4 Years

May 16, 2009

4 years ago I started on this journey, walking on the pathway of marriage and into a new chapter of life.  The forest has sometimes been too dense, but we held each other’s hand and guided each other through the darkest parts.  There have been many beautiful strolls through rolling knolls, walks along the beach with our feet in the sand, and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.

The path will continue to wind and there will always be unexpected bumps and cracks.  As long as we continue down this path the same way we started, there will never be a shortage of adventure together.

I love my Mr. Giraffe just as much as, and probably more than I did on that day.  I am so happy I chose to live my life and walk this path with the man whom I call my husband.

A Giraffe Kind of Day

6:00am – Alarm clock rings.  Turn it off knowing that I won’t need it anymore because I can hear the baby awake in the other room.

6:15am – Both baby and my bladder force me out of bed (and the fact that I have to leave in an hour).

6:30am – Shower is interrupted by a cranky 3-year-old who wants to join me in the shower yet refuses to take his pyjamas off and pee in the potty.  This is the beginning of a crying episode that lasts about 40 min and includes multiple trips to his bedroom to “calm down.”

7:00am – Pick up my phone to put it in my pocket and glance at new emails.  An email telling me that I have been selected as the Medical Student representative on our national O&G resident committee… Desired, yet kind of unexpected.  I showed it to my husband and we shared in the excitement while our 3-year-old continued his crying session from his bedroom.

7:20am – Leave the house (and the crying child behind… who was finally settling down enough to eat breakfast).

7:45am – Arrive at the lecture theatre 15 min early because of a “mandatory meeting.”  The meeting coordinator was 10 min late.  Eat my breakfast: Greek yogurt with frozen berries and Kashi Go-Lean Crunch cereal on top.

8:10am – First of three lectures starts.  Pediatric Imaging.  5 minutes of concerted effort to pay attention, then – check blogsphere, update facebook with news of my new position, chat online, send a few texts – all the while, still half paying attention (I am pretty confident that I can at least pick out a thymus on a pediatric chest film).

9:00am – Grande Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte.  Continuation of lecture series: Recognizing and reporting child abuse (way too much for this early in the morning).  Then, intrauterine grown restriction – good, interesting, I can pay attention to that (and I did).

11:00am – Quickly stop in my office to assemble an anonymous gift for a friend (I’ve been leaving them secret anonymous gifts for a few years now… still getting away with it).

11:30am – Drop off gift in undisclosed location where I know they will find it.  Run into department head who wants to talk to me about a whole bunch of stuff, all while I’m supposed to be walking over to meet my husband for lunch.

12:00pm – Finally get to lunch locale.  Eat delicious lunch with my husband, including two desserts (it was a buffet).

12:45pm – Arrive at my car to start the annoying drive across the city to get to the clinic I’m working at.  I already know I will be late.  I have to start thinking of my excuse…

12:54pm – Look in the rearview mirror at a red light and notice a huge, black, terminal hair growing out of my chin.  WTF!?! Where did that come from? Try to pull it out… OUCH!  No Luck.  Now I’m self-conscious about it.

1:05pm – At the clinic.  Made pretty good time.  Get into the attending physician’s office and he’s not even really aware that I was late.  Good.

1:15pm – See my first patient of the afternoon: Anxiety.  Great, right up my alley!

2:00pm – Another patient: a collection of complaints and never an acceptable solution.  A reminder of what I don’t like about family medicine.

3:00pm – See last patient (yes, 3 patients all afternoon – slightly boring if you ask me).  At least I had time to gossip with the other residents at the clinic today.

4:00pm – Get to go home early, but first must pick up the kids.  That means playing kids songs in the car, which I already have stuck in my head all day anyway (There’s a flea on the wing of the fly on the frog on the bump on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea…)

5:30pm – Peanut butter and honey sandwiches, frozen veggies, and strawberries for dinner because I’m too lazy to make a real dinner (I was pretty drained from seeing all those 3 patients!)

6:00pm – Family walk to Wal-Mart to buy soymilk and bubbles.  3-year-old wants to ride his new glider bike – fine by me!  My reward for such a long walk (~3K round trip): Ice cream cone from McDonalds!

