Sun Chasing

I did not set out to chase the sun. During a recent stay in Phoenix, I decided I needed to hike in the mountains, the ones that had been looming in the background of my views for days—not imposing, but stable with their ever-presence, as if simply to say, "I am here. I will always be here."

So on my final morning, I walked the neighborhood streets, passing by rock-lawns with cacti and palm trees sprouting up in front of flat, adobe-style homes. I walked briskly in the cool, dry air, the mountains on my right, the sun glowing shyly behind them. A little farther into my walk I looked to my right and saw it—a kiss, the top of a golden sphere gently filling the curve in the horizon, radiating warmth into the blue morning air. I stopped to take a photo and, pleased with it, thought, This is what I want. I want more of this. 

Energized by the prospect of more, I moved quietly in pursuit of the still faraway peaks, chasing more sun, more beauty. The quiet of the neighborhood streets let out to main roads with rude, rushing cars, encouraging me faster toward the trail. The closer I got to the entrance that would lead me up into the sky, the giddier my step became. I wanted to stand in the spot where the sun would burst out from the valleys between peaks, where I would get my perfect shot, a photo to remind me the moment was real.

As I began to climb, small pebbles slipping under foot, my body delighted in the chase. I hopped and scuttled and side-stepped along the narrow trail, and for a moment I was so entranced by the ground beneath me that I forgot to look up; I could not be bothered with the sun. I marveled at the ages-old rock with its micro-cuts—chipped at ever so slowly by humans, by winds and rain. Yet there it stood, powerful in its peace, assuming nothing.

I remembered the sun, and I looked up to see if it would greet me, but it eluded me at each place I landed. The higher I went, the farther it dipped below the peaks; it did not want to be captured. Not then.

But still there was that kiss. And it was intoxicating.

The Dream That Haunts Me

Because it's October and people seem love spooky things, here's a post about a haunting of mine. But it's not a supernatural type of haunting; it's the kind of memory that is so deeply embedded in my subconscious that it has become trapped. Every couple of weeks it clangs around, ghost-like, in the attic of my brain to remind me of its presence. It goes like this:

I am at the bakery I worked at in Central Florida during my late teens. The setting is the same—a small, rustic-looking shop with wooden floors and counters and metal baking racks for displaying freshly baked loaves of bread. The walls are pale yellow, a part of the ambiance I helped create one night after the bakery had closed and a painting party ensued. The staff shift between old and familiar to new and unknown, except for the owners, who are always there in some form. Most often they aren't physically present but they are the reason I'm there, to talk to them, to receive affirmation from them. And it never happens by the time I wake up.

Two brothers, probably in their early 30s, owned the bakery and worked there every day alongside all the staff, and I'd become fond of and close to them. They were cool, but they were also real adults, so I looked up to them (in fact, I was so heavily influenced by them that I voted for Bush in my very first election, something I'll always judge myself for).

In the dream I've come to work a shift, to help out, and I've usually driven all the way from Tampa just to work this shift. But in every dream, I don't know how to use the cash register anymore; either I don't remember how to use it or it's a new system that I haven't been trained on. I also don't have the correct attire—the cream-colored t-shirt, hat, and apron with the circular logo made of wheat shafts. I'm aware of certain real-life circumstances—I am my real age, I live in Tampa, I have a full-time job. These facts are relevant in the dream because they limit the amount of time I can stay to work; I feel pressure to do a good job, fear because I don't know how to do it anymore, and guilt because I might never make amends for the way I left, which seems to be the reason I'm there. Like a lifetime sentence of community service, but for this one very specific community I had wronged. These are the basic circumstances of every dream.

Donning the proper t-shirt after coming home from a shift at the bakery. May 1999.

After I graduated high school, I started college at the University of Central Florida in the fall of 1999. I continued to work part-time at the bakery. But my first college year was a false start; I withdrew from that semester because I began to relapse into anorexia and depression—two things that had developed just prior my senior year of high school. I had barely begun treatment for these struggles before leaving home and living in a dorm—a freedom I wanted and thought I could handle.

I moved back home just before the end-of-year holidays, living with my mother and then stepfather, and soon with my twin sister who came home after a semester at Flagler College. My older sister was gone; she'd fled from an undesirable home environment, a result of the alien-like stepfather (who was really just French-Canadian, but out of a kindness to French-Canadians, it's more fitting to think of him as an alien), after she turned 18 and went back to our home state of Ohio. She had escaped.

