What the Hell

I realize that when I do stupid things my first impulse is to explain away my stupidity, to rationalize it. Sometimes though it is amazing at how truly caught up in my thoughts I can get, so any opportunity I would have otherwise had to divert my journey towards stupidity is woefully ignored.

Monday morning I got up to take my shower so I could get dressed and go to work. My body felt like lead. I had one drink with dinner the night before, but that morning it felt as if I had four. After my shower and feeling somewhat better, I opened my cabinet where I keep a small clock to keep track of the time and make sure I don't dawdle.

What the hell. It read 2:45 a.m.

It had been a rough start to the weekend. Two days before the weekend, I was in a meeting with a large number of people sitting in a conference room with floor length windows facing the parking lot. Although purportedly watching a presentation, we were also watching the torrential rain come down. The rain was gushing out of the sky as if we were in the tropics and the monsoon season was upon us.

Someone's phone chirped like a frog. We laughed. He glanced at his Smartphone and silenced it. Then, another person's phone sounded like a train whistle. Within seconds two others had alerts. If you know your alerts, I believe one was Chimes and the other Synth. It was a Smart Phone symphony. My phone joined the chorus with Bulletin sounds, or perhaps it was newsflash, I don't recall. I showed the screen to my low-tech coworker next to me: FLASH FLOOD IN EFFECT for Minnetonka until 3:00 PM. We looked outside again. There was no river, no stream, not even a pond nearby, so we were good. We didn't have to evacuate to high ground just yet.

Then, my husband called. My intuition already on alert, I answered. I stepped into the hallway to talk.

"We have a problem," he tells me. In a rush, I only heard the words, "Water, basement, bailing and can you go to the hardware store." In order to leave, I had to do about a half dozen things before I could fly out the door with car keys in hand. But within minutes the same people watching the storm were now watching me make a run out to my car and then leave. Some had no doubt not even noticed that I had left.

The long story made short, we had two inches of water in a corner of the downstairs guest bedroom. I mopped up the water and pressed endless towels into the white carpet while David installed a sump pump in the window well, redirected a downspout that under normal conditions was not a problem and then purchased extra de-humidifiers to do the rest of the work to dry things out.

We had received over four inches of rain during the time I walked into the conference room to when I ran through the downpour to get to my car some three hours later. Still, by Sunday night, all was good.

I have been reading a book called The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal. Our willpower is actually made up of three distinct components: "I will," "I won't" and "I want." In my own interpretation of this, the "I want" is the strongest. When I am standing in the middle of our cafeteria at work to buy lunch, the "I will" power tells me that I had planned to eat salad. The "I won't" power tells me I won't have the grilled cheese on sourdough with bacon and tomato and french fries.

But, in the moment that matters, remembering the "I want" power which reminds me that I want to fit into my skinny jeans trumps the other two willpower intentions quite easily. There is no fight, no dilemma and no drama. Everything I do is either helping me towards my goal or it is hindering my progress.

In her book, which I would highly recommend to anyone working on any sort of goal (i.e. everyone), there is a chapter called "What the Hell." If I remember correctly, we do some silly mental gymnastics that are worth noting. Although eating a salad is really just a means to a goal, we often mix that up with the goal itself. So, we turn eating the salad into being able to reward ourselves later with chocolate cake. Silly, but I do it all the time. If we remember that eating salad and passing up the chocolate cake are both things that bring about our goal faster, we would not feel as guilty afterwards when we "reward" ourselves. When we do this, we often feel that all is lost and the only way to console ourselves is with a pint of double chocolate ice cream to wash down the chocolate cake.

So, how does any of this have to do with me waking up at 2:45 and managing to drag my butt out of bed and into the shower?

On Sunday night, I started to iron my clothes for the next day and blew a circuit. We had so many appliances running to dry out the basement the iron cycling on was just too much draw. No worries. I trudged downstairs, shut off one of the dehumidifiers, reset the circuit breaker and returned to my ironing. I turned the dehumidifier back on when I was done.