7:45pm – Quick bath and into bed for the boys.  Baby decides he’s in the mood to nurse tonight.  My poor, partially weaned, neglected and engorged breasts get some relief and I get to enjoy at least one more breastfeeding session with my little boy.

8:30pm – Water the plants outside, install my new planters on the veranda, get garbage ready for garbage day, unload/load dishwasher… Oh, and pluck that horrible, evil, no good hair from my chin!

9:15pm – Finally sit down and have the (newly instated) nightly talk with my husband.  This is all in an effort to ensure better communication.  We sure had a lot to talk about tonight and it was good to have that time with each other!

10:00 – Made the decision to blog.

So maybe not the best, most exciting day for me to share, but a day in the life of this Giraffe, nonetheless.

 

 

No Words

“Are you expecting anything for Mother’s Day tomorrow?”

What do I say to that?

“No, there’s no need to celebrate such a silly, made-up day.”

Or,

“No, because I know you didn’t get/plan anything for me anyway and we’re just going to fight about it.”

Or,

“No, because you never get me anything for Mother’s Day, or my birthday, or our anniversary for that matter, so why would this be any different?”

Or,

“It sure would have been nice for you to not even have to ask that question. I like to think I work hard to be a good mom despite my other commitments. What’s wrong with hoping for a little recognition on the one day that is meant for it?”

I just went with a simple “No.”

The Shame Project – Breaking The Silence

I feel so liberated by sharing my challenges and my journey through shame here on my blog.  I know there are many people reading and even though I don’t know who you all are, just knowing that there are people out there who care really makes me feel like I’m making a difference (even if it’s just in my own head).  If there is anything I’ve learned from reading my books, interacting with people through my blog, and observing others, I’ve come to realize that everyone carries shame.

Until our society becomes a place where shame isn’t so scary and taboo, there needs to be a way for us to let it out and there is no better way to do that at first than through anonymous confessions.  I know that it works because this blog, for the most part, is anonymous for me.  So, I’ve decided to create a space for people – anyone – to share some of their shame.  Anything you share will be completely anonymous, even to me.  When I receive a few responses, I would like to include them in a post on the The Shame Project.  My goal here is to help break the silence of shame and to also let other people try out the small bit of liberation you feel when you can finally let someone else hear you, without judgement.

So please, leave a comment, spread the post around to your friends or other bloggers, and let’s try and open up some dialoge about shame in our lives.

What are you ashamed of?

Related articles

• The Shame Project – An Introduction (crankygiraffe.wordpress.com)
• The Shame Project – Reaching Out (crankygiraffe.wordpress.com)

The Shame Project – Reaching Out

…all of us fight hidden, silent battles against not being good enough, not having enough, and not belonging enough.  When we find the courage to share our experiences and the compassion to hear others tell their stories, we force shame out of hiding and end the silence…

~Brene Brown, I Thought it Was Just Me

My original intention with The Shame Project was to document my journey through my own shame as it happens and in some sort of logical order.  As I mentioned previously, however, I started this journey a little while before starting the project on my blog and there are a few earlier things that I wanted to share before I continued to move forward.  But as life goes on, so does the journey, and today was a day worth sharing… so things will be a little out of order at the beginning here.

Today I had my first “real” counseling appointment with the physician wellness psychiatrist whom I’ve been seeing.  We met briefly last week to make a plan for how I wanted to approach everything that I want to work through in my time with her.  Being a logical person, I figured that I would just start at the beginning and work forward, most likely ending with my abuse.  When I left that appointment, however, I couldn’t stop thinking about that last little point and it has been consuming my thoughts ever since.  Some of my immediate thoughts prompted me to write something that will soon make an appearance on the wonderful blog, Blackbox Warnings (so stay tuned there for that) and it also led to me talking a little about my thoughts here on The Cranky Giraffe.  As a result of these almost obsessive thoughts about my abuse history, I decided that I needed to start with that monster and get it out of the way before I could work on anything else.

So, that’s what I did.

Today, for almost an hour, I sat in front of this woman and told her about the 4 year long, secret relationship I had with the man who abused me.  I started at the beginning.  I talked about how it started, how he made me feel, why I was attracted to him in the first place, when things started to get sexual, when things started to get manipulative, when I started to feel worthless, when I started to feel dirty… But I also talked about when I started to make changes, when I started to stand up for myself, and when and how I eventually ended the relationship.  I shared the details – the giving in, his straight out defiance of me saying “no,” and the one single act of real physical violence that saw the very end of it all.  At the end of it, I could feel tension all throughout my body, my heart was racing, and I was sweaty.  I realized that I had been unconsciously tugging at the hairs on my arms – for how long, I don’t know.

