Category Archives: dealing with life

Last Week

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It is the beginning of the last week before I move. Monday July 28 is moving day.

It is a bizarrely cool morning here for July, nice to sit outside with a small sweater on.

This has never been a perfect house or yard, something has always been asking for my attention. Maybe all houses are like that. But it has been a pretty house, and often a pretty yard, and I am grateful for my years here.

We had a party on Friday from my math colleagues, and a picnic Monday from my bicycling colleagues. I have been very loved by many people. In ways I have undoubtedly not appreciated. I am grateful, very grateful for that.

I am grateful to have found a missing part of myself in teaching. Grateful to the colleagues who helped me get started. Grateful to those who supported my efforts and told me I was doing a good job. It’s been a journey, and it isn’t done yet.

I am grateful for my colleague with whom I am researching. I still feel like a baby researcher, unsure of myself or my worth. Thank you for your trust and belief in me, and willingness to work with me and help me find my feet. After many situations and experiences which haven’t fit, I am grateful to be here, scared of screwing up, but using my lessons from before to try to do a better job.

I am sorry to leave this place, sorry to leave this section of my life. I know there is a new section ahead of me, and many adventures to have, but walking into the unknown is hard for me. Being lonely is hard for me. It will take time to make new friends and feel like I am secure in a new start.

I am grateful my colleagues there are planning a warm welcome — they will help me move in. That’s amazing. Thank you.

Now I need to get to some packing and sorting for today. After all, I only have about a week left.

When is enough enough?

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I had a phone call with our Chief Diversity Officer, and I went and had a visit with the Dean of Faculties today about why I am leaving my current university.

I feel an obligation to do this and do this well. I know nothing is going to happen because of what I say. I just hope to make it easier for the next person. But dredging up all that stuff makes me sad. I never feel like I say the right things. It was a hard day.

This evening ended with a visit to my book club. One member is in human resources, and told me that the university will never change unless I file a complaint with the EEOC or another external enforcing agency. And I can see her point and logic, but forgive me if tonight this was just too much. I’m doing my best here to try to do right by everybody, to speak my truth, to tell the right people. And this is still not enough?

Truth is I think she’s right. Truth is I’m not enthused about what is asked of me. Truth is I worry about repercussions hurting me, even though I’m soon to be gone.

Maybe that’s all just excuses for not wanting to delve into things that bother me and make me sad again.

A friend tried to remind me of all the things that have gone right lately. But I’m not in the mood for that. Tonight I give myself permission to be sad. Tomorrow is another day, with a new set of challenges. I will have to buck up for them. Tomorrow, with renewed strength, I can think about this again.

Meanwhile I am sad that I am leaving. Sad that there wasn’t a better outcome here. Sad that I didn’t have the right words to say, the magic words, to make things right. Sad to leave my home and my friends behind.

If that seems ungrateful for all the good things that I have had happen, tonight, so be it. I am truly grateful for the good things. But I am also very very sad about a lot of things too.

Change and Anxiety

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Change always comes with a heap of tasks to be accomplished. I make lists, I update lists, I mark things done, but I still don’t feel in control. I’m missing something. What is it? I won’t have time to do all of that, no matter what. So let go of the expectation and do what is most important.

Leaping into the unknown is scary too … will I be happy there? Will I make friends? How will things be? I can’t know that, and so that too, to some extent, must be let go.

Consequently anxiety creeps in around the edges. Not good, since anxiety is a productivity antidote. Manage, do what you can, take medication as needed, try not to climb walls or call someone if you are. Or medication. That’s what you have it for.

How do you eat an elephant? I know, I’ve said this before. One bite at a time. The elephant carcass is looking scavenged already, as I’ve successfully sold/gotten rid of many things from the house. Started boxing yesterday. All is good. Still need to go through and get rid of more things. Use the epsilon>0 concept — doing a little is better than doing nothing. Keep moving.

I am looking forward to being moved. I am more looking forward to feeling settled and feeling like I am making friends. I am definitely looking forward to not having this task hanging over my head anymore.

One step at a time.

