How my mind works

I'm reading the book titled Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman and finding it quite fascinating to better understand how my mind works.  And it's really quite relevant as I try and make sense of why I made the decisions I made, how I chose what to ignore, and what I was willing to tolerate for so long.  It's applicable not only as I heal from my divorce but also as I make sense of the ways I interact with friends, family, colleagues, etc.  So although my understanding is still in its infancy, I'm going to try to put together some of my thoughts here.

Most of our day is governed by the intuition of our System 1.  System 1 is constantly taking information in, making associations, and recommending decisions to our System 2 which accepts a lot of those recommendations without too much thought.  System 2 is our more conscious thought process that kicks in when there is something that we feel needs more analysis.

One really interesting point Kahneman made was that if our cognitive load is high it can overload our System 2 such that our System 1 has to step in and make decisions without the benefit of the analysis available to System 2.  This can result in making less than ideal decisions that take into account a very limited portion of the information we have.

So in the case of my ex-husband, I now realize he and the relationship really drained me and based on my physical pain, there likely was underlying stress.  These are things that would have increased my cognitive load and made my thought process more inefficient, depending more on System 1 for things that System 2 probably should have handled.

Now let's talk about biases.  Confirmation bias is a bias I was previously aware of although hadn’t really considered the extent of the role it plays.  It is the idea that based on our prior experience and beliefs, we have a preconceived idea of how something should be and so we focus more on the facts that confirm those beliefs and ideas.  Our brain much prefers when things fit neatly into the world view we already hold.

The halo effect exaggerates emotional consistency.  It puts more weight on the information we learn first, our first impressions.  Subsequent information is mostly wasted.  

The author gave an example from his teaching days.  Each of his students had written two essays that he needed to grade.  At first he read both essays for each student one after another.  What he found is that a student who had written a strong essay for the first one and a weak one for the second one would ultimately receive higher scores overall than a student who had done the same but in reverse order (a weak one first followed by a strong one).  His impressions and assumptions about the student he gained from the first essay were strongly influencing how he graded the second one.

So if I put myself back at the beginning of the relationship with my now ex-husband, I was coming in with a world view of what I thought marriage was.  My parents have a stable marriage with reasonably good communication that they modeled for us.  Throughout my life I had watched them consider each other in small and big ways.  This was honestly all I really knew in any depth about marriage.  So I went into this marriage looking to confirm that my marriage would be the same.

In addition, we had quite the amazing first year.  He was showing me all kinds of ways he was considering me and pouring into me and our relationship.  He was kind.  He was attentive.  He was fun.  He was supportive.  And he was sharing the same values I held.  His parents were even doing the same in the way they were welcoming and loving me.  They were all on their best behavior giving off a pretty great first impression.  That first year of positive impressions held so much weight in my mind that when things shifted, it was easy to ignore the new information.  That new information was wasted.

Kahneman repeats often what he has abbreviated WYSIATI, "What you see is all there is" to describe the mental shortcut we use when we don't account for missing information.  I suppose that applies to both information we have not yet come across and information we have chosen to ignore.  

I held on so firmly to the image of him that showed up in that first year probably because it was my first impression of him and also probably because the new information was so incongruent with that earlier version of him and with my world view.  For cognitive ease, my brain focused on the earlier impressions that fit more easily into my world view. 

And then as life got stressful in those early years of marriage and I then developed chronic pain, my cognitive load increased to the point I imagine I was depending too much on System 1 to get me through each day.

I'm not going to spend the time to elaborate here but I can see ways this is relevant to friendships I've had over the years as well.

So knowledge is power, right?  Theoretically, if I know my mind will try to take these mental shortcuts and follow my biases, I should be able to use that information to pause and give my System 2 time to better reflect on relationships in my life.  I say this recognizing that my ability to predict my future actions is pretty poor.  But understanding the traps I’ve previously fallen into will make me more aware of what to look for in the future to try and avoid repeating some of those same mistakes.

My Paintings and the Insight They Might Provide

As I brushed my teeth this morning, I took time to actually look at the paintings in my bathroom and then the ones in my living room as I followed this train of thought.  There was a time in my life where I got into acrylic painting.  With each move, I disposed of more and more of the paintings I had done, especially the larger ones and most recently the ones my ex-husband and I did as a pair.  But I held onto nine that I still really liked.

There are four of them though that really caught my attention this morning.  They are different from the rest in that they are a bit dark.  The remaining five are much more positive with things like birch trees, whimsical flowers, black-eyed Susans reaching for silver clouds, etc.  

My focus had always been the beautiful monarch while I ignored the spiraling hole ready to suck the monarch into the unknown.

