Small Bites and Little Victories

I’ve got something earth shattering to share: 
I like to be liked. 

I’ll give you a minute to clean up your spilled iced coffees. 
…waiting…

Ok, so now that the shock has worn off and you’ve composed yourself – I’ll break it down for you. I want for people to think I’m a nice, kind and a good person, and for most of my life I would tie myself up into knots in order to accomplish that goal. I would over commit to plans, I’d take on other people’s responsibilities at work, I would spend time with people that I didn’t think were that awesome – all in the spirit of being a “nice” person, a “good” person. I worked so incredibly hard to make myself likeable, that I’d look at the knotted up person I’d become and realize I didn’t like her very much.  

I found myself in this exact situation in the last few years. I met someone who was loved by people that I loved, so I thought: “PERFECT! We’ll fall in love and then everyone will love each other and it will be the BEST!” 

Then, I did what comes naturally to me, I was kind, thoughtful, tried to make good jokes, responded quickly to text messages, offered to help whenever it seemed like they needed a hand, and…nothing. This person either ignored me, or was outright rude to me. 

Undeterred, I upped my game. I tried the hardest I’d ever tried in my life to make them like me. Exhausting myself by creating hoops, and jumping through them. When that didn’t work, I then lit those same hoops on fire, going back through said hoops, staring hopefully at the person I hoped would finally like and me still: they gave me nothing.

As I removed my cinged cape and looked back at the smoking embers of the hoops I’d risked my life to go through, I had a realization: 

There are two ways to end a game of Tug-o-War
To pull harder and longer than the other person, and exhaust yourself and the other person with your efforts until they have to let go or fall forward. 
To drop.the.fucking.rope. 

I had tried to pull as hard as I could, and all I had to show for it was total exhaustion, a person who still didn’t like me – and a deep sadness that I had changed myself to try to make someone else like me. 

It was then that I dropped the rope. I accepted that no matter what I did, I would never be someone this person wanted to be around. I thought that this acceptance would bruise the little Like-Me Monster that had been living in my chest for most of my life, but instead it felt awesome! 

I felt a lightness, a total relief that I didn’t have to put in the work of trying to be this person’s friend. It felt so good that I started to reassess all of the relationships I had started because I had this hunger to be liked. What if I dropped the rope in those friendships too? What would my life look like?

Update: Without these one sided friendships, my life looks amazing! 

Here are three ways to assess if you have relationships where you need to Drop the Rope: 

• After you spend time with them you feel exhausted instead of nourished
• The amount that you give in the relationship is deeply one sided (i’m not talking 60/40, I’m talking 80/20) 
•  You don’t feel like yourself with them. Instead you feel like a version of yourself that you don’t like or recognize.

If any of these things seem to be true in your relationships, do an experiment for 2 weeks where you stop trying so damn hard. You don’t need to say anything, you don’t need to tell them you’re just doing less. Then observe what happens to you, to the relationship with this person, and your relationship with yourself. In the interim, put some Aloe Vera on those palms (it’’ll help with the rope burn) give yourself a big hug, and know that no matter what happens next, you’ve made a choice to put your needs above being liked, and that my darling, is always a win! 

Photo by Karolina Grabowska

I thought that I was immune to it. I’m young, healthy, I had been working from home by myself for the last 7 years, I’m in a committed loving relationship with a wonderful partner, I was respectful of social distancing, the only people I spoke to were in my house (well really my parents house) or on the phone – I was following the rules! But it came for me a few weeks ago – and it knocked the shit outta me. 

Loneliness. 

Deep, dark loneliness. 

The kind that I couldn’t exercise off, do a puzzle about, or video chat my way out of – it was in my bones. So I did what I always did when I had a feeling I couldn’t shake off,or work my way out of – I cried about it. And this time – I cried about it HARD. 

I sobbed about the relationships that I had thought I fostered that now felt like they had evaporated, the home that I had in Brooklyn that I felt alienated from, and like I had abandoned. We had to leave our little place because our apartment has no doors, and my husbands office was closed. We had tried co-working on opposite ends of the apartment – but the first time one of my clients (who was paying a pretty penny for 1:1 coaching) heard him talking about software implementation at a volume that can only be described as a dull roar – I knew our WFH situation wasn’t sustainable. 

We are incredibly privileged to have parents who took us into their home in the lovely mountain town where they’ve retired. It’s beautiful, and Vermonty AF, and I don’t know A person here under the age of 50. (If you didn’t think that I hung out for a littttle too long around the spiked seltzer display at the grocery store doing my best cool girl impression  on the lookout for a new friend – you have deeply underestimated me)

After the sobs had subsided, I did the other thing that I do when I can’t shake a feeling – researched the shit outta it. I had listened to Brene Brown’s beautiful podcast Unlocking Us where she interviewed former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy about Loneliness and Connection about a month ago, but it hits different when I listened to it again this past week with my sad girl ears. 

