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Notes
I lay on on the yoga studio floor in shavasana pose (aka corpse pose), finally relaxing after a grueling workout. Sweat trickles down my face and every part of me is damp from perspiration. I feel the solid wood floor press into my butt, my shoulders and the backs of my hands. Being tired from a workout is the best feeling. I hate it and I love it. I am so so so tired but it feels good.I try to clear my mind but my senses are heightened because my eyes are closed. I hear the tiny yoga instructor walking around me. I’ve nicknamed her Tinkerbell in my head because she is tiny and full of energy, almost to the point of being annoying. She was probably a gymnast or a cheerleader or a ballerina. Maybe she still is. She’s barely five feet tall, covered in tattoos and she wears those really cool black strappy bras that cost $50 or more. Her bleached-blonde hair is tied back tightly in a brightly multi-colored bandanna.
Suddenly, unexpectedly, I smell peppermint in the air or maybe it was tea tree oil. Something strong and pleasant compared to the sweaty guy next to me who smells like urine. Sometimes some of the yoga instructors fan you with a towel or open a door and let in the frigid morning air. It’s always a welcome relief from heated yoga and I smile and thank them silently.
Then as the class sits up and we go through our namaste/thank you’s, getting ready to leave class and go back to our individual realities, I notice a tiny note on the floor before me. I remember hearing paper being torn at the front desk before class. Tinkerbell had been hand-writing little notes to leave for us. Her bubbly writing gives away her age. Her youth and innocence suddenly wash over me and I feel so old and jaded. How long ago was it when I did things like this? How I wanted to make an anonymous difference in someone’s day with a tiny handwritten note. I remember leaving notes on people’s cars in the parking lot, daydreaming about how I might make a difference in someone’s life. Maybe cheer them up. I wrote whole inspirational movies in my head.
Her sentiment hit me right in the heart.
Day in and day out my mind is a diatribe of negativity. Of course nobody knows this because I try like mad to overcompensate for it. I am enthusiastic about life and projects and goals. I spin things and see the good. But inside my head it does get me down. Some days feel like slogging through mud. Some days are the trenches.
Her note made a big impact on me and I thought about it for the rest of the day. I thought about all the notes in my life that have made a difference.
Back in the days of being married, Toby hated notes. It was a peculiar thing about him. I don’t know why he hated them. Maybe it was all the type-A personalities he had to deal with at work who left signs and notes nagging this or that. He hated people who watched the clock and came down on him for being late. I think when I left notes for him it was just one more person nagging and bringing him down so I stopped leaving notes. If I had to leave and run an errand and he wasn’t there to tell, I just didn’t tell him. I left. It was okay. He never really missed me when I was gone. He was an introvert and loved alone time. I could be gone for days and he wouldn’t miss me. Of course he would worry about me if I was in danger but I think he liked the freedom of knowing or not knowing where I was. I think the lack of communication between us was something he liked.
Of course I hated it. I hated never knowing what was going on. I hated having to wait for him to show up, never knowing if he was an hour late or four hours. He’s still this way and it still drives me crazy but I don’t hold it against him. It’s just the way he is.
But one day I was really mad at him for something. I don’t even remember what it was. I took a sticky note, a small one and wrote a little note. I wrote, “What are you, four?” and I stuck it to the top of the spice cabinet door on the inside. It was a really tall cabinet door and the note was easily three or four feet above our heads. He never saw it. But I did. Everyday I saw it and it made me feel better. It was my passive aggressive way of getting back at him and it gave me joy. I’ll never forget that note.
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Another note that I remember was back in US History class in, what was it sixth grade? Is that the year we take US History? I don’t know but I remember we had a teacher that I really liked. She was young and hip. It was her first year of teaching. She wrote everything on the board. Line after line of neat chalk handwriting on the board. This style of teaching worked for me because I love handwriting. Filling up page after page of notes was like creating art and I constantly tried to outdo myself in neatness or flourish. And I learned along the way. I think her stories were interesting, though I can’t remember a single one.
There was a new girl in class who sat in front of me. She was African American and it was kind of a big deal because I went to a predominantly white school with a handful of Hispanics. I didn’t know I was racist back then. I didn’t even know what racism really was because it never came up. I want to say that I’m not still racist but over the years I’ve come to understand my white privilege. For me my racism took the opposite form of what you might expect. I wanted to be this new girl’s friend just because she was black. She was strange and new. She talked funny and she was hilarious. Her style of speech punctuated her stories and made her even more interesting. She was quick and witty and called people out on things they did wrong. She did not like our teacher. And our teacher didn’t like her because she talked too much and was a distraction to the rest of the class.