My twin sister decided to stay local and transferred to the university I'd just left. We got an apartment together, and she continued going to school while I worked full time at the bakery. I earned a made-up title: Assistant Retail Manager. I enjoyed it for a little while, feeling part of a little work family, learning to do the account books, being physical in my day, and even serving customers I found enjoyable, except for the ones I didn't like. But being around food constantly was difficult, especially with baked goods coming out of the industrial-sized oven all morning long, the yeasty scent wafting in the air. I smelled them, I touched them, I tasted them. Sometimes I took them home, sometimes I ate them in a corner.

I began to feel excessive guilt about my eating habits, which would cause me to refuse food for much of the day, and then give in at night and binge on a loaf of bread or a bag of jelly beans or a box of cereal. I would wake up on the sofa with the television still on, comatose from the calorie overload, drag myself into bed and try to sleep away the shame of knowing what I'd done. Sleep was the best part of my day because I didn't have to be aware of how wrong everything was, how imperfect I was. The cycle would repeat: guilt, starve, binge, coma.

This is how my days went, and the longer they went on, the more I would oversleep just a little bit. Then a little bit more. Until one day I walked in for my 9:00am shift at 10:00am, rather nonchalantly, and the younger brother looked at me from baker's table behind the register and, after glancing up at the clock on the wall, said, "Really, Lee? An hour?" I knew it was coming; they'd been generous to let me slip as much, and for as long, as I had. So I said, "Should I just leave?" with a bit of attitude that was my only defense but that he didn't deserve. And he said, "Yes. As a matter of fact, you should." So I turned around and walked out the door, not looking back.

I cried on my way home, not necessarily because I'd lost my job but because each time I replayed the scene I could hear the sheer irritation in that brother's voice, and I had to live with the fact that my actions had hurt a person and a place I cared a lot about.

I left the bakery in the summer of 2000, when I was 19. This dream has haunted me ever since. I'd gone back to visit on occasion, and at least one time I apologized to the brother who'd fired me, or who'd helped me quit—I was never really sure which had happened. He forgave me with his words, but it was never enough. I wanted him to know and to understand that I wasn't really that person who could be so flippant, so disrespectful. But I couldn't explain my depression to him—partly because I didn't have enough understanding myself, let alone adequate language to explain it, but also because I didn't know whether he'd believe me. Both brothers seemed like the type of person who would think depression is something a person could conquer with enough will.

Over the time I'd worked at the bakery, my weight shifted from normal thin to a bit unsightly thin and back again. In the more severely skinny time, I remember the easy comments from the older brother about how I should just eat more. It was so simple for him; why wasn't it as simple for me? I berated myself for not being strong enough to change.

Sometimes I wish they'd cared more. I wish they'd wondered why my behavior had changed from sweet and attentive and considerate to grumpy and agitated and irresponsible. I say we were close, but in a fair-weather kind of way. If my car needed minor fixing or I needed help moving things, they were there. But when it came to emotional challenges, they didn't have a toolbox for that. Of course it wasn't their job to fix me, but I was really just a kid—a kid in pain who didn't know how to help herself, and they were around me more than anyone else was.

During the months in which I'd been slipping away into a lethargic, apathetic hologram of the real me, my twin had left Orlando to move in with her boyfriend a couple hours away in St. Petersburg. Having no real reason to stay myself, I left too, following her; perhaps even chasing her, as I look back now.

Through a friend of a friend, I'd secured a temporary, hourly job working at the University of South Florida's College of Medicine, doing light administrative work. That position eventually ended but led to a full-time staff position, with educational benefits, in the English Department at USF. I would stay there for more than 12 years, earning my degree, trying to work out my demons, picking up some more along the way, eventually leaving for the job I currently have.

These days, I try to get to work just a little bit early. I don't need to; nobody is watching. But I think that in a way, I might always be trying to prove to those brothers who I really am—and who I am not.

We aren't in touch anymore and haven't been for many years. I looked them both up on Facebook once; the younger one was married with a kid, still Republican, and the other had no visible profile. Any forgiveness that occurs now will have to take place within me. I have to rattle out the ghosts and tell them I know they aren't real. They don't need to occupy anymore space in my mind. Their haunting can cease now.

