Is my memory that bad? No.

So as I stood in the shower this morning, I wondered to myself whether I just had a bad memory or had blocked out whole years of my life or if it was just specific to my ex-husband.  So I thought back to the three years we spent in Minnesota, the first three years of our marriage.

I remember in detail what my first classroom as a teacher looked like, some of the students who passed through it, the crazy way I would act out words, the chemistry teacher down the hall that I would share about my experiences with the fog and clouds on my drive in, etc.  And it's not just the good parts of that first teaching job I remember.  I remember in detail the embarrassment in the moment I realized I had handed a dad a different child's grade printout, the parent who yelled at me when her daughter didn't get the high grade she expected on a project, the conversation when the principal let me know he would not be renewing my contract.

I can visualize in detail the condo we lived in, where the fish tanks sat, where I hung the fresh evergreen garland at Christmas, the tree in the front yard with berries that would ferment over winter and attract the Cedar Waxwings who I caught getting drunk off them one year, the boy across the street who would bounce soccer balls off our garage door sometimes, etc.  

But I can't visualize any of his parents' intrusive visits during the school year, the ones I only really remember from the journal entries I had written about them.  And although I still feel like I hold the tensions of the constant fights my ex-husband and I had, I don't remember the details and I can't visualize them.  All I have are the feelings that remain from them and the journal entries I wrote about them.  No wonder he was so easily able to convince me that I was to blame for those fights - I didn't remember enough to refute his claims.

Going back further to the time period I had convinced myself was so great, I can paint an elaborate picture of the places I lived in college, of the conversations I had with my closest friends, of the afterschool elementary Spanish program I started and wrote curriculum for, the chemistry professor who offered me a research opportunity, the student teaching experience I had with such a fun, older, eccentric teacher, the job I took at the local grocery store when we were living off campus, etc.  I even remember the long hours alone in my parents' brown van going back and forth to spend weekends with him.

But the visualizations I have that actually include him are far and few between.  I have no recollection of the conversations that clearly made me uncomfortable when he was suddenly changing his graduate school plans and pushing to move in together - those I read about in my journal.  I can't visualize how we interacted together in our first apartment.  And although I can walk you through the entire apartment - where all our stuff sat, how it was laid out, the path through the grass we had to shovel ourselves in the winter, etc., I can't picture him there with me.  His chair is empty when I walk through the apartment in my mind.

If the beginning was truly as great as I had convinced myself it was, why can't I remember those supposedly great memories?  Why has my brain selectively held onto all the memories in that time period that don't involve him but let go of the ones about him?

My therapist yesterday asked if I had lost more of these memories since the separation.  I really don't think so.  I think I discarded them many years ago as a coping mechanism to not counter my belief that the relationship was good or at least good enough, maybe I even subconsciously chose not to store some of them in the first place.  

Sometimes even with more recent memories, I remember telling someone shortly after the breakup that he would say or do X and they would ask me more about that and I couldn't come up with a single example which then made me doubt whether I was right in my initial claim that he had done or said X.  But then as I processed more and more of my marriage, I started finding journal entries, e-mails, notes, and other writings with detailed examples to back up the feelings I was still holding onto.  

There are still some things that I'm confident he did yet I can't come up with any details and I just have to trust my gut on them.  Sometimes there is a random piece of a memory to suggest my gut is right but other times I have nothing.   Like I have this sensation of repeatedly throughout our entire marriage of arguments ending with me soothing him and my issue getting pushed to the side.  I can't give you a single specific example of when this happened.  It's just this ingrained pattern in my body alongside one clear memory of a single sentence he said to me once (with a lot of attitude during an argument) that was something along the lines of "I know I'm not supposed to talk about me."  But I can't visualize a single thing more about the rest of that specific argument - what came before or what came after.

My body kept score of all that was happening to me.  It hung onto the feelings even as my mind tried to erase the details.

A setback

After therapy this afternoon, I took a two mile walk, stopped and sat on my therapy bench while I texted with my sister (and shed a few tears), and picked up a sushi burrito for dinner.  Now, that I've eaten I want to try and put to words some of what I am feeling.

I was scheduled for Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) this afternoon.  I was really hopeful going into it.  I'm now 21 months from the day I moved into my own half of the apartment we shared at that time, 1.5 years from the day the divorce was final, and not a day goes by that my ex-husband doesn't still cross my mind at least once bringing up negative emotions.  I had hoped this therapy would replace some of those negative emotions with something more neutral.  