So by Sunday night, I had not noticed that my bedroom clock was on the same circuit and had reset itself to 12:00. Having worked on my iPad until bedtime I knew what time it was and had not even glanced at my now blinking clock.

When I woke up and it was time to get up according to the clock, I was disheartened that it was so quickly time to get up. But, having been on a roll with finding renewed source of willpower in other areas, I really wanted to prove to myself that my "I will" power was stronger than my "I won't."

I even remember shaking my head at my blinking clock thinking, What the hell? Why is it blinking? I hadn't heard the power go out in the middle of the night as is common in our neighborhood. I thought maybe it just needed the 9 volt battery backup replaced. I had totally forgotten about the circuit breaker.

After all of this, I now have a new set of "I will," "I won't" and "I want" goals. First, I will listen to both my intuition and more importantly to my body. Second, I won't forget to change the 9 volt battery that would have saved me from all this trouble. Finally, my "want" is that I want to get more sleep tonight so I am posting this now. What the hell. It's time for lights off. Good night.

Closet Cleaning, Calories and Clarity

One may wonder what closet cleaning, calories and clarity might have to do with one another. I propose that they have everything to do with each other.

Spring cleaning may be over, but my closets remain overflowing. My usual process of cleaning out the closet often leaves sentimental items, clothes that Goodwill won't even take and wrongly sized items I hope to one day wear again still in my closet. Apparently, one must follow a process to effectively clean out one's closet.

My job as a project manager requires that I write numerous types of documents. Some are documents targeting an executive audience to fund a project. Some are forms or summaries and some are complex spreadsheets. Each one of these can often start out with only a seed of an idea. As my ideas grow, I find that I hit the muddle in the middle.

Inspired by my cousin Gloria who is doing an amazing job losing weight by counting calories, I am reminded that counting calories is one of the only successful techniques I have found for losing weight, whether it is the five pounds I gained over the holidays or the twenty I have gained over the last dozen years. My resistance to actually doing it - counting calories - is not because it doesn't work. It is usually because I know that I will choose not to have the many little things I delight in eating (e.g. chocolate, chocolate and chocolate).

What each of these seemingly separate things has in common is a deliberate process where one chooses to fill an empty space. The most effective method for cleaning the closet ends up being the one where you spill everything out of your closet and make four piles: Keep, Give Away, Throw Out or Try On. With an empty closet, it is easier to fill the empty space with clothes that both fit and complement you and with items that work together to create an outfit.

Sometimes when I am writing a difficult document for work, I need to set the whole thing aside and start from scratch. I start a new page or create a new tab on my spreadsheet. With first ideas out of the way, the empty page gives me a way to select from all the raw material generated to include only the important ones.

With a calorie planner like My Fitness Pal, you start with a clean slate each day to log the foods you consume and the exercise you engage in. As you log the calories, you quickly realize how you will not achieve your target at the rate you are consuming foods. You see clearly and immediately that if you skip your work out or eat more of the little Dove chocolate squares than you allotted for, you will not hit your target. As a result, you end up with an empty space where you can decide to eat this or eat that, skip the workout or go for a little bit longer. You choose. You decide. You fill the empty space.

Clarity comes in small, bite sized pieces sometimes, and I'm not talking above Dove chocolate pieces. As I have been writing this, I started to log my calories again. I started a clean sheet to write this blog. Unfortunately, I have done nothing about the clutter in my closet. But, knowing that I could exercise my choice in advance of the temptation, I find that the allotted two pieces of chocolate I had planned as my reward for finishing this blog are really not needed. My reward is knowing that I had a choice.

Last Moments

Last Moments

My husband and I were out walking our dog. Now that we are finally having summer weather, we have switched to wearing shorts for our walks. A few days ago I had bought David a new pair of shorts to try on. He liked them and earlier that day went to buy another pair.

