and i like you better than anything in the sky

i love you much (most beautiful darling)

more than anyone on the earth and i

like you better than everything in the sky

-sunlight and singing welcome your coming

although winter may be everywhere

with such a silence and such a darkness

noone can quite begin to guess

(except my life)the true time of year-

and if what calls itself a world should have

the luck to hear such a singing (or glimpse such

sunlight as will leap higher than high

through gayer than gayest someone's heart at

your each

nearness) everyone certainly would (my

most beautiful darling) believe in nothing but

love

ee cummings

When it comes to hugging and loving, I had the most wonderful teacher. While the stereotypical, story-book grandmothers pinch cheeks and squeeze and condone the playfulness of a child, my Gigi was a nose-rubbing, down on all fours kind of lady. She wanted to know me, to know all of us (all 13 grandchildren) as whatever we were, without judgment.

In my life, I fell in love with my Gigi first. I fell in love with her confidence and her tacky jewelry and sparkly shoes. I fell in love with her sweet, long southern drawl. I fell in love with her hands. I fell in love with the way she talked to me--the language for just me. I fell in love with her hugs; the kind that pour out every ounce of soul and love and courage. Gigi was my person, the one that was meant for me in life. She let me talk, and dance, and create without insecurity. And I knew all of this, the way that I loved her and the way that she loved me, before she got sick.

I can still hear exactly how she said my name. And her laugh.

Lately, I've been missing her in every action and thought. She's supposed to be here and be excitable with me and cry with me and rationalize with me. Every day, I think I should be able to sit on a bed with her and talk and laugh and cry. Because she would get it. There are so many parts of my heart that she, and only she, would get.

In college, I carried her picture with me every day. To give me confidence to stand up in class and speak, to walk onto the field and keep my head high when it should have been hanging, and to remind me to be myself--that myself is grand. And beautiful.

In the ten years since she's been gone, I have not had that person that I could talk to without thinking first. Every word and every action has a consequence, but not with her. The years and months and days have been scary and sad and exciting--I need her embrace. To hold her hand and study our identical hand wrinkles.

But my Gigi taught me how to love with my whole heart. And although sometimes I'm afraid of it, afraid of that loss again, Gigi was the best teacher. Sitting on her kitchen floor, I learned that we are going to love with everything we've got and we are going to hurt and it isn't fair.

When I was young, my little cousin left us one night in his sleep. For weeks and months after this, I was afraid to sleep--afraid I wouldn't wake up if I closed my eyes. My little mind couldn't understand. Gigi painted me an angel and hung it over my bed, wrote and illustrated a book about angels who watch over sleeping children, and lay with me until it was okay to close my eyes, to give in. The angels are always near to those who are grieving, to whisper to them that their loved ones are safe in the hands of God.

In the months that Gigi was sick, I spent ever free moment with her. Laying with her and talking to her and holding her hands. I would go to her house after school and lay in bed with her and rub vitamin E on her scars and talk to her about all of the things I wouldn't be able to after she was gone. Because I knew she was leaving.

For a long time after Gigi left, all I wanted to do was make sure she was still here. I had little life goals of being just like her. To love like her, to hug like her, to dress a little like her (but she was a bit more flashy than I have the guts to be).

So, I woke up this morning aching for a hug and a conversation with her. It's been a long time since I've felt that feeling so strongly. All of the overwhelming plans for the next steps in life have me yearning for her input and her comfort. While so much of her is in me, I need to be able to bury my head in her perfumed neck and cry until its all okay again.

There are little details that I'm beginning to forget. What were the songs that you sang to me? I need to go to Margaret's (her best friend) store again and sit and paint furniture for hours and talk, and I need to sit on the edge of a bed. I need 8 more hours in the car or even just one hug.

For me, I do feel lucky to know what I was losing before it was lost. It has all made me much more aware of all of the people I love and how to cherish them daily. And I think I'll still have a day when I'm 67 where I'll wake up crying for a hug and kiss from Gigi. The reason it hurts so much to separate is because our souls are connected.