One day this girl passed me a note and it said something like “Isn’t Miss What’s-her-name such a bitch.” or something like that. I don’t even remember what she wrote exactly but I know she wrote something mean because our teacher was kind of picking on her. I could see both sides. I felt bad for our teacher and I felt bad for the new student. The girl was being mouthy. I don’t know what should have been done. Maybe in the town she came from, the teacher would have mouthed back at the new student and put her in her place and she would have shut up and respected the teacher. But because our teacher was white and she was black it was an issue. Or at least it was in my eyes.
I took the note and pondered what to write back. I couldn’t defend the teacher, even though I partly sided with her because I was overjoyed that the new girl even wanted to confide in me. I wanted to be her friend. I wanted to understand her. I wanted her to like me. But I did like our teacher. I liked them both and I was caught in between. After several minutes I wrote back something about our teacher being new and folded up my note and passed it back.
Of course our teacher caught us and I was filled with shame as I brought our note to her desk. She read it quietly to herself. I died a thousand deaths inside. I had just insulted a teacher that I really liked. It was terrible. There was no undoing it. From that day onwards every time I got anything less than an “A” I wondered if it was because I had insulted the teacher. I wanted to apologize and explain to her that I was just trying to be friendly to the new girl but there was really no doing that. I had thrown her under the bus because I wanted to be liked.
And that was that. I don’t know what happened to that girl. But I’ll never forget that note. Not what it said but what it stood for.
I’m sure there are lots of notes that have come and gone in my life that have not been so monumental. But when you think about it, how many notes have you come across that have been? I’m sure everybody has a story about a note that changed their life. Notes can be powerful.
So I’ll keep my bubbly Tinkerbell note and save it in a special place in my journal. She’s right. I don’t know who I’ll inspire. Just like she doesn’t know how much she’s inspired me. I’ve thought about notes for days.
Tell me a note story.
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Caught in the Riptide of Change
Warning: This is a ranty-mc-venty-pants of a post so please click away or do not click over if you are not in the mood for such nonsense.
Lately, I feel like I’m lost in a current of changes. It’s like I’m out in the surf and there are giant waves looming over my head. Whenever I least expect it, a huge wave crashes down on me and tumbles me around so that all I can see are bubbles and I don’t know which way is up. It’s like I woke up one day and suddenly everything was going too fast for me to keep up. I’m not crying about being old yet. I know I have so much ahead of me and so much to be happy and thankful for, but my deep fear is that I am getting old and it’s the beginning of the end. I feel like it’s happening.
It started out with a hard drive wipe in April. My laptop never really recovered from the hard drive crash of 2013. Things were wonkey so I let Toby borrow my laptop and wipe it clean. I’m so glad that he still steps in to be my IT guy now and then. I figured a fresh start might fix the spinny wheel problems and the email clunkeridge that was plaguing me. Oh, apple email is just the worst lately.
When I got my laptop back it was all new and different. I had a new operating system with all kinds of whistles and bells that were frankly annoying. Of course I have no time for watching videos to educate me about all the new changes. Nah. I just wing it and figure things out as I go.
One of the new things about this operating system is that all my devices are linked whether I want them to be or not. I’m sure this a good thing but half the time I can’t figure it out. The icloud is like an evil overlord who likes to share things I don’t want shared and won’t let me get to things that I do want to share.
I cannot get my pictures from my phone to open on my laptop in photoshop. I use photoshop everyday. It’s what I do. So why can’t I just download my pictures and open them the way I used to? No! It’s like Apple put a protective covering over my photos like my car company puts a protective plastic covering over my engine. What if I don’t want to go to the dealership and I want to change my own oil in my driveway?!! I can’t get to it?
Seriously, I plug in my phone and my pictures start automatically downloading but they go to some kind of mystery land hidden in my computer that I cannot see outside of the magical apple-picture-viewing center. I can order prints and make coffee table books. I can even edit pictures with some fancy filters BUT I CAN’T OPEN MY OWN PICTURES in photoshop. I think Adobe and Apple are having a war and I am stuck trying to make them talk to each other. I’m having no luck. Sometimes I try to email pictures from my phone to my laptop and even that is impossible, or at least nerve-wracking.
Email. Groan. Where do I even start?
I have switched completely to gmail because my apple email program is just beyond me. It has become the new trap for spam and I’m sure it’s silently turning into a black hole. I’ve given up. I’m so sad too because I use to be the queen of email organization. I had folders and everything was filed according to subject or client. I kept all my receipts for business write offs in one, important password emails in another, sentimental emails in another and important banking and legal emails in another. It was a tight ship. Then in the main browser section would be all my current emails to go through. Sure things got a little out of control in the main section but I knew that I could wade my way through to the bottom. Everything was chronological. First come first serve.
