FEAR

Fear sucks.

Do I really want to do this?

Okay, I'll try to say more than that. Because fear is this thing that we all feel at times. Some people are all about confronting their fears. I know times when I've confronted a fear, face to face, and the fear ceased. And sometimes I've confronted a fear face to face and it has been awful and the face-off created new fears to arise and caused a lot of havoc in my life. So is it helpful to confront your fears, or is it dangerous and prone to backfire? I don't know. But some people are all about confronting their fears.

And some people are all about avoiding the situations and things that cause them fear. I've dealt with fears this way lots of times. Like I wanted to move in with a boyfriend once. And I'd asked him before and he said he wasn't ready yet. So I didn't ask him again. I was afraid of being rejected so I just avoided that topic for years and got very comfortable living alone until he was ready, I guess, and he needed a roommate. And then I moved in, but we never talked about how best to do it because I was afraid he'd say no and reject my ideas again. So I never brought up the fact that I didn't necessarily want to move into that place with him, but would have preferred to find a brand new place. And I rarely brought up the topic of rearranging furniture, or changing stuff on the bedroom wall, or getting rid of some of our stuff because when I tried to do this initially, I felt my suggestions were rejected because he didn't have time or he liked having all these matching but space consuming side tables and sofa set. So I stopped asking because I was afraid of another rejection-sounding answer. But sometimes, avoiding a situation that cause you fear, like driving blindfolded, is really smart. And safe. And perhaps can maintain the peace of a relationship instead of shaking things up over a minor disagreement that really doesn't have anything to do with love or commitment. You just ignore the fact that he leaves his tea bags on the kitchen counter or toss them in the compost bucket instead of letting that annoyance surface and having a big fight over a pet peeve, resulting in reinforced fear of bringing up annoyances--and those other annoyances might not be such small potatoes. So avoiding being afraid can be easy and it sure can feel like the safest option, or it can be a poisonous plant that eating a little of isn't so bad, but if you eat a lot, you're going to have to go to the hospital and get your stomach pumped.

Then some people ignore a fear. Pretend it isn't there, even though it is and your stomach is all queasy. Like I am afraid of falling down skiing or hiking or wake boarding. But I still do these things, even though I'm uncomfortable when the trail is steep and dry and I'm going downhill and my hiking boots are slipping with every step. Please, please, please DON'T BIFF IT--but hey, I'm still doing it. Maybe I'll biff it and get cut up. Or break a bone. And then maybe I will acknowledge that fear more and be reluctant to go hiking on steep dusty trails. If I don't ignore it, would I still go hiking? Or would I talk about the fear constantly while doing it and say out loud all the time "Please, please, please DON'T BIFF IT"? Ignorance is bliss, but if you aren't truly ignorant, but playing make believe, and the make believe sweet unicorn turns out to be a vampire unicorn... Eek.

And then some people just let fear take over and paralyze them. Actually, if confronting fear, avoiding fear-causing situations, or ignoring the existence of your fear backfires, well, it doesn't take much for paralysis to swoop in and stiffen your limbs with fear. I guess paralyzing fear is why I am writing about fear today. Because it SUCKS. And even when you feel paralyzed by fear, fearsome stuff still happens. Then not only are you paralyzed by fear but you are surrounded by the fearsome stuff that has mounded up all around you. You are now also frozen and surrounded by fears and it feels impossible to move. And if you move, you have to go through the scariest stuff possible and there could be more fearful stuff beyond the piles--you just can't know. Which causes MORE fear.

So I am having problems with fear. I always have had issues with fear. It doesn't feel good, so not having issues with fear seems kind of unrealistic to me. But I suppose I could have fewer issues with fear if I could learn to care less. I care a lot. About EVERYTHING. Care Bears--they know nothing about caring. And I care so much about how to do this or how to talk to y, that I don't do anything because the fear of doing it wrong paralyzes me and--whether my caring is about how best to communicate with a family member going through a rough time or about cleaning out my fridge and separating the compost stuff from the recyclable stuff from the garbage and doing the dishes so I can cook dinner--I end up doing almost nothing. I don't clean the fridge. I don't call. I obsess about my concern and how I could screw it up and then it is time to eat and I haven't called that family member or dealt with the fridge at all and I'm eating blueberries and tortilla chips for dinner because they're not stale or bad yet and they require no preparation--though I should technically wash those blueberries. I can be paralyzed in fear and concern and still eat those things. Yes, this is ridiculous and wasteful and self absorbed and stupid to the max.

So ever since I moved out of my place with Tomato and into my new old apartment, I've had scores of days where I'm just wasting my time away debating whether I should do this or that and it is because I am afraid. I am afraid I will organize my files wrong so I still haven't finished unpacking my files and desk stuff. I moved in early MAY. I haven't gone through receipts and updated my expenses and then applied that data to my "budget" that I haven't created yet because I'm collecting spending and earning data still because the project totally inspires fear in my heart because it's mounded up so high. When I was in Costa Rica, I didn't feel paralyzing fear. I did things. I dealt with the fear one way or another and if it backfired, I dealt with that. When I am out and about, I don't feel paralyzed by every decision. When I was on vacation with my family, I felt fear, but I wasn't paralyzed and not doing things. I did things. Being back here in this apartment now, after living somewhere else with someone else and having fears about us or the place or our time or how I said x or y pop up in my face all the time and having to deal with them whether they went away or not, being back here has had a somewhat paralyzing effect on me. I am afraid. I fear starting anything here or finishing anything in this space. And this doesn't bode well for my immediate future. And that doesn't bode well for my future further along. So I have to get out of the fear or get out of this apartment. This apartment used to be my sanctuary! What happened?