In listening to the podcast I learned that there are there are 3 types of loneliness: 

Intimate Loneliness  –  which is what you feel when you lack really close relationships with people who know you truly for who you are, with whom you can be fully yourself, and that often is a best friend or a spouse.

Relational Loneliness – is when we lack friendships, and the kind of friendships where you would spend time with people during weekends or evenings or you have a friend you would have over to a dinner party or go on vacation with. 

Collective Loneliness  – is when we lack a sense of community-based or shared identity. Which can be a community of people who have a shared mission or it could even be colleagues who have loyalty to their organization and are committed to the mission.

What he said is that even when we are totally fulfilled in one place in your life, you can feel lonely in other dimensions in our life, and when that happens, it doesn’t mean that the dimensions where we are fulfilled are bad or broken. 

I had felt real loneliness before when I was an awkward kid in my middle school years, and this feeling was really similar. The way I got through that period of time was by believing that the future would be better. I would have friends who got me, who liked my quirks, made me laugh, where I could be myself and not second guess every other word I said, who I could love and support, who would be my people. What is incredible, is that I had gotten that in my life! Which is in and of itself a miracle! I had been surrounded by people I loved, who loved me back – but we couldn’t see each other right now. And I didn’t know when I would be able to see them, hug them or be with them again. 

The worst part about this lonely feeling, is that I’ve been embarrassed to talk about it, because of the deep stigma that exists around loneliness.  I was afraid if I said I was lonely, then the gremlins in my head would be right – I was unlikeable, or broken in some way. Or, worse – it would make the people who I am around feel like they were doing something wrong. 

Listening to this podcast let me know that there wasn’t anything wrong with me, that this was normal for people to feel when they are in isolation, or are in places and spaces they aren’t used to. More than that, the podcast and other articles I’ve read reminded me that if this is something that I am feeling, then friends and family must be feeling it too, and instead of dwelling in my own feelings of being alone – I focused on quelling other peoples feelings of loneliness. 

I have been aggressively smizeing at the grocery store, (thank you Tyra Banks :), because even if they can’t see my smile under my mask –  the eyes tell it all. I have been making casual conversation with the person who is also pumping gas (form 6 feet away of course), I’ve set aside time every day to do a check in text or ask friends to FaceTime or zoom. I’ve also made sure to really focus in on the quality of my conversations – a call that might have been done while I was distractedly grocery shopping is now something to be delighted over with a glass of wine. I’ve tried to make it a point to be present with my friends, and also to say out loud how lovely it is to get a small slice of their time, even when they are so far away. 

The sads still come, but the sobs are slowing down and just like when I was in 4th grade – believe that there’s are brighter, more friend filled days in my future. 

Like all things that go sideways, I had a plan. 

I was going to jumpstart my writing this morning. The coffee was ready to be brewed, I had my favorite mug, my journal and pen were out, I had set up a little nook in the postage stamp of a back garden that we have in Brooklyn. There would be sunlit morning skies, hot coffee, I had my phone in case I needed some music. It was going to be perfect. I was going to hit the ground RUNNING. 

I woke up on time, made my coffee, wrote the date down at the top of the page ready for the genius that I had been ignoring to flow right out of me…and then I was like, “Oh!  I need a water. The brain needs water to function, what was I thinking.” Got myself a glass of water. Then, what good is a water without a snack? Just a little apple or something. Walked back into the apartment, and procured my snack. Time to WRITE! 

I stared at my journal for a strong 10 seconds, and promptly distracted myself again.

“Oh my god, that bird is beautiful/I need to have a sip of coffee/Don’t forget to hydrate, drink that water/I wonder what’s happening on instagram?!”

This continued at a dizzying clip until I was throwing so many things around on the tiny patio table I was using that I knocked over my coffee and water in one fell swoop. 

You know that game where you ask “If your house was on fire what would you grab?” In that moment, I found myself in a much lower stakes version of that game: if liquids were spilled, what would save – your electronics or your journal?

Without thinking, I grabbed the journal, and ran to the kitchen to pat its pages dry carefully and thoughtfully. I didn’t remember the phone until I came back to my seat outside and saw it covered in water. 

I am not sure if that has to do with the fact that I’ve been actively using my phone to drive myself to distraction lately. Grabbing it when I don’t need it for anything in particular, mindlessly scrolling when I am already watching tv, using it as a way to shut off my brain from feeling things that are hard or intense. 

Maybe it’s that the journal represents the opposite of that. I need to be purposeful when I am writing, its a choice and not a default. It’s impossible for me to write in conjunction with anything else. When I am writing I am the most aware of my thoughts, feelings and emotions – even the ugly ones. The ones that can’t be made pretty even with the best filter. 

Making this small unconscious choice of saving the tool that makes me focused vs. the item that drives me to distraction felt really meaningful in that moment. Probably because life has felt more full, but I’ve felt more empty. I am hopeful it means that I am going to start grabbing the things that fill up my cup, instead of empty it out. That I am going take the time to focus on the real things, and not distract myself with the surface ones. 