Chaos inside the home, looking out at the peace outdoors

Two sparrows in a hurricane (there is a country song about this) -
the reds and yellows are such angry colors

The opposites of sky and sea/day and night and getting caught in the wrong one.  
Nothing is quite as it seems.

My mind is trying to place them in a context.  I didn't take any photos of them in real time and so I believe they must have been before I got my first smartphone in early 2016 (yes, I was very late to the smart phone scene).  I don't think I got into painting until sometime after we bought our house in 2010.  So they were likely painted between late 2010 and 2015.  The problems we had as a couple that lead us to couple's counseling were later (2017 and 2018).

I don't actually remember any problems during that time period.  I was learning to garden and getting distracted by the butterflies that my flowers would attract.  We were setting up bird feeders in our backyard and had a list on the fridge of all the species we had seen and in what months.  I would hang laundry out on the lines even in the winter and the chickadees would keep my company.

We were starting to travel a bit more on our own.  I was tracking all the state parks we visited as we tried to get to them all.  I was singing in the Brookfield Civic Chorus and he had gotten into Tae Kwon Do.  He was finally in a career he enjoyed.  I was still finding my way as this was the early years of my transition to the legal field.  These were the years I drove some fun VWs, probably my favorite cars, first Lolita the diesel Jetta, then Snowflake and Cielo, two Beetle Convertibles - all stick shifts.

My chronic pain got to its worst in the middle of this time period (late 2012 to probably at least 2015).  I think it was in 2012, I started working with a really good therapist (so the beginning of some real growth for me), first to overcome my phobia of needles so it was likely later that year, I started with the WISH clinic to try and treat my pelvic pain.  Sadly, the treatments I went through with them spread the pain to my hips and lower back so what once was just pain during intercourse became a daily, constant, excruciating pain.  

Is the darkness in these paintings a reflection of the physical pain I was experiencing?  And if that physical pain was a response to (perhaps subconscious) stress from my relationship (which I think is quite possible), could the darkness in these paintings be a reflection of something deeper?  

And isn't it interesting that when I think back on those years, I first am reminded of all the joy before the pain even comes to my mind?  Just think of the way this post progressed from "I don't actually remember any problems during that time period" to a description several paragraphs later of the "excruciating pain" I was experiencing in those years.

I don't know that I got any answers from this journey this morning reflecting on these paintings but it was a bit fascinating to contemplate.  I don't want to end this post though without a reminder of the joy I found during this same period, so here are the other five paintings I did.

This one was probably a bit later because I know it was painted at the Milwaukee Art Museum during their spring Art in Bloom event - so this was probably April of 2017 or April of 2018.

My relationship with my body

I stood in front of the mirror this morning as I combed my hair and put deodorant on and danced a bit in my underwear.  My relationship with my body has changed so much over the past year.

Before the separation, I'm not sure I ever truly saw myself.  I didn't spend much time in front of the mirror.  I think there were many days I didn't even look in the mirror before going out - running a comb through my hair as I focused on something else seemed like enough.  Once or twice, I caught myself with my shirt on backwards or inside out and got a good laugh but other than that I didn't pay much attention.

I don't know that I had a negative image of myself, maybe more of a neutral image, but in hindsight I wonder if a comment my ex-husband made to me years ago stuck with me more than I thought it did.  I guess the fact that I still remember it probably answers that question (this isn't one of those things I had forgotten but recently read in a journal entry, it's something that stuck in my memory without having to record it).  He told me he didn't find me attractive anymore.

That all changed on August 8, 2024.  (I know the exact date because I actually wrote about it here.)  That was the first day I took the time to pause and really look at myself.  Even before I went back to find the blog entry and the exact day, the moment and the way I felt in that moment is still very vivid in my mind.

Then last September, I joined a divorce group where each week we were encouraged to write a mirror message to ourselves (a post-it note that we put on the mirror that week) which brought me back to that mirror more and more.  Each time I looked at the reflection looking back at me I saw more of myself.

And then I stopped shaving my legs.  It took some time to once again get used to how it looked and felt.  I leaned into that experience, paying attention to every feeling, thought, and sensation.  It connected me to my body in a way I didn't expect.

Through it all, I was also tracking my weight loss, concerned about how fast I was losing weight which made me more in tune with my eating, sleeping, and exercise habits to try and find a better balance.  I was also noticing the changes to my chronic pain, my menstrual cycle, and even the beginning of some night sweats during the most stressful times.

As I finally found space to truly feel all of life's emotions, I started to notice the ways my body warned me of things I didn't yet fully understand on a conscious level.  I still have so many moments like that.  Someone will say something or a thought will cross my mind and a flush of sensations will unexpectedly rush through my body making me completely pause.

