Refreshing My Memory

Now that I have less than two weeks left before my due date, I figure I should probably brush up on some things. It would probably useful to look back on the early days with Abhimanyu…read up on labor pain management techniques, maybe even practice a few of them…get my head back in the sleeping and breastfeeding game(s).

It’s been a lot of good intentions. I’ve got meditations from Mindful Birthing bookmarked. And I even did them a couple times. I’ve organized the books in order of reading priority. I’ve been scanning select chapters even!

I’ve been pretty good about preparing my body though. Been going to Prenatal Fit around once a week, keeping up my yoga as my schedule allows, doing belly breaths, eating six dates a day (when I remember), getting back in the habit of drinking raspberry leaf tea, and nesting like a mo-fo.

It’s bizarre to think that it could happen any day now, but at least my bags are packed! Well…mostly.

A Pop of Color

This summer has been… Pretty grey. The rain has kept us indoors rather a lot, and when we do go out, it feels icky and drab. Not to mention the seemingly constant onslaught of bad news. So I’ve been doing my bit to brighten things up. With lipstick!

I first heard about the NARS Powermatte in Essence a couple months ago. They swore it was a long-lasting matte formula. I was intrigued. When I checked them out online, I was further intrigued, both by the range of color options and the pictures they used to demonstrate them (woo for more skin tones represented!).

I immediately grabbed a bright pink shade. Gotta say that I love the formula. Not only is it SUPER long lasting (seriously…you can eat and drink anything that isn’t a mega grease bomb), it’s comfortable. My lips don’t get super dry. There’s a little bit of color hangover the next day, but no painful cracking or peeling. Just pop on some good lip balm and you’re fine. Of course, I had to go ahead and grab more colors.

For the time being, I’m very happy with Give It Up:

Warm Leatherette:

and Starwoman (which I am OBSESSED with):

I’m being really good and not just buying all the colors willy nilly, but it’s really hard, and I expect to crack at some point (already have my eye on Rock With You). Honestly, I could not love this formula more. It’s the perfect pick me up for all the grey, rainy, politically apocalyptic days we’ve been having. That, and this:

I Don’t Remember It Being This Hard

There are so many things I’ve been meaning to do for months and months. As you might guess, one of those things is spend some more time here, in this space, with you, sorting out the madness in my head.

And it’s just not happening. The list of things I should really take care of keeps growing and growing. The list of things I’ve managed to do keeps shrinking and shrinking.

And it comes down to this: I can’t seem to stay awake. Like…at all.

I’m skating by, doing the bare minimum to keep my kid alive and fed and entertained (no small task, as anyone with toddler wrangling experience can attest to). But that’s it. I struggle to wake up in the morning. I rarely maintain consciousness during Abhimanyu’s afternoon nap. And then I become a useless zombie from 7pm until I go to bed. So yeah…that doesn’t leave a lot of time to get anything done. Let alone interesting or rewarding things like reading books to prepare for the new baby or get our apartment in relative order or process my thoughts or write or…or…or…

I’m not trying to make excuses (I don’t think). I’m straight up complaining. It sucks. I want to get more stuff done. I’m hella behind in life. I guess the silver lining is that I’m too tired to muster up the anxiety proportional to my situation. Heh.

I swear it was easier last time I was this pregnant. I was working in an office part time even. So what gives? On a good day, I feel like an incompetent loser. These days good days (productive days? Something) are few and far between, so imagine how I’m feeling.

I enjoy swimming. I’m not very good at it, and it tires me out pretty quickly (something something pressure on my lungs something something I’m making up an explanation, really), but I enjoy it. It’s a proxy for weightlessness, for flight, for freedom. Who doesn’t like that stuff? Anyway, I learned how to swim when I was a little kid. And we even had a swimming unit in middle school (in Minnesota!). But I never managed to get the hang of treading water. I would tire quickly and end up moving a ton. Not ideal. Can you tell that I’m building up a flat-footed metaphor here? Well, I am. And I’m too tired to wrap it up properly. So yeah…I suck at treading water.

But at least I’m not drowning. I think…

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I’ve been busy.

We’ve downsized. And it feels incredible. Freeing. Like losing weight. There’s a sense of passing beloved things on to the world. A sort of generosity and openness that is liberating and energizing. I’ve never really thought that stuff was all that great. But getting rid of stuff? Two enthusiastic thumbs up. And it felt that good even before we got to the point in the process where there are the visual benefits of less clutter and more light and space. This is all just a high from feeling less like a selfish hoarder. We’re setting our stuff free! So that it can be of use to someone else. It’s one of the best parts of moving, I think.

