’ll find some of it:

Read “Loud” if you’ve ever yelled at your baby.

Ditto if you’ve ever wanted to throw your baby out the window.

On being a “bad” mom.

A post about how I got onto anti-depressants.

My scariest moment.

Not a good day.

The first of a two-part post about rage (which was also linked from the post on SITS).

Or maybe it’s easier to get it all in one video of my TEDx talk.

And if you’re looking for tips on getting freelance writing gigs, come back later in the week. I’m going to post some freelance tips for newbies based on my recent experience.

How to Blog

Filed Under: Guest posts, Motherhood, Postpartum depression · Tagged With: , , ,

A is for Anxiety

November 21, 2011 by ·

A week ago last Saturday, I sat down for a bit after a party we hosted so we could see as many people as possible before we move. I hopped on to Twitter and saw a tweet from @moonfrye (aka Punky Brewster) and I didn’t even have to think about how to respond.

A little sentence to finish. "I'm feeling really..." loved.
We have had so many great visits with friends in the last few weeks. Maybe I’m in denial but I’m not thinking about moving away from all these people, I’m just feeling grateful to have so much love in my life.

I’m sure some of you are thinking, “Blah blah blah. She’s happy. She’s doing something bold. Whatever.” Well, hold on because I’m going to bring it back down to Earth again for a minute.

Elena based this week’s Be Enough Me prompt on that tweet from Soleil Moon Frye. And this week it’s not so easy for me to answer.

Friday was my last day of work and, despite what some people seem to think, I’m not freaking out about having walked away from my job. I’ve been leading up to this for a while and, though it hasn’t entirely hit me yet, I’m mostly just glad that I don’t have to be responsible for certain things anymore. But it turns out sitting at a desk for eight hours a day is a good distraction from other things.

I’ve written before about how I’m nervous about leaving my parents. But I’m not the only one feeling that way.

For my part, I’m acknowledging and anticipating my own angst (and hoping against hope that Connor doesn’t totally freak out when he realizes we can’t just pop up to Grandma and Grandpa’s house for a visit) while holding on to the faith that this is the right thing for us to do. A necessary thing, even. I can find that faith when I need it. I just can’t force that faith on my parents.

My mom is in the stomach-lurching, chin-wobbling phase of this process, the one that requires lots of deep breaths and some Kleenex. I know how she feels, because I read a post she wrote a couple of weeks ago about what our move means to her and had the same requirement for deep breaths and tissues. I’m worried about my dad too (for all sorts of reasons, actually) and he’s much less likely to say anything about how he feels about all this.

As for how I feel, well, I feel like I’m doing this to them. They’re talking about moving as well, which would make sense because my brother and one of my sisters live there too, but I don’t think they would necessarily choose that for themselves. It means moving out of a house they like and away from a mild climate to a frigidly cold Canadian winter. There’s a reason they moved here from there in the first place.

So my old friend anxiety has returned to watch this process unfold, bringing its sidekick insomnia with it just to make things extra fun. And I guess that’s how I’m feeling.

Pass the Kleenex.

grandparents with newborn grandchild

The first day

 

 Linking up with:

Filed Under: Hard things · Tagged With: , , ,

The Truth

October 30, 2011 by ·

Just before 4:30 on Friday, I left my afternoon meeting and got into my car. I drove a few blocks and then pulled over to an empty parking spot on the side of the road, pulled out my BlackBerry, and wrote my resignation.

And hit send.

As of November 19, I will no longer be employed at the organization I have worked at for almost six years. I will no longer be employed at all, in fact.

The truth is this causes me a slightly-larger-than-small amount of anxiety.

The truth is it’s more freeing than scary.

When we started talking about making this move I presumed I’d get a job and then move. I applied for some, interviewed, and then sat there waiting for the phone to ring. And one afternoon I realized I was waiting for the phone to ring but hoping it didn’t.

That realization was freeing too.

By all normal logic, I should have a job. My husband is a stay-at-home dad and I have a preschooler who’s growing so fast I’m starting to hope capris become a hot style for three-year-old boys.

We intend to buy a house in Calgary, but with the equity in our current house we’ll be able to do that. We sold that house on Friday – the papers have been signed, the for-sale sign has been flipped, and less than a month from now we’re going to hit the road.

I’ve busted out of the golden handcuffs before and it’s not easy. (One of these days I’ll have to tell you the story about how spending a weekend at an alternative treatment centre with my mom when she had cancer ultimately led me to leave a totally secure job and take a pay cut to do the kind of work I wanted to do.) It hasn’t been easy this time around either. But I have never once doubted it’s the right thing to do, and after all that’s happened over the last few months I’m not prepared to take the wrong job just so I have a job. Sometimes I think you have to just GO. The right job will find me.

“Aren’t you scared?” a good friend of mine asked a few weeks ago. “Shitless,” I answered truthfully. But I’d rather be full of fear for a short time than full of regret forever. (And then last week, for similar reasons, that friend quit his job too. The truth is out there, people. It’s spreading, and it’s AWESOME.)