Goodbye Austin

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There’s the little house on Woodward Street, the first house I owned. Small and just perfect for me. I miss you, little house, and I miss the little fantasy of growing old in you. Goodbye little house.

There’s Amy’s Ice Cream. I’ve never been the biggest ice cream fan, but I was glad to take someone who truly enjoyed you there, for this last time. Goodbye Amy’s.

There’s the friend’s house where so often I’ve stayed when I’ve come to visit. A cousin recently moved in to the guest room. I was so glad to have dinner there one last time, and to see everyone. I know the friends will keep in touch, but goodbye to the visits. I will have many fond memories of you. The times we had Salt Lick for dinner, the times we’ve cooked. The movies we’ve watched (even that one that none of us liked!). Even the times, like last night, when I got overwhelmed by my allergies to the cats, achoo, achoo. I hope you know how grateful I have been for the hospitality, for the friendship, for all of the memories. Goodbye, goodbye.

There’s the Town Lake Trail. How many times did I run that 4 mile loop from First Street to the Mopac bridge, and back again? Not recently, but there were years of getting out there at 6:30 in the morning to meet friends to run. I remember the time we saw a hot air balloon skimming just above the water, and we were afraid the people would fall in and we’d have to rescue them in the winter cold. Walking down to the Trail of Lights. Spotting poison ivy next to the trail. Finally renting a kayak on Town Lake, a thing I meant to do some day for years, and have done several times in the past years. Biking around you today, and seeing the new boardwalk — connectivity. Such a jewel for the City of Austin. I am sure it took political effort and willpower to get that built, but, like always, the most valuable part of the trail is the last piece built that connects it all together. Goodbye Town Lake Trail.

Barton Springs Pool. Rarely visited when I lived here. Not the best place for swimming laps, we were always going somewhere else for that. But your water is amazing and cold as blazes, just as everyone says. You get out and are cool for a long while afterwards, even walking or biking in the sun. And so pretty, this piece of Austin. You can do back dives and back flips off the pool, even though I didn’t today. It is so cold, so cold, in that diving area. Goodbye Barton Springs Pool.

One last trip to REI, one last trip to Title Nine Sports, but I’ll find you again in Seattle. Central Market on the other hand, the original one, only in Texas for you. I remember when you were built in 1994, and I remember too, the little table that overlooked the market. I came early and camped up there at least twice on Christmas Eve to see all the crazy overwhelmed shoppers below in the long long lines. It was such fun to sit upstairs, above it all, watching everyone’s last minute preparations in peace. The Sunday morning trips to the South Lamar store, with a newspaper, hoping that today might be the day that I’d end up in a conversation with the man that would become the love of my life. It never happened; rarely did I talk to anyone else. I still liked having my breakfast and reading the paper and enjoying being there. Goodbye Central Market.

All the friends I have here, made in graduate school, and afterwards. Martial arts friends, and bicycling advocates, those I went to school with or worked with. Lunches and dinners after martial arts class, brunches at Austin Diner. You don’t lose people in the same way you lose places, since you can still keep in touch. I will miss you too, especially those I see most often often. Maybe some of you will take a trip to Seattle and we can meet up. I am sure I will be back. At least on occasion. Goodbye friends, I wish I got to see all of you on this last trip.

Learned Behavior

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I was talking to a friend the other day about family, and about the trainwreck that is my immediate family. I don’t know if some of the siblings talk to each other, but I know a lot of us don’t. I’m not even sorry about that, at least not any more. I feel like I tried. I know some of the what went wrong and how, but I am also sure I don’t get all of it. One thing I know is that I don’t have to stay in the middle of this mess and let it keep hurting me. I have an obligation to do what I can for Dad, as best I can, until he passes, which means some limited interaction with the others, as required. Then it is time to move on.

I wonder sometimes what my parents and my Dad’s first wife were thinking. Surely you don’t go into it thinking you are going to have kids that are never going to care to speak to each other again when they grow up. I can remember my mother trying to micromanage my relationship with my younger brother. It never worked. She never stopped. I know she’s a lot of the reason for tension with the older kids, and with very good reason.