And there was the joy I finally felt free to experience in the way dresses swirled around me, in how bright colors lifted my mood, and even the feel of heavy rain soaked fabrics as I danced in the rain.

I don't know that I had a real negative body image before, at least not on a conscious level.  But I definitely didn't see the beautiful woman I see now.  I didn't take the time to admire and experience the awe of the complexity and wonder of my body.  I don't recall ever dancing in front of the mirror in my underwear as I got ready in the morning.

Thankful

I spent some time at Artwalk last night, a weekend event where they close down the street, set up hundreds of booths for artists to sell their work, have poetry readings and songwriter showcases, and restaurants spill out onto sidewalks while food trucks pull up.  I bought a bag from an artist with the quote that really resonated with me especially with all I've done the last year, "When writing the story of your life, don't let anyone else hold the pen."

And then I ran into someone from choir.  I showed her my new bag and she told me that she has been lurking on my Facebook and is really glad I'm finding my way.

Along the same lines, I have a colleague at work who has told me she is fascinated watching my evolution and how I have come out of my shell.  She said she didn't know how interesting I was until this last year.  This week I admitted to her that I'm pretty fascinated by my own evolution too.

With these thoughts in my head, I walked home yesterday evening with my new bag and I thought to myself, the only thing left I would say to my ex-husband (if given the chance) is "Thank you for the lessons I learned from our relationship.  I just wish you hadn't been so cruel when the lessons were over."

If we had stayed together, he would still at times be holding the pen as my story was written, maybe not through the specific decisions I made (I didn't fully give up my autonomy) but through the way he defined me and limited the space for me.

I sometimes wonder if I would have so boldly stepped out into this journey of (re)discovering myself in my 20s if I had stayed single for some time instead of marrying so young or even in my 30s if we had separated when he had developed feelings for and was investing in his boss more than he was investing in me.  In either case, I likely would have stayed close to home, maybe even temporarily moved in with my parents, and thus leaned on family a lot more.  In my 40s now, being so far away and having had life experiences that built so much independence, I was both forced to and better equipped to dive into building something better completely on my own.

The thought has also crossed my mind that if he had ended the relationship with integrity, empathy, and clear communication, would I really have learned these same lessons?  Would it have been enough of a push to evolve in the direction I'm currently headed?  Maybe the cruelty (as painful and difficult as it was) was part of the lesson I needed to learn.

So now that I feel the weight of the pen back in my hands, I am truly grateful and hopeful to watch this new life I'm building unfold.  I know more about who I am than I did even a year ago.  I have more direction.  My life has more meaning and purpose.  And I am lighter, freer, and more joyful than ever before.

Grace

It's been more than a year since the separation and I still have grace for him.  I see with clarity the way he drained my energy, dimmed my light, and put a lid on my joy and I still have grace for him.  I've sat in the pain he caused, pain that still shows up from time to time, and I still have grace for him.  In discovering my own likes and preferences, I'm reminded of how I often I just took the leftover instead of what I wanted, and I still have grace for him.

Why?

In therapy last night, we talked a lot about the fantasy him vs. the real him.  In reflecting, he put on so much pretense that I struggle to separate the two versions of him.  In looking for some completely unrelated e-mail this morning, I stumbled upon one he sent me from August 2019 that starts in larger font "You're the One for Me" and then goes on to describe so many reasons why I'm the one for him.  Was that pretense?  Was that real?  Some mix of both?  There were highs like this (and others that involved more concrete actions) throughout the entire marriage.  Did the real him show up in any of these moments?  Or is the real him just the low moments including the way he ended it all?

I think grace allows me to leave room for that which I do not understand.  I recognize that very little in life is black and white.  Most things are far more complex and nuanced.

There were too many things about him that truly felt genuine even all the way to the end.  As one example, someone out to intentionally cause pain would have made the divorce a painful process.  I've seen it happen with so many others but I actually experienced the quite opposite - he was so cooperative and willing to compromise as we divided the material aspects of the life we had built together.  That doesn't excuse or dismiss the pain he did actually cause but it leaves room for nuance and grace as I evaluate the entirety of the relationship.

So as my perspective of him lands heavily on the view that he is a very troubled human running from himself vs an intentionally manipulative selfish person, I think my perspective is landing there with some clarity and not necessarily because I still have rose colored glasses on.  Maybe I'm wrong about that but I really don't think my judgment of people is that far off.

I will carry me home.

Last night, long after sunset, my plane took off from the international airport on the southwest side of Atlanta and then did a circle of Atlanta before heading west to take me back home.  I was on the left side of the plane behind the wing next to the window and took in every second of the lights, the skylines, the magic of the moment.  And I took a whole bunch of videos and photos of it to remember later.