I Was Seven

I haven't shared my story publicly, but anyone close to me knows it. However, on the heels of Christine Blasey Ford's recent testimony about the sexual assault she endured by then Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, I feel I should. Not because I want pity or sympathy or even empathy, but because when someone opens the door to a difficult and important conversation, you don't slam it back in their face. So while yesterday's sad confirmation of Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court attempted to close that door, I'm sticking my foot in the door frame.

Talking about sexual violence doesn't feel comfortable—and it never should; it should always disturb us—but speaking about it feels safer than it ever has before, thanks to Dr. Ford and the brave women who came before her, including Anita Hill, who brought her allegations against Clarence Thomas at an even more hostile time in America. This post is meant to keep the conversation open and to help others feel as though they're not alone.

The Incident

I was seven. I lived in a house on a corner lot in a subdivision of Altamonte Springs, Florida. We were recent Ohio transplants, settling into our new life in this hot land of dry brown grass and palm trees and lizards whose tales came off a little too easily. My mom was a nurse who at the time worked the midnight shift at the hospital. My dad was in sales, delivering live fish from wholesalers to retailers. He sometimes left the house very early in the morning, and I sometimes feared their absences would overlap, but I don't think that ever happened. My two sisters and I each had our own bedroom, which felt like a luxury compared to the attic space we all had shared in our quaint Ohio home. Whether by choice or lack thereof, my bedroom was the first one on the hallway off of the living room.

Late one September night in 1988, when my mom was at work and the rest of us were home sleeping, a man broke into our house through the back porch and entered through the kitchen window. He took a kitchen knife from a drawer and walked down the hallway that led to our bedrooms, which was opposite my parents' room. Probably because my room was the first one he encountered, he came in and sat on the edge of my bed while I slept and used the kitchen knife to cut the crotch of my underwear, which is how I woke. I was more confused than I was alarmed. He wasn't aggressive initially. When I started to ask questions—who are you, what are you doing; questions to which I expected rational replies—he shushed me and told me to be quiet. Ever the rule follower, I did. He told me to follow him and then led me out of my room, exiting the hallway into the main living area and out the front door of the house.

Me at age seven.

He continued around the side of the house until we were in the backyard. By then I was scared, and his tone had changed. He continually told me to shut up, and when I didn't he placed his hands around my neck while pushing me against the exterior wall of the house. I tried to scream, but his chokehold didn't allow my voice to come out, or much air. I started to fight with everything my small body could muster, which was no match for his adult frame. Next he had me on the ground and pressed the full weight of his body on top of mine. I was kicking and squirming while he pinned me down and placed his mouth on mine. That struggle is the last I remember before coming to by myself, still lying on the dewy grass.

I picked myself up off the ground, ran back into the house where the front door was left wide open, and went down the hallway where my sisters' rooms were. In a state of panic, I wasn't sure where to go, thinking my dad might have left for work already, so I stopped first in my older sister's room and, blinded by my fear, didn't see her there. So I went farther down the hall to my twin sister's room gathered her and came back to my older sister's room, where this time I saw her soundly asleep. We roused her and three of us ran across the house to our parents' room, where my dad lay sleeping. I shook him awake and said that a man broke in. He startled to action and called the police.

The Aftermath

My memory of what happened afterward is a jumbled scene of police officers wandering around the house dusting surfaces with a black substance and collecting some of our belongings, a police dog outside the house, a helicopter up above. My sisters and me watching TV and playing board games in the living room for distraction. My mom finally coming home from the hospital, walking into the living room with a look on her face I couldn't quite place—one that was trying to be comforting to me but that I now know was barely covering her anguish. Her hug. My conversation with a female police officer, the details of which are missing. Driving in a police cruiser around the neighborhood to look for the attacker. Going to some cold and sterile facility to have what I later learned was a rape kit conducted (the man did not succeed in raping me). Spending the rest of the night in the living room with the whole family around me, all of us close together on the floor, in sight, real, barriers around me to the now scary outside world.

In the following days, we had more interactions with the police. We learned of other incidents that occurred that same night in our neighborhood, and with all of the testimonies together, the police had an idea of the suspect—a man who'd been imprisoned on a previous charge and was out on a work-release program. An officer brought over a book of mugshots to our house one day and asked me if I could identify the man who'd attacked me. I pointed to someone, but I can't tell you whether I'd chosen the right guy. My testimony was the least reliable of the three victims that night; thankfully the other two—a middle-aged man and an older woman (both of whom escaped serious harm)—gave clearer descriptions.

