Category: challenges

challenges

Just Show Up

2chicksandapen

Life is hard, lifey, challenging, et cetera.

We all know this. We are in it.

Right now, what keeps coming up for me is one small thing:

Just show up.

The first step on the path to success is just showing up.

When a friend calls, overwhelmed with life, just show up.

When you need to get to the gym to start your day the right way, just show up.

When there’s an issue at work that needs addressing, just show up.

When you’re not sure what to do, just show up.

If you’re as exhausted as many of us are, it can be so tempting just to hide away from problems, tasks, anything that needs to be done. Life is too much. Why bother? Nothing matters. Do you ever feel that way?

Still, in the face of it all, here’s the challenge: show up. Does showing up solve the world’s problems, or even my own? No…but it does set me on the road to solutions. If you don’t show up, things can’t happen. If you don’t show up, progress doesn’t get made. If you don’t show up, you lose the chance to be good, to be great, to even contribute.

How I show up is a matter for another post. Today, start by just showing up. Do what you need to do. Get there.

challenges

My OLW for 2022

2chicksandapen

It’s a new year. I haven’t felt especially inspired to write down goals and priorities this year, except one. This priority has become my OLW (One Little Word) for 2022: Rest. (You can read about some of my previous OLW choices here and here.)

I’ve been thinking about rest (and my issues with it) for months now. I have midlife sleeplessness that I need to work on to improve my wellness. I’ve been bookmarking strategies to work on that for a while. But there are less obvious ways I have noticed I need rest. For example, I scroll mindlessly through social media too often. This usually just fills up space or extra time or just keeps me occupied. A half hour can easily slip by and I feel like I wasted time. Sometimes I even feel tired afterwards even though it’s a sedentary activity. On the flip side, if I go outside and take a walk for a half hour, I feel so much better. I feel refreshed, renewed, and like I did something for myself. Nature has that effect on me. The same thing happens when I take time to do something creative.

Here’s what it boils down to: I’m not just physically tired, I’m often mentally / emotionally / spiritually tired. So this year’s rest isn’t just a focus on more or better sleep. It isn’t just napping or zoning out. It’s more about taking intentional and purposeful breaks. And not just distracting myself during those breaks, but trying to savor those pauses as a part of my health and life balance.

I made a list of all the things rest can look like this year. I may add more. For now, I’m just trying to incorporate more into each day and notice when I am doing it (or not).

Here’s just a few from my list of what rest can look like:

-stretching

-reading / writing / reflection / daydreaming

-meditation

-pulling back

-nature

-saying no to commitments that are too much

-play

-focusing on my breath

We will see how I do in my quest for rest!

Did you choose a word, a goal, or something else to guide your new year?

challenges, Uncategorized

Christmas, Interrupted

2chicksandapen

It was just a few days after my daughter’s incredible showing at her first powerlifting competition. My strong girl, seemingly invincible as she deadlifted 403 pounds, was hit hard by runny nose, coughs, and generally feeling crummy. My sister-in-law, who she had stayed with during the competition weekend, was under the weather, too.

Testing results took a few days, but it was the answer we all feared: positive for COVID.

It was Christmas week.

What to do? For as long as I’ve been alive, both in my own family and my family-by-marriage, Christmas Eve has been the heart of Christmas. It’s a huge party full of food, singing, and a sea of presents. My other sister-in-law also has a birthday on Christmas Eve, which kicks off our yearly festivities. In addition, my husband’s family has a formal dinner on Christmas Day. Suddenly, all that was on hold. Seriously, COVID?

What to do? It is unseasonably warm. Could we celebrate outside? With masks on? Should we just celebrate without the people who are sick? All of that was met with a no.

So, we rescheduled. Our family owns a holiday-driven business. We barely take a day off during this busy, busy time. We finally found days in January where we can try to remake Christmas Eve, sort of. Christmas Day’s steak dinner will just have to wait until later in 2022.

On actual Christmas Eve day, I brought my sick daughter a care package of chicken fingers (we have a platter on Christmas Eve each year), the soup she had asked for, a stuffed stocking, a birthday cake, and my mom’s grits casserole, our Christmas morning tradition. I brought a small birthday cake to the other family houses that day as well.

We got together on google meet that night to sing Happy Birthday and Christmas Carols. Far from my usual glitter and shine as the yearly host, I was laying on the couch in my sweatshirt with my granddog on my lap. I got the giggles changing my background on the computer. The singing sounded terrible with the lag online. It was really just kind of a mess. I went to bed at 8:30 instead of refilling drinks and cleaning up and getting ready for Santa’s visit until midnight. We FaceTimed with our sick daughter as we ate Christmas breakfast.

Today, on December 26, all the presents remain unopened. I am a bag of mixed feelings. I always feel a sense of relief when my hosting duties are over. I also like getting back to normal eating and other routines once Christmas ends. I like to have everything packed up before I go back to work. I’m not sure what to try to carry over and what can be put aside until December 2022.