Before leaving the appointment, we talked a little about where we were going to go next time and she gave me some reassurance that what I went through, how I was feeling, and how I am feeling now are all normal parts of this cycle and the healing that will take place.  I sat there for a litte while just in awe of the fact that it was all out there.  Every last bit of it:  What I did, what he did, what I let happen, why it happened, and why it is still haunting me.  And the best part of it was that there was just empathy on the other side of the table.  Only kindess and reassurance and the promise that it was okay that I shared it all.  I felt scared and overwhelmed, but I also felt better.  A little bit better.

It’s one thing to share it all and reach out to someone when it is their job to let it happen.  And that’s exactly what this was.  It was controlled, it was already marked as a safe place with no judgement and a place that I was supposed to let it all out.  While I felt a little shame at some points of my story, there wasn’t much to experience because the fear of disproval and judgement was removed when I walked in the door of the office.  But, even before today, there was on place – one person – whom I wanted to tell… the one person I would be most afraid to tell, and whom I would be most devastated to receive judgement and disproval from.  And I thought about her all day.  I thought that if I could tell it all, in finer detail, to this psychiatrist, I surely could tell it, in one or two words to someone who’s empathy and compassion would actually mean something to me.

The thought of telling KM about this was not new today; I’ve been thinking about it almost obsessively over the past few weeks – imagining how it would go, imagining the reasons why I wanted to tell her, deciding if it was worth the risk.  The fact of the matter is that KM has become more to me that a physician mentor.  She is that, but in addition, she is really the only person with whom I talk about the struggles I face at this point in my life. Right now, these are generally just associated with balancing work life and home life, which I know is something she works hard at too.  I knew that telling her this would really make it clear that there is more to this mentoring thing than just the mentoring (deep down I’m sure we both knew that anyway).  I thought about whether I would reach out to KM all day.  I came to the realization that until I told her, I would never stop thinking about it – I would always wonder what it would mean if I did tell her, and I would always be curious.

So I did it.

I drove to the hospital at the end of the day and I waited for her to finish seeing her last patient.  We talked a little about how my rotation is going and how life with the family is going. I didn’t lie: I told her that things were challenging.  She told me to take it one day at a time and that it would probably get harder before it got easier.  I was nervous and anxious and I had a pit in my stomach… and there was silence.  I looked down at my hands (maybe in shame) and I quietly said, “and there’s something else.  I can tell you about it, if you’d like.”

Of course, she said I coud talk to her about anything.  And so I led into it, in one of the practiced and controlled ways that I had imagined telling her.  I told her about a time not too long ago when someone I was working with made an inappropriate comment about a patient with an abuse history – something about “these women” and how this “stuff” just “keeps happening to them… it makes no sense… why do they let it happen?”  I told her how it really struck a sensitive chord with me and led me to unravel a little – because I used to be “these women” - and that all led me down the road of the extreme anxiety I started to feel a few months ago.  I’m not sure what her initial reaction was because she didn’t flinch.  The lead in was fairly telling (I think) and maybe she knew where it was going.  I told her that since then I’ve realized that I need to work through it and that’s what I’ve been doing… on top of everything else.  We talked about it a little more.  She asked me if I was talking with someone about it, if my husband knows/understand/is supportive about it, and she said many of the same things the psychiatrist said to me, too:  It happened, you can’t change it, you’re not that person anymore, but it doesn’t make it easier.

I didn’t need to tell her the details because I think, ultimately, they aren’t important for her to know.  The important part is that I reached out – and not just to anyone.  I reached out with the most shameful part of my being and put it out where I feel most vulnerable.  And nothing bad happened.

I was courageous.  She was compassionate.  And, it can’t ever get worse than that.

Interesting Fact

You know when you really have to go to washroom, lets say, on a car ride, or while you’re in a line up, or during a lecture, and the closer you get to being in the washroom, the harder it gets to hold it in? Well in medicine, there’s a name for that: “key in the door syndrome.” It comes from the idea (or common incident) where people with urge incontinence are most likely to lose control of their bladder when they are right outside the washroom – like when they are unlocking the door to the house (and of course, the key gets jammed).

