Ann Imig's Blog, page 7

Maybe tomorrow #30BrighterDays

Last night all the sleep interventions failed me– the relaxation sounds, the deep breathing, the variations of heat and weight–even the as-needed prescription.

I avoided a complete freak-out by watching old Annie Broadway audition videos while Husband slept beside me. Earbuds are a miracle. YouTube is a miracle. Watching kids get a casting call from Broadway is a miracle. However, if you’re thinking that 5-11 year-olds belting Hard Knock Life doesn’t portend a sleep miracle, you are correct. When a person reaches insomnia level orphan choreography, all sleep hygiene bets are off.

Maybe I got 2-3 hours of sleep. Mostly I’m thrilled that it’s morning and I can be done with trying.

Sometimes the brightest news of the day is that we get to start fresh tomorrow.

.

This post is part of #30BrighterDays; a thing I made up to brighten each day of November

A reminder #30BrighterDays

 

This post is part of #30BrighterDays; a thing I made up to brighten each day of November

 

Flip Your Puzzle Piece #30BrighterDays

In graduate school,  Mary Jo Barrett introduced me to the concept of vulnerability and resilience as two sides of the same puzzle piece.

I almost went digging through boxes in the basement to see if I could locate the actual worksheet, but you and I both know that after 90 minutes of excavation I’d be sitting in a sad pile of empty CD cases, old VHS tapes, and kindergarten hand print art (sniff).

To sum it up, if you make a list of all your own least favorite traits– we’ll call those your vulnerabilities– that same list correlates directly to your strengths; your resilience.

For some of us humans– especially women, especially parents–we scroll through these vulnerabilities daily like an endless ticker loop listing ways we feel not enough or too much. In fact, we grow so used to the list it can become a negative feedback loop–like muzak; always playing and wreaking havoc with nasty toe-tapping or unpleasant elevator singing–often when we aren’t even aware of it.

One minute you’re standing in the greeting card section wondering when greeting cards became $5.00 apiece, the next minute you’re perseverating on your relationship with the person you’re card-shopping for all the while singing Old McAnn-old had a brain that used to remember everyone’s birthdays. And on those birthdays she sent cards and gifts– with a thank you note here! and a holiday card there! Nieces and nephews and friends and inlaws! AND THEN SHE BECAME A MOM AND IT ALL WENT TO HELL, EIEIOhhhcrappp.

Lately when I hear me deriding myself, I try to take a moment and to look for the resilience side of the puzzle-piece.  If nothing else, it’s a fun distraction from self-flagellation. For example:

Overly sensitive highly compassionate

indecisive sees value everywhere

naive optimistic

too forgiving open-hearted

scatter-brained wholeheartedly (over) committed

forgets name of close friends and family knows too many people on the internet

impatient excited for what’s next

poor taste in music in love with silence

tired and grouchy works hard (and go take a nap, lady)

perfectionist ambitious

self-critical self-aware

jealous human

talks too much passionate participator

overprotective present and aware

fears conflict promotes peace

becoming a hermit improving boundary setting

blunt honest

afraid of loss immersed in love

 

 

Listen, it’s not always a one-to-one comparison. Some of you dear word nerds might notice these aren’t exactly antonyms. Also, all that area in the middle? The space where you flip your piece? That’s room for growth. I can accept my vulnerability fears conflict more easily when I name my resilience promotes peace, therefore giving myself enough grace to learn that conflict can serve a necessary step in building peace. My perfectionism vulnerability correlates with my super-sized resilient ambition, and daily practice helps me find that happy flip. In other words, without one we likely wouldn’t have the other and the sweet spot lies in finding love or at least acceptance for both traits within ourselves.

I think this exercise holds value as a thought disrupter, an anxiety-to-curiosity re-router, and a mood brightener.

This post is part of #30BrighterDays; a thing I made up to brighten each day of November

 

 

 

I haz no coffee but I can haz cans #30BrighterDays

In a few hours I’m scheduled for a minor out-patient medical thing. What that means for this morning is no coffee, no yogurt fruit and granola, no water. Did I mention no coffee? Oh and I am afforded one–exactly one–pee.