We had barely started ART when panic flooded through me.  I got really hot as the tears started to flow and my body tensed up.  It all happened as I was realizing that I didn't actually have any visuals of so many of the earlier memories and so I didn't know how I was going to play the scenes of our marriage in my head if I couldn't visualize the events I knew had happened.

My therapist stopped the ART session at that point and turned her camera back on so we could talk through what I was feeling.

I had held onto the feelings and a vague timeline of events and could fill in a few details from re-reading my journals, but I had blocked out visuals of so many events.  I suppose that was my coping mechanism.

And then the realization struck me that even my early years couldn't have been good with him if I felt the need to disassociate and block out memories going back that far.  I had told myself over and over throughout the relationship that we had such an amazing start to the relationship, that our "honeymoon" phase had lasted a long time, as if clinging to it might make that time period return.  But what if that time period never actually existed?  That realization hit me like a bag of rocks.

I'm exhausted.  I'm physically and emotionally exhausted.  I have a headache that won't go away, both literally and figuratively.  I feel like today demonstrated that I haven't progressed as far as I thought I had.  It feels like a big setback.  I'm disappointed.  I'm disappointed that after all these months, I still have this big of a reaction to a man that was never worth my investment.  I'm disappointed that I didn't get to see if this therapy could help me.  I'm disappointed that I wasted two decades on him.  

And I'm angry at how he really fucked me up.  How someone can do that to a person they claimed to love and still sleep at night is beyond any comprehension.

As I sat on my therapy bench and texted my sister, she sent me the following graphic which helped me take a moment to laugh at how true this is about so much in life.  I joked that I had fallen into the lake in that graphic.

Now, I sit here alone in my apartment.  The sun has set.  A cool breeze drifts in.  It's quiet.  And despite everything I wrote in the paragraphs above, I know that I will be okay.  Tomorrow morning I'll be back on my scooter with the wind in my hair and a youthful glee ready to face another day.

Critical Thinking Skills

A topic came up with a colleague that is near and dear to the work I do.  It related to a couple of topics that had been in the news in recent months.   The news she had been reading grossly misrepresented the facts in each case.  I shared with her what I had seen in the data that was relevant which really contradicted what she had read.  She was really quick to dismiss me saying something to the effect of, "I don't have access to your statistics or information.  All I can rely on is the news."  That is where the conversation ended.

I've had similar conversations with other people and each time I walk away feeling so disappointed.  These are people who although may not understand the nuance of the specific topic, have some knowledge into what we do.  They are people I had always felt were reasonably intelligent.  And yet they are completely closed to anything I, a colleague someone they probably would call a friend, might have to say.

I suppose there was a day when the nightly news was reasonably objective.  Then we switched to this 24/7 news cycle with news "entertainment" companies thrown into the mix.  Add in social media and its algorithms and it feels like a losing game.

But it's not really new.  I remember a conversation I had with my ex-husband in the last 6 months or so we were together where he made a claim in support of Elon Musk.  It was a claim that didn't sound right to me but I hadn't done the research to know any different so I asked him more about it.  

His defenses were up before the question even fully left my lips.  He had only read the headline.  He claimed hadn't prepared a whole defense.  He didn't want me to question him.

I didn't want a thesis from him.  And he had to have known I wasn't universally against Musk at that time.  We had quite a few discussions about the complexities of him and what he had accomplished.  There is nuance to most topics.   (This was back in late 2023 or early 2024.)  So I was open to hearing more facts.  But I needed more than a headline.  I wanted details that I could analyze.  I wasn't willing to just take for fact something that had been written in some article.

I grew up with parents who demonstrated critical thinking skills consistently.  We didn't just assume the news was right.  We discussed it.  We compared it to other information we knew.  We checked sources.  We talked about other sources.  It wasn't criticism to question someone else's information, although it also didn't mean we had to agree with them.  There are still topics my Dad and I disagree on but when we discuss them, we discuss facts.  We don't dismiss each other.

I wasn't prepared for a relationship where I could not enter into discussions like that with my spouse.  And I wasn't prepared for a world where my colleagues would be quicker to trust their media sources than their colleagues who work directly in the field.  Do people not learn critical thinking skills growing up?

Unreciprocated ways I showed interest in his interests

Today's social media memories are concrete examples from two different years of the ways I would encourage my ex-husband's interests and join him in those interests even when it wasn't something that interested me.