Now I’m living in the land of google mail and threads and conversations. Nothing is organized. It’s a big huge pile of random emails. There is no hope for ever getting to the bottom. In fact it just doesn’t matter. Out of sight, out of mind. Maybe that’s better but I constantly feel like I’m not remembering to get back to everyone. I can search my giant pile of emails and find things but there is no hope of organizing it, ever. Is this the new way? Is this how the kids do it? Is google just going to keep everything I ever do on file in some vault in the mountains somewhere? Is Google Mormon? Are they the beast? Are they going punch a microchip into my forehead someday?
You know I’m joking but sometimes I just wonder.
So since I’m officially out of love with Apple. I decided to give them the finger and get a new phone. I don’t really care about all my music in iTunes and pictures in the iCloud. They’re sharing 57 selfies Bug took on my apple tv screen saver but yet I can’t get an instagram photo that I want to blog about to download to my pictures folder on my laptop. So I said screw it. Since I’m all google now with my calendars and emails I might as well have a google phone too.
And that is part two of the many many changes that make me feel like I’m under water upside down with bubbles. At least I can still see the light, it’s just very very bubbly and I’m spinning. Maybe I’m a little nauseous from all the spinning.
The new phone is very pretty. It’s gold and it has a pearlized cover that makes it seem like a piece of jewelry. The sales woman at Verizon said that nine out of ten apple users return their droid phones and go back to apple. I’m determined not to be one of those nine. But I’m telling you, the newest operating system on the new phone is almost going to break me. Lollipop my ass. I feel like lollipopping Samsung for being such idiots. I don’t know why it’s so bad but it is constantly downloading something in the background and my battery lasts from 8am to 12 noon. Yeah. I can’t work like that.
I popped into the Verizon store the other day to ask if there were any tips or tricks to make my battery life last longer and they had no solutions for me. Everyone just kind of hung their head and said, Yeah. Lollipop sucks and we don’t know when they are going to fix it. They don’t tell us these things. Really? That’s the best answer they have for me? Surely that can’t be very good for sales. So some things I really like about the new phone but this is kind of a huge drag.
Especially when you are driving somewhere, using the your map app to get there and your phone starts turning off because the battery is overheated. I had the worst day yesterday. And I found out how much I have to pay in taxes because I finally filed them. Worst day ever.
I’m done complaining. I’m just tired. I think it’s hormones.
Hahaha!! Let’s talk about another big change in my life: Hormones.
You know how you go through all kinds of hormonal changes when you are a teenager? Guess what? It happens again when you get into your 40’s. I was a late bloomer hitting puberty so that means I’m an early bloomer to leave my reproductive years. I guess God just didn’t think I was much of a breeder. I’m okay with that, mostly. I’m just not okay with having so many mood swings. I’m falling apart all the time. I cry all the time. I finally get a good guy in my life who I really really love and want to spend time with and I’ve become this wretched emotional mess. I’m afraid I’m going to scare him away.
I have less patience with Bug. I’m struggling every day to be happy and kind and not snap at the littlest things. Some days I wake up and feel like a complete failure for no reason at all and I have no energy to fight it. I just want to hide away and not show my face until this passes. But I can’t do that. I just have to put on a brave face every day and hope I can duck away when the cracks start showing.
So I cut my hair. Because that’s what you do when you feel crappy about yourself. But now I miss my long hair. I think I look even uglier with short hair which I know is silly and ridiculous. My new short hair is cute and I’m learning to do it in fun new ways. I do like that it’s something different to work with everyday. But I miss my old long hair.
I’m so sorry to go on like this. But I know there must be other people out there struggling too and maybe you can help me. I’m desperately looking for help. I can’t afford doctors. That’s a whole other sore subject. I’m trying black cohosh today for the first time. I’m hoping it works. My mom says it does. She had a hysterectomy at 40 so can’t really help me but she says it’s helped a lot of people she knows. I don’t usually buy into herbal holistic cures but I’m pretty desperate.
And lastly, Bug. She’s changing too. Not bad changes though. Just, you know, typical pre-tween changes. She’s such a pre-teen even though she’s only nine. She acts like she’s 15 with all the attitude and trappings but then I’ll catch her playing with her beloved Shopkins and acting out the voices when she doesn’t know I’m listening. It warms my heart when she still acts like a little girl. I know even bigger changes are around the corner so I’m holding onto these last days of little girl-hood as best I can.
When I do bob up to the surface for air I look back on the beach and long for those days when we had all the time in the world to sit in the sun and make sandcastles and I didn’t even have a phone to check.