However, it also means I slept in while my eight-grader got himself up and out of the house, I have a little time to write, and I do get to brush my teeth!

Let your cans meet your can’ts today.

This post is part of #30BrighterDays; a thing I made up to brighten each day of November

 

 

Our sunshine, our scourge, our Toby tuxedo cat #30BrighterDays

It’s been introspection central around here, so today I shall brighten your day or possibly terrify you with our cat.

Oh my, our cat.

Toby Toblerone (not #sponsored) Tobias aka… Señor: Our sunshine, our scourge.

We raised a pair of cats from 6 months to 15 years without ever experiencing any one–not to mention ALL– of the following:

Toby climbs screen door, hangs, shows off his tuxedo.

Toby jumps on counter, steals entire piece of pizza, leads family on pizza chase–full pizza slice dangling from crust in mouth, several times around open floor plan.

Toby rockets four feet straight up to attack wasp on other side of window. Follows wasp to other window. Times all afternoon.

Toby opens (cool) toaster oven, removes kosher pig in bougie blanket (beef hot dog wrapped in puff pastry), gives family hot dog chase. Hides. Abandons hot dog, eats puff pastry.

Toby plays Legos.

Toby plays pingpong! Toby posseses tremendous paw-eye coordination (video someday, I swear).

Toby plays fetch.

Toby plays hide in the pantry and chew plastic bags. See also hide under the bed/around corners and attack unsuspecting passersby.

Toby plays stick my claw in a seltzer water or juice box and watch the geyser.

Toby plays chew on Ann’s top knot for the ultimate messy bun.

Toby chews on blankets and fingers and even faucets. We aren’t supposed to let him chew on our fingers. Everyone lets him chew on their fingers.

Toby loves water–showers, baths. Toby loves “surprising” people using showers and baths.

 

Toby will sit on your lap while you play the xbox and get under the covers with you while you nap.

However, Toby isn’t exactly clear when play = pain. His brothers do not decidedly discourage him, because Toby is a talented wrestler.

Toby is not necessarily recommended for toddlers or anyone who gets down low, stares him in the eyes, or god forbid attempts yoga.

Toby might fly in your face. If you let him, Toby will also brighten your world (watch your eyes though).

p.s. Toby has a very nice room with a door that closes if you come to visit.

Practice makes possible #30BrighterDays

Yesterday I texted my friend Vikki to tell her the power #30BrighterDays has had on my outlook. I feel centered, lighter, and more inspired since I dedicated November to writing and posting daily. I feel more like myself.

The accountability of both writing and hitting publish is doubly-effective for me right now as an anti-perfectionism practice. Knowing you’re out there reading this and hearing back from some of you when I resonate–it creates a transaction, a flow. I approached #30BrighterDays with the intention of this practice brightening my day as well as yours.

I know the power of practice, yet knowing doesn’t always mean doing. Vikki and I both understand the benefit that writing daily holds for us, yet we both go through periods of not writing. Sometimes a person genuinely needs a break, and sometimes we cave to resistance and perfectionism and call it rest, too busy, or blocked.

When I fall away from regular practice (whether exercise, healthy eating, creative expression, keeping house, maintaining connections with loved ones, etc) I inevitably struggle, only to begrudgingly return to my practice over again.

The same holds true for practice in other areas in my life. I go through “yes” periods of welcoming opportunities and making commitments, until I over-commit and suddenly want to shut-down Ann office hours all together. Sometimes I do shut-down Ann office hours. Create, destroy, repeat.

Thanksgiving comes next week. Holidays provide another form of practice; practice setting boundaries of both the interpersonal and waistband variety. I recommend thoughtful and firm for the boundaries, loose and expandable for the pants. Maybe instead of trying to create the perfect meal or caving to a whim to destroy the family table all together–we can adopt a practice mindset: Show up, and devote our time. We can put forth our work as today’s practice, regardless of seating estrangements arrangements, kids belching the alphabet rather than declarations of gratitude, and lumpy gravy.