One thing I do know is that you cannot create relationships for other people. You can, if you are the authority figure, create an environment in which healthy relationships are possible. You do this by creating a community of respect for individuals and differences. You do this by leading by example. You do this by respecting and valuing the other members of the family or community, and trusting them, by and large, to figure things out and do what’s right. To want to do what’s right.

You have to love and respect yourself, with all your flaws and weaknesses. Everyone has these. If you can’t love your vulnerable, imperfect self, you will have a hard time teaching anyone else to love themselves. And if you don’t love yourself, it is mighty difficult to love someone else.

I wonder sometimes how it is for my siblings’ kids. I think it is better and healthier than it was for us, and I hope they have better relationships between siblings and cousins than I have had.

I am often sad that I never had a family. Sometimes a small voice whispers that maybe it is a good thing, looking at the past. Mostly I believe that it just is — nothing I chose, nothing I had real power over, a sign, if anything, of a changing world where often our values and what we want and expect for ourselves hasn’t quite caught up with modern day reality. Sometimes a louder voice whispers that if I had the chance, I could have done it, not perfect, but with a lot of right.

My realistic voice says to take this lesson into my classroom and my relationships with others. Love myself, create the environment where healthy relationships are possible. And hold on for the ride, because you never know what will happen next, who will come into your life. Give love freely, and accept it gratefully. You never know how people will change you, if you leave yourself open to love and change.

Growing pains and the pain of change

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Moving is hard. I’ve talked to people lately who say that the prospect of picking up and just going somewhere new — solo — is exciting to them. I’m not sure I believe it. Maybe I’m not that kind of a person. I hope that excitement and anticipation of new things to explore will come greet me sometime before I leave, but for the moment, I am feeling a lot of grief for what I’m leaving behind.

They say that depressed people don’t see the world more negatively than others. In fact, studies have shown that depressed people see the world more clearly and realistically than others. What does that say about the world?! I’m one of those people, and I don’t want to give up seeing the world realistically, but I spend a lot of time trying to focus on happy things and things I am grateful for so that I’m not sad all the time.

Sometimes it just overtakes you, no matter how much you wish it wouldn’t.

It’s hard going through my things. Get rid of things. I haven’t looked at that in years. I haven’t worn that in years. I don’t want to let go, but keeping things to keep them doesn’t always make sense either. Let go, let go, let go, let go.

Change is inevitable. We don’t get to stay still, and I know this. We can love what we love about now or about the past. We can keep in touch with our friends when we move. We can accept that some people will drift away, but that the ones who really matter will keep in touch. Maybe not often, but they will. We will make new friends, and find new things to do.

Growing pains. We say that for a reason. Change is hard, but necessary.

I am grateful for the new opportunity.
I am even grateful to be forced to sort through my crap.
I am grateful for the support and help of many friends.
I am grateful for the boxes.
I am grateful to have lived in this beautiful house for over 10 years.
I am grateful to have been able to make so many friends here.
I am grateful to have been able to contribute to the community here for the past 12 years.
I am looking forward to making new friends and trying new things.
I am looking forward to a lighter life after I’ve gone through so many of my things!
I will be very glad when this move is over.

Sitting in Judgment

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I was on a hearing panel that suspended a student yesterday.

It’s funny how everyone says, “This isn’t me.” Guess what? This is you. This isn’t all of you, but this is part of you. We are the sum of all of our actions. The kindnesses, the cruelties, the lies, the truths, the intentions, the regrets, the results. All.

I am no exception to this. I have done things I am ashamed of. I have hurt people, with intentional and unintentional cruelty. I have helped people, sometimes intentionally. Sometimes not. I have stolen, taking that which I knew was not mine. I have been scared of consequences, and chosen an action that I knew was not correct, and hoped that no ill would come of it. I have had moments of grace. I have had moments of failure. And all these things are the sum of me.