When I ask myself this--why am I so paralyzed with petty fears and wasting my time and sleeping hours away in a place where I used to be so industrious?--it doesn't take long for me to figure it out. I am afraid to embrace this place as my own again because that would be fully acknowledging that I live in a place on my own again and that I can't go back to that apartment I didn't want to move into necessarily in the first place because the person I wanted to move in with who wasn't ready when I first asked isn't living there anymore and I only moved in there because I wanted to live with him. And I can't go live with him because he and I don't share our lives anymore, and I hear his place is even smaller than my old new place anyway--I don't fit there, just like he didn't fit here. I am afraid to embrace this place as my own again because that would be fully accepting that I am not in a relationship where I can lean over and kiss my partner on the cheek good night anymore, fully accepting that I don't have a relationship with him at all these days, fully accepting that I am single, fully accepting that I am alone. Fully accepting that I can not entertain the idea that we can brush this under the rug and get back together for a second because it isn't going to happen, even if I don't know that 100%, another idea I can't entertain for a second because if I entertain these ideas, I will stay frozen in this apartment, I will never fully accept that I am single, that I am alone, and that I can live my life however I want to right now and that this fact alone has the potential to be exciting, productive, beautiful, and fulfilling, even if it IS going to be scary often. But being with someone was scary too. I can't escape fear. But I can avoid fearful situations if I want, or not. And I can ignore the feeling if I want, or not. And I can confront it face to face if I want, or not. But I can't let it paralyze me anymore in the place that I refer to home, even though I don't feel at home here like I did before, at least I don't yet.

Fear sucks. But it isn't going anywhere, and if I want to go anywhere or do anything in this place, I have to deal with it one way or another, and then I have to move on. Scary, but maybe it can be scary and fun at the same time. Like this...

How not to get any writing done

1. Go out of town all the time and try to pack every moment with action. Forget to at least journal at all, despite buying a new notebook.
2. Return to town and be besieged with:
A. mess left from packing for trip
B. mess created unpacking from trip
C. build up of bills to pay, e-mails to reply to, plants gone mad or dying, replying to texts and voice mails
D. appointments made pre-trip
E. engagements with friends, the grocery store, and laundry machine
F. preparing for another trip
3. Trying to tend to all unfinished projects at once so that, when you return from this next trip, you have time and cleanliness for writing productivity (i.e. finish unpacking from move, filing bills from January on and organizing filing system in general, garden things, knitting projects from last fall, uploading pictures from last June on, cleaning up computer so it has enough memory for all this shite to be uploaded, setting up new external HD after old one died, getting rid of stuff so there is space to unpack from move, cleaning things really really good).
4. Get sick and watch stuff on Hulu late at night while drinking tea. Really late at night.
5. Sign up for a 5-class summer yoga pass and then realize that there was a brochure misprint and you only have a week and a half to use your pass and not waste the money.
6. Decide this is the perfect time to try waxing. At home.
7. Facebook. Facebook. And Facebook.
8. Reading other people's blogs.
9. Not having any food of substance to eat at home so needing to go out to eat all the time.
10. Writing blogs like this to give the illusion that I'm really a writer.

hello, I am a 33-year-old woman who isn't living up to somebody's, anybody's, this body's expectations.

So if you read my November post about Tomatoes and Tomahtoes and the challenges of being a Tomahto in love and in a relationship with a Tomato, I posed a question about what it might look like if the Tomato-Tomahto Soup doesn't work out.
Here's your answer:

My feet in my hammock on the garden patio of my former and once again apartment for one. Yup, the Tomahto and Tomato called the whole thing off. And while I didn't know what that would look like exactly, I had some expectations and they totally were off base. I thought it would be sad (TRUE) and that we'd share that sadness and the process together (NOT TRUE). I thought we'd be able to hang out and be really good friends and help each other out and still confide in each other about tough life events (NO, NO, NO, and NOOOOO). Expectations--blech. What gives with expectations? And when will I ever stop having them and clinging to them?

This could get very Buddhist. I could go into the 8 Worldly (or Mundane) Concerns or Conditions. Hell, why not? These 8 concerns preoccupy a good deal of how we spend our time and generally monopolize our thoughts one way or another. They're all about craving, obtaining, and clinging to what we perceive as pathways to happiness and away from suffering, i.e. 1. pleasurable experiences; 2. pleasing material possessions, 3. pleasuring reactions from others to our actions (praise); and 4. having a pleasing reputation with others as a super-fantastic human being. The other 4 concerns revolve around our fear of losing or not obtaining these perceived pleasures and perhaps finding ourselves on pathways we perceive as undesirable and causes for suffering through 5. painful experiences; 6. loss or failure to obtain material possessions; 7. displeasure from others to our actions (blame); and 8. having a negative reputation among others as being totally unlovable or toxic or stupid or dangerous or unkind or a waste of the earth's oxygen supply, etc.