I don’t think that practice makes perfect. I think practice makes possible.

 

 

Is it always “or”? Is it never “and”? #30BrighterDays

I spent my childhood and young adulthood consumed with musicals. Luckily for me, my crush on the theater plus years of voice lessons culminated in many superb opportunities to play amazing roles.

In my twenties, I gladly left my first love, the stage, for the workaday/live-in boyfriend night life. I tried on different professional hats, and eventually landed my dream role at age 29: new mom.

Still, I left a piece of myself on that musical theater stage. It swells in my chest and chokes me with feeling every time I sit in a Broadway audience; I get chilled, teary. For years I’d involuntarily move my mouth along with the performers. Thankfully my awkward lip-lynching eventually subsided, making me slightly less self-conscious as an audience member, despite all my happy sobbing.

A friend once asked me why I don’t sing any longer. He said if God had blessed him with a voice he’d never stop.

***

In my car I often listen to student radio, which typically features alt rock, hip hop, reggae, oldies–anything college-y and decidedly not musical theater. After a recent walk in the woods with a struggling friend, I turned the ignition over, and Joanna Gleason (the original Baker’s Wife from Steven Sondheim’s Into The Woods) jolted me upright in my seat as she sang her familiar refrain over the student radio airwaves:

Just a moment,

One peculiar passing moment…

Must it all be either less or more,

Either plain or grand?

Is it always “or”?

Is it never “and”?

That’s what woods are for:

For those moments in the woods…

I gasped. I sang. I wept–for longing, ambivalence, gratitude and wisdom.  I felt every lyric; the Baker’s Wife (no name of her own) straddling midlife’s temptations and delusions, my struggling friend and my own tug-of-war between our younger selves and future potential selves throwing us from finding center here and now.

By the time the song ended, I smiled at the idea of myself now decidedly of Baker’s Wife or Witch age, rather than young Cinderella or Little Red (parts I prized in my young life). I realized how much I now identify with and find more interesting the moms of the story.

***

Later that same afternoon I opened up a new library book… to (I kid you not) this exact inscription:

Yes, I believe in signs.

Into The Woods appears at transition moments in my life. I sang “No One is Alone” at my high school graduation. Before the birth of LTYM I begged the UW to let me audition for their production of Into The Woods, even though I was no longer a student. They didn’t let me (and they shouldn’t have let me).

***

This story doesn’t end with me starring in any community production of Into The Woods or anything else. Truthfully, a weeknight rehearsal schedule fits nowhere in my life right now. My kids get that time with me for these last few years that they need and want it. I don’t want to join my temple choir, form a MOMCAPELLA! group, or become a Karaoke queen either. I intend to keep standing firmly in the center stage spotlight as leading lady of Familia Imig.

But?? (whispers) what I did do for the first time in over twenty years?? I booked some time with an accompanist and an empty hall. I can hardly wait.

Sometimes “and” does exist if you look for it.

This post is part of #30BrighterDays; a thing I made up to brighten each day of November

More Layers Than Sides #30BrighterDays

My friend Taya once responded to a conflict in which she was asked to choose a side “There are more layers than sides.”

I loved her nuanced thinking, not only as a push back again unnecessary alliances, but also as a way of acknowledging that oftentimes no one person can see the full picture. Taya’s layers can also prove helpful to extrapolate when it comes to decision-making.

When called to choose a path, it’s so easy for me to fall into black and white thinking, and the illusion of right and wrong choices. I say illusion because so often the outcomes of our decisions look nothing like what we predicted and stressed over anyhow–and as Taya wisely observed–usually involve more layers than sides.

Parenting decisions can feel especially fraught to me. For example, we consented to our kids’ request to watch Stranger Things even though I strongly suspected the scary science fiction show would give my 10 year old nightmares. It gave him nightmares. Nightmares mean interrupted sleep for all of us, which means waking up not only on the wrong side of the bed but into our own version of The Upside Down involving less slime and more sighing, less nose-bleeding and more eye-rolling. Same dark eye circles and twitching.