What I have learned is to try to keep myself out of the situations where I might be tempted do wrong. I have learned to be more mindful of the impact my actions have on others. I have learned that my intent and the result I obtain are not always the same, and so I must be cautious with my intent, cautious in my action, and aware, always, of what is going on around me. I don’t often succeed to the extent I wish I would.

When we suspend a student, we confront someone who has done wrong. Several wrongs. Rare does a student get suspended on a first offense. If one is, it means the actions were both premeditated and egregious. The student stands before the council and faces their least honorable self often with words of denial, ‘This isn’t me.’ Often with apologies. Often claiming to respect the honor code they have broken.

I don’t want to hurt them more, but I do want to say, “Yes, it is you.” But this is not the sum of what you are. You can take this experience, the darkness you’ve found inside yourself, and you can accept it. Learn from it. Learn to avoid putting yourself in a position where you will make a bad decision again. Learn how to put/keep yourself in positions to make good decisions. And you are greater, and will be greater than this one thing you did. No matter how horrible this one thing was. Let it motivate you to do better in the future.

And let it open you to compassion when you are confronted with others who wrong you. Remember this darkness is in all of us, but so is the ability to learn, change and reach for light.

Essentialism

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On the advice of a friend, I recently read Essentialism by Greg McKeown. It’s a book on a common theme: getting more out of life, getting more out of less. The type of advice your average overscheduled, over busy, overly responsible person needs, and that certainly includes me.

One point made is to get enough sleep. Sleep allows us to function at our best. One point made is that we have to protect our ability to prioritize. And getting enough sleep is a big part of this.

Guess what I’ve been failing at in the worst possible way since reading the book?

I hope I have some other priorities in order. Some. Certainly not all. This is definitely a work in progress, and I hope I get better at it.

Father’s Day

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Dear Dad,

I wish I could call you today to wish you a happy Father’s Day and to have a talk about all the things going on in my life. I learned to take your advice on some matters with a grain of salt, but with others you had good insights for me. Moving, selling my house, making plans for the future — there are times I feel so overwhelmed with it all, and I wish I could talk it over with my Dad.

But we can’t talk on the phone easily anymore, and I had to make due with letters. I sent you two last week. I forgot it was going to be Father’s Day at the beginning of the week, and so I just sent you a note from Washington. I knew I missed the week before, so I hope it helped make up for that. Wednesday, after I returned to Texas, Father’s Day was on my mind, and I sent you another card specifically for it. I posted it that day, but I don’t think it will arrive until next week. I hope that will be okay. I will send you another note today; your regular weekly letter since phone calls, like I said, don’t work well anymore.

I would imagine that the sister who is taking care of you will visit today. Maybe she will even take you out somewhere. I wonder if my other siblings will mark the day in any way. There are two who could easily visit. There are two more who could at least send a card. But that’s not my business nor my problem. I don’t control anyone else’s relationship to you, only my own. I know I could do better; I just hope I do good enough.

Good enough to let you know you are loved. Good enough to let you know I’m in your corner and would do what I can for you. Good enough to let you know that whatever has happened with my siblings, that I’m not blaming you for that.

There’s been a lot of water under the bridge, Dad. Sometimes I wish you had been a different, stronger person, with more integrity. But I got what I got, and you are the only Dad I will ever have. One thing I know is that while you often didn’t understand me, you loved me beyond reason, you were proud of me. Sometimes you wanted to protect me, even if you didn’t know how. Sometimes you did know how.

I will always remember how, after that bad car accident, you bought a car for me and drove it out to me from California. It wasn’t the type of car I would have picked out. Then again, we aren’t the type of family where parents buy cars for their kids. I knew that you were doing your best to take care of me. I washed that car, and I took care of that car, and I appreciated that car knowing how it represented your love for me.

We’ve had some rough patches along the way. I wish I could go back and find a better way through some of them; you don’t realize how precious time is until it is gone. I know, I know, you aren’t dead yet. And I will love you in my actions through to the end.

One thing I’ve come to understand is that even when the parent-child bond is damaged or broken, whatever things that happen to sunder the two, just what a powerful force it is that pulls our hearts toward each other. Wanting your parent’s love and approval is one of the most powerful forces on earth.