On April 15, 2021, I followed him all around our local auto show where he did his best to try and sit in and inspect every car at the show.  I happily went because I cared about seeing him happy not because I had any interest in staring at cars for hours on end.

On April 15, 2024, we took a dune buggy excursion in the Dominican Republic where he got to off-road and get us all covered completely in mud.  It was an experience I never would have chosen for myself but I found it and booked because I wanted to see his joy.  My gimbal for my phone is still stained from the mud that covered it as I recorded our adventure, reminding me of this day each time I use it.

Yet, when we did something I wanted to do like go to a botanical gardens, he would spend the entire time alternating between complaining and burying himself in his phone.  

I don't regret showing up for him and what was important to him.  It's a positive reflection on my character.  

But his not showing up for me in similar ways was a sign of how self-absorbed he was and how unbalanced the relationship was that I probably should have paid a little closer attention to.  He was showing me his character in those moments.

Walkable Community - Walk until my mood improves

It feels like a snowball of little things going wrong that keep pulling me down.  And maybe that is happening at some level.  But I also wonder how much the anxiety of waiting on this Atlanta job is interfering with my perspective.  Regardless, I'm struggling but not horribly struggling because I'm also hanging onto some really good.

I couldn't convince myself to go to the hip hop cardio class at the park today.  I'm tired.  I didn't have the energy for a full hour high intensity workout.  I also wasn't ready to change out of the beautiful, bright yellow dress I wore today.  So I bargained with myself.  I decided I was willing to skip the class if, and only if I didn't let myself just sit at home all evening instead.  I wanted to replace the activity with something.

So I headed out.  Several young women in the apartment complex down the street were looking out from their second floor pool deck and called down to compliment me on the dress.  That became a theme throughout the night.  I have never received so many compliments from so many people on a dress before.  Strangers even smiled at me as they passed on the street.

I wandered through Railroad Park.  I stopped to admire the American Coot floating in the pond.  It's not a common species for the park but one usually shows up for no more than a day once or twice a year.

I grabbed tacos at a local Mexican restaurant, snagging a counter seat that looks out onto the street which was full of activity.

Then I continued on to the local wine garden I have come to love.  The wine is always interesting and the people are fun to watch.  Today, I was an inspiration for the woman sitting at the table next to me.  She watched me sit calmly as a wasp circled around me, inspected me, and then flew off.  She acknowledged she would have panicked and was impressed with how I handled it.  She told me she was going to channel my inspiration.

I continued on to another outdoor seating area where I just sat and took in the warm weather while planning my next move.

Eventually I found myself walking into my local grocery store with the goal of purchasing flowers and dessert.  They had the mini apple pies I love and the large containers of Bryers Oat Milk ice cream.  And there was this beautiful bouquet of flowers that were mostly yellow that perfectly matched my dress.  I checked out with the most pleasant cashier that left me with a smile on my face as I walked out the door.

On my way home, I walked through Railroad Park once more.  This time the Great Blue Heron was hanging out on the edge of the pond so I took a moment to say hi to him.  He has been a frequent visitor these last few days.  

About three hours later I was back in my kitchen, trimming my flowers, warming my apple pie, and sitting down to dessert.  And the whole night felt like a huge success.

This is a benefit of a walkable community.  When I'm having a tough day, I can go out and just keep walking until my mood improves.

And to memorialize the yellow dress, here I am, a reflection in a storefront window.

Grief over a restaurant closing

My favorite restaurant closed permanently yesterday.  I didn't realize it when I scootered by this morning but thought it weird that the bar stools were down instead of turned upside down on the bar as they usually are in the morning before opening.  It wasn't until a headline crossed my phone that it registered why.

This is the restaurant friends met me at the day I moved out and the same restaurant friends celebrated at with me one year later.  It's the place where I started learning to talk to other people, especially with a certain bartender who I always hoped to catch.  It was a space where people remembered me and welcomed me.

It's where I went for delicious chocolate cake when I really didn't want to eat dinner.  It's where I often went because my fridge is perpetually empty.   

It feels like such a big loss.

I almost stopped in yesterday.  I kind of wish I had so I could have one last  meal although I wouldn't have known in the moment that it would be my last.  I suppose we never know when our last moment of anything will be until it is over.

I joked today as I tried to process that clearly, the only solution is to move.

