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I may fall and fall and fall.

But then, like the Phoenix, I rise.

I am born again.

– Me

I may fall and fall and fall.

I am long overdue for an update. I am so thankful that my existence persists in the minds of my friends, who continue to check on me and send good vibes. But it also makes me feel bad to have to say that things are still…sort of…bad. So I’ll focus on the good news.

Perhaps it is only surprising to me that after 5 months things are still unsettled. In my defense, the decision to move had been a bold step in an effort to let go of everything I had been holding onto and to finally start anew. It’s hard to find that balance between stalling because you think you have time and trying to force things to happen because you think you don’t. The only way I have been able to find balance is by swingingly wildly in one direction, and then equally wildly in the other.

It was almost a year ago to date that I had my gallbladder surgery and my health has improved a lot since then. But my main goal was to get back on the tennis court, and I’m not there yet. While I didn’t get COVID, I had long Covid symptoms that sapped my energy for about 2 months. I am also still coughing even when doing small amounts of exercise, like bringing my trash can up the hill and then walking back down to close the garage door. And somehow, despite not exercising, I have managed to hurt my neck and shoulder and cannot even swing a racket.

But I have some good news. My new pulmonologist thinks that my old pulmonologist was wrong and that I do, in fact, have exercise-induced asthma, so I’m trying a new inhaler. I got my blood work back today, and my lipid panel and autoimmune markers were normal. And I have an appointment with orthopedics next week. So there’s still a ways to go before I can play, but I’m moving in that direction. Hopefully.

I have really been struggling with my job. My thoughts and feelings swing wildly on a day-to-day, sometimes hour-to-hour basis. I am obsessive one day, crunching numbers and changing payment amounts while I lie in bed. The next night I’m citing the Serenity Prayer. The next night I’m uploading my resume and applying for jobs. Serenity Prayer. Fuming with anger and writing anonymous job reviews. Serenity Prayer. You get the idea.

But as of today (yes, today was a busy day) I signed 2 job contracts. One that will allow me to work full-time in Tennessee, and one will allow me to continue to see a handful of clients in Virginia. Together they are so perfect that I am too stunned to fully appreciate how suddenly my job situation has changed. In a rare moment of flexibility, I was able to swing between determination and trust in God with just enough grace to score a win.

It’s funny, before I moved here I was so worried about not making friends, but now that I’m here, it hasn’t really been a priority. But something happened last week that leads me believe that things may be changing. My childhood friend and next-door-neighbor reached out to me out of the blue. I had actually been thinking about her the day before, and then the following day she said she had a dream about me that morning and felt compelled to contact me. Is it possible that thinking about someone makes them think about you? Anyway, she had all of these detailed memories about my family and me and things that we did to mess up our neighbor’s landscaping and get ourselves into trouble. It was clear that she had cherished these memories, so I could not help but feel cherished, too. It was almost like an angel whispering in my ear saying it’s time to make new memories.

The best part of moving to Knoxville has been being close to my family. Especially my niece Sadie. I knew that this part would not disappoint. I knew that it would be good for both of us to be around each other for more than a few weeks out of the year. Yesterday was reminiscent of the days we shared when I would visit over holidays. We went to brunch, did some shopping, sang in the car, and watched a movie. Tonight was a typical night in our new routine. We told each other about the highs and lows of our day. I told her my idea for a blog post. She read me the latest from her short story. She is the girl who I asked to stay 5 years old forever, the teenager who is wiser than her 15 years, and so much more. Although I already treasure every moment with her, I still hear an angel whispering, reminding me to take it in. Remember this. This is why you’re here.

Perhaps it is only surprising to me that after 5 months things are still unsettled. In my defense, the decision to move had been a bold step in an effort to let go of everything I had been holding onto and to finally start anew. It’s hard to find that balance between stalling because you think you have time and trying to force things to happen because you think you don’t. The only way I have been able to find balance is by swingingly wildly in one direction, and then equally wildly in the other.