As we then left the metro Atlanta area and the ground grew darker, I looked for a song on Instagram for a story with one of these videos I had just taken and came across the song "Carry You Home".  Here's the lyrics that especially stuck with me.

Oh, I hope you know I will carry you home
Whether it's tonight or 55 years down the road
Oh, I know there's so many ways that this could go
Don't want you to wonder, darlin', I need you to know

It may have been written as a love song between a man and a woman but last night, it was a love song to myself.  There are so many ways my life may go but I will always be there to carry myself home (wherever home may be at the time).  

It was a really nice reflection the end of what felt like a whirlwind weekend with my parents, sister, and her family.  I had so many great conversations, especially with parents.  They reminded me of my strength.  They helped me see some new options I could consider.  They saw hope.  And they reminded me of how loved I am.  I may be forging my own path alone now but not without a love and support surrounding me in every step.

A lightness to my step

There was a lightness to my step as I made my way through the Atlanta airport, walking between terminals instead of taking the plane train, taking in an exhibit on Atlanta history, observing travelers hustling around me, and checking out the renovations in the D terminal. Even as I waited for what seemed like an inordinate amount of time in a crowd at Einstein Brothers Bagels, there was a sense of peace and wonder.

There was no one to bring me down with impatience and complaints.  I didn’t have to manage anyone else.  It left me with opportunity, with energy, with time to wonder and seek out the joy in the experience.  It left me feeling free.  It was a breath of fresh air.

And to think I didn’t even realize what I was missing these last two decades.  Better late than never.

Resentment and Judgment

I reached a point in my life some years ago where I decided the cost of resentment wasn't worth it.  I don't know that I've ever been someone who spends a lot of energy on resentment or grudges so I'm not sure this was a big leap for me but I wasn't immune to it either.

It wasn't some clear decision I was aware of.  It was just a shift in how I approached conflict and hurts.  I think it coincided with the shift in how I viewed my parents as that was when I finally released the resentment I felt towards them.  

When I was a high school teenager, I suffered from depression.  My parents didn't understand the importance of mental health and mental health treatment.  And it felt like they were too busy focused on my sister to even notice I wasn't okay.  I remember a phone call with a good friend who helped me find the courage to talk to them about getting treatment.  Even with that courage, they took some convincing.  In the years that followed, I remember holding onto how shitty it felt as a teenager having to advocate so hard to my parents to get the help I needed.

I suspect I finally recognized the cost that I was paying to hold onto that resentment.

So from that point forward, whenever I faced a conflict or hurt, I only gave myself the option to either speak up or to fully let it go.

So as my marriage ended, I didn't feel like I had left anything unsaid.  I didn't necessarily feel heard or understood.  And the way he had re-written our history, there were many examples of ways he had twisted my words.  I struggled with the lack of control I had in how my words were received.  But despite my feeling the need to further explain myself, in reality I had done my part in expressing the things that were important to me.

So now I have the benefit of hindsight and a whole lot more clarity that comes with space and processing.  And if I'm honest with myself, I was aware of the imbalance and unhealthy side of our relationship to a least a small extent even as I was making those decisions about what to communicate and what to let go.  And I still made the decisions I made.  And I don’t have any regrets or hold onto any resentments today.

Maybe my judgment wasn’t faulty.  Maybe I knew exactly who he was but lacked experience in how it would affect our relationship in the long run and so with that lack of experience, I leaned into two qualities about myself I greatly admire - my loyalty and my ability to see the best in people and circumstances.  Now today, I get to add the experience I gained from this relationship to my decision making going forward.

Closure - Learning to trust my judgement again

I've been trying to write this post all week and after the conversation I had at the end of my session with my therapist, I think I just need to start the post over as my prior thoughts were too jumbled and maybe why I hadn't yet gotten to a point I felt ready to publish.

A recurring theme over the past year has been this desire to have one more conversation.  Everything still feels so unfinished.  I'm still stuck trying to find closure.  What's interesting though is that what I imagine that conversation would look like has significantly evolved over the past year.

If I go back to last fall, there were so many things I wanted to tell him, so many things I wanted to say.  But when I was honest with myself, I realized I had already said all of those things to him before we separated and he had not listened.  My desire was to get him to actually understand.  Except I can't make someone understand.  I had already done my part in communicating.  It was up to him to receive that communication and he had chosen not to.  Over time I accepted this and my need to explain myself slowly faded away.