Anyway, humans (especially Americans) invest an awful lot of time working to get these things, be this way, etc. and not experience ugly things, like sitting next to someone with horrible body odor at a concert. And we are quick to form EXPECTATIONS that we deserve and can get the pleasure things and then we'll be happy. Vice versa, we EXPECT that avoiding the person with B.O. will prevent suffering in our lives, and that we will suffer great unhappiness upon losing one's i-pod. Okay, these are very superficial examples of expectations and how we feel entitled to happiness and seek it very superficial means and how suffering is for other people, "not me, God forbid" and we don't ever expect it and then when the shit hits the fan... well, it really hits the fan because we never expected it to hit the fan, we expected it to miss the fan all together and now we're covered in it and don't know what to do about poo.

And our expectations about what will bring us joy and what will save us from suffering tend to be wrong. I had a grocery list of expectations and wishes that I thought would bring Tomato-Tomahto happiness and end the Tomato-Tomahto troubles. And then some unexpected troubles arise, and wham! I was staring at my expectation list and going... "aw, shit, this stuff isn't going to happen. Not now. Maybe never." And I'd been wasting time clinging onto it, afraid to pursue certain items because I expected some items on the list to be difficult and cause some suffering to go through, though I expected going through the suffering would ultimately result in more pleasure. Which may have been true, except that the unexpected troubles pretty much rained all over my expectation list and blurred the ink beyond recognition so I was left thinking, "What DID I expect? How much time did I spend turning my wheels over this totally illegible expectation list? Did having that list make me happy even?"

I can answer those questions now: I don't know what I expected, but it was a lot of something; I probably spent a couple years spinning my wheels over that list, if it wasn't just a Tomato-Tomahto specialized amendment to a life-long expectation list; and having that expectation list made me miserable and stressed out. And realizing this REALLY made me miserable and stressed out because I realized I was defining myself by expectations of things that were not likely to come to bear, expectations and wants that actually stressed me out and were bad for my mental health--and the Tomato too--and if I eventually had checked off the things on the list, I might not be an iota happier and I'd form another list of expectations of wants and not wants. So I flipped out and ripped up the list, but that doesn't mean I didn't form a zillion new expectations and "If I just get a car, I'll feel happier" and "He's better off without me and he would have left me sooner or later anyway." (Those expectations? Yes, The car did make me feel happier at first, and it is helpful to have my own wheels. But it has drawbacks, like expenses and the environmental impact and I don't bike, walk, or bus as much anymore--which I don't like. And I don't know if he's better off without me or that he would have left me sooner or later--how could I know that? I'm not him and he might not know those things either.)

Sometimes, I expect the absolute worst, which depending on how much I want the opposite, can make me act like a total psycho. I cry and scream about something that might not even be real and then I'm REAL popular with my close company. Sometimes, expecting things to be crappy and deciding to suffer through it anyway can lead to some surprises--things aren't as crappy as I expected and I even experience moments of joy or peace in what I expected to be a shit storm. On those occasions, I really wonder why I waste brain space expecting anything because things really never go the way one expects them to. Maybe close, but not exactly. And if I stop expecting things, like a friendship with the Tomato, or for the Tomato to start dating someone I know which causes me to get insanely jealous... I'm just wasting time. Expectations and "What if?" obsessions are great for the characters and plot lines in my fiction. But in real life, I'd like to expect a lot less of everything and be in the moment as it arises, be it happy or miserable.

I expect not expecting sunbeams or hailstorms in my daily forecast would/could/will/might be very challenging for me!

8 months of ice skating

So... I guess it has been 8 months since my last post. Can I wear that as a badge of pride, like how long it's been since someone in AA has had a drink?
And I'd like to say that I've been finishing my novel and selling it during those 8 months but I am a lousy liar.
Sometimes, life just gets in the way and you just have to drop all your expectations and the expectations of others and fall back and down. And then you hope you have the strength to come out through the other side. Like you're the female in a ice skating pairs duo and you're being thrown off your skating partner's shoulders and through his legs--and you don't want your ass to drag on the ice in this process because, um, OW--and then you're supposed to do a little spin in the air before sticking a landing on one skate with your other leg perfectly extended at a 90 degree angle and smile like you are sponsored by a toothpaste company.
So that's what I've been up to, falling back and down and tossed through and out. And I definitely made some contact on my butt and I didn't quite spin the full 360 degrees, and I know I'm barely coasting on that one foot and my other leg is more at a 45 degree angle... And I keep getting the eye from my toothpaste sponsors because I'm so focused on trying not to bite it that I forgot all about them, so my smiles have been a little spastic.
But I'm still upright and soon, I'll be ready to put my other foot down and free skate. And when I do that, you better bet I will be finishing my book and doing amazing things from the volition and strength of my own two skates. Things I want to do and that I don't have to do and that I can quit doing if I don't want to do them any more. But I will finish the book and then I will coerce myself to edit book a lot. And I think I'd like to take scuba lessons. Or dance lessons. Or wood shop. Or go to Costa Rica--wait, just did that! Blogging? We shall see. Blog v.s. salsa v.s. novel... Hmm, something tells me blogging isn't going to win that show down. Yes, we shall see.