I never had to go to court; my testimony was recorded on tape, a courtesy extended to me because of my age, I think. A man was eventually charged. We'll call him W. As much as I'd love to blast his name and image publicly, I realize there could be repercussions, even if unlikely.

The attacker. 

W was charged with burglary and assault and sentenced to 15 years in prison, a little more than eight of which he served before being released. He was incarcerated again one year later, for a year. He appears to have stayed out since 1999. Most of his crimes were burglaries. I don't know why he veered into different criminal territory that night. I remember hearing that he might have been on drugs...

Immediately following the assault, I was afraid of all men—neighbors, uncles, even my own father for a short time. It's hard to say when the general fear of men changed, or whether it ever completely did. For a while I slept in my parents' room, having repeated nightmares of running barefoot on the wet grass in the dark, not able to get anywhere, hearing my heart pounding through my chest. Then I eventually shared a room with my twin sister but always slept with the lights on. I must have been 10 or 11 years old before I began sleeping through the nights, with the lights off.

Gradually, as the years passed, our lives became normal again, and we didn't talk about what happened when I was seven.

The Healing

Although I'd made attempts beginning in my twenties to address the trauma through therapy and (pretty bad) creative writing, none really stuck. But this year, a mere 30 years after the assault, I decided to deal with the trauma head-on in a special type of therapy called EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). This type of therapy is often used on patients with PTSD, which I'd been told I had by a couple of different therapists but doubted the diagnosis until recently. During my visits, I would vividly relive each moment of the trauma, following the pathways in my brain that the memories led me down, week after week until, several months later, the memory of the assault became less powerful over me.

I won't say the trauma doesn't affect me anymore, but I am more aware of the ways in which it has impacted my life, and simply having that awareness has helped me understand myself and my particular relationship to the world around me. That, to me, is progress.

One of the best things that has happened, however, is that I've had open conversations with my immediate family about the event; after all, it happened to them, too. I think we all sort of carried pieces of this burden throughout our lives but didn't quite know how to lay those pieces down. We don't need to talk about it on any regular basis, but just knowing that we can, that I can, talk about it if I want to without feeling like I'm disrupting the ordinary flow of everyone's lives is a relief.

Sometimes I think about what it would be like to talk to him, to W. I wonder if he feels remorse. I wonder if he cares. I wonder if he'd recognize me. He has an address listed in an area very close to where my family moved after the assault. I can picture it. I think about knocking on his door, seeing him face to face, and telling him ... I don't know what. I run through different scenarios. I wouldn't say, "You ruined my life," because that's not true, even though I've had more challenges than I probably would have otherwise. I wouldn't tell him I hated him and wished him harm, because that's not who I am. Maybe I would tell him, "Despite you, I am a strong person. Despite you, I have love in my life and I love who I am." Maybe he would care, maybe he wouldn't. That's not the point.

Me and My Name: A History

My name is Lee. I am a woman. I am not Chinese. Lee is my whole first name. My name means meadow. It goes well with “bird.”

These facts seem worth stating given the number of repeated questions I’ve received throughout my life about this simple, three-letter name. Recently I went to a massage appointment with a therapist I’d never met. I was seated very near her when she called my name in the reception area, yet she looked past me, around me, anywhere but at me. This is a familiar experience, but usually it's because someone is expecting to see a man. However, after I raised my hand two feet away from the therapist and said, “I’m Lee,” she was genuinely surprised that I did not appear Chinese. After we walked back to the tiny massage room, she asked briefly what my trouble areas were but then, with more focus, she wanted to know whether I was Chinese. I looked at her, with my very Caucasian face inches from hers, and told her no, I was not. I thought that should resolve the issue.

Minutes later, after I was unclothed, lying face-down and ready to relax in peace, she told me she saw my name on the chart and expected to see a “Chinese lady." This I already knew. But in an effort to discourage further conversation, I just laughed politely and said “Oh.” Then, because she must have been having a very hard time reconciling my name with my non-Chinese ethnicity, she said in her heavy Eastern European accent, “A lot of Chinese name Lee.” I said, “Well, it may be a common last name,” hoping to just put the matter to rest. As she continued to sloppily beat the muscles along my back with a technique I’d never before experienced, she said, baffled, “Oh, last name?” I said firmly, “Yeah,” hardly an expert in the subject but wanting to end to the chit-chat.