I chatted with a work friend last week about some of my disappointments with friends and she told me that I probably have or will outgrow them all, including her.  I don't know that I will truly outgrow all of them but I do think there is some truth to what she said.  My growth has been so accelerated this past year and a half that it is only logical that some (maybe even much) of what I came to know and love during this time will stay behind in this season when I move on (to whatever is next in store for me).

And based on my reaction to this restaurant closing, there is definitely going to be some grief in this process.

A Symbolic Puzzle

I started this 1000 piece puzzle on February 15, almost two months ago.  It's been sitting there so long, there is a thin layer of pollen that has covered it and been stirred up over it.  With how much I keep my windows open, my entire apartment has a thin layer of pollen everywhere.  Maybe this wasn't the best season to work on a puzzle.  Although, I probably fully expected to finish it before pollen season began.

It's really hard.  The pond and her hair went fairly quickly. But what's left is various shades of green with irregular puzzle piece shapes.  I often only find one or two pieces to place each day.  I feel stuck.  I want my kitchen table back.  But I can't bring myself to give up.  I also can't get myself to sit at it long enough to make any real progress.

It's this daily reminder of a challenge that feels like something I can't overcome.  It's an image from Atlanta, a reminder of the months I have been waiting on the job I want, a reminder of the puzzle pieces I'm still waiting to fall into place.  Maybe that's why I can't give up.

I feel like there are so many aspects of my life where I'm just stuck in this waiting pattern, waiting for the last puzzle pieces to fall in place - waiting to start a new chapter in a new city, waiting for the intrusive thoughts about my marriage and ex-husband to fade away as I continue to heal, waiting for the next shoe to drop at my office as we continue our time of transition, waiting for the migratory birds to arrive and the herons to nest and hatch babies, etc.

So this unfinished puzzle of the Earth Goddess at the Atlanta Botanical Garden just feels symbolic.  I'm tired of feeling stuck and I'm tired of looking at it. 

Today's Social Media Memory

I suppose one advantage to taking a break from social media during Lent was that I was not reminded of the past with memories.  That's good and bad though.  I really enjoy so many of the memories.  He's not even in many of my memory posts.  And even the ones that do include a photo of him, he is rarely the focus and it's often a moment I enjoy reliving.

But today's made my breath catch and my stomach drop.  It was Easter of 2020, six years ago.  I enjoyed coffee on the balcony, watched my church's service virtually, and then my ex-husband and I made pupusas, a traditional filled tortilla common in El Salvador.  Most of the photos on that post are of the two of us making and then enjoying the pupusas.

In the photos, I look so young and happy.  The joy in my eyes and face radiates out.

He on the other hand, has barely a smile with a look of irritation behind it.  I don't know why but I still find myself a bit surprised when I come across a new photo where his look seems irritated or empty (the two most common expressions I see in photos) going back many years.  And it doesn't even seem to matter if the photo was taken while we were doing something he really wanted to do.  

I pulled a book off my shelf my Dad made from our 2013 family trip when we took an excursion in Belize that he talked about for years as the best excursion he ever took.  It was one where he had the chance to drive a left-land drive jeep off-road through deep puddles.  His expressions in those photos are empty.  There is just no real joy in his eyes and his smile is never more than a half-smile.  

I suspect life has just always been miserable to him.  And I think I knew that all along and hoped my joy would counter his misery.  But maybe my joy was just a daily reminder to him of how miserable he was.

Accelerated Resolution Therapy

Tomorrow I'm trying a different therapy called Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART).

My therapist brought it up months ago and at that time, my whole body physically reacted to the idea.  I remember the flood of emotions that I tried to understand as she explained it to me.  I don't know if I truly could articulate why my body responded the way it did.  I feared a loss of self in a process that sounded like manipulating memories.  

But in hindsight I wonder if I just wasn't ready to sever the ties that had to be severed to reframe my mind's response to what I had been through.  One thing I've learned from all this is that sometimes our bond to the familiar is so strong it feels impossible to break away from the toxic. 

Then a couple of weeks ago as I sat in session unsure of what I needed at this point yet still feeling really stuck, my therapist brought ART up again.  I didn't have the same physical reaction to the idea this time so in true Enneagram type 5 fashion, I asked her to send me some information so I could learn a little more about it.  She sent me several Ted Talks on ART.

Last year, I attended an interview course that included some sessions on memory - how it is stored, recalled, and re-stored, how fragile it is, etc.  That course prompted me to read a good portion of the book Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman which allowed me to digger deeper into how our brains work.  That knowledge brings a double-edged sword to my thought process about this therapy.  