It was almost a year ago to date that I had my gallbladder surgery, and my health has improved a lot since then. But my main goal was to get back on the tennis court, and I’m not there yet. While I didn’t get COVID, I had long Covid symptoms that sapped my energy for about 2 months. I am also still coughing even when doing small amounts of exercise, like bringing my trash can up the hill and then walking back down to close the garage door. And somehow, despite not exercising, I have managed to hurt my neck and shoulder and cannot even swing a racket.

But I have some good news. My new pulmonologist thinks that my old pulmonologist was wrong and that I do, in fact, have exercise-induced asthma, so I’m trying a new inhaler. I got my blood work back today, and my lipid panel and autoimmune markers were normal. And I have an appointment with orthopedics next week. So there’s still a ways to go before I can play, but I’m moving in that direction. Hopefully.

I have really been struggling with my job. My thoughts and feelings swing wildly on a day-to-day, sometimes hour-to-hour basis. I am obsessive one day, crunching numbers and changing payment amounts while I lie in bed. The next night I’m citing the Serenity Prayer. The next night I’m uploading my resume and applying for jobs. Serenity Prayer. Fuming with anger and writing anonymous job reviews. Serenity Prayer. You get the idea.

But as of today (yes, today was a busy day) I signed 2 job contracts. One that will allow me to work full-time in Tennessee, and one will allow me to continue to see a handful of clients in VA. Together they are so perfect that I am too stunned to fully appreciate how suddenly my job situation has changed. In a rare moment of flexibility, I was able to swing between determination and trust in God with just enough grace to score a win.

It’s funny, before I moved here I was so worried about not making friends, but now that I’m here, it hasn’t really been a priority. But something happened last week that lead me believe that things may be changing. My childhood friend and next-door-neighbor reached out to me out of the blue. I had actually been thinking about her the day before, and then the following day she said she had a dream about me and felt compelled to contact me. Is it possible that thinking about someone makes them think about you? Anyway, she had all of these detailed memories about my family and me and things that we did to mess up people’s landscaping and get ourselves into trouble. It was clear that she had cherished these memories so that I could not help but feeling cherished, too. It was almost like an angel whispering in my ear saying, it’s time to make new memories.

The best part of moving to Knoxville has been being close to my family. Especially my niece Sadie. I knew that this part would not disappoint. I knew that it would be good for both of us to be around each other for more than a few weeks out of the year. Yesterday was reminiscent of the days we shared when I would visit over the holidays. We went to brunch, did some shopping, ran some errands, sang in the car, watched a movie. Tonight was a typical night in our new routine. We told each other about the highs and lows of our day. I told her my idea for a blog post. She read me the latest from her short story. She is the girl who I asked to stay 5 years old forever, the teenager who is wiser than her 15 years, and so much more. Although I already treasure every moment with her, I still hear an angel whispering, reminding me to take it in. Remember this. This is why you’re here.

I’m reading a book on mindfulness called No Time Like the Present: Finding Freedom, Love, and Joy Right Where You Are, by Jack Kornfield. Among the Buddhist psychologists, he is probably my favorite. Unlike most psychologists who write on mindfulness, he has this poetic style. I spend a lot of time making memes from his quotes, so it takes a while to read the chapters, even though they’re short. Today’s chapter was on trust–that things will be OK, that we can trust ourselves, that we can be present to our pain and uncertainty–even to our fears about aging and death.

I have to admit, I was having mini panic attacks the whole time I was reading this chapter. I’m about to turn 50, and it’s one of those ages that seems to have more significance to me than other numbers. I mean, 50 is half of a 100. Well past the middle age mark. That’s old. I don’t even feel like I’m an adult, yet somehow I have gotten old.