You know what though? We love watching the show as a family. I adore listening to the kid’s theories and plot-predictions, and they notice all sorts of details I don’t. We laugh, we get cozy. It rules.

Most relevant, however? The layers we did not predict. The show sparked an interest in Dungeons & Dragons, the famous strategy game (and Stranger Things plot device) involving 100% creativity, imagination AND NO SCREENS OR PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT WHATSOEVER. The boys’ older cousins taught them to play and spent two hours on the game Saturday. Then our kids spent another two hours on Sunday developing their own characters and collaborating. COLLABORATING.  Praise the spirit of Siblings Without Rivalry, D&D requires the players to work together instead of mocking, slapping or otherwise turning “fun” into “Cane and Abel Get Consequences.”

This one little parenting decision yielded both good and bad outcomes; some foreseen, others totally unpredictable. We often can’t see the layers ahead of time or from a distant vantage point–especially when it comes to conflict or stress. We can remind ourselves they exist. We can slow down, and consider what we might need is more time, input, and a broader view for a more illuminating richer perspective.

This post is part of #30BrighterDays; a thing I made up to brighten each day of November

 

 

All In #30BrighterDays

My default setting too often tips toward the “no” side when it comes to spontaneity and adventure. Thankfully, I’ve learned to push through my initial tendency toward resistance, and move the needle closer to yes more often and more enthusiastically.

Once in a while, and among certain individuals, I’m unequivocally one thousand percent on board, all in, YES from the get-go.

This past weekend? I was ALL IN. I think it shows.

This post is part of #30BrighterDays; a thing I made up to brighten each day of November

They still play #30BrighterDays

A couple years ago my kids let me know that “play dates” would now be called “hang outs.” They still planned to have friends over, yes, but the kids would now hang, not play. I braced myself for the end of play, and took small comfort that at least no one would likely prevent me from serving popcorn or brownies to our monosyllabic non-blinking blue-lit basement dweller guests.

Around this same time we underwent the task of changing the former basement playroom into more of a teen lair, complete with a drum set (my younger son plays), plenty of noise cancelling headphones for the drum set, and a sectional couch with plenty of seating for gamers and movie nights. I shed no tears bidding adieu to the kid rough and tumble pile-on days of misfit enormous plastic vehicles–especially now with the rec room carpet removed and unforgiving concrete floors finished. I strategized; knowing older kids still fight I mean wrestle, we needed Foosball or something large to take up all that concussion-potential landscape. Auspiciously, we inherited a ping-pong table.

We all enjoy the updated basement, and I’m heartened to report that play lives on in the double-digit “hang out” years. While make-believe makes very brief rare appearances, and Lego time seems to stay strictly a solo endeavor–when the kids bring friends over and I force them off of screens, they play card games, board games, and strategy games. On rare occasion they’ll even play 500 or toss a football outside–in the out of doors!– or bring a basketball over to the school (where they can also run around in the school forest).

One place the early teen play game remains tight is in the water. As a kid, I too spent hours in the pool improvising my epic complex social emotional water ballets (think an after school special, performed by one 11 year old, underwater in the free-swim area). A plastic raft served not only as a glamour mobile or see-saw for me and a friend, but an Olympic event for feats of water choreography.

Somewhere along the way I lost my interest in swimming beyond a length or two, which is why I took notice a few weeks ago at the Y watching the kids dunk and splash with their dad. It struck me–they still play. I heard joyful noises–and not bickering noises or gaming-rage noises. I saw open-mouthed smiles!! As much as the kids claim to love gaming, the faces they make while plugged into their headsets do not typically involve joy and open-mouthed smiles. But!

My kids still play. They call it hanging out, but they play.

And guess what? My ping pong game is improving.

This post is part of #30BrighterDays; a thing I made up to brighten each day of November