Oh yeah, we moved. New space. New neighborhood. New beginning. I’m really excited about all the possibilities. Moving to a new place can be a form of self discovery and exploration. How will I inhabit this space? And we got a bit of a luxury this time around. Abhimanyu stayed with his grandparents while we did the figurative heavy lifting (we got movers for the literal work) of moving. Which means that we got a couple days to ourselves to work out our new rhythms and flows. I’m particularly looking forward to truly feeling the fruits of our downsizing efforts. #CleanLiving or something.

And the fight goes on. Two years in now and we’re still fired up. The reality of the marathon is setting in. The Chicago primaries were a few weeks ago. Our candidates did not all do well, but there were some victories. And more importantly, we saw a field of options that were much more in line with our values than ever before. Kudos to those who are putting their convictions into action by running for office. I cannot express how hopeful that makes me. We attended the March for Our Lives. And the rally in support of Black lives on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. King. And we’ll keep chanting and marching and voting and acting. I don’t think I’ll ever stop now.

Oh. And we’re having a baby. Yup. Number two. Doing it all again. Which is exciting and terrifying in a whole new way. For one thing, the due date is only a couple months away, and I still haven’t had time to truly process the impact of this HUGE change in our family.

Which brings me around to where I’ve been all this time. The long and short of it is: not processing. Which isn’t good. For you or for me. So I hope to be better about that moving forward. Here’s to changing for the good!

The “System”

I’m totally jinxing myself by saying this “out loud,” but… I feel like I’m on top of things. It’s been a crazy few weeks. And things are totally fine!

And I think the credit goes to my new organization system.

With pretty much every job I’ve ever had, I’ve found that it’s impossible not to apply things you learn on the job to the rest of your life. I guess one of the things I’ve osmoted (that’s totally a word…shut up!) from working at a tech startup is project management. Because I seem to have developed my very own highly disjointed and fairly manual version of Jira.

The Backlog
I’ve got a working uber to-do list in Reminders called Things on Ambika’s Mind.
This is essentially a brain dump of things I’d like to get done. It tends to be a little pie in the sky (e.g. “Plan Building Stories post”), but they are things that I definitely want to do and don’t have a plan for. I add things to this list as they occur to me and prune the list occasionally. If I have a particularly light week, I’ll look here to see if there’s anything I can use that extra bandwidth for.

The Sprint
Now we get to the real meat. Which means…paper. No matter how hard I try, no matter what tools I try, I can’t seem to get away from a good, old-fashioned notebook.
Each week, I think of what the next seven days are going to look like. I draw out a weekly calendar style view and fill in the dates, days of the week, and whatever plans I know of. I also make a to-do list for the week. Some portion of this list is things that I know I need to do during the next seven days and the remainder is things pulled from Things on Ambika’s Mind. I make use of the bullet journal’s task notation system, e.g. marking completed tasks with “X” and migrated tasks with “>”.

Moving forward, I’m going to be using symbols to mark activities I want to track (such as a “:)” for running) and including irregular but recurring errands (such as “Target run”).

Daily Standup
I also came up with something I call a “Daily Map,” which is not unlike doing standup, really. Except that I don’t worry too much about what I got done yesterday and I’m not sharing it with a team (though Nate does end up hearing a lot about the daily maps for the weekend).

I set up some ground rules for the daily map:
  • Make a map for the next day every day (this is not a strict rule so much as strong encouragement)
  • Make a task list. Make time for the completion of these tasks. Don’t aim to get done what you do not actually have time to do.
  • Outline the structure of the day, with timings as applicable
  • Schedule “down” time each day
  • Review the day’s map that morning (and refer to it over the course of the day…again, more encouragement than rule)
The idea is to deliberately and explicitly construct my days. To feel in control of how I spend my time, as opposed to feeling controlled by my task list. To make things feel less overwhelming.

Planning Meetings
Most Fridays, I spend the bulk of the day in a coffee shop.
This is my disciplined “me” time (“me” time at home seems to always end up with my either blobbing on the sofa, watching television or doing housework). I read; I work on blog posts; I take care of odds and ends. And I make week layouts and daily maps and migrate tasks and other things related to keeping track of everything that’s going on. It’s basically like a one-person planning meeting. And when life doesn’t let me have my coffee shop Fridays, I make sure to set some other chunk of time aside to lay out the week ahead. My weeks may not always have the same starting points, but I’ve been pretty good planning for the week ahead in roughly seven day intervals.

Loose Ends
The part of this system that I’m still working on is the snapshot/big picture element. Basically, I want a quick visual understanding of my life in the near term. We’re managing with a calendar on the fridge for now.
But, really, my life (anyone’s life?) doesn’t break down neatly into calendar periods. Making seven-day plans (above) has addressed the “week” issue, but even with a white-board style month calendar, I find myself needing a bigger picture. Something more like six weeks or two months. I’ve found a few options, so it’s just a matter of testing them out.

What if…what if this turns out to be the key to living my life? What if it’s all smooth sailing from here on out? Just kidding…I’m no fool. If next week doesn’t upend everything, the week after that or the week after that will. Smooth sailing now is no guarantee that the winds will never change. What would the adventure be in that?

 

 

 

 

Lost in Translation

I know I haven’t been around much, but I think about you all the time.

I could be saying that to so many people, it seems. But right now, I’m taking the time to say it to you.

There have been so many wind-ups. Post ideas about being a working mom, what I’ve been reading, my Fridays in the coffee shop, creating and attempting to maintain order in my life. And we both know that none of that has made it here. No pitches have been thrown.

But lately, it’s become harder to talk about myself or what I’m thinking about. I’m thrown back to being a kid again. When I just couldn’t seem to fit in anywhere and it felt like I was getting lost in translation. I didn’t think anyone could ever understand me.

It’s different now. I’m older, with better informed expectations of the people around me. I have a husband who is preposterously well suited to me. I have an adorable son who has no choice but to see me as a normal to measure everything against. I have thoughtful friends and colleagues who help to reassure me that I am not losing my mind and neither is everyone else. I read plenty of opinion pieces from people who feel many of the things I do.

But it’s still hard. I’m not much of a people person. It’s always been a strain to spend time with anyone other than a select few individuals. I do okay. I’m a chatty, pleasant person, with opinions for miles. Nevertheless, I’d almost always rather be on my own.

The events of the last 18+ months have forced me out of my highly curated safe place. The place I’ve spent my whole life working toward. And I use the word “forced” very intentionally. I do not feel like I have the choice not to take action, and instead stay home and silent. So I have stretched myself. I helped start a community organization. I volunteer for direct actions. I talk to the politicians who have been elected to represent me.

And it’s taken its toll. It’s harder to get out of bed in the morning. It takes more work to leave the house. I’m slower to respond to emails. I don’t text as often (or at all, in many cases). I am at war with myself: trying to disappear even as I am more out in the world.

So please…bear with me. This is new and difficult for me. I’ll be here as I can be, but this silence/absence may be the price (for now) of working to better the world around me. Know that I still love you and that I am around.

Pardon Me

While I throw myself down the apparent black hole that is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. (Or were you expecting this?)

I won’t go into too much detail, but I’m so busy lately that I feel like sheer momentum is what is propelling me forward. Between being back at the office, managing childcare logistics, making real progress in the Black and Brown Chicago Collective, being more civically engaged, and a lot of upcoming travel plans (not to mention martial arts and yoga), I needed something completely removed from reality.

Enter Breath of the Wild. I’m not a huge gamer, and I’m certainly no game critic, but this is a huge shift in gameplay for the franchise. And it’s a shift that makes it fit into my life a whole lot better. Its world is expansive, so there’s always more to explore. It truly is open world play, so I’m not being nagged by the game to make progress on the main story missions (there are organic elements that encourage this). Between taming wild horses, solving puzzles, learning lore, foraging and cooking, and combat, there are so many different types of things to do in the game that I’m never bored. I can always switch my focus and take advantage of the mental refresh of changing contexts. And, ultimately, like a good book, it is both easy and difficult to put down at a moment’s notice. I’d almost always prefer to keep playing, but it’s not a big deal to pause and set down or even quit. Because it’s easy to pick back up again later.

I bring all this up for a couple reasons. One: I wanted to explain my relative absence from this space. Playing Zelda definitely takes up time that could be spent reading or writing. BUT, I can’t say with confidence that I would choose to spend the time I play Zelda doing those things. Largely because, two: things like good video games (Overwatch also comes to mind) and fantasy (of any kind, including books, movies, TV shows, tabletop games, etc) are really important in tumultuous or stressful times. It’s really good to be able to escape from reality. Naturally, there’s a balance, and it’s very important to me that I stay active and busy most of the time. But at the end of the day (or other times when I have the luxury of choosing how I spend my time), I don’t necessarily want to engage my brain in thinking (through reading or writing). So it’s nice to be able to spend a couple hours in Hyrule and get lost in a world entirely unconnected to the one we live in. Where my successes and failures don’t have real consequences. Where I can come and go as I please and do as I please. Where I can pretend that it’s easy and straightforward to save the world. And, importantly, at the end of the game, the world will be saved.