Lubba, dubba, dubba you.

Fall

Sometimes I think if we could all remember how to fall like a child, we'd bounce right back up. A kid instinctively knows how to fall. They fall in a way that they don't get hurt. If you watch them playing, they'll fall twenty times and only cry if their feelings get hurt. Adults don't have this. We grow out of it. Every fall hurts. It hurts our bodies and it hurts our feelings.

If I said that life is about failure, I would feel redundant. I'm pretty sure I tell my kids (not mine, but the kids I work with) every day that they are going to fail. Over and over again, they will fail. And its about how they react to it. So, life is about failing and falling and finding a way to continue--to keep breathing, to learn from the disappointment, to run along.

Being an athlete, I should be accustomed to falling. It's never been my strong suite.

My senior year of college, I threw my shoulder out on a play that didn't mean anything. The team we were playing had essentially already won, but I tried to throw the ball from the center field fence to the plate. And boom! No shoulder. After we had congratulated the opposing team on their win, I broke down and told the trainer that something was wrong. So, I sat for weeks watching the final games of my senior season, of the game that I love most. And that still hurts. Falling hurts.

Last weekend I participated in the Country Music 1/2 Marathon with the Emily's Power for a Cure team. I say participated because I didn't complete this run. I got hurt at mile 6. Body fail. And after 4 more miles of denial, I decided that it wasn't worth it.

Before I go on, let me explain the "it wasn't worth it." It was. But somewhere between my pride and the reality of the situation, it didn't matter if I finished this race. Between the anger and the tears and the disappointment, it wasn't about me.

So, quitting sucked. I can honestly say that I have never quit anything in my entire life. I failed and it hurt my feelings and I was wounded. During the almost 2 hours that I sat on the course, I threw things, wouldn't speak to anyone, and I cried. The whole time. (Big shout out to Jill Higdon who has, for the past 7 years, been my cry-to person. Only you can take that call and make me feel better about sitting on a curb). And when I finally got on the shuttle to the finish line, I was angry at the other marathon failures who only wanted to get to the finish to get their medals.

I'm not sure what the medal meant to them, but as they were yelling at our driver to get them to that finish line, I started thinking a little more rationally about the situation. I didn't want that medal. I wasn't finishing. But I didn't need the medal or even to finish the race to feel like I had accomplished something.

The process of this experience was better for my soul than finishing the actual race. I was good to my body throughout the training--maybe for the first time in my athletic career. I was patient with myself and encouraging. Training was amazing and fun and enjoyable (something it is not supposed to be, historically). I am a part of a team--something that I've missed greatly for three years--and that team is a part of something much bigger than any of us singularly. And I have found another sister.

The people that were swirling all around me that weekend have more resilience than that little child on the playground that falls and gets back up and falls again. They have been broken and are still breathing.

So, it's taken me a full week to get over the fall. I use get over lightly because it still stings a little when people ask me how it went. It was supposed to go well, but it didn't, and that's okay. It really is. And I'm really grateful that I had my people to find me and hug me when I got off that awful shuttle of failures.

I quit because running means more to me than one race. I need these knees to last until my brain is incapable of letting me run. I feel guilty about craving something so desperately, but my need to run is stronger than my need for nearly any creature comfort. I'm a competitive person, and finishing a route a few seconds faster than the day before leaves me with a guaranteed high. Unlike drugs or booze, my running addiction makes my life better. I will never need Prozac as long as I have my daily fix of endorphins. No other exercise seems to provide it for me in quite the same way. All of my dearest friends have been or are my running partners.

When we fall, its discouraging and hard. Its time and devotion down the drain. But in the big picture, its a small blip in a larger mission.

Lessons

In the midst of a hustling, crazy life lately, I forgot to wish my blog a happy birthday. It's now an entire year old, and full of a lot of random thoughts. What my blog began as, it still is. And, although it's experienced a lot of changes, I think its grown a lot. I'm proud of it. I think I might let it start dating or get its driver's license this year.