I love you Dad. I wish I could make you better. I wish I could make you as sharp as a tack. I wish I could redo some things from the past. I know I will do my best to write you every week though I expect I’ll miss a few. And I will visit at least twice a year, through to the end. I will do my best to be there when that end comes.

Love,

Dr. Jinx

Being Different from Everyone Else

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Last post, I mentioned my atheism. This is something that sets me apart from the vast majority of my friends and colleagues. It makes people uncomfortable. This is no surprise; when religion teaches that unbelievers are evil and horribly mistaken, where religion gives comfort to those in pain, when many believers disbelieve for a time because they are angry with God, what is a believer to think of another who rejects the faith?

When I was 10 or 11 years old I had a friend ask me why it was I believed in God. I had never considered this a question before. I think many people never consider the question unless they are angry and in pain — i.e. mad at God for some circumstance. For me it was just a completely new thought, an entirely reasonable thought, and I spent a long time with it. I have spent the last 34-35 years thinking on this on and off. When I was younger, I asked this of the adults around me, and I certainly didn’t get a satisfactory answer. I asked my parents, the preachers and teachers in the church, and I didn’t get a satisfactory answer. I read the bible, and I didn’t find that convincing either.

For a while, as a distressed teenager from a troubled home, I tried to follow the prescription of religious friends. To ask for faith and faith would be given to me. I asked, I prayed, I read the Bible some more, but the harder I tried, the more I learned, the more doubt filled my mind. Faith was not given to me. Again, I turned my critical faculties on the question of the existence of God, any God.

The arguments for atheism made a lot more sense. And let me say to those who are reading this who believe. I believe in exactly one fewer god than you do. Why don’t you believe in the Greek gods, or the Roman gods, or the Hindu gods or any of the rest? What makes the one you believe in special is usually that you were raised in that church or are surrounded by that culture. Think of all the gods you have rejected, and remember, I have rejected just one more.

Some say we need God to explain the existence of the universe, but I’d reply by asking why don’t we then need something to explain the existence of God? I stop one step earlier in the process that these believers do. The argument about intelligent design also did not do much for me; yes, there is much about the world that is complicated and elegant, but to claim that this must be created an intelligent designer is to fail to understand fully the theory of evolution and the power of small changes over long periods of time. There are other arguments. I will spare you even a short review of them. I am sure you can go find more information if you are curious.

Another thing. We certainly don’t see any God influencing our day to day life — though some people like to claim they’ve seen it or seen miracles — I believe that people are often experts at fooling themselves and seeing what they want to see. Even me, and I try to be diligent on this issue.

I’ve been in the minority for most of my life with this lack of belief; having other people disagree with me on this point is hardly upsetting. I don’t always like what others say — when people claim it takes faith to be an atheist, that just gets my dander up. The burden of proof is on the person asserting the positive. I am not asserting a positive. When people wonder whether I have a moral code, I have to often bite my tongue in the course of employing it.

I wonder how people can believe what some of the crazy things that the Bible and churches teach, yet be otherwise rational human beings. I am sure they think the exact same of me! One thing being in the minority teaches you is just how rude it would be to express that thought aloud. And unproductive. People that I do respect believe these things. They have reasons I do not understand. It is not my job to convince them, it is my job to live my life authentically and to celebrate when I see others do the same, even if their way is different from mine.

My favorite character from literature, my heart’s favorite at least, is Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan from Lois McMaster Bujold’s works Shards of Honor and Barrayar, collected in the single volume Cordelia’s Honor. While a religious person might ask “what would Jesus do?” my question is “what would Cordelia do?” Cordelia is definitely a theist. I am definitely not. Sometimes my respect and love and admiration for this fictional character is what reminds me that we are all different, and what helps me see, just a little bit, of the perspective from the other side.

It is never easy to go against the flow. My integrity demands this of me. You may not agree; you may want to argue. Please keep in mind that I have, indeed heard it all before. More than once. I hope you can try to respect that, as I also try to respect your beliefs. We won’t always succeed, but at least we can be civilized about our disagreement.