The truth is we spend too much time being scared. We think “scary” equals “wrong” so we stay scared and we do nothing. We stay the course.

The truth is I think I’d die if I stayed the course. Physically, I already came as close as I care to. I’m not letting what I “should” do steal my soul.

truth or consequences road sign

Image credit: kxlly on Flickr

There’s a whole other layer to what’s happening in my work environment right now and, while I decided to move on before that begun, it’s been, frankly, awful. There are things I want to pour on this page, but I can’t. That’s one truth I can’t tell. So I don’t have this outlet and my emotion and frustration and grief over a difficult situation have overflowed elsewhere.

Truth: It’s affecting people I care about, and that’s hard.

Truth: It’s damaged a relationship, possibly irreparably, and I regret that while at the same time feel like I can’t do anything about it.

Truth: It feels like I’m leaving part of me behind in this process. Not just the part I have intentionally ditched, but a good part. A stable part. A rational part.

It’s the truth. But it has consequences.

 

 

Filed Under: Be enough me, Happy things, Hard things · Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Beauty in the Breakdown: TEDx – The Video

October 19, 2011 by ·

Early this morning I got an email from the organizers of the TEDx event I spoke at. “Your talk is up on the TED website,” they said nonchalantly, as though that one short sentence hadn’t just caused my heart to skip a beat.

Before I had even watched it, my husband had posted it on Facebook. I did sort of want someone to watch it and tell me what it was like, but that wasn’t quite what I had in mind…

“Did you watch it?! Is it awful?” I asked him.

“I saw it live. It was great,” he replied.

Husbands are so not helpful.

I was nervous. This is me crying on stage in front of strangers and it was posted on the TED website. I started to watch it, panicked, and stopped. I boiled the kettle and considered pressing play again while I was waiting, but wasn’t quite ready. Finally, with tea and toast in hand, I sat down to watch it.

I’m not sure how I expected to feel about it. Proud, I think, which is how I felt after the event. But I have to be honest: other things are outweighing the pride right now. I know I’ve written about all the things I spoke about  – the tears, the rage, and the accusations – but for some reason having this video out there is…different.

But I’m going to share it with you anyway.

It is what it is and this is my story.

(If you don’t want to watch the whole thing, the juicy part starts at the 4-minute mark.)

And speaking of being enough… Did you see my piece on Band Back Together about the origins of Just.Be.Enough?

And next week I’ll be at Just.Be.Enough. on Monday hosting the Be Enough Me link-up. Join us!

Write, post, link-up, share your story and your voice.
Be part of carrying the weight of confidence and share our mission
to empower, inspire, and remind women, parents and children
that the time has come to celebrate ourselves!

Next week’s prompt: Five Things That Make You Smile

(Remember you can also write on a topic of your choice.)

 

Filed Under: Be enough me, Postpartum depression · Tagged With: , , , , ,

I’m Not Alone, You’re Not Alone

October 3, 2011 by ·

I’ve never struggled with depression.

Except… Oh wait. There was that time in the last semester of my first year of university when I spent a lot of time in bed. A LOT. I stayed there and didn’t want to get up, though I didn’t think much of it at the time.

Then when I was in my 20s, I got sick of feeling sad and hopeless all the time and started logging things. What I ate, exercise, weather – you name it, I put it into a carefully crafted spreadsheet, and it was all mapped against my mood. Eventually the sum of the things that made me feel better – getting enough exercise, sunlight, eating well – led me to feel better overall.

Those times, I wasn’t diagnosed with depression. I never even had a conversation with a doctor about it. I always hated that label. Oddly, though, I remember being asked to fill out a self-identification form for a previous job. “Are you a visible minority?” No. “Are you Aboriginal?” No. “Do you have a disability?” A very small voice in my head piped up. “Does depression count?” I knew it was there, though I was never willing to admit it. (I checked no.)

 

The excerpt above is from an essay I wrote about depression that appears in anthology called Not Alone: Stories of Living With Depression, which is now available on Amazon. (I know! On Amazon twice in one week! I’m feeling lucky.)

The book is edited by Alise Wright who, in my experience since submitting my piece for consideration, is smart, kind, and funny.

Here’s one of the endorsements for the book:

“When our journeys take us down dark and unfamiliar paths, we don’t need leaders with all the answers; we need friends with open arms. Not Alone brings together the voices of many such friends in essays that are alive with wisdom, honesty, humor, and grace. What makes this book so powerful is the diversity of the stories shared within it. No two journeys through depression are exactly the same, and yet no one needs to travel alone. What a joy it is to see such an impressive assemblage of smart, talented, and creative writers speaking words of hope into the world!” —Rachel Held Evans, popular blogger and author of Evolving in Monkey Town.

Isn’t that great? It totally makes me want to read the other stories.

I never thought I’d be writing this openly about Depression (with a capital D), but this book is about exactly what I know, since starting this blog, to be so important: making people feel less alone.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Better world, Happy things, Postpartum depression, Writing · Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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