There is fear because I understand how fragile memory is and how easily our brains can be manipulated.  As I try to re-ground myself and untwist the distortions my ex left me with, I crave an understanding of what is truly real.  Manipulating my brain goes against that even as I recognize the positive end results of this therapy.

On the flip side, my layman's understanding of how the brain works helps me understand how a therapy like this could be highly effective.  So even though the idea that such a transformation can happen in one session sounds a bit crazy, I actually don't doubt that it will work.  I don't understand all the science behind it but I know it doesn't take much to change memories and thus our reactions to those memories.

I said yes to scheduling the session because I'm tired of how I still react to thoughts of him.  Even as I walk past his empty apartment, I feel something rush through my body for a moment.  I really wish he had never moved into that apartment when we had separated.  He could have chosen another complex.  He could have chosen an apartment that faced into the courtyard I never enter.  He could have picked a higher level where I wouldn't have been eye level as I walked past.  Anything would have been better.  And I know this will all become mute if/when I move, hopefully to Atlanta but it's not the only trigger.

Even though moving to Atlanta will mean leaving behind most of the memories with him, there is still a bench and a frog pond at the Atlanta Botanical Garden that haunts me.  And there's still the intrusive thoughts on nights I can't sleep.  And even intrusive thoughts throughout the day.  As I told my friend last night in an overly simplistic explanation, I'd like to stop the utterance of the word "asshole" under my breath whenever his name or face crosses my mind.

So tomorrow, I'm giving this therapy a shot.  I don't do things half-heartedly so the fact that I scheduled it set in motion something I'm ready to follow through on.  I am a bit nervous.  I will admit that.  But I'm also incredibly curious.  And I'm hopeful.

Two late-night meaningful texts

I woke up to late night texts from two different friends and had tears in my eyes before my day even started.  I couldn't help but notice they were both sent at exactly the same time.  Two people were thinking of me on a late Friday night in the middle of what I know to be an incredibly busy time in their lives right now.

One of them is from a friend at work who probably has had the most up close seat of my journey this last year and a half.  She sent me a really uplifting and humorous Instagram Reel of a woman forcing me to take back my crown with a message to go out there and be great and to not let anyone knock my crown off my head again.  In a world where so many people feel the need to compete and put others down, I'm intentionally trying to find people like this friend whose only goal is to uplift and support.

The other text was from the woman I had an impromptu, although brief dinner with last night.  I initially got to know her as a colleague but she has since moved on to another position so I don't get to see her all that often.  She also has a lot of responsibilities at home that take up much of her time.  But she is probably the one I have connected to the most since the divorce.  Her text was an expression of gratitude for our time together last night on a tough day for her.  (She was in my neighborhood visiting her Dad in the hospital.)  She probably doesn't fully understand how much I needed that impromptu dinner too.

I've been feeling a bit disappointed in both my friend groups and the repeated "no"s I've been getting along with cancellations.  Maybe I struggle more with this after realizing how low of a priority I was to my ex-husband and even how growing up, my sister's needs (which were greater) took precedence and friendships repeatedly disappeared overnight.  

And so as I was building this community that seemed so great, it hit hard these last few months, when I was reminded that I still am not that high of a priority to anyone.  I think it triggered a fear of being abandoned again as it seems like no one ever sticks around.  I think I even had convinced myself that I wouldn't miss them if/when I move to Atlanta with the excuse that I see them so rarely anyway.  My fancy meal out Thursday night after everyone cancelled on me was probably at least partly a coping skill to deal with the disappointment.

But there is nuance to this.  As expected, I don't have the same level of connection and depth to everyone in my community.  And it just so happens that the one I'm the closest to and who probably has the most interest in making time for me has the most overwhelming other responsibilities in her life.  So more casual friendships that very reasonably don't prioritize me combined with deeper friendships with people who are a bit overwhelmed in life at the moment created this unsettling lull.  And the damage done to my trust from the divorce made me a little too quick to write it all off.

Nights like this

Some friends and I had set aside this evening to get together without setting firm plans.  As the day came closer, I reached out to finalize plans and one by one, they all bowed out.  This is the third attempt in two months to try and get together with these friends.  It looks like a pattern that doesn't feel too good.  But that is not what I want to write about today.