In addition to forgetting my beloved blog's birthday, I've also neglected to visit much these past few weeks. While my mind constantly thinks about things that I could feed it, I haven't been able to flesh out any of these thoughts.

So, without further procrastination, a list of random things learned this year (infused with my craziness, of late):

Wear a bra

Although I do support the proud to be free movement, in most cases, it is always appropriate to wear a bra. It is not always appropriate not to wear a bra. Be on the safe side: wear a bra.

Speak your opinion

If you have a considered, well-thought-through opinion, say it. People respect an opinion that holds its own ground, regardless of the mouth from which it was born. If you have an opinion about everything, and you think its been thought through, and you tell everyone and anyone who will listen--well, we all know that those opinions get flushed. So, pick your battles. And once you decide what you really care about, there the opinion may form.

Be strong

While I constantly battle with the dilemma of personal struggle or public struggle, the struggle in itself must be faced with strength.

Adults get acne, too

"My ability to turn good news into anxiety is rivaled only by my ability to turn anxiety into chin acne." If you haven't read Tina Fey's new book Bossypants, it is a must. Our bodies do a great job of telling us how we feel when we don't know it. I've had more zits this year than I did in my entire youth, but I'm happy.

Good friends are hard to find

But easy to keep (if they really are good).

Don't be afraid to condiment

I love ketchup. And honey mustard, and ranch dressing, and bbq sauce. If you are using it, chances are whatever you are dipping isn't really good for you either. I condiment whole-heartedly.

Enunciate

I just had a horribly embarrassing phone conversation with a man who I presume is from India. And I couldn't understand him. He was speaking English, but with a thick accent. We eventually decided to communicate via the phonetic alphabet table (a as in alpha, b as in beta, etc.) Even still, couldn't quite get it. I think it embarrassed me as much as it did him. Enunciate.

Stay

When its hard, we want to run. Stay. Every day, we are put in situations that are challenging and uncomfortable and we make the choice to stay or go. When we stay, we learn something.

Always feel good in your shoes

This could totally be a precursor to a "walk a mile in his shoes" story, but its not. Shoes can make even the dullest wardrobe fabulous.

Humility is the best policy

I just spent 5 hours with a lady in my Remicade room who stunk to the high heavens. I don't know if I didn't notice this when she came in, but I woke up several times during my very expensive nap thinking that it was me. It wasn't, but it left me thinking about all the reasons why this woman smelled so bad. She looked clean. And as I looked at stinky lady, asleep in her chair, blood infusing into her IV, I stopped and slapped myself on the wrist (very quietly, so not to wake her). I don't know where she came from or why she's here or why she might possibly stink so bad--there could be a million bad reasons that eclipse anything I've ever experienced. Be humble, even when they're stinky.

Be a hugger (or become one)

A heart-to-heart, ear-to-ear, wrap-around embrace is the way to go. None of that one arm, pat on the back shit. Hug people like your mama hugs you. Hug the people you love.

On a bad grammar day, stay away from pens and keyboards

There is a big difference between sale, sell, and sail. In my head, they sound different, but in most East Tennesseeans' heads, they are all interchangeable. If you can't tale the difference, 'ought to stay away from 'em today.

It's better if you care

This policy is fluent for every possible task in life. If you care, you'll even do it for free.

Being a nun isn't for everyone

While my Poppy will probably be forever disappointed that I'm not going to become a nun, he's also pretty glad that I have no face tattoos or children. There are a thousand reasons to consider being a nun, and there's usually one big one holding a stop sign.

Go

In direct conflict with the earlier lesson Stay, any self-respecting adult has to consider the option of going. Sometimes it just doesn't fit.

Donald Trump probably shouldn't be our next President

Sure, he has great hair and a lot of money. He talks a pretty mean game, too. I'm just not so sure we want him to go around firing all these people that just got their jobs back.

Figure out a way to pray

To whomever you please.

Reckless abandon (pt.1)

Every now and then, you've got to let the responsible side of you take a back seat. Have fun and laugh a lot.