But the desire for one more conversation still lingered, except now it is focused more on what he would say.  Logically I doubt anything he would say would actually be helpful.  I don't believe he is honest enough with himself to be able to give me any sort of honest answer.  He is more likely to say something really dumb and try to again turn the blame on me.  So my mind recognizes that one more conversation is unlikely to be productive.

My therapist asked some really good questions to help me try and understand what was behind this need.  It is this lingering hope (however small it may be) that I wasn't so wrong about him, that I would see a glimpse of the man I believed him to be, that the man he showed me to be last year was just a bad dream.  It is a lack of trust in my judgment and a need to forgive myself for getting it wrong.  The relationship feels unfinished because I haven't reconciled the man I believed him to be with the man he showed me he was in the end.

I don't think a conversation with him will actually resolve that.

Footsteps above me

Every morning, even weekends, a few minutes after 5:00 a.m., I start to hear footsteps in the apartment above me.  I've never met the person who lives there but I feel a sense of solidarity with them.  Those footsteps every morning are a comfort.

Over the past year, I have felt an incongruence between my fascination with the hustle and vibrance of the city and my introversion and love for quiet, alone time.  And as I contemplate a move to Atlanta, that incongruence sometimes feeds my doubts.

But maybe it isn't an incongruence at all.  It's not silence I seek.  It's sanctuary, a private space of my own where I can retreat when my fascination with the city gets too much.  It's the ability to seamlessly navigate between my desire to sometimes participate and sometimes observe.  It's a desire to be connected with the greater world in both deeper ways through good relationships and more surface level ways like listening for the footsteps above me.

Maybe as a single introvert, a small apartment for my sanctuary in the middle of a vibrant city with so many opportunities to participate is exactly where I belong.

Intensity vs Intimacy

I read recently to be careful not to confuse intensity for intimacy.  That's exactly what I did when I met him.  It was an all-consuming first year where we spent every waking available minute together.  I used to joke about how little sleep I got, hanging out with him until 2 am and then being at my office job by 8 am.  I worked two jobs that first summer.  He only worked one but often tried to adjust his hours at the grocery store to match mine and then would sleep while I was at my office job.

He was so attentive and effusive with the words he wrote and spoke to me.  And his family was over-the-top welcoming and loving.

When I read that advice about intensity and intimacy, I realized intense is the perfect word to describe that first year.  

What it really reminds me of is the love stories in movies - that all-consuming, whirlwind romance that ends in happily ever after.  And interestingly, when he wasn't watching YouTube videos about relationships that last summer, he was watching romance movies which got real awkward (at least for me) in those weeks we were still living together but had separated.  He seemed obsessed with romance as Hollywood depicted it.  

I got caught in that initial Hollywood whirlwind romance but had enough life experience to recognize that a lasting relationship was more than that (even if I didn’t understand the real nuance and importance of reciprocation and balance) so I stayed, grew, invested, chose love, etc. when the whirlwind ended.  

He, on the other hand, chose silent resentment over investing in the relationship when the whirlwind ended.  And as we separated, he was still looking for that whirlwind romance thinking that is what love is.  I imagine his new girlfriend is experiencing the intensity now.

If I ever find myself falling in love again, I hope I am cautious of intensity and focus more on who they are when things get real and how they show up in the relationship in a way that is more balanced.  I hope I don’t get caught up again with someone who has bought into the ideas of Hollywood romance.  I want someone who believes love is a choice and an action and is willing to invest in me and the relationship with a steadiness and consistency that is sustainable, not an intensity with a short shelf-life.

Astrology, Psychics, etc.

We were visiting New Orleans.  His Dad was quite sick or had recently passed away.   It was probably December of 2017, a couple months before his Dad's passing.  We walked past the business of a psychic, Bottom of the Cup Tea Room and he urges us to enter.  It caught me off guard because he had never mentioned any interest in something like this or talked about any belief in psychics or mediums.  But I followed him in.  I remember waiting in the store while he went in a back room for a reading.  I don't remember him wanting to share much of what he learned in that reading.  I didn't push and honestly, I didn't think a lot about it.  I'm a skeptic so silently wondered what value he could have gotten.

I'm pretty sure there was a second reading a number of years later from this same place.  I can't recall exactly when.  I have this vague recollection it may have been by phone, possibly during the pandemic.

Then last May when he was in New Orleans for work, he had another reading.  This was the week I knew something was wrong but he wasn't yet talking to me.

And then he spend last summer reading and listening to everything he could about horoscopes and whether our signs were meant to be together.  Before this, he had never expressed an interest in horoscopes that I can recall.