I'm think I'm turning into my parents,turning into my parents, I really think so!

This is the second post in my friend M's blog writing exercise, which you can learn about here. And I think I've stated the topic in the most obvious fashion in my title!My parents. I love my parents. I also love my step-parents, including my ex-step-parent. But this is about the Sperm and the Egg that made me, and how they've really made me ME.

In the last five years, I became really aware about how my parents' genetics are my genetics. This has a lot to do with being diagnosed by several doctors with ADHD as a 27-year-old adult. They also officially diagnosed me with GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder)--which I more or less knew. Now, my mother was diagnosed with ADHD five years before my diagnosis. She's a therapist, she's long had the GAD diagnosis, but the ADHD thing was sort of a shocker. My mother at age 52 had started taking Ritalin. Then she switched to Adderall, which was smoother for her.

At the time, I was in a year of "I graduated from college! I have two part-time jobs that are okay, but I don't know what I want to do with my life, so I'm just going to party with my friends all the time!" Mom immediately copied a questionaire for me to fill out, a self-assessment for ADHD. At the time, all I could see was, "Dude, that's so my boyfriend." My self-assessment score was not high enough to indicate I was ADHD. I mean, seriously! I'd graduated from college with honors and made the deans list my two semesters! I'd received a gender studies minor! I was shy as a kid, not hyper. I'd made the grades in high school to get into the prestigious liberal arts college I'd just graduated from. ADHD? No way.

But then five years later, I was working for a lecture series and Dr. Edward Hallowell was a speaker. Hallowell and Dr. John Ratey were sort of the biggest of the ADHD wigs out there, though the field has grown as has research since they first published THE ADHD book, "Driven to Distraction." Hallowell has ADHD himself, and during his talk, he talked about that and about his daughter's diagnosis, the differences between how girls and boys manifest their ADHD and how ADHD girls have often gone under the radar because they don't exhibit so much of the H in ADHD. H=Hyperactivity. But the AD..."Attention Deficit"--for ADHD girls, the AD manifests in lots of daydreaming, looking out the window a lot in class, getting lost in their thoughts instead of fully engaging in class or social activities, preferring to play make-believe alone than go over to a friend's to play afterschool. SHY. QUIET. OFTEN MISSES SOME OF THE FINER POINTS OF AN ASSIGNMENT. OUT TO LUNCH.

At this point, I almost slapped myself in the side of the head and yelled, "Holy CRAP! Did you get a docier with all my elementary school progress reports?" I'd gotten the grades, but yeah, they tended to be B-pluses and A-minuses because I'd missed that something while thinking about something else. Like a strong thesis statement, or to use margins, or write in pen. My neighbor Karl used to make fun of me running around in my backyard, going in circles physically, but going all over the world and through time in my mind: "Ha, ha. Jessica's in her little make believe land again. She's stupid."

My mother was fairly shy when I was a child, and I think she was quite shy as a child. She didn't know what she wanted to do in her life. When she was young, she probably had her own make-believe land, but she didn't get to go there as often because her parents were strict. She was a quiet woman while married to my father. That's changed for her. Likewise, I'm not exactly quiet anymore, though I do get extremely shy at times. My mother and I exhibit our shyness in the same kind of way--overly enthusiastic, asking inane questions to overcome the shyness and to get that feeling that we belong. Sometimes, we're just too much and a person becomes overwhelmed by our sometimes desperate attempts to feel connected and at ease. But Mom isn't as loud, as stubborn, or have as short of a temper as I do. Those things I've learned from my father.

My dad's family talks a lot, and they talk loud. I have a softer voice, so, with a little ADHD power, I've developed an unhealthy knack for interrupting my loud family to be heard. And my father's family, we're all total drama queens and kings. We get pissy at each other at the drop of a hat. In group settings, it's virtually impossible for any of us to drop our point to hear each other's opinions in a fair, balanced way. We scream at each other when we're pissed and then we forgive and forget within twenty minutes.

Now I love my father and he loves me. But this history makes it incredibly difficult for me to discuss dilemnas because I feel like he's always telling me I'm wrong, and he feels like I won't let him ever finish a damn sentence before I get defensive. We let it go, but it's harder than it used to be. I guess Dad and I have grown too, because we don't flow with the fast fights and fast forgivenesses anymore. I'm sick of yelling for attention or to get a point across and I'm sick of him yelling at me when I interrupt him. I think the shift has a lot to do with W and with my step-mother, who are more sensitive about the family's old tendencies, and who recognize how much my father and I both want to be listened to and feel respect from each other. Likewise, through our independant romantic relationships, we've also recognized that Dad and I desire more from one another. But our dynamic has been really resistant to change. There's a distance.

Part of that distance is that I live in Seattle, and he doesn't. W's family treats me like I've always been in their family, and my father's dedication to his in-laws and step-sons is strong. And then there is the ADHD. I honestly don't know if he buys it. My stepmom, who is certain one if not both of her boys are ADHD, doesn't buy it. They think of the H, not the AD and the latter is the part that which causes me to struggle to connect in meaningful ways in large family gathering, to listen fully to my father's opinions and to consider them fully before responding.