During the rest of the massage, which was anything but relaxing or therapeutic, I thought about the history of encounters I’d had like this, people having very assured expectations about the kind of person I would, or should, be based on these three letters. I’d had my own challenges accepting my name at an early age, once I realized the particular spelling of my name was more commonly the “masculine” spelling rather than the feminine.

In first grade, on the first day of school I recall my teacher separating the boys and girls into two groups in the classroom before she called roll. (Why, I have no clue.) When she got to my name, she looked over to the group of boys. I was mortified. It was the first of many corrections I would make throughout the years about my gender, based on the spelling of my name. It’s possible, too, that my bowl-cut hair did little to lend femininity to my person. But I should not have needed to be concerned with such things, and someone had made me suddenly acutely aware that there could be any least bit of confusion about my gender, and it troubled me, right or wrong.

You do you, Lee.

In middle school, I’d become so bothered by the assumptions people might be making that I decided to change the spelling from L-E-E to L-E-I-G-H—the more common spelling for female Lees. To further emphasize the femaleness of my name, I added a flower as the dot above the “I.” Of course, I only changed the spelling on my school papers and in notes to friends, and because it did not match the spelling on record at my school, my act of defiance only caused confusion among my teachers, which at least one of them pointed out to me. Ever the obedient student, I went back to plain old L-E-E.

Occasionally throughout my grade school years, a new teacher would notice my middle name was Anne and ask if I preferred to go by Lee Anne (certainly that must be my preference; I was a girl). I liked the idea of that so I said yes, that was my preference. But neither they nor I were consistent about it, and I never tried to enforce it with friends or family, so the new name never stuck.

I eventually grew to love my name, in its masculine, modest three letters. It was unique among all the people I’d ever known (especially for a girl). It’s worth noting that, in my more than three decades of living, I’ve met one male Lee, that I can recall, and at least one female Lee. So the easy assumption toward male Lee is a little baffling.

Today, when I receive email salutations that begin with “Mr.,” as I frequently do, sometimes I correct the sender and sometimes I don’t. If I will meet the individual in person, I usually note that, FYI, I’m a woman. Or in a more formal context I sign my name in the reply email with “(Ms.)” before my name, which seems the gentlest way to make a correction. Nevertheless, people always seem very embarrassed about the error, and I just tell them not to worry; it happens all the time.

I try to make things easy for people who take my name down from hearing it, for example, the baristas and food service staff at shops that ask for my name to go with my order. I always say, “Lee, L-E-E,” just to eliminate the guesswork. (Of course, at most of these places, the staff person has just taken my credit card payment, and I want to point out that they could eliminate the need to ask for my name by just looking at the card, but I refrain.) During one such instance, a friend was with me and began laughing after I spelled my name. Thinking there was nothing amusing about this courtesy I was extending, I asked what was funny. He said that it’s not hard to spell. I KNOW, RIGHT? And yet it was. At least, correctly. For this woman. Prior to this practice, in my less instructive days, the spelling of my name proved difficult for said staff. Point in case:

I mean, of all the options.

Something else people have asked me is whether Lee was my whole first name. I kind of get this. It’s a common middle name. It’s short. It begs for a second syllable. In preschool, kids rectified this deficit on their own, by calling me names like Lee Pee, Lee Jeans, Lee Press-on-Nails. Even though only the first one came close to being a creatively damaging nickname (the others were just actual  brand names of products used mostly by our mothers), they all were said with cruel intention, with mockery, and so they all stung.

At home, however, Lee Bird was the nickname of choice, and it was said with endearment, so I liked it. I still do. And I love birds, in an objectifying kind of way, because they make me think of this family-given nickname. (Also, symbolism, etc.)

Mid-30s, still rocking the "Bird."

But back to middle names. I mentioned that Lee is a common middle name. In fact, my first name is my twin sister's middle name. She has a regular, whole, two-syllable first name. It means grace—an admirable trait to possess. In the same vein as beauty, elegance. My name means meadow, or clearing. An area of land cleared from woods. It's literally a lack of woods. A lack of something. Of course, I know for certain my parents didn't think too deeply about our names and their meanings, so I don't take this glaring difference personally. But, if one were to psychoanalyze the situation, one might conclude that a certain twin's inferiority complex, supposing she had one, is rooted in her name. (Of course, nobody is doing that!)

