Category Archives: me

A tangle with grief

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“Grant us, in our direst need, the smallest gifts: the nail of the horseshoe, the pin of the axle, the feather at the pivot point, the pebble at the mountain’s peak, the kiss in despair, the one right word.” — Lois McMaster Bujold from Paladin of Souls.

I went to a bicycling event this weekend. The last time I went to it, two years ago, it was with someone that I cared for very much. He had just moved here after completing his degree and we had managed a cross-continental separation for two years. I was full of hope for us, that my hopes to find a life-partner were being realized.

This past spring, we split up, under circumstances that were considerably less than kind to me.

This past several weeks, things with him have been flitting in and out of my attention, usually when I’d rather they left me alone. Grief stirred up at bad times, and too many of them.

I’d hoped for a good trip to replace my old memories with some good ones, but that wish wasn’t granted.

I found myself sitting alone on Friday night, face distorted in a rictus of pain, trying not to scream or cry out loud, since I was indoor camping, and others were about. I finally took some anxiety medication in the hopes that it would help, and my one small gift was that it did take enough of the edge off that I could pull myself together, clean out my nose and clean up my face, write to try to do something with all the jacked up emotions, then read and eventually attempt to sleep.

I wonder if anyone noticed. I think some walked by and could have, but my eyes were shut as I tried to breathe through the pain. Someone did inquire solicitously about my ride the next day. Maybe. Maybe not.

The line-up for the ride resulted in more of the same, but I managed to pull together again before I had to start pedaling. My ride was mostly solitary. But, fortunately, calm.

I hope that I was processing grief. Getting it out. Putting it away, at least, in part. Getting through it.

I dread more. I am not sure how much more of that I can take.

Surely by now I am an expert in that kind of grief. Relationships end, and it is time to pick yourself up and move on. Somehow, when I was small, I never thought I would have to spend my life alone, but every passing year, that looks like a more and more likely present and future. How do you face this with courage?

None of the stories you read as a child prepare you for this. Little girls grow up and meet men of character and get married and have families. That’s what I wanted for myself too. We don’t flounder and flop around year after year after year after year looking and hoping, or trying to look and trying to hope. There is no script for this outcome. I have to write it myself, and I don’t know how.

Or maybe I do. One foot in front of the other, one step, one task, one day at a time. Breathe into the pain. Breathe into the loneliness. Make myself like a fountain, giving what I want to find, keeping nothing for myself, since these gifts cannot be hoarded or saved for later. I do not get the choice in what I find from others. The only choice I have, anyone has, is how to treat everyone else, and how I react to what I am given.

It all seems empty. But at least for this moment I have calm.

We value good teaching

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It’s a busy week, but the basic paperwork and websites for my classes have been completed, the students have been emailed, and homework has been assigned. Before the first day of class? You betcha! I figure the only way I have to warn them that my classes are work is to assign some work due on the first day of class.

As a small distraction from all those logistics, I helped facilitate two teaching programs this week.

The first was about Piazza which I and another instructor use to promote discussion outside of the classroom. In particular, we like it when students answer each other’s questions. We also like reducing the number of times we have to answer the same question (reduction to zero is a bonus). Piazza was created by a woman entrepreneur, Pooja Sankar. Quite a role model for our women students.

The second was on the theme of getting the semester started off on the right foot, and, given that there are always a few new instructors around, advice for new instructors. I think the experienced instructors enjoyed sharing some best practices, and maybe even picked up a few good tips. I think the new instructors were exposed to a great deal of community wisdom, and heard about some valuable resources. And they have some ideas of people to approach if they have questions later.

But maybe the most important outcome for me is promoting teaching as a community value in our department. It gets lip service, but often not much else. Holding an hour long workshop or two and having faculty show up is something concrete that says that it matters.

Anxiety

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Some days are not what you want them to be.

I was up with anxiety in the middle of the night.

I woke up anxious this morning.

Anxiety is not the world’s best productivity tool for me, although it is one hell of a good tool for getting out of bed in the morning. I flit from one thing to the next without really accomplishing anything. If I’m not sucked deeply into a book, I can’t even really read.

So the day has gone so far. I took some more medication, and maybe I am settling down now. With the bad taste in my mouth from an unsatisfying and unproductive morning.

For me, anxiety is this uncomfortable feeling in my stomach and chest. When it is bad, it is a sense of impending doom. When it is mild, it is merely uncomfortable.

Anxiety is a very functional emotion in the correct circumstances. It evolved long ago, and it is awesome for keeping someone alert and on guard. If I needed to be alert for animal or human predators coming to get me, anxiety would be my best friend for vigilance. In the modern world, where much of what we need to do involves calm and concentrated effort, in particular, blocking out everything around us and only paying attention to the task at hand, anxiety is a substantial foe.

What have I learned about dealing with anxiety?

First, acceptance. You cannot will it away. You cannot think it away. For some, cognitive approaches work well. I am not one for whom this is so. Do the thoughts cause the anxiety or the anxiety the thoughts? I think it is a circular system. That said, being meticulous about finding things to be happy about and to be grateful for will help improve your mood, even if it does not take away your anxiety. Be mindful and generous and count your blessings.

Second, treatment. There are medications you can use. Finding the right one can be hard, but they can be a lifeline. They have been for me. Talk to your doctor. It would be great if you could talk to a psychiatrist, as they are the real expert in treatment of these problems … but I haven’t figured out how to make that happen yet. Too many people with far more serious psychiatric illnesses than mine, and too few doctors to treat them.

Third, compassion. If I must live with this, the one thing I can do is use it to help others. In particular, students with test anxiety or math anxiety or however it comes about. I can be a role model of someone who handles it reasonably well. I can provide acceptance, acknowledgment of the real difficulties involved in dealing with it, and some ideas of ways to cope.

Fourth, awareness. What situations and people are healthy, productive, warm, accepting, make you feel good? Spend more time in/with them. What situations and people do the opposite? Spend less them in/with them. And be aware, very aware, when you see behavior in others that gets to you, that their behavior is a reflection on who they are NOT on you or your actions or your character, and two, you cannot change another’s behavior, you can only modify how you react to them and whether you interact with them in the first place.

If you suffer from anxiety too, I wish I could make it better. Since I can’t, take meticulous care of yourself. You are worth it. Hold your head high, even when you feel that it is beating you down moment by moment.

Project Euler

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Lately I’ve been thinking about what I wanted to do with an honors class I am teaching in the fall. The three things you can give a student that will help them most in the future are: good communication skills (make them write, make them give presentations), programming skills, and work on decent-sized projects that go beyond the routine weekly homework. These are discussed in this Washington Post article: Starting College? Here’s how to graduate with a job.

I’m getting burned out on teaching large projects and lots of writing. That’s not appropriate for this class anyhow. But I could throw in some programming problems. And we might do a small project with some writing/presentation. Or we might not! #1 Rule for the Moment: take it easy on yourself, Dr. Jinx. You have a lot of irons in the fire, and you work too hard.

One of my students recently pointed me to the Project Euler (http://projecteuler.net) website, which is a compendium of nice problems requiring programming and basic mathematics to solve. I am sure friends into math and programming have mentioned this site to me in the past, but I didn’t have the motivation to go check it out.

There are several small problems early on the site that I can use for my students. Then they get more interesting/harder. What I wasn’t expecting was how much fun I would have solving these.

I’m 21 problems in. The problems are getting harder. I am building a small library of general-purpose tools to make solving them easier.

I worked in software for 10 years, and when I got out, I questioned myself on many counts. Did I really like doing math, or was I just sucked in because I was one of the few women who could, and I seemed to be reasonably good at it? Did I really like programming, or did I just get sucked into it, too? While it seems possible that other paths might have been good ones for me, it also seems that I got a first-hand look on how environment can deeply effect your enjoyment of things. A poisonous environment can cause you to start to dislike and feel incompetent at activities that you are actually reasonably competent at and enjoy.

The number one advice I tend to have for students is to find people and environments that make them feel good about themselves and spend more time in them. I wish I had gotten and taken that advice myself.

Whether you are a supervisor or a teacher or a Ph.D. advisor, good advice to keep in mind is to put some thought into keeping the environment supportive and healthy. While yes, whatever you are doing is work, if you can make work fun, you win. Your employees and students will work hard and happily for you in that case.

Berry Smoothie (with kale, don’t tell!)

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When bananas are too ripe to eat, peel them, break them into pieces, and freeze them for smoothies later.

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Mix in blender:

  1. Several frozen banana pieces (1/2 to 3/4 of a large banana)
  2. 1/2-3/4 cup frozen mixed berries
  3. 1/4-1/2 cup plain yogurt
  4. 1/3-1/2 cup (or more) juice, adjust for consistency
  5. torn up raw kale leaves (maybe 1/2 cup?)
  6. (flax seeds — optional)

Blend in blender until well mixed. Drink or eat with a spoon, depending on consistency.

Smoothies are certainly not calorie-free, but consider the ingredients. You get a lot of nutrition for the caloric content in one of these.

No, you can’t taste the kale. It just tastes like berry smoothie.

My favorite juices are cranberry-apple and pomegranate. The flax seeds add some texture.

Cookies

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One of my REU students made cookies and gave some to one of her research mentors. It is really nice to do something for someone because you enjoy doing it and because you want to make them smile, just for a moment.

There was a time when I made cookies; for Valentine’s Day, and other holidays. I’d put them in decorated bags, and I’d leave them for my faculty members and friends in graduate school. I loved doing it. The work itself gave me pleasure. The anticipation, because I wanted them to come in that morning and smile because someone was thinking of them. I wanted to give them that moment with a smile.

Like I smiled when one of my young friends left me some cookies this past Christmas.

There were tears in my eyes then too.

At some point I stopped making cookies. I remember the conversation. One of my faculty members told me that she knew why I needed to do that. Really? I’m not sure exactly what she said after that. It was just the smug certainty, not gratitude, but superiority, that me making her cookies represented weakness in me, not kindness toward her. That I needed to do this for her, for them, because I was … something less than the rest of them. Something she could, so easily, see through.

I was hurt. A whole lot angry. How dare anyone presume to think they know what is in my head? How dare anyone take my kindness and turn it into a weakness?

All I have to say to a world that might treat these young ladies that way is so rude that I don’t even want to type it here. Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare ever take that precious kind spirit and try to hurt them with it.

Sometimes you have to stop making cookies for people who treat your kindness with contempt. That is right and sad.

The proper response is thank you. And, to these cookie-making friends, I want to say thank you. For the kindnesses toward me and toward others. For reminding me of who I used to be and allowing me to remember this for what it was, through older eyes.

Gobsmacked

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From earlier today.

I am feeling a little gobsmacked right now, but it is getting better.

A few thoughts.

If you are acting with sincerity and good will, when other people don’t (re)act nicely, it usually has more to do with them and their history than whatever you just said or did.

It is okay to not feel good all the time; that sticks and stones thing is completely wrong. We hurt each other with words all the time.

It is okay to look at things that happen and take notes about how you want to react to them differently next time.

Last, asking and not getting everything you asked for is better than not asking and getting nothing. It also doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep asking. (But, dangit, asking is hard.)

Now, chin up, and on with the day.

Everyone has days like this. I was distracted in my evening Tai Chi class, thinking about what happened earlier. I’m trying to shake it off, but it was definitely time for more anxiety medication when I got home.

Things will always just throw you off balance, and you have to find a way to deal with them. I know this. Life has ups and downs. This isn’t so bad. Don’t let it get to me.

But I am feeling bad.

Sometimes you question what you are worth, and what good you are doing. That’s where I am tonight. I know I do a lot of good. And I am fully aware that I screw up sometimes. Hopefully more good than bad, but sometimes the bad just gets all stirred up. The screwy thing is, I don’t even feel like anything from earlier today was my bad!

Time for a shower. And a book. And some sleep. And the hope that tomorrow is another day, with all the things a tomorrow brings.

What do I advise my students to do? Put your chin up. Try to walk the high road. Have something kind to say to someone, every day. You have something special to contribute to this world, you just have to figure out what it is. What should you do with your life? You should follow a path that makes you happy. If you aren’t sure what to do, do the things that make you feel good, and spend more time with people that make you feel good. Give each job an honorable effort and let the results take care of themselves.

That is all I or anyone can ask of you. So, tomorrow, an honorable effort. A kind word for someone. Spend some time with people I like, and take on at least one job that makes me happy. I hope the results, in particular, my mixed-up feelings, will take care of themselves.

Birthday

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Today is my birthday. I’m at the age where I do not not want to be another year older. My next major birthday (fortunately still a few years off) is 50. Note to self: isn’t it interesting how I feel absolutely obligated to include the information that 50 is still a few years off? Don’t want anyone thinking I am any older than I am, like that is some kind of failing!

I am not ready to be 50…. there’s a little screamy part inside me that says I am not *ever* going to be ready to be 50. I think that most people feel this way, and we are all really good at not talking about it.

We are good at joking about it. “Sure beats the alternative.” “Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what-in-the-hell happened?” “Getting old is not for sissies.”

It is completely mind-boggling to be older for reasons I can’t fully explain. Somehow when you are 20 or 25 you never think you will get to 40. Recently I discovered, that you get to 40, and you somehow think you are never going to get past 40! Just like when you are 6 you think you will never be 10. It scares me…. but sure beats the alternative, right? Sometimes I wish I could talk about it, but even here, I am afraid.

I had a self-pity party this morning, just feeling funky and out-of-sorts. One thing I am struggling with is the lack of a family and being alone. It is hard realize that these are things I am never going to get. There are compensations; I am free to do many things others are too tied down to do. I visit more friends. I spend more time with students. I can do more travel when the opportunity arises.

Before I start complaining about life not being fair, I think to myself that I don’t live in Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Iraq, or Afghanistan — even if things are unfair, I have it pretty good. The trick of it is to want the life you have, rather than to spend your energy wanting what you can’t have. But if that was easy, no one would be taking anti-depressants.

In the midst of this, I got a call from one of my REU students (just arrived yesterday). He was feeling sick and needed a trip to the doctor. I could do some complaining about having to be on call my birthday weekend, but you know what? I am actually happy to do that. I know it wasn’t a big thing, but he had someone to call and ask for help. Someone who was happy to come and help.

While he was seeing the doctor, I headed out to get some lunch. I found an electrical outlet, and I plugged in my e-reader which was low on charge. I sat down nearby, but not right next to it. My lunch didn’t arrive and didn’t arrive … I was worried my student would get done with the doctor and call. I finally asked about my food, and it was forgotten. They ended up comping it for me, so I got lunch for free my birthday. There’s one thing to be grateful for.

Turns out one of the two people who ended up sitting next to my e-reader was one of my business math students from Spring 2012 and her Mom. I taught a class of 300 that semester, and sadly I didn’t recognize her. There were too many faces in that sea of students for me to recognize them all. She recognized me, and she and Mom took time to tell me that she enjoyed my class and recommended me (as a teacher) to her friends. Even though that class was a monster with 300 people, this says I was successful at making it a human environment, rather than a dehumanizing environment. That’s something worth being proud of.

I don’t have a family, but I do have a lot of good friends. I have students to take care of. I have a lot of people in my life that look out for me.

I am not a well-respected scientist with a national reputation, but I am, perhaps, a much-loved and much-respected teacher in my corner of the world. I make a difference for many students, sometimes when I don’t even realize it. That’s something to be proud of too.

No, this is not the life I thought I wanted, but maybe I should be — and am — grateful for the one I have.

Home

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It’s weird to be back in my hometown. This is home; it feels like home, but it was more than half my life ago that it was home. And it’s changed, not that I remember clearly what it was like before! The streets feel right and the houses look right (so pretty, so pretty), and there are sidewalks everywhere. I’d hardly need my car if I was close to work. At least not at this time of the year.

I miss it, and it isn’t mine any more. Hasn’t been for a long time. Deja-new? Something like that.

I visited Dad in the nursing home four days straight; today I took off to be a tourist. I went to downtown Chicago for an architecture tour and a visit to the Art Institute. Dad would have enjoyed the architecture tour. If only the logistics of dealing with someone who is infirm and so very low on energy weren’t so overwhelming.

This was Dad's favorite place to eat downtown. I wished that he could join me on the Architecture tour today.

This was Dad’s favorite place to eat downtown. I wished that he could join me on the Architecture tour today.

A bat hanging out on the Rookery buidling.

A bat hanging out on the Rookery buidling.

Street name detail on the Rookery building.

Street name detail on the Rookery building.

The Green line train rolls into the station.

The Green line train rolls into the station.

Mother’s Day

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My Grandmother died right before Mother’s Day. I had planned a trip out so I could see her for the holiday. I was busy. I didn’t call to let her know. And the next thing I knew, she died. She lived a long life, over 100 years. I made two trips out on two consecutive weekends. One for the funeral. One for the trip I’d planned, though I didn’t get to visit her.

My mother is a more complicated story. If you have or had a good relationship with your Mom, please don’t take me or mine as any sort of commentary your experiences.

My story is different. It was hard to love my mother. I didn’t know she was an alcoholic until I was in my mid-to-late teens. I just knew she was difficult, prone to rages, generally unhappy. That weird things would happen and that we wouldn’t talk about them. That I, somehow, was often the crux of her discontent. After I left, it was my father. It wasn’t until we both left that my younger brother, the golden child, got a larger fraction of the experience; Dad claimed my younger brother hadn’t seen Mom in several years when she died. I know I hadn’t.

I think she needed a needy child, and I just wasn’t. Not that I think my Mom would have been good with a needy child. Not that, in all honesty, looking back, that she was much good for anyone during the time I remember. I wonder if she ever was a good friend, or a good employee, or a good teacher … because none of that is what I remember.

The good things: she could cook, and I enjoyed eating her food, but I also remember the unholy wars that would be fought over dinner time. She took us to all the different parks in the area. The Lion Park. The Turtle Park. They all had names, we’d go to one maybe once a week. Maybe more, when you are that little, it all blends together. I remember her taking us out to family swim at the pool every weekday morning, and meeting my cousins there. Yes, in writing this, I feel she is damned by faint praise; it is all I’ve got.

I never understood all the poison in her, the near-complete inability to function in a healthy manner. It was years and a gigantic anxiety problem later that I wondered what her demons were like. I’ve seen her ugliness in myself a few times, some recently. I hope I learn from her mistakes, so that as I battle my own demons, that they don’t suck the good out of me, like they did to her.

I realize every once in a while how much those early years mold you. You spend years trying to understand, trying to get it, and on some level you do. But there are boundaries with people that you just don’t know how to set. After a while, they are more internal than external; detachment is difficult. You realize how much that early parenting affects your whole life.

I have no “Happy Mother’s Day” to offer. Mostly bitter memories with a little bit of sweet, and a backpack full of hard-won wisdom.