I am well acquainted with all things “fine.”
Fine hair? Yep, I have it. It frizzes out like cotton candy in humidity… and melts just as quickly, too.
Fine jewelry? Yep, I love it. Not that I have much of it, but I am sufficiently enamored of it to drool over auction catalogs full of baubles and sparklers (without actually going to the auction, naturally.)
Fines herbes? Yep, they are a good thing. Tarragon is a mainstay in my kitchen, although I always think people in cooking shows are saying “gerbil”, not “chervil.” “Just combine parsley, chives, tarragon, and gerbil…”
Fines? Yep, from the library, but not for many years. And not because I’ve fixed my ways — I just buy the books now so I can do the financial bloodletting up front.
Finite? I am. It’s true. Though truly it may seem like I go on and on verbally and textually without limits or stops a good portion of the time, my arms are VERY finite. So finite that they don’t reach the top shelf, requiring me to get my infinitely armed stepson to get things down for me.
But.
I’ve noticed lately that I’m using “fine” or “okay” to answer how I am, rather than “great!” or “good!” I’m not doing it in that PLEASE ASK ME HOW I AM kind of way, because I don’t really have a ton of interest in talking about it — though I’m writing a blog post about it right now, so that’s crap, clearly.
No, I’m saying it without realizing I’m saying it, but it’s honest, and now I’m trying to figure out where my “great!” and “good!” went.
If I look at my life objectively, I would say it’s pretty great. I have a snazzy husband, awesome kids hanging out, a fantastic family on this coast and another (or two!), terrific friends, a bunch more space in a bunch better neighborhood home-wise, and a job that challenges me. I experience obstacles like anyone else, but in the balance, I am safe, healthy, and loved by the folks who are “required” to feel that way (no one is, but you know what I mean.)
But I started to think last night about how little time I’d spent acknowledging the stress of the huge changes I’ve seen in my life over the last couple of years.
Sure, I’ve written about it from time to time, but I tend to want to (and so I do!) tie up the endings of those posts (and my feelings!) with a nice bow — partly because that’s the way I am and have always been, and partly because I don’t want anyone to fuss about me from a thousand miles away or from a sofa cushion away. I don’t want anyone to worry that I’m going to sit down in the middle of making dinner some night and cry into my bunch of chervil-gerbil. I don’t want to be ungrateful or melodramatic, because those things tend to get on my nerves in myself and others.
Seriously. People go to sleep at night listening to gunfire. I get a snorer and the dishwasher (I love falling asleep to the dishwasher. HELLO OCD!)
That said, if I take a look at the Holmes and Rahe stress scale, my score is 625 for the last 3 years of my life. BAM! I don’t even know how valid the whole thing is, but someone mentioned it once, so I looked myself up, and ended up a bit boggle-eyed at just how many changes I’d experienced. The lowest score I could calculate per year was 410, so even if I didn’t aggregate my life events, I’d still be stacking them up every 365 days or so.
Not all of the stuff on that list is BAD, mind you — in fact, much of it is AWESOME and THINGS I WANTED TO DO. But it was interesting to think about the fact that even positive change can be stressful and “impactful.” (I just used that NON-WORD to add some additional stress to my life.)
Interesting to think of how often I ignore the negative or challenging changes, as though they were eliminated by some sort of Pollyanna Venn diagram.
While much around me is both great and good, and while the vast majority of the time, I am smiling (unless I’m making my typing face, which makes me look alternately comatose or crazed), I have to own it:
I’m really, really tired. Fairly often. Sometimes to the point of frustration. I unleashed a good deal of that on my husband last night, and likely deserved soap in my mouth or a kick in the ass for it.
I’m a bit overwhelmed, too (or a lot, depending on the day.) I’m also nervous, pensive, concerned, and other words that could occur in a character description for myself, were I on Broadway. This last holiday season made me aware of it, somehow, even as I was gazing contentedly at our sparkly tree. Something was a bit off, and it wasn’t just the bendy trunk on our Frazier fir.
A LOT has changed. A LOT.
There is nothing about my life that is similar to what it was two years or three years ago (save for my tendency to buy a lot of different salts and trip on air.) I have had to adjust everything from my expectations to my pantry contents to accommodate a new life. That’s kind of a big deal. It’s fine, but a weird kind of fine at times that is a bit hard for me.
And it’s been hard for people in my life, too, my “fine”-ishness. My subtle avoidance of “whoa.”
I know Gradon is going to poke me in the eye the next time I make fun of him for being forgetful or mentioning a cool car we just passed (he does this like a Detroit-bred or Autobahn-tested savant), because that seems to be my charming way of letting off a bit of steam, or shifting the focus off my own behavior.
I know my parents wish I’d call more, along with many of my West coast AND East coast friends, who are a little bit over my “I’m sorry!” reply to complaints about my lack of availability or intentionality, along with professions about my commute or obligations or whatever else. Add on the guilt for that, and you’ve got a recipe for stupid (spending the time you should spend with people feeling badly that you’re not spending that time with people.) And because I know I’m not “getting it right”, I tend to stress that my relationships are not as unconditional as I seem to assume they are — though I never really assume they are. I just act like it. I know how tenuous new friendships can be, and what my established relationships deserve: more.
I know I forget details and let things slide that I should make a priority, partly because I’m overwhelmed, and partly because what lurks behind those details is the spectre of getting something big very, very wrong. Performance anxiety isn’t my thing on a stage (I love a microphone!) Just in planning important things.
I know I spend a lot of time doing things I think will de-stress me (cooking!) without spending time on things that might actually de-stress me (ordering in pizza with my husband and laughing at stupid television, or making something that, say, doesn’t take 30 ingredients and 4 hours.)
I know all my frazzle has made me things I don’t wish to be somewhat often, including inefficient, ungrateful, snarky, and ignorant.
Anyway, I’m not sure where all of these thoughts need to end up or how I’ll process them properly, though I know I needed to put them down somewhere where I’d have to acknowledge they were true.
Right now, I’m fine. Which is better and luckier than most, I am CERTAIN (see what I did there?)
But not as good as I could be, given the resources and opportunities and people I have in my rapidly evolving life. Which is something to think about.
And then do something about. Though I don’t know what. I just know it’s time.
Because you can only blame the roller coaster for making you dizzy for so long before it’s time to shut up and eat a hot dog.