You see, I took this free evening as an opportunity.  I have been wanting to go back to that really nice Japanese restaurant for quite some time now.  So on my way there, I passed through the park and admired the new leaves on the trees and the blooming irises.  There was a giddiness in me that bubbled over.

At the restaurant, I ordered the sushi appetizer with smoke that left me in awe and I tried a new cocktail with ceremonial grade matcha in it (whatever that is) and I took the waitress's suggestion for a chicken dish that was recently added to their menu.  Everything was so beautiful in its presentation.  Every bite and sip was like inhaling a little bit of joy.  It wasn't just a meal.  It was an experience.

Then I walked home and stopped in the package room to get the items I had ordered online earlier this week - a new dress and a new jumper that may be my favorite new outfit.  It's colorful.  It's funky.  And it is so me.

And the evening ended with a call from my parents.  I feel so grateful for the depth that has developed in our relationships since the divorce.  They have not only been a solid support every single step of the way but we have also grown so much closer.  I enjoy their conversations so much.

So as I sit here enjoying the night air that fills my apartment, reflecting on the night, I can't help but smile.  It almost feels like more joy than is possible in a single night.  I'm going to hold onto this feeling.

A communication pattern that left me constantly confused

I don't know what made me think of this but there was a pattern in my ex-husband's communication that used to drive me absolutely nuts.  Now that I have healthier interactions with family and friends around me, I realize how incredibly toxic this pattern was.  And it is so wonderful to not have to experience it anymore.

Whenever he told a story (even mundane day to day stories) or tried to explain his thought process on something, there would be significant gaps in the story that made it very difficult to follow what he was saying or understand him.  I would ask follow up questions or sometimes even pause him mid-story because I had no clue what he was talking about which would just make him so irritated with me.  My mind was always in a state of constant confusion as I tried to piece together the few pieces of the puzzle he would give me.

And then he would criticize me for asking too many questions as if it was my fault he was leaving out key details.  I always wondered if he expected me to be able to read his mind.  But maybe there was something he gained by keeping me confused.

Maybe this is just not my week

They started the exercise classes in the park for the year, so I joined Hip Hop Cardio this evening.  It was the same instructor that I really liked from last year.  And she started the routine with the same song and routine she always did.  And that is where the familiarity ended.  

We quickly went from new song to new song with too many different moves that I couldn't see well from my vantage point in the back and so couldn't follow.  And she didn't take time between songs to walk us through a few of the key steps like she did last year.  That's when I realized she wasn't talking to us at all and seemed to have no microphone.  Hopefully, it just wasn't working this week and next week will be back to what I remember from last year.  Because I wasn't getting anything out of tonight's class and so I left after a half hour.

That's two nights in a row where I went to a dance class full of hope and excitement and left feeling disappointed.  Although yesterday was more about me and my headspace.  Today was probably a combination of my headspace and outside circumstances.  

I wonder if this waiting game after a deflating application process over the weekend has left me with some underlying unsettled feelings.  

Or maybe it is frustration over the start of the paining project at work that I fully expect to include a lot of chaos.  They are so adamant that telework isn't an option that I fear we will all be frozen (from the AC being on full blast to try to help with ventilation) and sick from the fumes before the month is over.  I still have to pack up my office and find space in my 500 square foot studio to temporarily store my personal work stuff.

But all of this seems so small on a day that started with a message from our president that "a whole civilization will die".

Stuck in my head

I got stuck in my head this evening.

When I get really frustrated and struggle with successfully doing something I want to do, tears well up in my eyes and I lose clarity, both of which are very counterproductive.  But there is such a stubbornness in me that refuses to give up so I keep trying, even though the fog of frustration often means I continue to stumble.  I get stuck in my head in a way that is hard to shake.

It doesn't happen with every challenge. I think it's times when my mindset isn't in the right place for such a challenge - the perfect storm.

Tonight as I stood in the middle of my African Rhythms class, the drums beating, people's feet moving and arms swaying around me, I couldn't make sense of the movements and so my feet stayed stuck.  Eventually, I forced them to do something as I stumbled to follow.

In a break, the instructor asked each of us how we were feeling.  I admitted I was feeling "a bit more lost today."  She encouraged us all to just focus on the feet and keep the arms steady, if we were struggling - one thing at a time.  And then she focused extra encouragement my direction and danced along side me as my line made its way forward.  