Reckless abandon (pt.2)

Don't let the guilt of your irresponsible behavior tarnish the good time.

Be still

At every possible opportunity. Stop talking, stop thinking, stop moving. And, if at all possible, try not to be still in front of a TV.

It's okay to cry

I'm about 3 months overdue for my good cry, and I keep waiting on it to show itself. So, watch out.

Play with a kid

If you're having a bad day, find a kid to play with. Unless they've failed a spelling test, they are usually fairly consistent with their positive energy. And they love anything having to do with a ball.

Play with a dog

If you're having a bad day, find a dog to play with. Unless they've just been to the vet, they are usually fairly consistent with their positive energy. And they love having anything to do with a ball.

Play

No matter how old you are, you can always play. As adults, we forget that this is a socially acceptable action. Go outside, take off your shoes, and play.

Be nice to yourself

Some days, you might be the only one. If you wake up every morning and look in the mirror and say, "E GAD! What the hell is that?" you aren't being very nice to yourself. Someone once told me to take care of my hair as if it were a fine piece of silk--what about the rest of me?

Toe-polish

As a runner with runner's feet, I've always got calluses and blister's and extra skin. Polished toes are a great distraction to any foot malady.

Your parents love you

More than anything else in existence.

Boots are always in season

Especially in East Tennessee, apparently.

Eat sugar

Despite the facts about sugar that my loving fiance has attempted to spread like a Jehovah's Witness, I can appreciate a little sugar in my diet. While I wouldn't recommend using it like Paula Deen uses butter, I think its all about portion control these days.

Prioritize

Such an insanely hard concept. I choose to prioritize using the following criteria: What I care about most, What needs to be done the soonest, What someone else cares about most, and What is going to be late tomorrow. "Lesson learned? When people say, 'You really, really must' do something, it means you don't really have to. No one ever says, 'You really, really must deliver the baby during labor.' When it's true, it doesn't need to be said."

Rejoice for your friends

Be as truly happy for them as they are for themselves. It can be hard, but if you will smile and laugh as they smile and laugh, you'll fall right into it.

Be happy

Every day, find something to be happy about. Happy about what you see, hear, touch, feel, smell. And even if you're not really happy, you are training yourself to find it. Happy day.

Super Glue

Once you are broken, you are broken forever. In the past few months, this was more of a question than a statement. And I kept wanting to ask for everyone's opinions, but have since come to my own conclusion. When you've been broken, you stay that way. You are a beautiful stained glass window with a large crack down the middle (or 5 cracks) that's only holding it together because someone took time to repair you. Over and over again, they repair you.

Consistently, the "they" is an amazing smattering of people, new and old, who take turns holding you up. The beauty of human nature and the human experience.

In college, it became my custom to cry in my car. Not all the time, but when I would drive to or from home on the weekends. Again, it was a defense mechanism--don't let them see you weak--but it eventually became a cathartic release. I would be strong and responsible and likable and a warrior...until I got in my car. Somewhere along the road, I stopped needing to cry.

In the past week, I have spent almost 20 hours alone in my car. About an hour into my first trip, I realized that driving is not what it used to be. I didn't shed a single tear. And I expected to at least have something to get off my chest. But, not a drop.

I spend a lot of time (in all honesty, probably too much time) controlling my emotions. Being sure that I'm never too high and never too low. Because too high is a scary loss of control and too low is the darker side of that inability. My lady helped a lot with this, but since the (amicable) divorce, it's all been on me.

This has been an amazing week on an inexpressible level. Let's start with the obvious: It's spring break. And it's actually the first spring break that I have ever, in my life, had completely free. I'm not playing softball or coaching. I would like to take a moment and pat myself on the back for taking the week completely off. Because its done more for my soul than anything in a long while.

I spend a lot of time controlling my emotions. I also spend a lot of time looking for things that make me happy. Not the desperate search for a lifetime of complete happiness happy, but the here-and-now happy. The beautiful rise and fall of the sun (I admit, I take an embarrassing amount of pictures), a good run with a good friend, good food, a great book, etc. Those little blurbs of happiness build in me.