But what, in general, is with the questioning, the doubting, of a person’s name—especially when they tell you and they show you it’s their name? I must admit now that I’m not immune to such inquisitiveness. I have a cousin named Jenny and, being ever the correcting person I am, even as a child, I told her once that her full name had to be Jennifer; she said it wasn't, it was Jenny. She was older, so I knew she wouldn't lie. I had to accept this uncomfortable fact that challenged my assumption.

More recently, I encountered a man at the grocery store whom I’d just seen at the gym a while earlier, so we recognized each other and made introductions and I told him my name and he told me his: Flex. I paused, having the desire to both laugh and ask what his real name was but somehow found the composure to hold both in, and he, cognizant of my pause, said, “Like the muscle,” and flexed his biceps to make sure I understood. At a loss for appropriate words, I said, with too much enthusiasm, “I love it, it’s great!” A name is whatever you say it is, right?

***

As I was leaving the coffee shop where I was composing this post, the guy who'd taken my order earlier—a new person I'd not seen before, he said, "Bye, Lee, have a good afternoon." He'd remembered my name.

Mortified: The Podcast, My Diaries, and Being Vulnerable

A friend recently introduced me to a podcast called Mortified. I was instantly intrigued when she said it was about people reading diary entries from their adolescent years. Actually, it's not quite true to say I was instantly intrigued; my initial reaction was envy, or, dare I say, jealousy. After having gone through the process of rereading my lifetime of entries, minus a few years here and there when I was either too troubled or too content to write, I had been ruminating on the idea of creating not a podcast but a blog about funny, embarrassing, heart-wrenching pages of these diaries, and those belonging to other people (through a submission process). Of course, that blog never materialized, and this podcast did, and it’s amazing.

Around a year ago I rediscovered all my diaries and became engrossed in their content. It’s not that my life was so interesting; but the words that filled those pages back then really were quite prescient, considering the person I am now. I can see the early instances of self-doubt, of chastising myself for not being perfect (I have several interesting redactions, mostly about boys I said I liked at one point and later edited the entry to say how stupid they were), and of great sensitivity, which I saw only as a flaw and not as the gift I’m able to see it as today. Granted, it has taken many years of frustration and effort to understand first that there’s an actual classification for a “highly sensitive person” and second that there’s nothing wrong with that type of person. It’s hard not to wonder how my diary entries—and therefore my self-perception, my life—might have been different had I understood more about myself early on.

Recently my twin sister and I brought our first diaries to a dinner to share with each other. It was the same diary, a hardcover in a floral cloth wrap, except hers was dark blue with white flowers, mine red with purple flowers. Our aunt gave them to us during a visit back to Ohio after we’d moved away to Florida. We were 10. Because we are twins and experienced life much in the same way in those early years, we wrote about many of the same events (or, oftentimes, non-events). These diaries are the most amusing because of our perspectives on what was important in life and how we tried to capture that importance. We laughed for hours. Knee-slapping, tear-jerking, breath-holding laughter.

My first diary.

Names have been obscured to protect the innocent.

But in reading these stories, and hearing those shared on Mortified, under the melodrama about crushes and BFFs and family, I noticed a tangible vulnerability that occasionally made my smile fade, momentarily. Oh. That wasn’t very funny. I kind of felt for him or her or me. That child was hurting. Did they get help? I had so little understanding about my own feelings for so long; even though I had adequate language to describe how I was feeling, I didn't always know what the underlying causes were, or how to help myself feel better when I was sad or angry or frustrated. Perhaps that is just part of adolescence.

For me, the irritability continued until I broke down in my senior year of high school, unable to bear the weight of my emotions, of the pressure I felt to be perfect and the disappointment of always falling short. Only because I broke down, and because some concerned adults who knew me and noticed my changed behavior and appearance, did I get help. Anyway, my hope is that kids don't feel they have to suffer alone so much, so privately. I know it's idealistic to think that, 20 years later, we have better tools, more access to information, better communication, less stigma so that we, as a society, can catch and address such issues. But I fear we've tipped the scale of useful information and have only perpetuated the harmful illusions of happiness and perfection with things like social media and "advice" books and online forums. And blogs.