If you’ve read this blog for a while, you’ll know that I often try to find meaning or purpose in what happens. Find a lesson. Relate it to the bigger picture.

But today I’m just annoyed. Grouchy. I don’t really see the purpose or the meaning. Just sharing in case anyone else is in this place. You are not alone. Judging from my timeline, I know I am not alone.

I just hope everyone is healthy for the reschedule.

Bah humbug, COVID.

challenges, change

Letting Go

2chicksandapen

It’s hard to let go of something or someone you have invested so much time, money, mental energy on. A job. A significant other. A sport. A car. A pet. A treasured keepsake.

Unfortunately we all have to let go of people, things or even places for one reason or another. It can be hard. It will be hard. It is hard. Time doesn’t stop but healing of sorts begins. When you let go, there is a release. A release of pain, tears, anger amongst other emotions or feelings.

I am in a letting go phase of sorts. Letting go of things I don’t control. Letting go of things that consume my mental energy. Letting go of stress. Letting go of people who suck the joy out of me. Letting go of places with not so good memories.

Letting go is part of life. Writing for me helps with the letting go process. Sometimes it’s a journal entry. Sometimes it’s a calendar note. It could even be a blog post or a book chapter. As 2022 approaches I am focusing on mindset challenges in blocks of time in which I measure my progress. Some examples are below:

100 days of fitness

50 days of meditation 

25 days of travel

25 days of positive praise

22 days of generosity 

Now I haven’t decided if I am taking up all 365 days or if I’m putting a 2022 spin on my number or if I’m choosing the number 50 as that’s how old I will be in 2022. Or maybe I will do some combination thereof.

Either way I am focusing on me. My progress. My ability to tune out the people, the places, the obstacles of life that are weighing me down or stealing my joy. I’m letting go or cleansing in 2022.

challenges

Jail Time Revisited

2chicksandapen

Recently I had the opportunity to experience a county jail with an added twist. I’ve written about visiting the jail before as a contractor recounting an inside view. I visited the exterior as part of a jail run a few years back that included running the officer obstacle training course (so much fun) and the campus which bordered the barbed wire fences and guard towers. Both experiences were memorable and offered different views of the same place.

Over the past week I had yet another view. An unexpected view. I needed to try to visit an inmate. What started out as a simple endeavor ended up extremely complex. So many things I didn’t know, didn’t expect or just couldn’t wrap my arms around.
the first big blow is no in-person visitors which is the exact opposite of the county website which states visitation Mon-Fri and Sat/Sun for under 18. I guess they are still under Covid protocols even though most other places are not. This was funny in itself as you don’t need a mask to enter the jail but you can’t visit. The next option is a fee- based video visit, but figuring this option out almost requires an IT degree and a lot of patience.

That’s right. Get the app. Download the app. Set up a user ID. Add funds. Upload identification documents to prove who you are. Now wait. Wait until somebody in an office somewhere approves you. This took three days in my case. Once you have access, you can schedule a call. I almost forgot you need to deposit more money for the call and pay more service fees. Just when you think you are at the finish line you have to be patient again. It seems the schedule is not the same day. That means you wait longer and the person inside has no idea how hard you are trying to make contact. Big sigh.

What’s the other option? Send a letter. I was told happy mail is very uplifting. Okay, what’s the address. Well the address you mail to is far away. It has to be sorted to make sure there is no contraband. Well over the holiday, mail delays, etc. would lead me to believe this would be another dead end.

How about a phone call. Can the person make a call? Only if they have money they tell me. How do they get money? Glad you asked. There is a jail ATM. Never seen one of those before. You have to upload your picture, your social security number, address and so much more. Then you can pay money and exorbitant fees. Again, it’s not instant. It takes a day to process and the funds need to be deposited by 8am. That means if you put money in the ATM on Sunday at 4pm the inmate won’t see it until Tuesday after 8am. Delays galore.

Four days it takes to get any form of contact. This provides so much insight into what folks deal with when they are immersed in the jail system. I can’t even imagine if my parent was in jail, how a young adult could handle all the chaos associated with saying hi to somebody who probably needs some extra support during their incarceration.
This experience has taught me I for sure don’t ever want to spend time in jail. I also don’t want to have to visit anyone I know in jail. I like my freedom too much. I like to choose what I do and when I do it. I thought visiting somebody in an assisted living facility was hard in the heart of the pandemic, however I would definitely say visiting a jail is 1000x harder current day. 

With mental health issues challenging society today, it is bothersome to me that inmates lose not only their freedom but their ability to get compassionate care. I define compassion to include communication with willing visitors vs starving them of hope and friendly faces.

In summary, I’d always tell somebody think carefully about actions or inactions that can land one in jail. It’s not a place i’d recommend at all.