My mother, she gets these things. That doesn't mean that we always connect in meaningful ways in large family gatherings because our ADHD often manifests in a craving for structure and plans, which is emphasized by the anxiety. We panic solo about if this family member is paying enough attention or love to this member, about how we're all going to get to point A from point B and back again in time for this and this. We're so busy overstimulating ourselves, we can't stop to notice that everyone would rather kick it in the kitchen than gather around the living room, and that's a deficit. We struggle to connect with everyone in the family because we're so hyper focused, or unfocused in our attention. The attention deficit isn't always an inability to focus on anything; it's often an inability to shift the focus off what it's zoned in on.

As an adult, I see how I've turned into my parents pretty clearly. But I've been like them all along. The things I've shared here, they're the tricky things I share with my parents, and they also are the things about me that don't always mesh so well in my private day-to-day interactions, dilemnas, and feelings. And while I can't change that I have ADHD and so does my mother, and I can't change that Dad and I will always have differences in opinion and struggle to listen to each other (I'm not entirely convinced that he's not ADHD too), there are changes I can make--creating time one-on-one with my parents away from the rest of the family zoo, building my compassion towards them when I'm feeling Dad's frustration or when my mother is trying to eat a snack, walk to the doctor, and drop off a letter in a mailbox while I'm trying to talk to her on the phone. I can say, "I'm feeling hot and having a hard time listening to what you're really saying right now, Dad, maybe we should pause." I can say, "Hey, Mom, can you call me back when you're not in-between ten things so I can ask you some questions that are on my mind?" I can build my mindfulness of where my anxiety and my interruptions and inane comments are more prone to pop up and devise ways to avoid those places, or try to look at them in new ways.

There are so many things I've adopted from my parents that are good. Generousity, dedication, a caring heart, a social compass, and passionate drive to right what is wrong. I might not always invest these qualities in the right places, but I try. I care. They care. We want to learn, and share too and I know this won't change; I'm okay with that.

Let's call the whole thing off, eh?

So my friend M challenged her blogging friends to write on this topic of "Let's call the whole thing off" as part of a bigger subject-related, flex-your-writing muscles challenge. And I thought, why the heck not? The particulars don't have to reflect tomato/tomahto intimacy and relationship conflict, but it could...

So my long-time accomplice of 8 years is a Tomato, and I am a Tomahto. We were raised in very different families, and despite what we share, these differences in our world outlooks that stem from how we were reared, by who, and where often cause Mr. Tomato and me to scratch our heads and study each other like two different species of monkeys from opposite hemispheres might. I wish to understand my Tomato, but my Tomahto-ness often gets in the way, causing my Tomato so much stress. This is reciprocal, but I don't want to beat up my Tomato right now, so let me tell you how my Tomato struggles to communicate with me.

Tomato often struggles with my Tomahto responses to his Tomato comments. Ill-timed, abrupt, off-topic... whew! Sometimes, we wonder if I suffer from Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD). Maybe, but I also grew up in a house of constant debating and questioning each other. I found it fun then, but my accomplice doesn't think it is fun. He wants to be listened to, not questioned when he's talking about his tomatoes. My Tomahtoes don't belong in the conversation, at least not RIGHT THEN. Another thing that makes me question an ODD diagnosis: I was so shy as a young girl and I had a really hard time asserting my wants, opinions, and feelings to my bossy best friend at home, my bossy best friend at school, and a few noteable bossy school bullies. When I hit puberty, being compliant to these girls went out the window over night and I became a LOUD DEFIANT PRETEEN, who could be a bossy brat, a bully, or just fought with my parents and brother about every little thing. I spent a lot of time being grounded until puberty phased out and I stopped being a bully and so bossy. But I still get pretty defiant when I'm feeling attacked or just feeling feisty. TOMAHTO.

My long-time accomplice also struggles with my loud yells of TOMAHTO that occur often when he's telling a story which I too witnessed (orwhich I have heard 200 times before). I exhibit this form of Tomahto-ness by interrupting his story often to ensure that every little detail is thoroughly explained, or I'll ask leading questions that I SO know the answer to, like, "and wasn't there a really obnoxious dog next door that barked through the whole meal?" My partner HATES it when I ask leading Tomahto questions and he feels that most of my must-include details make the story confusing to the listener. But I think they're all so interesting that I can't bear the idea of leaving any of them out. Now this is known as the funnel effect in the Adult ADHD world. Instead of getting to the point, and then elaborating on all the details--like a thesis statement in the first paragraph of an essay, subsequently backed by evidence in each following paragraph until you hit the big conclusion, which is more or less what you said in the first paragraph but with more conviction!--an ADHD adult likes to lay out all the evidence like puzzle pieces and then funnel them all down and out for you in this dramatic, and time-consuming, and maybe puzzling fashion. Ummm, this is also kind of how a novelist writes, so being both a novelist and an ADHD Adult, I love to put out all the ingredients and then pop them into the funnel for the yummy funnel cake result. But some people, my accomplice included, shake their heads and say...Ummmm, what are you talking about again??? And I say, "Like, TOMAHTOES, silly-heads!"