I just think it’s kind of a funny concept. Why does our mind have so much control over us? It’s not like the proximity to the washroom has any real or direct relationship to the fullness of our bladder/bowel or the strength of our sphincter. Regardless of how little sense it makes, the concept was proven valid this morning, when the clock hit 10:00am and my lecture was supposed to be over, my body was overly insistent that I leave for the washroom right then.. So I did… And I started a trend… I guess my bladder wasn’t the only impatient one in the lecture hall.

Sick and Guilty

Today I called in sick for my call shift. I never call in sick. I feel really guilty about it for a few reasons: I hate being that person who calls in sick, it is a 24 hour call shift, and it was supposed to be the last day of my rotation in this small town.

To make it a little more guilt-inducing, I am not really that sick. I was feeling achy, feverish, tired, and I had a headache all day yesterday and I felt like I was dragging my ass to see very patient. I went to bed early last night and when I woke up with a headache this morning, I made the call. So, in reality, I probably could have worked today because I am only mildly sick, by it was the fact that I am feeling crappy and run down, and that there is a good chance that I would have been on my feet all day and well into the night with no break… I feel like I needed some time off to recuperate and prevent myself from getting worse. Is that fair?

In medicine, we advocate for patients to take care of themselves and listen when their bodies are telling them they need a break. Unfortunately, we don’t always do that for ourselves. Why do we do that, and why do we feel guilty about it when we do take our own advice???

In My Own Head

I’ve been in my own head too much recently.  I think it’s mostly because I’ve spent the last 3 weeks commuting 2 hours a day, to and from a small town outside of my city for my current rotation.  That is a lot of time to myself… more than I’ve been used to in many years.  Last week all that time in my head was good: I listened to some Ted talks and I got to think to myself about some of the concepts I’ve been reading about in my Brene Brown books.  This week, however, started off with an appointment with the psychiatrist through the student wellness program and we made a “plan of attack” to deal with some of the issues on my plate.  One of those issues: my abuse.

I’ve had a lot of time to think about this and I can’t stop it from happening.  It seems to be taking up a big part of my mind and I don’t quite know if I’m making something big out of nothing, or if all this time it has been taking up more space and emotion than I ever imagined.

Here are some little known facts that I’ve come to discover about my abuse:

1. Aside from my husband and (now) this psychiatrist, no one in my life knows about it

2. I talked about it, for the first time ever, on this blog

3. I kept the real status of my relationship secret from most people because I was ashamed of it

4. I tried to end it multiple times, but I was too afraid of what it would mean to me to be alone

5. There was a time that I begged him not to leave me

6. I told myself that it was normal

7. For a long time, during and after, I minimized the seriousness of the whole situation

8. I still think I was weak, in more ways than one

9. I still can’t bring myself to say, aloud, that I was raped

10. I don’t want to be that woman anymore because, “how could I let that happen to me?”

Everyday after my morning drive I have felt overwhelmed and exhausted from all the thinking.  I think that I want to just rip off the bandaid and tell everyone about it, become an advocate for other women, and let that be the way I deal with it.  But then I wonder, what is the real reason I want to do that?  Do I want sympathy?  Do I want a pat on the back and everyone to say, “well done, look how far you’ve come!” Do I want the attention (that I’ll get for a whole 5 minutes)? Or, do I really want to get people thinking and to advocate?  If that is the case, how can I advocate for something that I am clearly still ashamed of?

And why should I be ashamed?  Well, I stayed with a man who was sexually exploitive and manipulative for more than 3 years.  I was not financially dependent on him.  I was not married to him.  We did not have children together.  I had no reason to stay with him.  No reason except that I was afraid of being lonely without him.  It is kind of pathetic, I think.  I mean, when it happens once, and a woman gets overtaken by a man, and its over, it’s pretty cut and dry and clear what happened, who’s at fault… But when it keeps happening over and over, and you stand by and you know it’s going on and you just let it get worse, for no good reason, well then it’s not so clear.  That’s where I get caught up.  That’s where I feel the shame.