I remember reading and listening with him just to try and understand what might have been going through his head.  Everything I remember reading just seemed off from what I knew about each of us.  Capricorns (my sign) are supposed to be traditional and one of the most pessimistic signs that lack an adventurous spirit - none of which sound true about me (at least from my own perspective).  Sagittarius (his sign) are supposed to be the eternal optimists who are open minded and very enthusiastic - none of which described the man I saw in front of me.  And so much of the advice I saw about compatibility anchored on those qualities.

And what made me think about all of this more recently is that his IG post a number of weeks ago about his trip to New Orleans with his new girlfriend includes a selfie of the two of them in front of the Bottom of the Cup Tea Room so I imagine he went in for another reading.

I don't know if I believe in astrology or the ability of psychics.  But I wonder what role his belief in them played in the end.  I can't imagine one would tell him to just discard me like he did though even if they suggested our relationship would end, just like I can't imagine his therapist would have supported him discarding me like he did.  But if he was only listening for what he wanted to hear and that matched the re-written story he had created about me and our relationship, I can imagine him using their words to justify his actions.  And in the same token, more recently, he may have used their words to validate his new relationship.

I don't know what I take from this reflection.  Does it truly matter if he let himself be influenced by astrology and psychic readings instead of actually talking to the woman he was in a relationship with?  We are at the same end result.  And honestly, it's just another example of how his actions interfered with us having any chance of making a relationship truly work.  It's just another example of how he wasn't capable of a healthy adult relationship and he wasn't willing to do the work to become capable.  It's easier to just pay a psychic $50 and take whatever answer you want from the fortune they tell you than it is to learn how to communicate.

It's not a resume builder

A few months back, my supervisor came to me and asked me to support two attorneys in an employment discrimination trial.  I was hired to support fraud, my funding source even narrows it down to a very specific type of fraud, not defensive cases.  But as we have lost staff during this administration at an alarming rate, they have started to ask me to do non-fraud related tasks.  This was pitched as both a way to help out the team and as a resume builder.

What my supervisor clearly doesn't understand is that it isn't a resume builder for the direction I've told him I want my career to go.  You see, for the last 3.5 years, I have also being taking on the role of fraud investigator in addition to my paralegal duties related to fraud cases and discovered this is where my passion is.  I even interviewed with my supervisor for the fraud investigator role a year and a half ago.  And both I and the attorney I work closest with have had ongoing conversations with my supervisor about getting me officially into that investigator role.  An investigator doesn't get called into trials to do administrative work.  So no, this is not a resume builder for me. 

Then as the trial got closer, the paralegal in my office who usually handles trials showed up in my office early one Monday morning and told me that he had talked to our supervisor and that he would be supervising me in my role as paralegal on this trial.  He followed up with patronizing conversation after conversation in the days and weeks that followed.  To fe fair, there were a couple key things I needed from him but the rest was just an unnecessary, condescending distraction.  He even had the nerve to go to one of the other paralegals and ask her if she thought I was smart enough to handle this because I wasn't asking any questions.

In the meantime, I was pulled into a huge brief last week, on another  case matter unrelated to fraud, that consumed so much of my time and added so much additional chaos to the chaos of preparing for a trial.  This brief and the trial were by far the two biggest tasks for our division in the recent weeks and they both fell disproportionately on one attorney and on one support staff, me.

Fast forward to today, the day of the trial, I was in the elevator with the two attorneys on the case and they asked me why he was there.  He had walked over with us but forgotten his ID so had run back to the office in that moment.  I found it interesting that he had not actually been invited yet made time to attend the whole trial today.

My work managing exhibits both in paper and electronically went incredibly smoothly.  I was called a superstar and people were impressed with my abilities.  The intern was surprised to hear it was my first time given how well she thought I handled it all.  And one of the attorneys said that now I will become the paralegal of choice, the one others ask for.  And I kept getting asked how I felt about it all.  They wanted me to feel like I had accomplished some big goal, checked off another check mark on my list of accomplishments, etc.

What none of them realized was how much the whole experience was convincing me how much I needed to leave this office.  

There's a frustrating danger in being competent.  I have experienced it in almost every job I have ever had even going back as far as my high school job at the state Department of Transportation.  What I liked about my current role is that my funding source narrowed my job description.  Even when we lost our investigator and I took on that role as well, I still could keep narrow the types of cases I worked.  Only a couple of attorneys in the office ever truly got to see the quality of my work.  I could hide in the office down the hall with easy access to the back staircase. 