Its become one of my favorite pastimes, lately. Looking for those essential good things. Bad things are easier to see, I think.

So, this is what made my heart warm this week:

Tybee Island. Exactly what I needed to get over my work hangover and start to relax. While you can't see us in the picture, Jill, Sarah and I spent a lot of time people watching. And there were many people to be watched.

Super Moon. And super it was. It was bright and big and beautiful. I have a lot of love for the sky, and this moon was amazing.

Mom did yoga with me my first morning at the beach with them. It was really cool to show her something that I love so much, and to do yoga outside in such an awesome setting. She didn't exactly want to be in a picture though.

If life were exactly the way I wanted it to be, I would like to do this every morning. Sit on a dock and read and drink lots of coffee.

Puppy sat in the pillows of this chair all day, just happy to be with us. Dad was doing a little work and Puppy was bored of him.

My first sunset in Florida. I'm a sucker for a pretty sky.

Dad poking fun of his food throwing habit. I placed it on his head, but, unfortunately, it had some tomato on it. I had dinner with just Mom and Dad this night. Can't tell you when that's ever happened before.

This is actually the third in a sequence of pictures following the birds from the shore to overhead.

I love food. It was like sushi on a sandwich. And I got to eat it while looking into clear, blue water and white sand.

This is my running partner, Molly. Molly and I didn't go to the same beach, and that's why she's crying. She actually thought she was at a topless beach, and her Mommy told her that she wasn't. She should have come to my beach. This picture makes me smile every time I look at it.

I planned this sunset. Not really, but I planned my run down to the minute around this sunset. And when it started to set, I couldn't run anymore. It was too distracting.

Post run.

And now, home. Crawford James greeted me with the most unabashed excitement for his first karate lesson and couldn't wait to try on his digs. A child's excitement is much greater than an adult's. Revel in it.

The pictures can't tell the whole story, and I'm not sure that I can either. I got to have a conversation with my grandmother's best friend, who knew her as a real person. I got to vacation with my parents and my sister (that's it! not 7 people, but 4--and while we missed the others, it was really nice). I got to spend an entire day and night at the beach by myself, and I only cried while watching Secretariat.

It may be true that once you are broken, you are broken forever. But I really appreciate and enjoy all of the things that hold me together.

Weathering the Storm

Today we had a massive storm roll through Chattanooga. Power out, trees down, cars and houses smashed, interstate signs folded in half. Big storm. (Like most things) the storm made me think.

Inside of all of us, we are weathering a storm. Every day we wake up and we battle something. We battle ourselves, we battle our jobs, we battle people around us. We survive. If we're lucky, we find a way to thrive.

In addition, we all have something that provides escape and shelter from whatever storm is raging. A reprieve from the constant head-wind and bulleting rain.

We are all broken-hearted, beaten down, and lost. If not constantly, then intermittently. But I would venture to say that anyone who feels is broken.

Go through it not around it.

Take the storm head on in battle. Obsessive despair is endlessly inventive--it has a genius for knowing what a sufferer least wants to hear. Its like being trapped in a box with a loudspeaker that amplifies your own voice, continuously broadcasting your shortcomings. Make it shut up. Live with it, deal with it, and eventually the storm becomes cloud covering. It becomes a sunny day with a slight chance of rain.

Most days, I don't think about my Crohn's. Most days I get to be well and happy and full of energy. And then there are days where I am constantly reminded of limitations. Not necessarily physically prompted, but my mind goes into hyperdrive. I go into defense mode--nothing in, nothing out. Stop contributing.

Only when I am reminded that I am sick, am I sick. Only when reminded, do I let myself believe that I'm sick. So, all of the routine tests and treatments--I'm sick.

Someone from Vanderbilt called tonight and my heart almost stopped beating. They were only calling to do a survey about my last MRE, but in the 20 seconds it took for me to actually pick up the phone, I had convinced myself that they had read the scan wrong and there was something very wrong.