I know that’s screwed up and I know it’s the wrong way to think.  I know it is.  But it doesn’t change the fact that I feel that way.  I just need to get out of my head for a while and stop thinking about this right now… at least until I can get some positive talk to balance the negative talk.  I just need a distraction from it all, but I can’t seem to find it right now.

 

Related articles

• Overcoming sexual abuse (anonymousrelief.wordpress.com)
• The Shame Project – An Introduction (crankygiraffe.wordpress.com)
• Vulnerability and shame (powerinyourhands.wordpress.com)
• Recognizing Shame (crankygiraffe.wordpress.com)
• Vulnerability (multifacetedmoi.wordpress.com)

I Think I’m Angry

… is what my (almost) 3-year-old said to me tonight.  I was tucking him into bed and I asked for a bed-time kiss.  Instead of obliging, he turned his head away and curled into a ball under his blankets.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I think I’m angry.” He said.

“Why?”

“I think because Mommy is always at work too much.”

I’m Famous! (Kind of)

Not too long ago I was asked by the director of the mentoring program at my college if KM and I could  provide a few sentences outlining our mentoring relationship for a promotional flyer.  When she first asked, I had no idea how to put into a few sentences what my relationship with KM means to me.  I’m sure a few of you remember me trying to brainstorm some ideas…

Well, after that brainstorming session I came up with something to say and I sent it off to KM.  She came back to me with what she had to say and I sent both quotes off to the mentoring director.  Shortly after that, we had an impromptu (and rather entertaining) photo shoot with the intent  to “capture the relationship.”  A few weeks later… and this is the final result!

(I’m sorry I chopped off our heads, but as you know, I like my anonymity…)

While I really love the picture (and I have the original, as well as some of the other fun pictures to keep for myself), I certainly love and treasure the words that are printed on this page.  I’d like to think that if I had a difficult time keeping what I had to say short and relevant, KM probably did too.  This will now become another little thing for me to add to my pile of things to pick me up and motivate me when I am feeling down and lacking confidence.

The Shame Project – An Introduction

Recently I have embarked on an important and, what I hope will be, a life-changing introspective journey into the world of shame.  As I learn more about shame and how it affects my life, I realize that shame is probably one of the biggest and most debilitating mental construct that affects how I live my life.  In the short amount of time that I’ve actually been on this journey I feel like my mind and my attitude are already beginning to change.  And for this reason, I have decided to try and document my journey into the depths of my shame.

There is no other place better for this documentation than right here on my blog.  I originally started this blog because I needed a place where I could come and say whatever I needed to say without fear of being judged.  This blog became the place I felt comfortable talking about myself and my life and I began to realize that what I had to say was meaningful to someone.  As I began learning about shame, it occurred to me that shame is really the underlying reason I started this blog:  When I come to my blog I feel no shame because I don’t actually “know” anyone here and no one here “knows” me.  I have no reason to be ashamed when I blog.

In the few short weeks since this project has started for me, I feel like I have already made some interesting realizations and changes in my perception.  For this reason, I only wish I had decided to start documenting this journey when it actually first began.  I will, however, do my best to start from the beginning:

Some of you will remember my initial visit with the student health and wellness psychiatrist a few months back.  It was my conversation with this woman that first introduced me to the concept of shame.  It’s kind of funny because I remember the physical and emotional reaction I had when I heard her say to me: “it sounds like you carry a lot of shame.”  I actually felt ashamed in that moment because of that comment.  I felt humiliated and embarrassed and I think it was probably because deep down I knew that she was right.  Needless to say (since I’m here starting this project), what she said really got me thinking.  My entire journey through shame started with this initial encounter with the psychiatrist and a few of the recommendations she gave to me.

The first recommendation she gave was for me to consider using medication to help manage my anxiety.  I knew she was right and I admitted to her that I would probably benefit from using medication.  I left that appointment with a six-week supply of samples for the medication we thought would be best for me.  I thought all day and all night about using that medication and it seemed like the right thing to do; after all, I would have nothing to lose by using it.  The only reason I could think of for not using the medication was that I didn’t want to feel like I couldn’t manage things without it.  I didn’t want other people to think that I was incapable of living my life without using a medication that is meant to treat anxiety and depression.  So, the first step I took on this journey was to push that shameful and judgemental thought out of my head and start the medication.  That was almost 8 weeks ago and I can say with reasonable certainty that I am starting to notice a difference in my levels of anxiety – and it is probably contributing to the changes I am making on my journey through shame.