I still hope they write, today’s kids. Lest anyone think I’ve traded in private diaries for this public blog, rest assured there’s plenty I still keep private, in a paper journal that I write in with a pen. I don’t find all the answers to my troubles through journaling, but I do find I have better self-awareness and, in the best of times, improved perspective on a situation that I might have been looking at with tunnel vision. So I still do it. Plus, I want to have something to look back on 10 and 20 years from now, when I may need to piece my life together, in my head. Something else I’ve learned from looking back at some of my diary entries is that my memory is skewed. Not only do I misremember the way a life event happened or how it made me feel, I also forget that certain things ever occurred. Particularly the positive things. And there were lots.

Obligatory New Year’s Resolutions 2018

Some people love to mock new year’s resolutions. They’re trite, meaningless, overhyped and underperformed. Part of a self-improvement movement that we all foolishly buy into. But to these cynics I say, way to crush the ambitions of millions of people seeking to better themselves through the resources available to them. I get it. The problem is that a whole industry exists based on making people feel like they're not good enough. And sure, some of those resources are a bunch of quackery, books or programs designed by people with professional credentials hoping to make money off of others' struggles and insecurities—issues that they themselves probably don't have and never will. And that's unfortunate.

But some are based on empirical research, or they simply are motivating, quackery or not. And if that inspires someone toward positive action, good! People can read what they want into the you'll-never-be-good-enough message; I think there's a delicate balance. For me, I know there will always be ways I can improve—expand my mind, gain new and different experiences, challenge myself physically, and develop all-around healthier habits. I know there will always be room to improve because I know I'll never be perfect. I rather like the idea that I have little (or big) areas to work on in perpetuity, to see what kind of a difference I can make in my life and, hopefully, others'.

Research shows that, the more realistic and specific a goal is, the more achievable it is (also a source of contention for critics, in that we can measure our self-improvement "to death"). If I have never had a running habit and I set out to run three marathons by the end of the year, I may not be successful. Is it achievable? Sure. People have done far crazier things. But I’d question the point of it: am I trying to prove that I can do something big, or am I trying to fulfill a longheld desire to become a distance runner, and sustain that habit? It’s not for me to judge which is a “better” ambition, but if the former is the case, maybe you just have that type of personality and will achieve your goal, but then what? Was it meaningful? (Does it matter?) If the latter ambition is driving you, perhaps tempering your first-year goal would prove more successful and offer more meaning in the end—and in the years to come. What I’m getting at is, do you want to achieve something for 2018, or for 2018 and beyond?

But I understand the “I want great things now” mentality. We’re all susceptible to delusions of grandeur, and I tend to be extreme in my own ambitions. But haste often makes waste, as the story goes, and I’ve learned that I would prefer to have the fulfillment that comes with achieving goals that stick year after year than the fleeting satisfaction of a one-time-achieved goal.

And with that rant out of the way, I’m happy to say that I love to make resolutions. I learn from each year’s goals and try to tweak them for better success the next year. So here are my moderately set goals for 2018, in random order, designed more for optimal achievement than for ultimate glory.