And it's hard to believe this truly was just about helping out during tough times when I think about how much time the normal trial paralegal had to bug me, patronize me, and then sit through the entire trial.  He could have handled it himself in that time.  So this wasn't about him being overworked.  They just didn't want him to handle it.  Maybe because the technology for displaying exhibits had changed and he uses his poor technology skills as an excuse to not learn new tools.  Or maybe because he doesn't wear the hearing aids he needs forcing the attorneys to have to yell to get him to hear their directions (which is not ideal in a trial when often you don't want everyone in the courtroom to hear you).  So they turned to someone they believed would be more competent even if it wasn't in her job description.

If I do manage to secure an investigator role in another district (whether that be in Atlanta or somewhere else), I will feel bad leaving the remaining attorney I work with on fraud cases.  He has advocated for me, consistently shown a huge respect for me, considered me in the decisions that affect me, and treated me like an important member of our team.  I can't say the same for my direct managers, overall leadership, and administration of the office.  They had so many chances to do better by me and chose not to.  I will not feel bad about leaving them.

So with an interview scheduled for next week and this trial behind, I'm ready to look forward with the realization that ultimately, my gain in a new opportunity will be a big loss to this office.  Wow, that sounds familiar, me turning someone's inability to see my value into an opportunity of gain for me (and a loss for them).  

Is that just the reality of life - that many people struggle to see the value in what is right in front of them?  Or is there something specific about me that makes it easy for others to overlook my value?

Amelie, a French Film

I watched a movie last night.  If you know me, you know how much I avoid TV and movies altogether and don't even own a TV so this first sentence probably caught your attention.

I dug out the portable DVD player, hooked it up to my computer and pulled out my copy of the French film, Amelie.  (It appears I own exactly 3 movies and a handful of Yoga DVDs.). I bought Amelie back in college, maybe even before I met my ex-husband.  I can't remember the last time I watched it because he hated the movie so would veto it anytime I brought it up.

I have always felt I relate to the main character, Amelie with her quirkiness and the way she observes the world, often hesitant to participate in it.  She finds an unlikely friendship with a man in her building who has health problems that prevent him from ever leaving his apartment.  It is this friend that encourages her to participate.

There is a love story aspect to the movie and I felt some nostalgia to my early years with my ex-husband as some of the gestures and interactions in the film brought me back to specific moments of my own.

And then last night I dreamt.  I have been dreaming more and actually remembering my dreams, something that is not normal for me.  Last night's dream was the early stages of dating with a different man, someone I know in real life but who I did not think I had ever thought of that way.  Honestly, I don't even know what to make of it, so I'll just tuck it away to reflect on later.

Community and Starting Over

I was walking to the grocery store this morning when I heard my name.  Looking over in that direction, I saw someone from church sitting at a table across the street waving to me.  I waved and called back and then continued on my way, my step just a bit lighter and a smile on my face.  

And then I thought back to the fundraiser the evening before and the conversations and laughter shared with good friends as we sat around the table after dinner strategizing about our silent auction bids.

And then I was reminded of the easy connections I started making at a writing workshop another friend had invited me to earlier in the week.

Then for a moment, doubts entered my mind as I contemplated whether I really wanted to start this process of building community all over again by moving to a new city.  I feel like I have come so far in the last year that it would be very sad to leave it all.  But I also recognize that it has only been a year and I was able to accomplish this much in that short of a time.

The Best of Me

I've been told I ended this post with a really reflective couple of lines that I'm not sure fully sunk in when I wrote them.  Often I'm writing to process and the thoughts that come out on the page are thoughts that then toss and turn in my head in the hours and days that follow.  I like the metaphor of a puzzle which I know I have used in the past.  My mind just keeps picking up pieces and each time I look at them, I see something different - sometimes it's enough to make sense of where it goes, sometimes it gets put back in the pile to pick up once again at another time after I have reviewed more pieces.

But back to Thursday night's thought, I was reveling in the greater bandwidth I have now and recognizing that the woman my ex-husband knew didn't have that bandwidth.  On a very practical level, what that means is that he never got the best version of me.  The version he got was drained and restrained.  It was a smaller version of me with less joy and less energy.

On a gut level, this realization that he never got the best of me, just fills me with sadness.  Maybe it's that grace coming out again.  As angry as I am at him and as much as he created this situation himself, I still wish he could have experienced the best of me and I want him to be able to experience the best of others in the future.

On a rational level, it's a huge reminder that you get out of relationships what you put into them.  When you are a positive force on someone else's life, it leaves them with the bandwidth to be a positive force on your life.  That's no guarantee everyone will choose or have the capacity to be that positive force, but it's almost guaranteed not to happen, if you aren't making that choice yourself first.

And then there is the back of my brain thought that wonders how I could have reacted better, whether there is anything I could have done to change the course of that trajectory.  It's easy to sit back and blame him for draining my energy and not leaving space for me in the relationship.  But maybe I could have done more to counter that.  Although, maybe that would have pushed him away and us to the end faster.  I do think it was my own growth in learning how to set better boundaries and communicate that played a role in the end.

