Endorphins

It was really hard work this morning as we made our way up the logging road. It’s a steep1.7 mile uphill climb all the way from where park to the top. Hiking it twice a week, it’s our way of training to get stronger. It’s always hard at the beginning as our bodies adjust to the effort. Some days it gets easier as we make our way to the top, other days not so much. This morning was one of those not-so-fucking-much times. With the end in view, we pushed hard for the last 50 yards or so. I sounded a lot like Roy Kent from Ted Lasso as I growled his favorite word with every step.

Head on the stump at the top, I caught my breath, and then gulped down some water. Looking at my watch, we’d shaved another minute off of our time. No wonder it was hard.

And then it happened.

The flood of those magic endorphins that follow vigorous exercise showed up. These miraculous chemicals trigger a positive feeling in the body and brain. It’s like Ellen Degeneres is doing her happy dance on my inner stage.

The thing about endorphins, from my experience, is that they only show up when I’ve exerted myself to the point of it being hard. To get stronger I have to push myself beyond what is comfortable. But those damn endorphins feel so damn good that it’s worth working that damn hard to have them flood me with their silly goodness.

What is true on the logging road is true in life.

Stretching past my comfort zone is where the magic happens. In every aspect of life, the only way I know to grow and get stronger is to stretch a little more, reach a little higher, dive a litter deeper, and risk a little more.

It may be hard at the time, but it’s totally worth it.

That Thing

Sometimes the thing that is needed is the last thing we want to tackle. Irritatingly enough, it’s usually the thing that we know will bring us the most relief, satisfaction, clarity, inner peace, or sense of purpose, once it’s done, and yet something keeps getting in the way. Somehow we just can’t quite seem to get around to it. Something always comes up. There’s always something, or someone, that seems a little more pressing. Whatever that thing is—that phone call, conversation, issue, task, problem, email, unfinished project, creative project, credit card bill—it’s just going to keep vying for our attention in whatever way it does—niggling inner voice, guilt, sense of obligation, worry, anxiety, fearful thoughts, tears, sleepless nights or grumpy days—until we deal with it.

So let’s back it up a little bit.

It starts with just naming it. Because we know what it is, we just wish we didn’t. Say it out loud. Write it down. Tell someone about it. For me, right now, that thing is reestablishing my writing practice. Simply showing up on a regular basis and putting words on the page. Like I’m doing now. Writing is life giving for me. I’m a better person when I do it, and it gets me one step closer to actually putting another meaningful piece of work out into the world before I’m gone.

What is that thing for you right now? That thing that if you handled it, dealt with it, completed it, started it, delved into it, or got rid of it altogether, would allow you to breathe a little (or a lot) easier, look on the brighter side of things, be a better person to be around, sleep a little better, have an easier go of things, or simply feel better about life in general. Yes. That thing.

Whatever it is, name it.

Write it down. Say it out loud. Tell someone about it.

And then, get about doing it.

For Such A Time As This

Sometimes, deep in my dark recesses, I secretly hope that I will shuffle off this mortal coil before things become even more unbearable. That I will be gone before the world goes to hell in an even bigger handbasket, which Wikipedia defines as describing a situation headed for disaster inescapably or precipitately. That about nails it these days. Makes it hard for a girl to get out of bed and greet the day with a smile on her face, much less a spring in her step and hope in her heart. It’s a view of the world that is grounded in scarcity, fear, and when it boils right down to it, entitlement. As if I deserve an easier go of things. Which I don’t.

The only way to think about the world and my place in it at this time in history is that I must have been born for these times. And so were you.

Life isn’t harder for us now than it has been for others in the past. It’s a different kind of hard. That was their hard. This is ours. This is my time. It’s yours too.

We were born for such a time as this. Yep. This broken, beautiful, messed up, and magical world is the one we’ve been given and the one we have to work with. I’ll work mightily to love, help, and heal the world within my reach, and you work to do the same within yours.

Together, we can leave the world better than we found it.

Life In The Motherhood

It doesn’t matter if she is a stay-at-home mom, a mom who works outside of the home, a mom who works from an office in her home, a single mom, or a partnered mom. Life in the motherhood is a beast. A beauty of a beast perhaps, but a beast nonetheless.

Every mom I know reaches the end of her rope more often than she would like. And then feels guilty and ashamed about how she did or didn’t handle whatever it was that happened. Falling into bed on those nights, she knows that there are no do-overs for the day behind her, only the chance to do it differently tomorrow.

Every mom I know is tired to the core, and wonders if there will ever come a day when she isn’t exhausted.

Every mom I know cares deeply about being a really good mom, and yet wonders deep down inside if she will ever be good enough.

Every mom I know, more often than not, puts the needs of her children, and others for that matter, above her own.

Every mom I know has moments of feeling alone and isolated.

Every mom I know loves being a mom and has moments when she hates being a mom, and sometimes both at the same time.

