A number of bloggers have chosen words that represent what they want the year to bring.
Here’s my word: Permission.
Here’s why.
Yesterday I skimmed some old journal entries. March 21, 2005 was an anxiety attack frosted with hypervigilance. That day I did chores that didn’t need doing, checked compulsively on food stores in cupboards and freezer, reviewed my bankbook and my bills. I was pacing around my apartment, nervous as a cat in a cage, yet couldn’t seem to leave.
Finally I forced myself to walk to a nearby market to buy on-sale cereal for my daughter, Abby. I drove to a rummage sale in search of bargain books. I exercised. I went to Abby’s place and watched a movie.
And I was afraid the whole time. Just terrified. I had no idea why. The answer came to me only after I quit wondering, after I stopped fussing and sat down to read. A few minutes into the book, I suddenly blurted out one sentence: “I’m afraid of disappearing.”
I didn’t know how to think about the future
An odd thing to say, but apt. I had disappeared during my marriage, losing a little more of myself each year to an emotionally abusive spouse. When I filed for divorce in March 2004 I figured it was a chance, finally, to create a life for myself. Yet a year had gone with no discernible progress.
I was spending far too much time worrying about my daughter’s future and far too little on my own. But I didn’t know how to define my own needs, let alone think about them. Ever since age 16, when my parents separated and I took over running the house for my dad and brother, I had structured my days around other people. For three decades I helped, supported and nurtured everyone except me.
Understand: I took pleasure in helping others. (I still do.) But I didn’t know how to help others without neglecting myself.
On that spring day in 2005 I knew I had stalled. I wasn’t moving forward. I wasn’t moving at all, unless you count crouching as movement – I had hunched over, emotionally speaking.
I was still disappearing – just in a different way.
A little confining, but reliable
Therapy helped me understand that I had lived my life in fear. Trying to craft a new way of living produced its own terrors, however.
There’s something to be said about a cell. You know its dimensions, you’ve got the place organized the best way you can, and there’s a handy bell to wake you up and a schedule to keep you in lockstep all of your days. A little confining, maybe, but predictable and therefore reliable.
So there I was, blinking in the unaccustomed sunshine of life outside the prison walls, and scared to death of the decisions I needed to learn to make. I’d been programmed to crave routine and servitude. Now I had to do what the therapist called “the serious work” of finding new ways to live.
The fact that I’d left my apartment that day indicated I was tired of living under the lash of my anxieties and wanted to do something about it. I had to make the decision not just to step outside, but to keep moving.
Regret is not an option
I did keep moving, although that often felt like running as fast as I could just to stay in place. That fall I enrolled at North Seattle Community College. The next year I won a full-ride scholarship to the University of Washington.
I began writing for MSN Money. I finished my divorce and in time paid off my legal debt. I kept living frugally to build up my emergency and retirement funds. After graduating I quit my apartment-management job and began to travel (eight trips in 2010). Last May I started my own website.
The past five years were a mix of exhaustion and exhilaration. Even when I didn’t know what I was moving toward, I felt compelled to stay in motion.
People ask how I did it. Honestly? I was flying by the seat of my pants. At times I’d lose my nerve and think, “I can’t do this.” Then another part of my mind would answer: “You are doing this.” And I’d continue.
That’s why my word this year will be “permission.” In 2011 I am giving myself permission to try new things rather than hope that they will happen to me. I am giving myself permission to laugh, to write, to travel, to raise hell as needed. Most of all I am giving myself permission to meet change halfway instead of to wait passively for progress.
Scary? Oh, hell, yes. Moving forward and staying put are both scary. The difference is that you will probably regret the latter. Regret is one thing I won’t permit, this year or any other.
All change is scarey, even GOOD change. Glad you’ve given yourself PERMISSION to live your life! Enjoy!!
wow! due to a situation in my worklife, i’vebeen mired in fear about the future. this gave me alot to think about.
Thanks for writing this Donna. Many of us need a reminder to live every so often.
*hug*
I’m with you, Donna! I’m a sandwich generation – raising a teenager and maintaining an ailing elderly mother, and frankly, when I have a tiny fragment of time to myself I feel lost. You know, what do I do with this unclaimed time! It does give you anxiety, and I’m ready to walk away from that nasty feeling.
Excellent post. Very much related to the concept of losing oneself in a marriage. Ditto that and the chance to start anew.
Nice piece of writing!
So many ways to lose ourselves: in marriages, in parenthood, in work, in the angst of trying to survive. I love how you’ve risen to meet your life, no matter what it’s brought. Keep writing to us.
Excellence as always. 2011 is going to be great for you!
I love that you are granting yourself permission to do what you want! i love that as that concept that I am still grappling with on a daily basis as i try to please everyone else and it is a slippery slope most times. I cannot wait for the day when I will live for myself and give myself the permission to just be and do as I please and not need to please everyone. Congrats!
@Rhona: Women still tend to be “people-pleasers,” i.e., they’re encouraged early on to make others happy. Some of us have a very hard time breaking free of that inculcation. In fact, I am still pecking my way out of that particular egg — but I’m making progress. I hope you will, too.
Thanks for reading, and for leaving a comment.