It is hard for a tomato to become a tomahto, and vice versa. Sometimes, I feel like yelling something like, "Let's call the whole thing off!" and I know my accomplice feels that way sometimes too. Sometimes we feel like yelling this a lot and I think the only thing that prevents us from doing that is that, despite being a tomahto, I love this one tomato and I want to understand what makes the tomato a tomato, and what makes me such a tomahto. And that tomato, he loves this here tomahto, and he's committed to working with me to make tomato-tomahto soup, and we really want it to turn out AWESOME. And sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn't.

This is for sure: this particular tomahto and that particular tomato don't give up easily and don't like to quit. Sometimes the challenges of our differences are really enriching, enlightening, beautiful, even if other times, the challenges are really exhausting, painful, and make me want curse and kick things--which isn't pretty, so I try really hard not to do that. When does a tomato and a tomahto really know that the challenges are past enlightenment and growth and beauty, and are just painful, overspent, and no longer offer forward progression? How does a tomato and a tomahto, who love each other in spite of themselves, know when to say, "Let's call the whole thing off," by a mutual decision?

Maybe the tomato and tomahto need to discuss what that would look like. Now that's a scary conversation, regardless of whether you like pajamas or pahjahmahs.

Yes-We-Can Kenobi , You're Our Only Hope: A Skeptic's Reflection on Last Week's Election

HOPE:
--noun
1. The feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best: to give up hope.
2. A particular instance of this feeling: the hope of winning a game.
3. Grounds for this feeling in a particular instance: There is little or no hope of his recovery.
4. A person or thing in which expectations are centered: "Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're our only hope."
5. Something that is hoped for: Forgiveness is my only hope.

--verb (used with object)

6. To look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence.

7. To believe, desire, or trust: I hope that my work will be satisfactory.

At some point in my thirty-two years of life, I lost touch with "Hope.” I don’t speak of the feeling of hope that arises in the face of a particular situation, like, “I have hope that I can make your gathering next weekend.” Or in terms of whether or not there are grounds for hope in a particular situation, “There is hope of sunshine on Saturday.” The “Hope” I refer to is that feeling of desire and optimism and dream, of expectation and aspiration and faith, of chance and prospect and possibility. I speak of “Hope,” the action of expecting, trusting, wishing, anticipating, and looking forward to a desired something with reasoned confidence. I mean “Hope,” the opposite of despair, the reverse to seeing no light at the end of the tunnel, the refusal to lose heart.

Over the past two plus years, “Hope” has become the catchword in America’s political landscape, ever since the October 2006 publication of a book by the junior Senator from Illinois. The book was entitled The Audacity of Hope. “Audacity.” The synonyms of this noun include daring, boldness, courage, bravery, nerve, overconfidence, cheek, and impudence. The antonyms? Cowardice, weakness, spinelessness, fearfulness.

Upon the book’s release, I wasn’t impressed with this title. It sounded vague and wishy-washy in my judgmental literary opinion. I didn’t bother however to break down the title word by word at the time, nor did I consider the phrase’s implications at length. I ask myself now: what if I had merely considered the definitions of “audacity” and “hope” back in 2006, and paraphrased the title in my head with stronger and more direct synonyms of these two words, like “The Courage to Trust” or “The Boldness to Aspire?” If I’d undertaken such simple contemplation, I wonder if my approach to both my life and my outlook on politics over the past two years might have come from a radically different place. Perhaps my perceptions and actions would have taken direction from an open heart instead of from a skeptical brain, if I’d followed the body organ that keeps me alive versus the organ that recalls, forgets, and misinterprets information with equal ease. I’ve come to believe over the past week that if I’d let my heart do the leading, the incredible feelings of the past three days wouldn’t merely ripple in my bloodstream—they’d surge like Class VI rapids through my veins. For one week ago, the author of The Audacity of Hope, Senator Barack Hussein Obama II, was elected the first African American to the office of President of the United States of America.

Born in Hawaii to a Kenyan father and an American mother, Barack Obama defeated his candidate—Arizona Senator John McCain, a generally respected member of Congress, war veteran, and American citizen—by the biggest landslide in over thirty years. Both candidates launched their campaigns well in advance of the election—Obama officially announced his run in early 2007. The campaign of our president-elect was multifaceted and encountered typical twists and turns en route to Election Day, but the campaign’s road never strayed from its original groundwork: the belief, expressed so simply in the Obama campaign’s slogan “Yes We Can,” that the future success of America depends on its citizens having the audacity to hope.

When I think about it today, this nation was built on this mentality. If not for a strong conviction of “Yes We Can,” America would still be a British Colony. African Americans would still be owned by Caucasians and working as slaves in the cotton fields in the South. People of color and women would not be able to vote, own a business or home, or run for any office, be it for President or County Treasurer. “Yes We Can” put a man on the moon. “Yes We Can” built the first automobile and airplane. The citizens of America have gone far by audaciously putting hope into the notion that “Yes We Can.”