This reaction, of course, was only because of my anxiety about my Remicade on Friday. I'm already on high alert.

Truthfully, Remicade is not a stresser for me. It is, however, a reminder.

It is also the single most humbling experience I have on a regular basis. The people I sit with are weathering much rougher storms than I. They are doing chemo, treatment for nerve degeneration, blood transfusions, etc. I've never sat with anyone my own age, with my young body resilience.

When I first started going to treatment, about a year ago, my mom would come with me and sit in this tiny chair in the corner for the 4-5 hours that it took. Eventually, she figured I could go on my own. The first time I came in without her, my nurse, Mina, said, "She finally trusts us enough?"

Yes, I guess that's what it was. I didn't realize it at the time, but when Mom was there with me, I was really sick. I was weak. And we had no clue what this treatment was going to do to me or for me.

Mina calls herself my mom. She takes care of me every time I go for treatment at the IV infusion center. She gives me my IV, injects my steroids, takes my blood to the lab. She covers me up in a blanket when I fall asleep from the medicine. She takes my temperature, blood pressure, and oxygen levels every 30 minutes and never wakes me up. She shows me pictures of her kids (she has a son my age), makes sure that I'm being a responsible adult, and asks me real questions besides the medical ones. All of the other nurses know that I am Mina's.

Mina is a weathering the storm pro. When she met me, when I met her, I was in bad condition. The doctors were trying everything to avoid a second surgery, but I had a camera pill stuck in my small intestines (that had been lodging for about 30 days at that point). I couldn't keep food down, I was heavily medicated, and Remicade was a last ditch effort to lessen inflammation. Mina has seen much worse.

To her, I am a normal, healthy 25 year old. To me, I'm the same: normal, healthy. I think that's why I like her. She is one of the many medical professionals I deal with who actually treats me like I'm going to live a long life.

People like Mina mend broken hearts. She doesn't pretend like it isn't real. She doesn't ignore it. But she gives it no credit. She doesn't let it define me, and she makes me feel like I don't have to either.

The storm doesn't have to define me. It can tear through my heart and beat me down, but I can rebound with spirit. I can find a way to drag myself from the destruction and back into whatever normal is. And normal is so different now than it was before. Normal will be different next week, month, year, too.

Everything will change again. It all cycles through. Beaten-down, torn apart, hopeful, happy, raining, sunny, sad.

Find the reprieve.

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)

i am never without it(anywhere i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing, my darling)

i fear

no fate(for you are my fate, my sweet) i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world, my true)

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

e.e. cummings

i fear no fate.

Fear plays such an essential part in our lives. To be truly fearless would result in recklessness. Hazards to our society. Without notion of responsibility.

Fear is within us; consuming our thoughts and coloring our perceptions. A horn blares to your right--do you contemplatively choose to ignore it, concluding that it the warning was not directed at you? No, you involuntarily orient your eyes and mind to the sudden stimulus. Fear drives us, binding us to actions of which we seemingly have no control. Fear can cause polarity, removing us from situations that we would otherwise enjoy. A distraction from pleasure.

In fact, biologically, fear turns off our pleasure sensors. Sends us into fight or flight mode. All of your blood is redirected to the parts that are needed--your heart, lungs, muscles, and brain. The rest of your brain is left with only enough blood to keep it on idle, which means you have no capability for rational or creative thought. Its all black or white; yes or no; good or evil. In this state, you do not have the ability to think of the alternate solutions to the situation. Only run or fight.

This, like most things involving our psyche, is developed over time. We are not born with fear. We cultivate it.

Uncontrolled fear hinders us.

As humans we learn. We are presented with situations, and with each situation, we walk away with a new perspective. Good, bad, sorrowful, ugly, happy reactions to each situation we face. We learn by watching others and deciphering how we would respond in such a condition. And often, we grab onto a fearful not me, never again, not ever retort.

When something bad happens, there is an immediate defense mechanism to fear it happening again. But, here's the kicker: there's no way of knowing.

We fear the unfamiliar and we fear the unknown, both of which are limiting and uncontrollable. And we are all guilty of unwarranted fear.