Is it egotistical to feel like you wrote this entire post for me? Staying stuck in jobs, habits, relationships due to fear is kind of the story of my life. THIS YEAR I’m going to raise some hell at my glass-ceiling-having-“if you don’t like it there are 100 others in line behind you”- we-violate-the-law-with-impunity job. The revolution continues today! Thanks for the inspiration, and rock on with your bad self!
@Jennifer: Thanks for your kind words. Good luck with your own private rebellion. And incidentally, you should both kick ass and take names.
Feel free to share the URL with other women (and men) who want not just to think outside the box but also to kick it to pieces and use it as firewood.
Eight trips in 2010? I’m green with envy; I took two. But I’m contemplating retirement this summer, and starting a list of places I want to visit. As well as thinking about how to “find” the self that isn’t tied to a job. Excellent, thought-provoking post.
Great article! =)
The first article I read that you wrote was your “Surviving and Thriving” piece; I showed it to my students in my writing class. I enjoy your writing, because you always find interesting ways to describe the ways that you save (and spend) money without letting it restrict your lifestyle. Your advice about money has helped me, especially because I’m a grad student living on a very small budget. I also admire you for all that you managed to accomplish, especially in terms of your education. I hope you have a great year!
@Neurotic Workaholic: Thank you for your kind words. Good luck in your studies this year.
Like Neurotic Workaholic, I admire your writing. I left an abusive marriage years ago and survived with my three children on very meager rations to say the least! Now I am an empty-nester, remarried to a wonderful man, but disabled by fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis plus other medical issues. Your site gives me many tips to cut the cost of living and make my budget lean and mean! I have even started a blog, but it is not quite ready for prime time yet, as I am honing my writing skills. Please keep up the fine work. You are an inspiration.
Your article is extremely well written, Donna. I think it’s possible to fulfill our responsibilites and have freedom. A balance that is difficult to obtain for many women. Perhaps each of us needs to do what you did. Tear the scenario apart and address each detail until we find the balance. For myself, I am just discovering a new ‘Permission’ slip has been emailed to me. I think I like it.
I was in an abusive marriage where all child care, cooking, and housework fell on me. Ex refused to “babysit” because “you had the children, so they are yours to take care of.” Shortly after I had my third child, someone asked me if it were hard adding a third baby to the mix of a 5- and 7-year-old. My reply, verbatim, “No, it was not hard at all. There was no more of me to give up.” I shocked myself with those words that so aptly described the good Christian woman, married to a minister. Yes, I did get the divorce. But, I never learned to be bad…lol…okay, maybe it’s time?
Ooops, did not mean to send/post. I was always too wrapped up in trying to please God, my mother, husband, children, society, ladies of the church, that I almost let go of my dreams. They would slip away and I would yank them back. Only the PhD is left for me to accomplish. Okay, there is more, but it is the goal that I want to reach the most right now. No, I am not enrolled anywhere.
Donna, perfect timing:) Just the push I needed to get me out of the
vortex of indecision. No more putting things off. I have too much to be grateful for.
I now only allow 5 minutes a day to mope or feel sorry for myself. If it comes, it comes. If not, then so be it.
I like steering my own ship.
@Vicky Fox: I like the idea of moping for 5 minutes a day. But is there such a thing as rollover mopes? On good days I’d like the option of setting aside the unused mopes for times when I need 20 or 30 minutes’ worth of self-pity.
I think you wrote this for me. I needed it today. I’ve been in a funk, like I’m losing ground and I couldn’t figure out why until today that is. I need to write even if I don’t say anything.
You are wonderful.
@SonyaAnn: Illegitimi non carborundum, sweetie — and get that blog up and running again!
Donna, this is another great blog entry. And right at the beginning of the year, when I really need an inspiring pep talk. I do NOT want 2011 to be a repeat of last year. I’ll have to bookmark this and go back to it when I need something to help me focus on my goals. Thanks!
Wonderful post Donna. I appreciate in particular your honesty and openness about your life then and now. Won’t it be exciting to look back a year from now and see how life is going and if we’ve been able to follow those dream behaviors inspired by our ” one ” word.
ha! I love the idea of rollover mopes. I used something like that when I was going through an awfully painful engagement breakup. I was more generous than 5 minutes though, I think I had 20 minutes of full-fledged wallowing any given day. Anyway – I think you’re on to something, Donna. Thanks for sharing this. We’ll be here to cheer you on, too. Bring on the adventure! (My first adventure of 2011: cooking a bison rib roast. Bison!)
@Bashtree: I’m on it — already planning a blog post about rollover mopes.
Good luck with the roast.
I know first hand about setting one’s self aside and putting others first. I did it for my husband for over 18 years, but, he did it for me too.
It’s been over 8 months since his passing now, and I am finally taking a clearer path, a path I want to take, with my decisions being the only decisions that count . There are also things that are on my last nerve, like family drama. It’s time that all the nonsense comes to an end.
Sounds like you are off to a fantastic start this year, Donna! I am certain you have the courage to keep moving forward in 2011. The fruits of your “hard work” may unfold over months and years, at least, that’s what I’ve found. For a long time a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt kept me going: “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” How true.
So many women feel like they are put in this position, and it is fear of the unknown that keeps people hiding.