All evening, I wavered between stumbling and then finding a move I felt more confident in and then stumbling again.  Every time my line came to the front, I tried to see it as a new start.

I never gave up.  I made it through the entire class.  But I was disappointed as I walked out, in the way my head interfered with the normal de-stressing effect of giving into the rhythms and movements of my body.

A Lent without Social Media - what's next now that Lent is over?

Social media - the good, the bad, the ugly.

On Ash Wednesday, I deleted Facebook, Instagram, and Threads from my phone and closed those tabs on my laptop.  I told myself I would take a break from social media this Lent.

It was an impulse in reaction to the mindless way I found myself navigating to my ex-husband's Instagram page on a day when I knew he was on a cruise with his new fiancee.  And not just any cruise, the deposit from that cruise came from one of the trips we had booked together during a time period he was lying about how much he loved me and how great things were going between us.  In that moment on Ash Wednesday, I realized there was nothing healthy about reminding myself of that wound.

It's Easter today.  Lent is over.  I've peaked at my accounts on my iPad but haven't redownloaded the apps on my phone or reopened the windows on the laptop I use so much.  And I haven't posted anything yet.  I hesitate because social media has such a complicated effect.

I was among the last of people I knew to join any platforms.  Even my parents had Facebook accounts before I had anything.  I still remember the day I joined Instagram.  I was at the Milwaukee Art Museum at an after-hours silent disco event in the middle of the dance floor with my headphones on.  My ex-husband was actually out there dancing with me which upon reflection is a bit strange - he hated to dance and I can only count on one hand the number of times he danced with me.  This would be one of those times.

But back to the story, they had a giant screen up on the wall that was displaying what looked like people's photos live from the event.  I wanted to join in with my own photo so as I danced, I created an Instagram account, took a photo, typed the right hashtag so the Art Museum would find my photo, and a few minutes later saw my own photo up on the screen.

Slowly my Instagram account then morphed into a curated account of my photography as that hobby grew and my photography skills really improved.  Then at some point, when we started traveling more, I created a second account to celebrate my love of traveling.  These accounts have been an overwhelming positive space for me.  They are communities of people around the world with shared interests.

I almost wish my ex-husband had never joined Instagram.  I don't know why he did.  He was anti-social media for much of our marriage and given his career did his best to minimize his online presence.  Maybe it was during the pandemic he joined?  I don't remember exactly.  But this was the only platform he ever joined, at least that I'm aware of.  It is only the temptation of navigating to his account that makes me hesitate to jump back into Instagram.  Otherwise, I miss those communities.

I joined Facebook during the pandemic because my church was doing so much on Facebook to keep everyone connected when we couldn't meet in person.  I've kept my friends list limited to just those who I have met in person.  It's given me a chance to keep more up to date on cousins and extended family I never get to see.  It's been a way to foster friendships with people at church.  

And since the separation, it has been an outlet for me to write and share a little bit of my experience - a carefully curated version of this blog that my friends interact with.  There is a depth to what I write but it exists on a superficial platform.  It is a way to share an authentic piece of me but still carefully selected piece of that authenticity.  It's not a replacement for the deeper conversations that I long for but it is a way to feel seen and heard after decades of feeling invisible.  It has helped me feel just a little less alone in my journey.

But I hate the Facebook algorithm.  Mixed in with the posts I want to read from my friends are unsolicited posts and videos that so often are targeted at what I am struggling with most at that time.  

And I was really getting sick of the astrology posts which were so quick to remind me that a Capricorn and a Sagittarius could never make it as a couple, although the reasons given were so far off from the reality of my ex-husband and I.  Maybe those posts were a bit triggering because later in our marriage, my ex-husband suddenly started taking an interest in astrology and even went to get a reading several times, including that last spring.  I've often wondered what role that played in the end.  It seemed like one more thing to feed into some distorted version of what life should be vs what in reality it is.

So the really positive aspects of Facebook get lost in an algorithm meant to pull me down and feed into my negative emotions.  Isn't it sad how anger, bitterness, and even war are money makers?  Peace doesn't sell because it is boring.  How do I hang onto those positive interactions and writing outlet in Facebook without letting the negativity of the algorithm pull me down?

That leaves Threads - I turned to Threads as a way to get a pulse on what people think.  I had lost my subscription to the Washington Post and really missed the interactions I would have in the comments sections.  It also became a place where I could connect with other women with similar experiences for support and encouragement and to feel a little less alone.