The desire to protect ourselves and those around us can become an overbearing, polarizing resistance to anything involving risk. And there is risk in everything we do. Every choice we make involves risk.

Risk can be classified as anything that could result in failure. In loss.

The fear of failure is paralyzing.

In the past few years, months, days, I have fallen victim to this fear, to being paralyzed by it. I have been suspended in one moment or a string of moments for an embarrassingly long time. At its worst, every day is a battle of my consciousness to combat the fear.

Fear, for me, shows itself in many forms: Anxiety, irritability, and, ultimately, inaccessibility.

It has taken entirely too much thinking time for me to come to a conclusion about fear, though. In whatever form fear takes, it is not a weakness. It is a natural reaction to the condition we find ourselves in. A natural reaction to the condition we see our loved ones in. It can and should be talked about. And when you are ready to talk about the fears you have, then you are ready for battle. Ready to stop treading lightly in life.

I love the ee cummings poem that began this post for many reasons. One reason rationalizes these thoughts about fear. "i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)." While human nature does succumb to fear, it also allows for a comfort zone. Comforting people all around us.

The idea that even in the most trivial trying times, there is always someone there to reduce the symptoms of fear. To bring you back to reality. To give you the rationality to see that we all struggle together.

This comfort zone away from fear permits a feeling of fullness. You can counter fear with love.

My most recent encounter with fear was extinguished by concern. Not necessarily vocally expressed concern, but the people around me letting me know that I was thought of, cared about, concern-able. Just being there to listen for the slightest whimper of a call for help. And we are talking a paralyzing, all-thought-devoted fear. Previously classified as anxiety, this fear was discharged after about two weeks of sleepless nights and distracted days.

I'm running this week with a much lighter load. Comforted and comfortable. Medical science has not failed me this time and my fear of an insubordinate body is quieted for the time being. And I feel very full.

Full of love for the old and new people in my life and full of life, in general. In the absence of fear, there is a feeling of unshakable confidence.

And today is a happy day. Tomorrow will be, too. Because we all have people proximate to us who make sure of it.

Constant

Lately, I find myself getting caught up in words and their meanings. I do teach 5th grade English which includes spelling, grammar and written expression--that explains it. I am so an English teacher.

While I was driving today, the word constant kept banging around in my head. It really needs no definition by Webster's terms. Everyone understands it. It's always, impermeable, completely...there.

To be a constant anything, you've got to have either dedication or mania. Dedication to a task, to a person, to a perspective. Mania in a can't-escape-from-a-thought-or-action kind of way.

But, are you constantly anything?

I like to think of myself as a happy person, but I understand that constantly doesn't really fit there. Constantly happy. Who is? Someone who hasn't experienced anything, ever, I guess.

Unfortunately, I hold myself to an unreachable standard in pretty much every aspect of my being. So, a bad day for me is magnified into complete failure. Rationally, I understand that I, nor anyone else, can expect me to be happy, smiling all of the time--constantly. I don't always run with a rational mind, unfortunately.

If you google constant or constantly (I did), you will find all kinds of quick-fixes for life's most difficult circumstances: dealing with constant crying, a constant complainer, constant back pain, a constant canceler (someone who makes plans and then cancels--we all know them), constant bickering, constant rejection, criticism, even constants in math (which I can't begin to explain).

In my head I have to break it down like this: no person is every constantly anything, but they can be constantly there. And if/when that person is no longer a part of your life, the consistency of your life subsides. So, you have to find new constants, because we yearn for consistency in our lives. We cannot, however, be consistent in the way that we talk or act. To me, it seems that there are many levels of constant.

I had a bad weekend last week. I got to meet one of the most amazing softball players of my generation, and I still had a bad weekend. For that, I felt guilt. And I also felt guilt that I couldn't control the bad weekend, which brought out this amazing force of anxiety that I haven't felt in a long time. I fought it like a world champion, but it still got me.

Essentially, I regressed into the person (or, rather, the thoughts of the person) that I was a year ago. Anxious, emotional, and basically unstable.