Doctor's appointment

I went in yesterday morning to establish care with a new gynecology provider.  It had been since just before the pandemic that I had my last annual exam.  I've had so many bad experiences with doctors that I find myself cycling in and out of compliance.  I know the value of preventative medical care which is what keeps me coming back to try again but the bad experiences simultaneously push me away.  My last Pap smear was with a provider who was not gentle, which because of my chronic pelvic pain, left me in pain for several days afterwards.

I should add that after I finally got the courage to schedule this one, my insurance got into a fight with my provider so for a while this summer, I wasn't sure if the appointment would even be covered which probably would have been enough for me to cancel it.  But at the last minute they signed a new three-year contract.

So with all that running through my head, I walked to my appointment yesterday morning and navigated the complicated building, ending up on the wrong floor before finally finding my doctor's check in and waiting area.  This time my appointment was with a nurse practitioner.  My one prior experience with a nurse practitioner many years ago was more positive so maybe that is why I so readily agreed to an NP for this appointment.

When she came into the room and asked about my pelvic floor pain, I explained that for most of my marriage intercourse had been painful.  I had been to many different doctors and specialists who could never determine the cause.  I then said that since my divorce last year, I had seen other improvements in my health.  And then I paused before I told her I wondered if my pain was caused by stress or anxiety from my marriage such that it might improve now that I'm divorced.  She told me she had seen many cases of that being true so it definitely is possible.

And then she did the exam.  She was gentle and she talked through what she was doing and checked in with me frequently to see how I was doing.  She was so pleasant and kind.  And although there was discomfort, there was not any pain.  And this morning, almost 24 hours later, I am still pain free.

This feels hopeful.  And it's really nice to be able to add a good doctor's experience to my memories.

Bandwidth

Leaning into the exhale (see my last post), I put on some classical piano music, toasted some good bread and poured my favorite olive oil into a dipping dish, and opened my journal to write a bit of poetry.  When there was a break in the flow of lines on the paper, I got up to wash a few dishes.  There was peace even in the flow of the water from the faucet as the music continued to play.  And then I sat back down again and admired my drying rack.  

When I moved into my very own place last year, I bought a set of reusable zip lock bags.  My ex-husband rolled his eyes at me when I placed the order.  I could just imagine his thoughts, "she'll never keep up on washing them and eventually give up."  It's now eleven months later.  And I smile because he was both right and wrong.  He is wrong because I have kept up and I absolutely love these zip lock bags.  But I recognize he was right because the woman he knew didn't have the bandwidth for something like that.

And that makes me smile as I lean into the beauty of this evening and revel in the bandwidth I've regained.

I exhale

When I hung up the call with my therapist, I felt a large exhale leave my body.  I had gone into the session with so much negative energy from work, anxious energy from the interview I was offered but we haven't been able to schedule yet, and exhaustion from the heavy processing I've been doing all week (as evidenced in my blog posts).  And I ended the session feeling lighter.

I don't have any big reflections in this exact moment, there's time for that in the days to come.  I'm just going to sit in the calm and appreciate the value of a good therapist.

Creativity through a last minute invite

I was so tired today.  I didn't sleep the greatest last night.  I haven't had many good nights sleep lately.  And the chaos of work was pulling me in too many directions - the very poor form joke from my supervisor coming at the worst of it.  But in the midst of it all, I received a Facebook message from a church friend with an invitation to a writing workshop this evening.  

I will admit, I didn't respond right away.  I let it sit, repeatedly coming back to it.  I was so tired but I was intrigued.  Ultimately, I followed the link and completed my registration while there were still two seats left.  I know I follow through on my commitments so completing that registration was the push to get me through the rest of the day and find the energy to do something different.

So after work, I gave up my prime parking spot, ventured into rush hour traffic, and found my way to this public library in the suburbs.  And then I immersed myself in writing prompts, my own creativity, and the incredibly creativity of the others in the class, each of us unique and interesting.  My nervous system rested as 90 minutes disappeared before I ever glanced at my watch or my phone.  And I wrote this poem to myself from one of the prompts that is very relevant to my recent blog posts.

Dark tinted rose colored glasses

created a haze, an isolation

between the depths of your mind

filled with hopes, dreams, self

and the sound of his soothing voice

as he re-wrote and re-created

your clouded memories.

You ignored, glossed over, made light of

the intuitions that came through

with clarity, yet lightheartedness

in the writings of your journals,

only to find yourself decades later

lost and broken,

as the haze begins to clear.