One positive thing about Threads is that it is the easiest algorithm to manipulate.  So as long as I stay self-aware of how the content is affecting me, I can shift what I see when it turns too negative by just interacting more with the content that makes me feel more positive.  On the flip side, that also means, I don't get as accurate of a representation of reality because I'm in control of the pieces of the world I see.  It can quickly feel like everyone believes "X" on Threads when in reality, I'm only being shown posts with "X" viewpoint.

All this discussion of social media and its effect on me reminds me of something I read recently about the uniqueness of my micro-generation, Xennials.  I was in my teens when we entered the digital world.  I was old enough to remember and have learned to navigate the world before it and my brain was still maturing making it easy to learn the digital world without the anxiety that so often comes with learning something new as an adult.  This leaves me feeling fully confident in either world but it doesn't make me immune from the harmful effects of algorithms.

I don't know how I'm going to navigate some sort of re-entry into social media, maybe just one step at a time.  I know I have a ton of tulip photos from my trip to the Atlanta Botanical Garden a few weeks back that I would love to share on Instagram.  Maybe I'll start there as that is probably my positive space.

Application submitted

Yesterday evening, I hit submit on my application for the job in Atlanta.  I didn't answer the optional essay questions that weren't sitting well with me.  And then I immediately got an e-mail about three online assessments I needed to take.

I started the first one right away.  It reminded me of the LSAT.  There was a time years ago, when I really got into the logic questions of the LSAT.  I can remember the workbooks and practice tests I poured over one summer.  I always thought I was fairly good at them.  These though, seemed harder and some of them didn't seem to have a right answer.  There is one that even after the fact, I've replayed many times the various possible answers and none of the choices they gave fit.  I don't know if I'm just not as sharp as I used to be and I was missing something or if these were more poorly written or even just wrong.

It was deflating and it probably didn't help that I was also still wondering if I had made the right decision about the essays.  So I closed my computer figuring I could do the other two assessments in the morning, put my shoes on, and headed out to happy hour at the Greek restaurant next door.  The bartender I enjoy chatting with was working so the evening went by fast.  Plus, a couple of older men sat next to me for a while that were really fun to chat with.  

It was enough to put me in a bit of a better mindset to be able to sleep decently last night.  Then this morning after my coffee, I opened up my laptop and clicked on the link to take the last two assessments.  I question their value as it relates to this job but at least these seemed quite a bit easier, although quite time consuming.

With those complete, I felt like I could breathe easier.  I had managed everything within my control.  Whatever comes of this will turn out just as it is supposed to.

So I walked to the grocery store in this beautiful weather, bought myself flowers, picked up my favorite lunch from Cava on the way home, had a nice phone call with my parents, and started thinking about whether I wanted to plan a full weekend in Atlanta to see more of Midtown.  

Struggles

I froze last night.  I ended my therapy session with a lot of thoughts and feelings bouncing around in my head and body as a headache started to form.  I opened up my blog to write but nothing would come out.  

So then I turned to my job application and the new essay questions they have added to the process.  And I got stuck on how I felt about the questions so never even got to the point of writing the first word in response.  At one point, I put my sandals on and went for a walk to try and clear my head but the problem wasn't a lack of clarity so it didn't actually help.

As I drifted off to sleep, I weighed the pros and cons in my head of not answering the essay questions.  The instructions say they are not required and will not be scored, but what does that actually mean?  The current times we are in as well as my healing journey from my divorce has repeatedly reminded me of the option of deciding not to take a particular action.  I don't know if that is the right choice here or not.

It's kind of interesting how re-finding myself after the divorce has brought out in me a better alignment with my values and morals and thus a better awareness of the ways I was not in alignment.  It has made me a lot more intentional about the ways I move through life.  And it comes at a time that has repeatedly tested my ability to weigh consequences and find creative ways to stay in alignment.  If I had still been married, I don't think I would have had that much awareness to be this intentional.

So after really struggling last evening, I went to bed feeling a bit down and like I had accomplished nothing.  But I think that dismisses the value of the struggle and the analysis playing through my head.  My best decisions come when I give myself some space to struggle with them.  A lot of growth has come from this intentional way I'm now looking at life.

I'll figure this out and get my application submitted this weekend.  And then I'll start packing up my office because whether I get this job or not, my current employer will be painting later this month and my walls are presently covered with my photos.  Hopefully, my office personal stuff will be able to just stay in boxes until I'm in a new space.