uncertainty

This week was our second-to-last ceramics class of the session. My sibs and I have quite a lot of clay left, a few unfired pieces, and hardly anything glazed (with the exception of Asha, of course, who already has a handful of beautiful, interesting items). We started to feel the pressure.

I spent most of the class bopping around from table to wheel to the waxing and glazing area, bopping past Maria who was doing mostly the same thing. When we found ourselves in the same place there was a lot of "I don't really know what I'm doing..." and "uhh..." and "I feel like I should have this more under wraps."

And then, of course, suddenly -- it was the last half-hour of the second-to-last class and I had barely done anything. I had allowed myself to become paralyzed by uncertainty, and missed out on some potentially valuable time. I'm also pretty certain something awful will happen to my last-minute haphazardly glazed test tiles and experimental pieces. But no sense in worrying about them now.

* * * * *
This isn't a phenomenon that's isolated to ceramics. I do the same thing at work, when I have an unfamiliar task in front of me; the same thing at a networking event when I don't know who to talk to or what to say; the same thing at dinnertime, when I am making a new recipe and feel myself starting to get hungry; the same thing in relationships when I start to reach a turning point or uncharted territory; the same thing now that I'm planning a wedding and have no idea how to talk to a band or an equipment rental company or a caterer.

And yet I consider myself a fearless adventurer. I have done incredible and incredibly stupid things, whether because I couldn't pass it up or to prove a point or just to say I've done it. I have accomplished so many things I'm proud of and crossed into uncharted relationship territory over and over again and whipped up some deliciously interesting dishes and cocktails. How do I get from Point A to Point B? How can I justify my Fearless Adventurer status while being regularly paralyzed by uncertainty and fear?

* * * * *
I suppose there's always the whole "Courage isn't the absence of fear" thing. And there's Chris, a Guiding Angel, who used to do things in spite of his fear. I can find my motivation for every situation, prove to myself and whoever else that I can do it, and I will. And there's just procrastinating until I can't put it off any more.

Fear is a built-in self-defense mechanism, so as long as we are alive we can't really get away from it. We gradually get comfortable with things that used to be unfamiliar, the things that used to scare us. And then a new unfamiliar thing swoops in to take its place. Every next day and next moment is bursting with uncertainty, but every next day and next moment is going to come no matter what we do and we will do with it what we do. For me, I have to allow myself those moments of hesitation, because for every hesitant moment I have another moment where I sally forth into the mental fog. There is no sense in kicking myself for wasting time because I didn't know what to do. All I can do is shrug it off and put another finger down in the next game of "Never-Have-I-Ever."

Maybe someday my kids, or at least my nieces and nephews and mentees, will look at me and marvel that I always seem to know what I am doing; that I'm not afraid of anything (I'm even working on not freaking out in the presence of bees!)

Fooled ya.

psyching myself in

Last summer at a writers' conference I happened to meet two missionary kids, a brother and sister who grew up in Grenada.

M., the sister, and I have kept in touch and started a Meetup group for third culture kids in the area. We had our first meeting last Thursday and it wasn't super well-attended but we had one new person that none of us personally invited! I consider that a success.

I'm not usually the first person to show up anywhere, but that's one of the things I'm working on... Even if it means setting a start time half and hour beforehand and being 20 minutes late. (Which is what happened last Thursday.) All that to say, I found myself at the coffee shop alone when the only person I didn't know on the RSVP list showed up.

I used to feel like I was an extrovert; in college, I was engaging, and I could hold a conversation with anybody -- I could hold court. Since moving here and starting my job, I've felt a bit out of my depth. I'm the quiet one again, like I was in elementary school. And lately, I've been feeling pretty stressed out when there's pressure to start conversations with people I don't know very well, or at all.

But in this case, when the only person on the RSVP list I didn't know showed up, I started asking questions and getting to know him, and it was great. I felt, if not entirely comfortable, as though I had something to offer that was of value.

* * * * *
This brings me to a few points:

1. J is always telling me he doesn't get why I'm so self-conscious talking about my personal history and my travels -- 'where I'm from.' I just don't ever want to be that person who talks and talks and talks about all the cool places I've visited, all the while stomping down the people around me. But sometimes it turns into me devaluing my experiences and/or psyching myself out about having a conversation with anyone.
2. Psyching myself out is a very real stumbling block. Most of the time I don't even catch myself doing it, but one of my colleagues once said something about 'listening to the words as they're coming out of my mouth' and I realize I am guilty of doing that: worrying so much about my phrasings and nuances that I lose touch with the actual conversation I'm having and my core message.

Step one is always recognizing the problem. Once I realized I psyched myself out, I put a little bit of energy into psyching myself back in. Focus on listening to the other side of the conversation, not what's coming out of my mouth. Find a core commonality, even if it's something as simple as standing in the same square yard of space. In the case of the TCK group, it's the shared difficulty in answering the question, "Where are you from?"

It's not easy, but I'm learning to 'turn it on' when I need to be engaging, and to push my insecurities to the side. I might not say it right 100% of the time, but who does? We're all human -- and I'm beginning to realize that most people, no matter how old they are, or how apparently charismatic, have some insecurity about starting a conversation with an unknown person, or about holding court in a crowd. Our success at doing so has something to do with training, little to do with personality, but mostly to do with giving it a shot in the first place.

feeding the multitudes

These days, as my first post-college cohort of married friends and same-aged cousins is beginning to have their babies and post about it on Facebook, I find myself feeling ill-prepared to have children.

That's not quite the right way to say it; I mean, I definitely want kids at some point... And I don't even think I'd be an awful parent at this point in my life, theoretically. It's just that it feels like enough work keeping my own head above water to imagine being responsible for another tiny little life. And what if I have twins?! (It's on both sides of the family...)