The second recommendation she gave was for me to look into some books by two authors.  The first author is a man named Jon Kabbat-Zin and he specializes in mindfulness based stress reduction.  She recommended his resources to me because of my tendency to get ahead of myself and worry and stress about everything that has yet to happen.  His whole philosophy is based on being mindful of the present moment, even when the world around us is a catastrophe.  I haven’t gotten too far with his resources yet because I have gotten caught up in the wonderful resources of the second author she recommended: Brene Brown.

I have blogged a little about my experiences reading Brene Brown’s book, I thought it was just me, but I have also been reading her blog, watching her Ted talks, and doing the exercises in her books (these are things I hope to post in this project).  As I listen to her speak and read her books, I feel like she is talking about my life, exactly.  She describes an incident or emotion or feeling and I can think of a handful of the exact incidents/emotions/feelings from my own life that I’ve experienced and I suddenly feel enlightened.  She puts names to the feelings and the behaviours and she talks about ways to deconstruct them, and it makes it easier for me to undersand myself and to know that I really am not alone in this battle.  I can’t really express how amazing I have felt by reading this one book (and I’m only half way through and then I have 2 more books)!  I really hope that in the coming weeks I will have some time to elaborate more on the specific things in the book that have made a difference for me.

Overall, I am certain that a combination of factors has brought me to this point where I feel like things are changing in my head for the better.  In the upcoming entries for The Shame Project, I hope to share some specific examples of the differences I have noticed as well as some of the exercises that I’ve done from Brene Brown’s books.  While my goal is to document and share my journey through the shame that has constructed and controlled my life for so long, I hope that it will be something that is thought provoking and inspiring for all my fellow bloggers to read.

Please stay tuned to my blog for more entries about The Shame Project.

Related articles

• Vulnerability (multifacetedmoi.wordpress.com)
• Shame Essential (shametalk.wordpress.com)
• Shame (manyfoggydays.wordpress.com)
• Living in the Shadow of Shame (lightforlifewordpress.wordpress.com)
• the choice is yours: guilt or shame (bipolarsojourner.wordpress.com)

Balance of Thought

These rocks are all balanced on top of each other. I watched a man build these in the San Diego bay and I thought it was amazing. Not just because they were balancing in impossible ways, but because it seemed so representative of the changes I am making in my life.

Calmness, enjoying the moment, remaining centered, paying attention to the little things. Changing my whole outlook and approach in my every day life. This picture is a reminder.

Kitty Katty Tales

Some of my long-time followers might remember my *favorite* O&G resident, Kitty.  In short, I don’t really like Kitty, but I am tolerant and professional towards her.  Kitty certainly doesn’t like me, and she hasn’t been very tolerant and professional towards me.  Anyway, I mention her today because my day was made unexpectedly interesting because of her.

For the week before my vacation, the remainder of this week, and all of next week, I am/have been on my rural family medicine rotation in a small town about a 30-45 min drive outside the city limits.  I had been dreading this rotation for many many months, primarily because of the long drive (at least an hour from my house, one way), but also because Kitty’s husband is one of the four doctors who works in this community.  Interestingly, I was assured by KM that Mr. Kitty is actually a super nice and down to earth guy (then why is he married to Kitty? was my question).  The week before this rotation started, I was at the O&G resident academic half day for my MFM elective and one of the residents asked me what rotation I was doing next.  Stupidly, right in front of Kitty, I said that I was going to this small town for my rural rotation.  I could feel Kitty’s eyes widen from across the room.

That first Monday, my preceptor introduced me to Mr. Kitty.  He smiled at me, shook my hand and said, “Hi, nice to meet you.  I think you know my wife.” Yup, smart move G.  Great way to start.

Anyway, today was remarkable because I was meant to spend the afternoon working directly under Mr. Kitty, as my preceptor was off for the day.  While he had yet to give any indication of what Kitty had told him abut me, and he let me remove a mole from one of his patients the other week, I was still quite worried about what would happen when I was alone with Mr. Kitty.