1. Learn to do a flip turn. I’ve been lap-swimming for several years now, and I have yet to learn this skill that would make my laps so much more efficient. I’d really prefer to have someone teach me, i.e, hold my hand (not literally because that would be dangerous), but I may not have that opportunity, so that means watching and re-watching YouTube videos and just taking the plunge. 
2. Double my cycling mileage. While I’m glad to be riding regularly again, I’m in a rut with my typical 13.5-mile loop from home. It’s a convenient route, if not a scary one, as I ride alongside road traffic for most of the way. Adding on another seven miles is doable, but it means more life-threatening traffic encounters and obnoxious honking and yelling from drivers who don’t know or don’t care about the bike/automobile traffic laws. The obvious solution is to abandon the convenience of riding from home, pack my bike up, and take it to a cyclist-friendly trail. So that is what I shall do. 
3. Adjust my eating habits. Specifically, cut back on eating after dinner, which I realize I do only because I’m bored or seeking comfort. Also, try more and new recipes. I find safety in routines and regularity, which means a lot of the same foods and meals daily, weekly, monthly. Not only am I missing out on a lot of other great foods, but I have discovered that cooking or preparing food soothes me and makes me feel happy and accomplished. And I've acquired some really great recipe books this past year, but I’ve barely made a dent in them. (Thug Kitchen, The Anti-Inflammatory Diet in 21, The Colorful Kitchen)
4. Run 10 miles. This goal has nothing to do with will and everything to do with feeling comfortable using my new feet, post-surgery. It’s also a big unknown. The goal could either be easily achievable within a few months or something I feel I want to take my time with throughout the year. The time frame for “total healing,” meaning all the swelling and discomfort from my surgeries will be done, is up to a year. So that means, at most, mid-July, one year from when my second foot was operated on. I’m already starting to weave running into my walks, but I’m not rushing the process. It’s hard, though, to have such a brief encounter with my old familiar friend and then have to depart with what feels like not enough time. But if I learned anything from the surgeries, it was patience. Lots of it. 
5. Develop a better nighttime routine. Some nights I’ve already been able to do this. It means shutting off the TV by 10pm; having my meals, work clothes, and workout attire prepped for the next day; getting into bed and writing a bit in my journal; and then reading something pleasurable until I can no longer keep my eyes open. 
6. Practice mindfulness. This one’s tricky to be specific about because I don’t want to narrow the scope of things I could be more mindful about, but I also realize that to say “practice mindfulness” is huge and vague. So I’ll try to add some specificity: be more mindful about eating, in times of heightened anxiety, and in my social media use. In particular I want to recognize when I’m mindlessly eating, worrying, or scrolling through feeds, and then be able to, without judging or berating myself, focus my attention elsewhere or do something more productive. This one’s pretty big on my list. 
7. Continue reading for pleasure. After many years of putting “read more” on my lists of resolutions, I’ve finally been able to get back into a reading habit that I enjoy. I’m enamored by all the interesting stories out there, and I feel more enriched as a person for learning about people’s different perspectives of the world. And I’m simply entertained. 
8. Consume fewer material things. I’ve realized that, in times when I’m feeling low or just bored, I gravitate toward shopping. I would by no means consider myself a “shopaholic”; I have neither the budget nor the appetite for that particular classification, and I’m already turned off enough by the times I recognize I’ve bought things I don’t need. However, I do buy things I don’t need, and this is neither a sustainable nor a healthy habit. Luckily I’ve discovered an awesome clothing resale shop that allows me to consign or donate the clothes I don’t need and buy what I do need, second-hand. Because of the shop’s successful model, it regularly has “new” items and the clothes are fashionable enough for me. I'm far more concerned with being comfortable, so if I don't look bad, great! If I actually look nice, bonus! 
9. Move more. Dedicating time to daily exercise is not really a struggle for me; however, outside of that hour-long window, my life is pretty sedentary. I sit at a desk all day for work, and I tend to “relax” a lot after dinner, which essentially means lying around and watching shows. Or I’m studying, another sedentary activity. It's during the sedentary times that my mind is more prone to a tailspin. I know there are many benefits to moving more consistently throughout the day—physical, psychological, emotional. Sometimes it’s easy, when I have chores I need to do—laundry, cleaning, cooking—and these are things I can sprinkle throughout the weekday evenings to keep me from over-relaxing. Work is the harder challenge, but I have options I can take better advantage of. I have a workstation that can accommodate both sitting and standing. This became available to me right after my foot surgeries, so I have not made much use of it, as I needed to avoid being on my feet for a while to aid in recovery. But it’s about time I start using the standing option, even if just for 15 minutes here and there throughout the workday. I also rarely take a lunch break. Outside of my office is a quite beautiful walkway along the water, perfect for a lunchtime stroll. I know this because I used to do it; but again, surgeries. Time to revisit the walkway. 
10. Volunteer. I’ve known for some time that this would solve some of my ongoing struggles, like feeling disconnected from people and a general lack of purpose. But finding the right opportunity has been difficult. I thought I’d found the perfect one with the Guardian Ad Litem program—being a court advocate for foster children who don’t have an official guardian to speak up for them—but it requires more time than I would be able to dedicate right now. Perhaps when I’m not in grad school I’ll revisit this option. But for now I’m looking for something I can do for just one or two hours a week, at most, that directly involves helping people. Ideally I’d work with children, but I’m open to helping any people who could benefit from my time. I remain vigilant, but I welcome suggestions from anyone who might know about specific opportunities in Tampa. 

If you are the type to make resolutions or set goals for the year, I wish you the utmost success! If you're not, kindly don't rain on my parade.