Tonight, however, I have experienced revelation in this thought process.

My amicably-divorced-lady and I spent a lot of time talking about my impeccable, constant coping issue. So, I've spent the better part of a year figuring out how to cope without coping. Strange, isn't it? I thought so, too. Until I started thinking about what coping really is.

Coping is refusing to shift perspective. It's mulling over the same problem using the same tactic over and over and over again. Someone (who is not so brilliant and who will remain nameless) once told me that the definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. So, what my lady and I failed to venture is that coping can lead to crazy, at least in my case.

To give myself credit, I don't have to cope nearly as much. Give me a bad weekend, and its another story, but for the most part, I'm pretty much cope-free. I spent much less time analyzing every word that comes out of someone's mouth, their tone, their body language. Lately, I've been relaxed, which is a much nicer feeling. Especially considering that these days, I spend the majority of my time around people that I barely know on a surface level in an environment that I'm not quite comfortable with yet. A year ago, this probably would have put me on edge.

The shift in perspective, the idea of it, is something that I've had many conversations about with my celebratory friends. Usually, we talk about it as it relates to work or to other people. But, tonight, I'm thinking of it as it pertains to constant.

Last weekend, Jessica Mendoza talked about finding something good in the one person that you can't stand. She was talking about a bad teammate, namely, and at the time, I wasn't in the right mindset to take anything away from it. But now I get it.

It is an attitude, a choice. Find something good every day. There's good in every person and in every situation, you just have to be willing to see it. You have to be willing to shift your perspective to find the positive in the worst situations.

Perspective is partially inherited by watching people around us and its partially discovered in environments outside of our homes. Nurture vs. Nature. Does the entire spectrum of human nature always have to go back to this? Whoever came up with that dilemma is a genius. And he will drive me crazy for the rest of my life.

So, while I don't grasp or particularly like the idea of constant, I do fancy the more substantial thought that perspective is a constant ebb and flow of life's focus, and that perspective has control over the majority of every day energy.

And to make this thought process even more complicated, energy* is the outcome. Bad energy, good energy, lethargic, excited, dull, dramatic energy.

*Before I go on, I'd like to say that I'm not talking about auras or magic or dirty-hippie energy, dudes. I'm talking science (in laymen terms).

Everyone has energy, and just like perspective, its constantly changing (hopefully). Energy can change your perspective, your perspective can change your energy. The only constant is the constant. Change. How you respond to change, the energies around you, perspective.

So, back to the part where the ideas started swirling. Over the last year, and without my conscious knowledge, my coping shifted to an awareness of perspective. It moved from a focus outside to a focus inside, where I could control it. In most cases, if I can change my perspective, I can change my energy. If I can feed off of the energy around me, I can change my perspective. You might call this easily swayed, but if you can look past the negative connotations and view it more as a survival mechanism, it might just click.

The ability to see the positive or feel the positive where there really is no positive is a grating task on our souls. That's where the constant interplay of energy and perspective come in, I think. For most people the search for contented happiness is ongoing and often a daily struggle.

In a yoga class last week, our instructor gave us a meditative focus for the day: Breathe in..."I am"....Breathe out..."enjoyable." The intensity of the words or the idea behind them vary in interpretation, but, like most things, the mantra got me thinking. How can something so simple refocus your energy and perspective? Because for the rest of the day, by damn, I was really enjoyable.

Truthfully, no matter how in control (or aware) we are of perspective, we lose it. We let the bad days drown us and wallow in the self-loathing. And then we find our way out. There's always something or someone that pushes that shift in perspective or translates that positive energy.

Lately I've been thinking: If I have the crappiest day, someone else is having their happiest. So maybe my energy has temporarily left me and someone is borrowing it for the day. It's similar to the idea that when something bad happens to someone you love, you'll carry around their sorrow and anxiety for them, hoping maybe they'll feel less of it. If you need to borrow my energy, please do so. I've gotten pretty good at not coping, minus a bad day here and there.