The day became doubly remarkable this morning when I was at the University for my academic half day. During a break in my lectures, I ran into the O&G department head and the O&G residency program director together at Starbucks.  I stopped to talk to the department head about the conference I attended last week and when we were done talking, the program director smiled at me and said, “if it’s okay with you, we’d like to use your letter [about Kitty], with your name removed, as we have some global issues that must be addressed.”

If you read my previous post about Kitty, you’ll remember that I was encouraged to document an unprofessional encounter that I had with Kitty a few years ago.  I was under the assumption that she had already seen that letter, given the fact that she recently had a change of heart towards me (albeit fake and insincere).  Regardless, I cannot express how excited I was to hear this news!  Not only do I seriously, seriously, dislike Kitty, I abhor the thought of people like Kitty getting away with being idiots in society and never being called out on it.  Clearly, she’s no longer getting away with anything.

Very shortly after hearing this news, I met with KM to deliver a little gift I got for her at Disneyland.  I mentioned to her what the program director said and how it was making me a little more nervous about working with Mr. Kitty both this afternoon and for an entire 24 hour call shift on Friday.  She was not at all surprised to hear this and she replied with: “Yeah, it’s really ugly.  I doubt he’ll say anything to you, but if he does, the best thing you can do, from a medico-legal standpoint, is to just say nothing back.”  Hearing this from KM, well you can probably imagine that it made me even more excited!  This is big, and hopefully, KITTY IS GOING DOWN!

I promptly grabbed some lunch and hopped into my car for the happy commute out to meet up with Mr. Kitty.  I should probably mention now, that I actually feel kind of bad referring to him as Mr. Kitty because he happens to be a super friendly, easygoing, fun guy who is also a really good teacher!  WTF?  I will never understand how they got together and how they are still married!  If Kitty’s told him anything about me, it certainly hasn’t affected his impression of me.  And if it has, perhaps, tainted me in his eyes, I would never know.  Maybe that will change by Friday…

In the meantime, however, I will continue to feel extremely satisfied that Kitty is finally getting what’s been coming her way, and I played my part in that!  I feel a little guilty about deriving pleasure from someone else’s misfortune.  I hope it doesn’t make me a bad person.  Either way, I think I will enjoy it for today and then let it go.  After all, I have been waiting for something like this to come for a few years now!

The Little Things

A. Running Through Puddles

 

What changes from childhood to adulthood that makes it impossible to enjoy the little things in life?  A. was having the time of his life running and splashing through puddles tonight on our evening walk.  I couldn’t help but wonder why I wouldn’t get the same amount of joy and excitement from something as simple as jumping in the mud and the water.  Instead, I get hung up and stressed out about all the little things that really don’t matter and that are out of my control.

I am trying to make a concerted effort to be more mindful and “in the moment” – to really appreciate and enjoy the present moment as it is happening.  This week will be the perfect opportunity for me to start practicing: Tomorrow we are hopping on a plane to Disneyland!  There will be nothing more worth being in the moment for than my boys being in “the happiest place on earth.”

Wish me luck (and sanity) as I take two boys under three on a looong plane ride and into the fun of Disney!  And hopefully all my mindfulness and fun will help me relax and de-stress before I have to present my summer research at a conference in San Diego at the end of next week!  I’ll let you all know how it goes (the conference, the trip, and the mindfulness training) when I get back!

Daring Greatly!

After recounting my less-than-proud moment of vulnerability from last week, I decided to take up the advice of the student affairs coordinator at my college and look up some books by Dr. Brene Brown.  She researches and writes about “women and shame.”  It was highly recommended to me that I read Daring Greatly, so I looked up the book on her website and I found that she got the title of the book from Theodore Roosevelt’s famous speech, Citizenship in a Republic:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again,

because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause;

who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly . . .”

I wish I had read and thought hard about this quote before now.  I need to make this concept a reality if I am ever going to make it through the rest of my training  Needless to say, I will be reading this book.  In fact, it is already ordered and should be in my mailbox this week.  I hope.

Related articles

• Daring Greatly (williamgoblirsch.wordpress.com)
• I Want to Be in the Arena . . . Marred by Dust, Sweat and Blood (confessionsofanamerican.com)
• Such Wise Words (whatdoyareckon.wordpress.com)
• Daring Greatly: The Power to be Vulnerable (girlygirl.typepad.com)
• Tuesday TALKS: Brené Brown (inspirationfromamuse.wordpress.com)