"Probably the last Cargo shorts I'll ever buy," David said as we stepped outside with our dog Sophie.

It was a funny thing to say. But, how many pairs of Cargo shorts does anyone really need in a lifetime?

This made me think about the last of other things. My husband and I flew to Fiji for a dive vacation many years ago. On the day of our eighteenth anniversary we visited a small village on one of the islands. As we arrived by boat the people from the village greeted us on the shore with song and a Fijian lei. I wore a sarong as did both the women and men in our group. The women from the village wore bright, multi-colored skirts and the boys wore grass skirts. The villagers were glowing, their smiles as bright as the sunshine. One young woman took my hand as she led me to the building where we would join them for the traditional Kava ceremony.

When it was finally time to say goodbye, we climbed aboard the skiff and donned life preservers. As the sun was setting, the villagers stood on the shore once again and sang, clapping to the music. As the boat made its way out of the little harbor, we waved goodbye to these beautiful and happy people from Fiji. I had tears in my eyes as I held David's hand and waved until we could no longer hear them. Despite how lovely a vacation it was we knew then that this would be the last time we would ever go to Fiji.

The last time I saw my dad, I kissed him on the cheek to say goodbye when we left the Assisted Living where he lived. I knew then that it would be the last time I would ever see him. I was not in the room when my father died a few weeks later, although my brother Jim was. I am thankful that Jim was there holding his hand, telling him it was okay to let go. Jim will always have the memory that he was there for Dad at the end. That I wasn't in the room when he died was okay. I have my own memories of my father eating McDonalds in the park on a Saturday morning soaking up the sunshine and watching the bald eagles fly over the river or talking with people fishing along the Chippewa River.

The mother of a very dear friend of mine recently passed away. Her mother was a very spiritual, generous and delightful woman. Years ago my friend having a vibrant and independent single life in Seattle, made the sacrifice to move back to Denver to have her mother live with her. It was getting hard for her mom to take care of her home by herself.

Having one of our parents live with us can be a challenge not to be underestimated. It requires sacrifice, deep patience and everlasting lovingkindness, no matter how good our relationship is with our parent. Not only do our parents change as they get older, we change as well. On our own we have a chance to drop old habits and develop new and better ones. We are able to refine our emotional responses in a way that when we are back "home" this becomes complicated, difficult and seemingly impossible.

I know this only from a distance. When my brother and I moved my father up to Wisconsin late in his life, I drove out to visit him ninety miles away every weekend for several weeks. Over those ninety miles, I transformed back to my old self and had to transform myself back again by the time I reached home.

My friend was also not in the room when her mom died, having left the hospice a short time before to get some much needed sleep. Her two sisters stayed and then called her to come back as their mom took her last breath and then took no more. My friend had a special connection and closeness with her mother that could not be understood by either of her two sisters. In a very real way, my friend and her mother had become almost inseparable with a deep emotional connection to each other. Neither were far from each other's thoughts no matter what they were doing or when or where they were.

Earlier in the hospice room in meditation the three daughters lifted their mother up in spirit, encouraging her to let go. At the height of the meditation, both an interior door and an exterior one flew open with a gust of wind. But still, even if her spirit departed at that moment, her physical form clung on. It was only when my friend, utterly exhausted finally left to rest that her mother was able to detach completely and finally from this earthly existence.

Leaving the hospice room was almost like granting permission for them both to let go of the bond they had for so many years. My friend shared nearly a decade of evening laughter, lively discourse and morning reflections with her mom that neither of her other sisters had experienced in the same way.

The day to day intimacy and companionship we have with anyone we live with is hard to explain to others that only come for visits. It is in the quiet, relaxed moments when we are at home with no guests to attend to that we are really ourselves and allow others to share in who we are - the good and the bad, our dreams and our hopes. Because we never really know that something is ever really the last, even if we may think we do, every moment we share with others is precious.