Still, during the years leading up to this and the past election, I have been wary of hope. When dreams fail to materialize and urgent voices receive little to no acknowledgment, disappointment is the natural result. And disappointment hurts. Some people grow accustomed to the sting of disappointment and they learn to adapt as its pain dulls with continued exposure. Some of these people have been born into disappointment or grow up surrounded by it. To this population, disappointment is a fact of life and they endure its blow with greater resilience because they’ve never known life without it. The choice posed to these people is by what means they adopt to endure disappointment. There are those who choose to survive in apathy and there are those who choose to build insurmountable walls around their emotional selves. And then there are those who choose to pursue their dreams because they are so familiar with disappointment that it inspires minimal fear as they already have so little to lose. It’s as if this group has built up immunity to disappointment’s most dire symptoms: the crushed spirit and broken heart, all-consuming anger or depression, isolation and abandonment, perpetual skepticism, and the inability to commit to any one thing—be it a decision, belief, individual, or dream—in fear of that thing’s failure.

But some people are born into environments that present few and fairly insignificant face-offs with disappointment. I was fortunate enough to grow up in such an environment. The branches of my family tree have been white, healthy, college-educated, and attractive, historically leafed by smart bankers and businessmen who made sound investments or by accountants and self-starters with Depression-era frugality on the maternal limbs: a solid upper middle class tree. My own part of this tree had just branched out and away from the security of the trunk to enter kindergarten in 1981, the same year President Ronald Reagan first entered the White House. I grew up in the 1980s America—an America who got what She wanted without raising a finger.

Despite our family’s relative wealth, my parents did not spoil my little brother with toys. My allowance was rather modest with slight increases based on continuous progress at school and execution of my household chores, and with decreases and forfeited payments occurring in light of a significant decline on a recent report card, overall neglect of household duties, or any display of unkind, ignorant, and disrespectful behavior. There were rules: bedtimes, bath days, and curfew hours; hygiene guidelines, mandatory fruit and vegetable daily quotas, and exercise recommendations; restrictions on sugar cereal, soda pop, and dessert consumption; and a daily TV time limit. These rules illustrate the caliber of disappointments I encountered until adolescence.

When my parents separated and subsequently proceeded to have one of the most peaceful, cooperative divorces of all time, I looked it as an opportunity. I milked my teenage friends for pity and attention. I reveled in the extra time spent with my father who had to forgo his two-to-three day business trips every other week when he had custody. My brother and I easily convinced my guilt-ridden mother, the instigator of the divorce, to get three things my parents had withheld from us during their marriage: cable TV and two kittens, which my father’s allergies had prohibited. My parents’ divorce forced change into my life, but did it cause me great disappointment? No, though my parents certainly experienced such feelings. Did I fear the future, or lose my potential to dream? No. I see now that this is where I was spoiled in my upbringing. Spoiled rotten.

When a child grows up in a loving, well-to-do family, even a divorced family, she learns to cope with disappointment in well-monitored rooms with exceptionally soft padded walls. The blows of disappointment are applied with little force—a gentle slap on the wrist—and the pain dissipates so fast that the child can easily forget the painful experience of disappointment. For this child, hope, dreams, desire, and expectations are birthrights. This child needs no audacity, no courage, and no cheek to desire something and expect with confidence that something’s eventual deliverance. I was that child. The 1980s produced legions of children just like me. It is only when such a child steps out of the padded room as an adult that she discovers that she is vulnerable to the full sting of disappointment, that what she hopes for does not exist in a vacuum and is subject to the acceptance and cooperation of other people, who have their own hopes and dreams. On Halloween of my freshman year at a small liberal arts college, I first truly experienced disappointment and its pain acutely when my boyfriend back at home officially dumped me for a high school acquaintance he’d been seeing behind my back.

It’s a typical story for a first-year college student away from home. I’m sure such break-up stories happen to at least half the freshmen who leave their high school sweeties to attend a college more than an hour’s drive from home. Somewhere deep down I knew, in the weeks leading up to my exodus to college, that my relationship wasn’t built to last. But that inkling wasn’t enough to protect me from an embarrassing emotional collapse and overwhelming feelings of loneliness and self-loathing. I had no clue how to cope with disappointment, with the loss of hope for the relationship into which I’d bared so much of my soul and invested so much love, time, and energy.

The pain finally dulled after a nine-month emotional roller coaster ride when I hooked up with a happy-go-lucky pothead who worshipped me. He coveted every word I spoke as if it was the word of God, wrote me long love letters weekly, conceded to my request to “see other people” during my semester abroad without a fight, and immediately returned to bask at my feet when I returned to the States. Finally at the end of my junior year, I mercifully broke it off. I had liked him well enough, but I hadn’t loved him. I’d kept him around because I knew he couldn’t and wouldn’t hurt me and because I was afraid of meeting someone who could. Someone who triggered genuine hope, desire, and expectations, feelings that could be ripped away at any moment against my will. Someone who might make me face disappointment and its unbearable cuts again. I’d built up some walls, and though I’ve fallen in love with twice in the years since, I’ve stayed vigilant in these relationships; I’m always on the lookout for signs that the ax is about to fall so that I can drop it first.