 Until the next game comes out, of course.

Adrift

It’s been a busy couple weeks. I’ve been going into the office to do some training. Nate’s mom was up last week to help take care of Abhimanyu. On Friday, Abhimanyu went back with her and he’s spending this week in Indiana having adventures with his grandparents. It’s a huge help. Nate and I had a weekend more like back when we were kids as opposed to now that we have a kid.

But I find myself feeling…off. As if there’s no point to anything. I’m going through the motions of life with no real conviction. I realize that sounds melodramatic. And I want to make it clear that I’m fine and I know that things are ok and that my son is in wonderful hands. But it’s also an accurate way of describing how I feel: unfocused, unmoored, adrift. The guiding force of my life is too far for me to feel his presence.

There is no way I would have realized how big a part of my identity and sense of self Abhimanyu has become. In fact, until very recently, I’ve been struggling with feeling trapped by my role as stay at home parent (more on that coming soonish…don’t want to make any promises). There’s more to me than chatting with a 15-month-old and juggling logistics and managing a household, damn it! Mine is a life of the mind, etc. And yet, here I am, with the freedom to come and go as please, to spend my time however I would like (with the usual constraints of living the life of a human in the world)…and feeling as if it all means a lot less because a cheerful, easy-going, letter-obsessed toddler isn’t somewhere I can get my hands on.

And it’s not as simple as not knowing what I have until it’s gone. I know Abhimanyu is spectacular. I could not have custom ordered a better kid. And it’s not that absence has made my heart grow fonder. Again, I wonder that I don’t die everyday with how full-to-bursting my heart is with love for Abhimanyu. It’s more of a shift in the world order. Everything is the same, but my identity is compromised. It’s an existential crisis on the order of losing a job and having to change careers (and, therefore, to some extent, change identities). The fact that it’s temporary seems to make no difference on the impact.

Apparently, the point of my life changed…and I’m just now realizing it.
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Current Fixations #8

Essie gel topcoat
This is six days after I painted them!

I know, I know. But you may have noticed that there wasn’t any light reading in that mix.

The Dollop podcast
It’s history! And humor!

This is a mystery series that Nate and I discovered on Acorn TV. They’re pretty basic mysteries, but the characters are fun and I’m a sucker for a good Scottish accent.

Conversations with my husband
This scratches two itches. I spend most of my days with a 15-month-old. He’s definitely very chatty, but I think it would be a stretch to call our talks intellectually stimulating. Having some time alone with Nate at the end of the day, where we can catch up with each other is sometimes the main thing keeping me sane. And with the barrage of bad news each day and all the ideas I’ve got rolling in my head from my reading, it’s nice to be able to vent and hope and cry and laugh.

It’s All About the Fundamentals

I’ve got a lot on right now:
  • I’m working more
  • Abhimanyu requires a lot more attention
  • I’ve started going to a regular Filipino martial arts class
  • I’m reading more
  • I had the cold from hell for what felt like forever
  • The world as we know it is ending
And to whatever extent that last one is true, I know that feeling is heavier with me because I’ve lost track of the basics in all this hubub. I’ve got to remember that I’m a human. I need things to survive: like proper sleep, enough food, a damn minute.

I haven’t even had time for my usual outrage over Valentine’s Day! I need a haircut. Badly.

This scene from The Princess Bride comes to mind. And it’s true. Life started to feel a whole lot better when I wasn’t constantly blowing my nose or hacking up a lung. So I started drinking more water. Going to bed earlier. Practicing yoga again. I’m starting to remember what it feels like to be human.

There’s a lot going around about self care. And I’m here to tell you that it’s really important. Don’t forget about yourself. It’s easier than you might realize. Take a minute. Go for a walk. Do your nails. Go to bed early. Eat something delicious (if you’re like me and have trouble with eating, keep nutrition drinks and protein bars and nuts around to keep you going). Watch a guilty pleasure TV show. Read a book. Play a board game or a video game. Call your mom. Call your best friend. Get a massage. Play with your dog. Snuggle your cat. Have a beer. Have a cup of tea. Blast music and dance around. Sing your heart out. Masturbate or have sex. There are a million ways to renew yourself. Don’t judge. It’s not self-indulgence. It’s what you need. Because, as Count Rogen says, if you haven’t got your health, you haven’t got anything.

To start things off, I’ll share something that made me chuckle and put a smile on my face. Because laughter is another form of self care. I’m not much for the NFL and it’s been years since I watched the Super Bowl (didn’t this year), but I love hair, and this commercial is awesome.