I did this tennis clinic the other weekend. I’ve done it a bunch of times in the past, even when when my GERD, asthma, and allergies were at their worst. But this time, in addition to worrying about throwing up, I wasn’t sure if I was in shape enough to survive the clinic itself. In the past, when I have done this clinic, we’d play games, go out to dinner, and do all kinds of things while we weren’t playing tennis. You know what I did this time? Try to recover for the next day by eating, sleeping, and getting in the hot tub. And while I survived the clinic, I was still reeling the next week with fatigue and hunger.

It’s stuff like this–the undeniable signs that my body is not what it used to be–that gives me anxiety attacks.

I know what you’re thinking. Age is just a number. It’s a gift to grow old. It’s all about your state of mind. Be grateful for what you have. Blah blah blah. I try to remind myself of all of these things, but as Paul Gilbert in The Compassionate Mind says, even things that are true are not necessarily compassionate if they don’t feel loving. For me, reminding myself of all these things just makes me even more anxious. So in the spirit of practicing compassion, I tell myself I can forgive myself for all of it. That I’m doing the best that I can.

Although I haven’t had many of them lately, there are moments when I can let go of fear and trying to control the future and trust that somehow everything will be OK, even if I don’t know what the future will look like. And there is this release, this letting go of anxiety, that helps me feel freer. And I have to say, things have always worked out so far. So I have no reason to think that this won’t be the case in the future.

And ultimately the fear itself, the need for control, the pain of life, is a part of what it means to be human. There is nothing that needs to be fixed or changed. Nothing that I’m doing wrong by experiencing it. Just another moment that I can sit with, be fully present to, until it passes and something else arises.

Last month I asked my readers on Facebook what 3 things they would bring with them if they had to spend a month in the woods. I was very happy with the level of participation and impressed by how survivor-oriented most of the answers were. Originally, when my friend and I played this game, my answers were Tony Bennett, Roger Federer, and a helicopter. Since I assume none of us can operate a helicopter, I should have probably picked a pilot for one of them. But I’m obviously not that survivor-oriented.

In case you have been waiting in suspense for the results, here they are! The top 3 answers were:

1. Something to start a fire with
2. Some kind of sharp tool
3. Water/water filter

So if you picked these 3, congratulations on your practicality! You could potentially win a survivor contest.

The 3 least survivor-oriented responses, other than mine, were:

1. A pod that functions as a house with electricity
2. lip gloss
3. soccer ball

Good luck to those of you who picked one of those items. You will probably be the first contestant to get kicked out of the woods. Or perhaps that was your goal?

Here are some items that I thought would have gotten more votes:

1. Phone (cheating, but still…)
2. Alcohol
3. Suitcase/backpack, etc.

I may get kicked out of the woods, but I think of myself as a survivor in other ways. In fact, because I am trying to win the Perfect Attendance Award at work, I’ve realized that a lot of the things that I do that I thought were kind of crazy are really ways to improve my mental toughness. If you read my blog, you already know a lot of them–play tennis matches while injured/depressed/throwing up, knit dresses, try to make impossible relationships work. But here are some other things I do:

1. Pretend that, if I’m going to have to talk to someone and it’s going to be really painful–let’s say going on a 5 hour trip with someone who will talk nonstop and say offensive things, for example–I try to pretend I’m a POW and will myself to withstand whatever torture awaits me.
2. Whenever I’m stuck somewhere–in traffic, in line at Walmart, etc.–I try to imagine being trapped in an elevator, waiting to be rescued–which for me is the scariest thing imaginable.
3. When I have to really concentrate in Minesweeper but I’m starting to fall asleep (which is supposed to be the goal), I will myself to focus because maybe I’m going to be in some situation where I have to make life or death decisions in some compromised mental state.

And I have survived a lot of things. Episodes of major depression. Divorces. Being single. And now I’m trying to survive by providing for my brother and me. Hence, the need for the Perfect Attendance Award. Every day I live with the anxiety of not making it in because of my depression. Nevertheless, I still plan on winning this contest.