I’ve constructed similar walls in response to disappointments in friendships, work experiences, American politics, and my beliefs in myself. My emotional core, where hope once flowered freely, grew malignant, its soil lacked essential nutrients, like trust, confidence, courage, and enthusiasm. Instead, I was infested with defensiveness, skepticism, cynicism, doubt, apathy, anger, and fear, fear, fear. I responded to uplifting stories and enticing possibilities with shrugs and pessimism. Hope became a mythical creature with wings. Audacity was a word I used to describe the behavior of a person, behavior that offended my self-righteous sense of morality. My life was fueled by outrage—with myself, with my friends and family, with my community, with my country, with the world. I wanted facts to prove the wrongdoings of every person, place, and thing. I had set up camp in a world whose mantra was, “Oh No You Can’t!”

When Barack Obama rose to vie for the nation’s greatest office, I observed him as an English major observes a complicated science experiment to pass the compulsory lab science class required for graduation—from the outside. I watched as he challenged Americans to confront the fear and skepticism that the events of 9/11 and the actions of the current presidential administration deposited so successfully in the minds and hearts of many of our nation’s citizens. With his campaign mantra “Yes, We Can,” he dared us to reclaim our hopes and desires for our individual lives, for our diverse communities, and for our nation and the world—for both present times and the future—and to pursue these hopes and dreams with unrelenting bravery and determination. From the outside looking in, I noted all of this while still holding myself an arm’s length away. I was too afraid of disappointment to embrace his words.

But as Election Day grew closer, I felt a slight tickle of optimism. I have an uncomfortable tug-of-war relationship with being tickled. I don’t enjoy the tickling sensation, but I still find myself laughing and I adore the intimacy that the sport affords. That tickle of optimism had a similar effect. I didn’t know how to sit comfortably with it because optimism had become so unfamiliar to me, yet it whetted my tongue for a little more of the flavor. I stepped closer to the political process and coughed up a hundred-dollar donation for Obama’s campaign, the first donation I’ve ever bestowed on a political candidate. I began to think, “Well, Maybe We Can…”—a minute crack in my fortress of walls.

One week ago, almost 12 hours after casting my vote for the president-elect, my partner of eight years led me by the hand down Pike Street to where it intersects Broadway Avenue at the heart of Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. I’ve lived in Seattle for over seven years; it is city of people frequently who are quick to smile at you but frugal with their friendship, who are armed with facts and ideas but are weighed down by their sharp cynicisms, who are a lot like me. However, when we entered the spontaneous gathering at Pike and Broadway, those people were nowhere to be found. I thought I saw them, in their NW hipster tight jeans and funky librarian glasses and raincoats, but it couldn’t have been them—where was the witty sarcasm, the rain-bogged pessimism, and the so-cool shutters closed around their emotions? Gone, gone, and gone. Instead, their faces were alive, filled with glee and optimism. Their arms were wrapped around strangers of all ages, all ethnicities, all genders, and sexual preferences. When Neighbors, a gay dance club started to pump out of its doors a techno remix of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing,” the entire mob moved and screamed to the lyrics, regardless of whether Journey has ever fit into their musical preferences. People climbed up on one another’s shoulders or body surfed while those on the ground nearby monitored the levitators, ready to catch them if they fell. For hours, a young African-American man with incredible biceps carried around a huge portrait of Obama and led the chant of “Yes We Can!” throughout the crowd of several thousand people.

The tickle of optimism grew stronger, the discomfort and the pleasure likewise evolved in size. “Yes We Can!” I chanted. “Yes We Did,” I thought. Then the truth dawned on me as I realized, “Yes THEY Did.”

They, the people who broke out of webs of fear and doubt, the people who had the courage to believe in someone’s vision of a better future, the people who fought through the fiery flames of disappointment before—without licking their wounds—they fought further. The people who had the audacity to hope, whether they’d been born with it, dared to find it, or had nothing to lose by having it. These people hadn’t been like me at all. When we came home from the spontaneous celebration in the street, my partner and I stepped into a hot shower to wash away the scent left in our hair by Capitol Hill’s die-hard smokers. Under the stream of hot water that poured from the showerhead, I began to cry. A few tears at first, then the sobs rose in my chest. I pulled my partner to me, wrapped my arms around him, and pressed my face against his chest. I was mourning the last two years of my life and how I’d wasted that opportunity to allow hope and courage back into my heart.

At the same time though, those sobs and tears forced the crack in my walled fortress to break open further, and further yet. My tears were giving birth to Hope right then. I may have lacked the audacity of hope to claim any credit for the historical election and the re-energized America I saw dancing in the streets of Seattle one week ago. But now I’m raising my own, newborn Hope. If I nurture it with devoted care and compassion, it may itself regenerate into trust, strength, dedication, and optimism. My person, my relationships, my work, and my life have incredible growth potential if I gain these qualities and overcome fear to maintain my fledgling Hope. However, that’s looking at my little picture, not the bigger picture which urgently needs our attention. And that picture is this: our future president will need as much of these qualities as he can get when he is sworn in on January 20, 2009 if he, and we, are to continue the revitalization of America and all its citizens’ dreams. I am finally ready to be audacious and hope for my country.

"Pessimists are usually right and optimists are usually wrong but all the great changes have been accomplished by optimists." - Thomas L. Friedman

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde