I had a job interview a few weeks back. Actually two interviews in quick succession. And I got all jazzed up about the possibility of working somewhere that sought me out and in an industry I know and have a lot of experience with.
Good thing they got busy and let me think for a few days before getting back in touch,
because this is my default mode of operation ———> Get my hopes way up, imagine the possibilities and jump to exciting conclusions. Except for that nagging feeling in my gut that was screaming, “Don’t do it, this isn’t the right thing for you!”
Only when I got really quiet with myself and weighed the offer with my current reality and where we want to be in the coming year did I realize that no, in fact I don’t want a job that will require 50-70 hours of my time per week, salary doesn’t even matter at that point. I was terrified to share this with Zach and my family and close friends, yet once I did nobody judged me or thought any different of me. (And even if they did, that’s their problem, not mine.)
Doing the mental gymnastics was not required, yet the exercise revealed our next right step. If the priority for our family is to find the rooted place we’ve been desperately searching for for a whole year, than why put that off any longer with two lives in two cities where none of us wants to be long term.
So next right steps are being taken, but not before that pause and reflection. More soon…
It’s been almost one year since my dad got sick with encephalitis and subsequently was diagnosed with dementia. One year since coming back to Denver for the first time and putting our lives, goals, and dreams on hold. One year of survival, mental breakdowns, experiencing some of the deepest levels of anxiety and depression, churning family dynamics, grief, housing insecurity, and complete uncertainty.
Yes, it’s been a destabilizing year for most of us, but when I put my losses into words I can see their magnitude and feel the full weight of it all. I put this post down and pick it up again weeks apart because it’s hard to look at. Maybe you’ve lost some things too, welcome. There is space for all of us to hold each other’s grief.
I didn’t want to quantify my grief this way, but it was a suggestion from my sponsor. See, grief and I have this tricky past, culminating with the loss of my mom over ten years ago. When I went into that depression I had very few tools or knowledge of how to get out. The trauma of that experience has made it hard for me to want to get reacquainted with grief this time around. Like I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been reading a lot of sad memoirs and I think it’s a way for me to get adjacent to grief without going to the deep end.
I think I’m done camping out adjacent to and am finally able to dive into my own grief experience. (Also, if you’re not into this sort of sad stuff or if it triggers you in any way, skip past this post – I promise I’ll eventually get back happier times in my writing, this too shall pass)
So in no particular order, here are my Covid losses:
Community, leaving Denver by choice but then getting stuck in this sort of nomad hell with no lifeline or way out. Loss of income about six months ago that complicated things immensely and made our lives get really small. It’s dehumanizing and demoralizing. It makes people uncomfortable so my community got smaller.
Loss of a dream, a life in Guatemala, other dreams on hold, loss of the capacity to dream because sometimes that is just too tiring to think of. Loss of creative energy or the ability to “figure it out” on the fly like I once did.
Loss of a business and a business partner, I did not get a say in this matter and that still stings a lot.
Loss of a parent. Yes my dad is still here and I am making the best of it, no I can’t call him up and say what I sometimes need to say to my father. I’ve gained a toddler in some respects with regard to his mental capacity. (Fun AND challenging)
Loss of autonomy. Choices got whittled down, decisions were made from a perspective of loss and lack. While I’m so grateful to have the closest circle to fall on and hold me back up, I also want to be able to make my own decisions again, have my own space again, sleep in my own bed again, do things my quirky way without needing an explanation.
Loss of sanity, security, health, stress weight and hair, I’m putting it all down so yeah, hair gets listed too.
This is another one of those posts that can’t get wrapped up with a bow. Grief is messy, unfolding, sometimes all encompassing. I will say that I’m getting a lot of support from the following; therapy, being outside and walking everyday (even when it’s dark and cold and I don’t want to), from daily CBD use, from moving my body with Pilates and with toddlers (real ones, not my dad), drinking water, making dinner, and asking for what I need from my people. I’m not done with my grief, but saying it out loud and sharing it like this helps me move through it, explore it in a less scary way. Thanks for coming along with me.
Some of my sad reads for the year so far. Maybe I’ll pick up some light fiction in the coming months…
I read this as a headline to a course workshop last week and it struck me deeply. Same with a very strong avalanche metaphor I poured over with others in a recent Alanon meeting. Hi, I’m Breanne and I’m a recovering codependent.
If you’re unfamiliar with the term codependent there is a vast and current collection of writers and experts on the topic as well as 12 step meetings for codependents. I personally find hope in the 12step rooms of Alanon which is full of codependents like me because a lot of us get there with the concern of trying to stop somebody else’s drinking. If you substitute the word ‘thinking’ for ‘drinking’ in a reading of the 12 steps you will get what I’m trying to describe here.
I am a chronic Overthinker for YOUR life, I have big ideas, visionary goals, can scheme up any number of ways out of a predicament, and it’s made me very adaptable person and a person not afraid to dream big dreams. But I spend entirely too much time trying to overthink these things in YOUR life or co-dependently with YOU, and that often leaves me with very little energy to dream or think of what I actually want for MY life and I lose sight of what goals I want to achieve.
Thankfully, I haven’t spent a lot of time in the last five years around active alcoholism. However, the cunning baffling and confusing part of recovery even if I’m not around alcoholics or the behavior of disordered drinking is that I can still fall into codependent states of being and overthinking.
Now, don’t get me wrong, co-creating something with a partner or as a family can be a beautiful thing as our first year in this pandemic demonstrated. Maybe you sit down with your partner or family every year and track out a five-year plan or future cast together, and that is great if everyone gets a voice and has provisions to make those dreams a reality.
We haven’t done that kind of long term planning as a family since leaving Denver mid-2020 and survival mode kicked in for me quite some time ago. We also don’t live in an echo chamber of a single family unit, so extended family needs took center stage. When I’m in survival mode, my defects of character re-surface and my executive functions quickly diminish. Now we’re back to my avalanche analogy. What would you do if faced with an avalanche of someone else’s creation? You’d get the fu*k out of the way! But in my disease of overthinking, I think I can come up with a better plan and often jump right into that cascading snow. Right now I’m sitting or suffocating under the pile of snow that I helped create. It’s unbearable, it’s dark, and it’s freezing, and creative as I am, I can’t think my way out of it.
My only way out is to surrender to it. My next step is to accept. This is essentially steps one and two in the 12 Steps, admitting I’m powerless and coming to believe that a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity.
Today I’m at a step three place, made a decision to turn my life over to the power of God as I see God. She looks like a lot of women surrounding me with comfort and encouragement today. Because after a decade + in recovery, a pandemic, zoom meetings, and a nomadic life can’t take away the power of getting together and sharing these things in a roomful (or virtual roomful) of people who overthink like me. I’m diving back into working the steps with a sponsor and to attending more meetings. This is how I find my way back to me. (Also, antidepressants and therapy, but that’s coming later and the timing is beyond my control.)
A very insidious part of codependency is a lack of boundaries between myself and the people surrounding me. Living in a 20’ travel trailer for 18 months really eroded my boundaries and sense of self.
The people often most offended by carving out new boundaries for oneself are the ones who benefitted most from my lack of them before. I will not make decisions for the rest of my family beyond what constitutes their immediate safety and security (and that really only applies for my own two kids). I will not future plan until I can firmly stand back on the foundation of my own recovery so that I can dream things that I want for MY future. Does this sound selfish? I know it does to me for various reasons including societal conditioning saying women have to do it all and be it all for others, so I take it several dysfunctional steps too far to the benefit of those around me who don’t have to think for themselves. I had a mother who martyred herself because of similar conditioning and because of her own disease of codependency. Maybe you too are suffering from the effects of codependency, just know there is help and that you are not alone.
I write these things as part of my process, it’s the same reason I share in rooms of recovery. If it serves you or resonates, great! I’d love to hear about it. If not, you can always take what you like and leave the rest.
Wow, all of your words, suggestions, and encouragement in my last post were truly touching. I’m hanging in there. Once we got back to Denver, a small weight of this season was lifted. Evidently, it may be awhile before I can be seen by a therapist … like, February. I mean, what the actual?! But by your comments and the general shit show that is our country right now I’m not even remotely surprised. We’re all falling apart at the same(ish) time, and there are not enough supports to keep these systems running in their current state. There’s solidarity in that, but also a lot of pain coming to the surface that must be realized both individually as a collective.
We can smile and laugh even amidst hard pain
Last week, I somewhat wallowed in this frustrating reality, having a significant need yet being denied or stalled when that need is acute. But I have a lot of tools and have been fully employing them. Not surprisingly, they all revolve around community.
Living simply and nomadically for 18 months, we established the foundations like sleeping well, eating two to three from scratch and nourishing meals together everyday, and by being outside and moving our bodies a lot.
Coming back to Denver I have only built on that foundation, I went to meetings and talked to my sponsor more, I got a haircut (how humanizing!), went to my chiropractor, said yes to dog sitting and baby holding – two of my favorite things. This week I will bake bread and brew kombucha. I’m trying to read and write more and scroll less, (probably the hardest bad habit for me to break).
I’m far from where I want to be, and it’s still hard. But hard is not good or bad, it just is. I’m settling into this season of hard with both kicking and screaming and grace, they take turns. For now that is enough and it is okay.
I’ve hit a wall before, even this year in the midst of all that came crashing onto my plate with regard to my dad. But I’m looking at another hard wall, this time a lot more personal and a lot darker. I’m writing to shed light on it and to share the burden to make it less heavy for me. Natalie had this premonition before I did (I think it’s even mentioned in a previous entry) and it’s all too true. She declared, “This isn’t fun” to her brother and our friend last time we were in Denver. I’m not having fun and in fact have been getting repeatedly sick, a physical manifestation of something deeper happening in my psyche. I get a depression just about every October/November since my mom died ten years ago. But this month, with all that’s going on (or not?) in our day to day lives, that depression is beyond my normal course of management. I’m actively looking for some mental health help and probably at getting back on antidepressants for awhile at least until our lives get a little more stable.
The strain on our nation’s healthcare system means the best chance at me getting the help I need is not in Farmington NM, but back in Denver. Coming “home” yet again, this time for nobody but myself. Natalie is coming with me and we are leaving the boys to the building and plodding forward.
Never in my 40 years have I had this despairing sense of I don’t know what is next for this long. I can usually makeshift or look on the bright side or what have you, but this time I’m completely out of plans, ideas, dreams, almost out of hope. And forgive me dear daughter for sweeping your exact same concerns under the rug last post. Like I said there, we’ll get you some help too.
We’ve continued prioritizing the bus building because that is secure and low-cost housing once it is complete, but when will that be?, I don’t know. Our 20’ trailer has kept us warm and secure but it was never intended to be full time living for this length of time. I keep looking on the bright side even when my back is screaming for a better solution to our pull out bed. I keep minimizing our needs when compared to the whole of humanity and can say we still have so much. I’m tired all the time despite sleeping soundly for 8-9 hours almost every night. Besides my children, I don’t have a lot of purpose or a project I can pour into while Zach does the construction. (I’m more of the planner for the bus and not the physical builder, that’s just knowing my strengths.) but yes, back to plans. I’ve noticed these languishing weeks that I can’t plan out anything. Don’t have the strength or mental fortuity for it. Ask me what’s for dinner, hopefully someone else has an idea. Ask me what we’re doing for the day, ummm maybe taking a walk if I’m done recovering from being physically sick, beyond that I don’t know, nor do I care. I’m 100% in survival mode and it is completely exhausting. I cannot keep existing like this.
Not sure how to wrap this one up. I guess it’s the underbelly side you don’t see on a typical nomad’s Instagram feed. I went to a church service (in person!) for the first time in two years yesterday and we chanted this,
“Our darkness is never darkness in your sight, the deepest night is clear as the daylight.”
So that was fitting for me and I’ll hold onto that hope.
The Writings of Breanne Mashek 