Every mom I know can’t wait until she haas more time to herself even as she senses that time is flying by too fast.

Every mom I know is clear that she needs to make her own health and well-being a priority, and yet struggles to find the energy and resources to do so.

If I could, I would make universal childcare a reality starting today, along with affordable and easily accessible healthcare (including mental healthcare), early childhood education, quality public education, living wages, affordable nutritious food, and sensible gun control. I’d remove the politicians who don’t support those things, and replace them with those who do. I would if I could, but I can’t.

So.

Why am I writing about this? I’m not exactly sure except to say that I feel compelled to name the truth of what I see. To proclaim to all of the moms I know, and all of the ones I don’t, that I see you. I hear you, care about you, and am deeply grateful for all that you are doing to raise the next generation of humans. I will listen to you without offering easy words of advice. I will be a place where you can scream, cry, vent, rage, and swear, and will share my thoughts if asked and work hard to keep them to myself if not.

It has always taken a village to raise a child, but the village is harder to come by these days. Let’s be their village.

Help For Helping

The need for help is endless. Out in the wider world for sure, but also in our own little necks of the woods. The question is when to help and when to, well, not. A simple question with a bit more complex answer.

We’re all wired differently. Some of us are more prone to help when asked. Period. Others of us might not help enough. Both tendencies can get us into trouble.

Natural born helpers can jump in too quickly, robbing others of the opportunity to help themselves. Helping too much or too often leads to resentment. Ours and theirs. Helping no matter what, we sidestep counting the cost until it’s too late and our inner accounts have become depleted. Not a good way to live.

Not-so-prone-to-help folks can hang back until it’s too late. Helping too little or not often enough, we miss the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of those who need our brand of help. Holding back from helping we miss out on the dividends paid on an investment well made. Not a good way to live either.

We’re all here to help each other, just not every time.

We’re all here to help each other, just not simply because we are asked or because we can.

We’re all here to help each other when we can and should, and not when we can’t and shouldn’t.

Learning when to do which is a big help.

Image from Riccardo (Pixels)

Leading The Way By Staying Behind

It was disappointing not to make it to the top of that mountain.

After a year of planning, training, and imagining being on the top with everyone, it never occurred to me that I wouldn’t make it up there. I’m not big on mentally planning for every possible scenario in order to insulate myself from disappointment, so it was hard to let go of how I thought it would look. Some days it still is, but I wouldn’t trade being all in, even when it turned out that I couldn’t. This past year of training, loving, and supporting each other was worth every step I could and couldn’t take.

It was hard to be left behind.

Who wants to cry uncle? Not this aunt of the four who made it to the top. However, they might never have been inspired to do it, if we hadn’t done it first. Because we had stood on the summit before, they were determined to stand up there now. Because we knew what it took to get to the top, they were better equipped to get there too.

It was difficult to accept that my body wasn’t able to do what I thought I’d trained it to do.

Looking back on it now, I can see that by staying behind in basecamp we were actually leading the way. By modeling a mature response to loss and disappointment, maybe they will remember what that looks like when faced with their own inevitable losses and disappointments. Wisdom, it seems, is sometimes best gained through loss.

We are meant to pass the torch, and to find a new home for the truth that lives inside of us, so that it can live on without us.

Mt. Adams Summit: 2017

Mt. Adams Summit: 2022

Climbing A Mountain Part 6: Leave No Trace

Leave No Trace

A wilderness mantra, it means pack out what you pack in. Including your own waste.

Fun stuff.

The Forest Service provides human waste pack-out bags. One large ziplock bag contains a paper target (think X marks the spot), a brown paper lunch bag containing a small scoop of kitty litter, another brown paper bag, and two (seriously?) squares of toilet paper. The directions are pretty straight forward. Find as much privacy as you can, lay the target on the ground, take aim, and hope you are a good shot. Drop your business into kitty litter bag. Insert kitty litter bag into paper bag. Tuck everything inside the zip lock bag. Take it with you.

Like I said. Fun stuff.

Now multiply that by 8 people and 2 1/2 days.

Everyone’s used bags went into a kitchen size garbage bag. If we’d thought better of it, we would have stowed our own stash somewhere and schlepped it out ourselves. But we didn’t, and digging into that ripening garbage bag to separate out a few for everyone to carry seemed like a very, very, very bad idea. One of our gang offered to take one for the team and carry the bag out.

He deserves a special place in heaven.

We tied the very heavy garbage bag to the outside of his pack, and prayed to the mountain gods that the bag wouldn’t split. A few steps down the trail I remembered the cotton pillow case in my pack. We put the garbage bag inside the pillow case, increasing the chances of the contents staying put.

There was an additional bag of garbage containing the rest of the trash accumulated over the course of our time on the mountain to be dealt with. Someone else volunteered to carry that bag out.

He deserves an almost-as-special place in heaven too.