I have to give my mom props here. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I've been taking a ceramics class with my siblings this summer. (We just started spinning on the wheel this week and I'm in love -- but that's a story for another day.) Because I live less than 10 minutes away from the studio, everybody gathers at our place on Tuesday evenings around 5:30 to eat and drive to class together.

And usually, on Tuesdays, J has bro night -- also at our place. Which means there are 6 hungry young adults hanging in my living room, hot and ravenous, half an hour after I get home from work. And four of us have to eat and wash our plates and leave the house 45 minutes later.

You probably see where I'm going with this, but let me break it down.

Week One:
I forget this is happening and text Jason before leaving the office: "Just remembered my sibs are coming for dinner tonight and we have ceramics at 6:30..."

So I rush in from work, throw together a cold quinoa salad which we eat hot because there isn't time for it to cool, and J graciously grills a few extra burgers to share with my siblings. (And by a few extra, I mean ten.) We also split three fresh ears of corn between the six of us. We are 5 minutes late to our first class, and I have a pile of dirty plates to wash when I get home three hours later.

Week Two:
I give Jason a little more warning this time, and ask nicely; so he (again, graciously) makes three extra pounds of grilled chicken, and grills up the last of our potatoes and a sad pile of waning wax beans (i.e. the only thing grillable in our crisper). I'm sure the boys are still hungry, but my hands are tied.

Week Three:
Asha texts me in the afternoon asking if we can have pizza for dinner. I breathe a sigh of relief and reply, "Done. That's exactly what I was thinking for tonight."

I order two large pizzas online before leaving work, and pick them up on my way home. (I beat most of the people back to my house that night...)

When J and I order pizza, we spend about $13 and eat it for breakfast AND lunch the next day. I spent more than twice that much on pizza that night, and it was gone within 20 minutes.

Week Four:
Monday night, 9:30 p.m. J and I are on our way home from eating dinner at my parents' house. I remember, in exhausted desperation, that we have to somehow feed 6 people in less than 24 hours, and the only thing in the fridge is Guinness and hard-boiled eggs.

I wake up early on Tuesday and -- on a whim -- take chicken thighs out of the freezer, chop up some potatoes and dump it all into a slow cooker with a can of diced tomatoes and a bunch of herbs.

I put on rice when I got home, and it all turns out pretty well. I feel like I nailed it for the first time since ceramics started -- and everyone washes their own plates.

And then when I open the tupperware of leftovers at lunch the next day, it's all potatoes. The chicken got completely polished off the night before.

* * * * *
I don't want it to sound like I'm complaining; like most of my life's struggles, I'm looking at this as an exercise. And it's such good exercise that I have to give my mom mad props for feeding us breakfast, lunch and dinner when we were little (four little kids under the age of 6) and, when we got older, coming home from work and making dinner every day and half the time eating only what was left on our plates. And not only that, but a good percent of the time, everything got ready at more or less the same time. It's not as easy as moms make it look.

I am enjoying this exercise while it lasts, and it's already made me stronger -- but I will be glad to get back to my regular struggles of worrying about what the two of us will eat every night of the week (except the two nights where our moms still feed us), plus leftovers for lunch. And for the time being, I'm happy not trying to feed a small, brand-new human (or two or three) who will probably refuse to eat and/or will throw most of the food at me. I'm sure I'll be delighted about it someday, but right now I've got enough on my plate.

This Friday evening, it's a G+T, a pickle, a chocolate chip oatmeal cookie and a PB&J. And Jason made the sandwich for me.

doing 'nothing'

Our beginning-of-the-week conversations for the first few months consisted of, "What did you do this weekend?" "Nothing." "Really? Nothing?" *Shrug* Before we started exchanging books, hanging out first once a week, then twice, then three or four times and texting in between.

Three and a half years later, people are asking us, "What are you guys doing for the Fourth?" And we say, "Nothing."

It's been nonstop for months now, the days and weeks and weekends jam-packed with meetings and hanging out and appointments and checking things off the list. I like that, to an extent; but a three-day weekend with no obligations is a rainbow unicorn in my version of adulthood, at least.

*****
Last week I wrote, but my heart wasn't in it. And then Friday evening came around, and our fridge was fresh out of food and we had company coming from out of town. So I decided not to post. I stressed about it for an hour or so, and realized I wasn't being present, and that's the important thing; so I gave myself a get-out-of-jail free card and forgot about it. This is part of being gracious toward myself.

It's about what's important. Celebrating means different things to different people, and has meant different things to me at different points in my life. Some people like spending holidays in the world's most famous celebration spots, packed up against strangers like the contents of a massive sushi roll. Those people probably think of strangers as future friends.

I am working on priorities. It's hard for an overcommitter like me to stay committed to everything, and I'm working on whittling down my commitments, whittling down my priorities and using the important things as a flowchart to decide whether I can take anything else on or not. I'm reading lots of LinkedIn articles about it and testing out methods of keeping my life in order. My biggest central goal right now is finding zen in the rhythm of my life, even when it's crazy and too full of good things. Rolling with it.

But my top priority is clear: my relationships with good people - maintaining them, and, more importantly, enjoying them.

Last week, when I really thought about it, between my commitment to blogging and my commitment to hosting, the choice was pretty clear. Today, I am taking a much-needed breather, starting my day with good food and a long conversation, just J and me, with good food and drinks sprinkled throughout. This relationship takes precedence, the health of our relationship and taking time to check in and recalibrate, and while we're at it, putting some care into our mental health.

This is a bit of an oversimplification, but so far my big lesson for summer 2015 is prioritizing, and using that hierarchy to make decisions about what I'm committing to.

With that in mind, I'm signing off. Happy Fourth (though I hope you all are celebrating with your friends and families, dear readers, and won't see this until the day is over). Until I write again...