Heading down the hill, every step the two guys who deserve special places in heaven took was made harder because of the additional weight. Because they were carrying what was not really theirs to carry. It was a visual reminder of something I already think about a lot. We are responsible for dealing with our own shit. For taking care of our own garbage. When we don’t, other people have to deal with it, like it or not.

We are born into the families and circumstances we are, shaping us into the humans we become. No one is exempt from the impacts—good, bad, and sometimes ugly—of those who raise us. We may not be responsible for all that happened to us. However, as we grow up and mature, we are accountable for what we do with what we’ve experienced and who we have become as a result.

This work of becoming healthy, whole-hearted humans isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s hard work, but it’s also good work. Some of the most important we will ever do. I know that because I’m still at it, and hopefully will be until I take my leave. The more work I do, the less I leave behind for others to have to carry.

It wasn’t lost on me that the pillow case carrying that garbage bag wasn’t just any pillow case. It was a gift from my daughters when they were little, with pictures of them on both sides. Whatever we leave unaddressed has a lasting impact. It becomes a burden carried by those around us. Usually those we love the most.

Leave No Trace

Climbing A Mountain Part 5: It All Adds Up

My pack weighed over 40 pounds. That’s a lot to muscle up a mountain, and every pound made every step harder. It slowed me down, which meant that it had the potential to slow everyone else down too. Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one with a heavy pack, and we all worked together to find a pace that was sustainable for our long haul.

But every pound mattered. Even one or two less would have eased my burden, and that of my fellow hikers.

Back home unloading my pack, I weighed every single item. I wanted to know how much that which was essential weighed, all in service of lightening my load for the next adventure. I began to understand why backpackers cut the handles off of their toothbrushes. It all adds up.

When we moved from our last house over 15 years ago, we didn’t do much sorting and sifting and shucking. We just stuffed everything into boxes, shoved them into two rented storage units, and shut the door. We didn’t think about them again until a couple of years later when we were ready to move into our new home. In the interim, as our house was being built, we housesat. Living like nomads, we brought only what was absolutely essential. At each new house I would set our two favorite coffee mugs on the kitchen counter, along with our French Press, and a photo of our family. And with that, while the house may not have been ours, we were home.

When it finally came time to unload the storage units so that we could load everything into moving trucks so that we could unload everything at our new home so that we could load everything back into our new garage, I took mental stock of the process. As the storage unit doors opened up I was tempted to simply hold an epic estate sale and leave it all behind.

Thankfully, we didn’t, as there were many things worth keeping. And truthfully, there were many things that weren’t. What we hang onto can all too easily become a burden. Be it possessions, wounds, habits, old stories, beliefs, or ways of being, it all adds up.

We all carry an invisible pack on our back. What is essential to an authentic and wholehearted life, and what is not. That which served us in the past may not serve us now, or perhaps never has. Every day is an opportunity to lighten our load, readying us for the adventures still to come, and equipping us to climb the mountains that will inevitably appear on our horizon.

The longer I live the more I am inspired to travel light. Maybe I’ll start by cutting the handle off of that toothbrush.

Climbing A Mountain Part 3: Asking For Help

Getting up off the ground isn’t as easy as it was 10 years ago. Add a heavy pack to my back and soft snow under my feet, and the only way I’m getting up is with some help. But it was so hard to ask for it. My pride wanted to get in the way. I never want our kids to think I’m getting older. Well, I am. Spoiler alert: We all are.

Asking for help suggested that I didn’t have what took to do what I had to do without help. Which I didn’t, as anyone watching me flail away on my own could see. But when I took the helping hands offered I was back on my feet and ready to keep going.

Self-reliance is a gift and a curse. It tells us to equip ourselves for what life will ask of us, which we should. And, it tricks us into believing that it is all up to us, which it isn’t.

Asking for help can feel like admitting defeat. Which is true if winning is our end game. But how often is winning really the thing? And if it is, maybe we should give that some thought. In the end, we are all here to help one another along the trail, each of us lending a hand and taking a hand.

I help you.

You help me.

And on we go.

What A Difference A Day Makes

Yesterday was rough. It was one of those days where I went from grumpy to angry to sad to flat to worried to afraid to lonely to resentful to frustrated to annoyed to hopeless to melancholy to…

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

I couldn’t put my finger on it. I couldn’t snap myself out of it. I simply had to live with it and let it pass. It was one of those days that I simply wanted to be over. End of story.

Thankfully, I am recognizing days like yesterday for what they are. A transition day of sorts, and as we all know, transitions can be tough as we move from one state or condition to another.

Transition days usually come on the heels of something big. A big event. An emotional upheaval. A long anticipated adventure coming to an end.

Transition days are when I need to practice not acting on what I think or feel.

Transition days are when I need to practice not taking things out on those around me.

Transition days are when I need to not take myself or my dark thoughts too seriously.

Transition days are when I need to hold my heavy emotions lightly.

This morning I woke up on the right side of the bed. Whatever it was had slipped out during the night, and my heart was at peace.

What a difference a day makes.