The good news is that my journal is totally fine, not a word smudged or a page made wavy by water. The only battle scar, it just has the faintest scent of coffee. An olfactory reminder to be present, focus on what’s in front of me, and to remember that by saving the things that matter I am also saving myself. 

I saw it slowly creeping into my social media feeds, side by side pics of friends, family and celebrities showing what they looked like 10 years ago. Everyone looking so fresh and young and gorgeous – even without an instagram filter! I found myself saying audible awws at the faces of these humans that I have delighted in seeing grow up and older, either online or in real life, and write reflections about how much their lives have changed in the last 10 years.

For some people it was because of marriage, or children, or crazy job changes or moves across the country or around the world. I loved reading their reflections of who they were, and how amazed they got from the person on the left to the person on the right.

I started to think about 2009 me, and I feel totally sure that if she met 2019 me there would be awkwardness. Not just because of the additional smile lines, and the fact that for the first time in about 15 years I don’t have any variation on bangs (I know you guys, I have a forehead! It shocked me too!), but also because I was unsure if I would still be alive in 2019. Don’t get me wrong, I was SUPER hopeful that I would still be hanging out, but I had a strong fear that death would come back again, and this time it wasn’t going to miss.

Because of this, Katie in 2009 was obsessed with LIVING. Which at that point in time meant not sitting still. I approached every day as if it was going to be my last – with a big smile, aggressive joy, and a recklessness that can only be found in a person who knows what it’s like to close your eyes with very little hope they would open again.

I lived in fast forward for all of the people who died too young. I went out every night, drank a lot, searched for magic in every candle-lit bar, underground music venue or on the roofs of strangers apartments. Then I would wake up, and go to a job I didn’t like very much, and clock out and start the search for some combination of joy and magic. Running as fast, and as hard as I could towards something meaningful. Every night I would come up short of the meaning I was hoping for, so I would pour myself into bed, and vow to try harder the next night.

I think 2009 Katie would be surprised that 2019 Katie doesn’t need to live in FFWD all the time, because life is good enough that she wants to really enjoy it, to savor it, to be in love with it. It isn’t a numbers game anymore, where the more events I go to, the more people I see the more things that I do, the better. It’s become quality over quantity, but I am pretty sure that 2009 Katie would think I was kind of lame. Who eats meals they cook themselves!? Weird.

I know she would be also surprised that she did the scary thing, and left her corporate job and went into nonprofit work. Maybe she would have been shocked that even after “How to Get Run Over by a Truck” got rejected over 100 times, she didn’t give up. That she found a way to get the book into the hands of people who needed it.

I am not sure that 2009 Katie, would have envisioned running her own small business, or that people would pay her actual money to talk about what she’s overcome. That others would feel inspired after hearing her speak, that they would believe that they could be successful even after their lives have been run over by a truck.

I don’t know if she knew that she had the potential to take her greatest trauma, and turn it into her life’s greatest triumph. That the same hunger and fear that made it impossible to slow down, could be channeled into aggressively creating a life that couldn’t be found on an apartment rooftop, or an underground bar but was full of magic and meaning nonetheless.

The smell of cinnamon and coffee always make me think of my parents. They add it to the coffee grinds because they read that even smelling cinnamon improves your processing capabilities, and that ingesting it is even better for your brain! It makes the whole house smell a little cozier, and more comfortable – it’s like a deep exhale. Even when they lived on Long Island it gave our suburban home a country vibe, which I LOVED. Now, this cinnamon coffee is being brewed in their house overlooking the Green Mountains in Vermont, and it makes so much more sense. You know the phrase create the life you want to live?  It feels like they were making that cinnamon coffee in their Long Island present, for their Vermont future.

 

Whoever gets up first in the house is responsible for turning on the coffee maker and making that cozy smell happen, usually that’s my dad. I get my early rising tendencies from him. Growing up, getting up early was the way that I could be sure to get one on one time with my dad, away from my brothers and my sister. I would forgo the extra hours of sleep with the hope that we would go on a tiny adventure to the bakery, and then we’d drive down to town docks talk while we ate donuts. It was a tiny slice of what it might have been like to be an only child, and I relished it! I felt like it was worth missing the extra rest. That being said, my brothers and my sister are all wayyyyy taller than me – and I am pretty sure that the extra sleep could have added a few inches, but still, l wouldn’t have traded it.

A few weeks ago I was up in Vermont visiting my parents, and I was the first one up. I wasn’t waking early because I needed quality time with my dad, but I was up because my mind wouldn’t stop racing. There has been a lot of life going on lately – building out my coaching business, working on my speaking career, planning a wedding (?!?), working on additional creative projects, and thinking about all of the promises I’ve made to other people. I trundled down the stairs with my mind going down the rabbit hole – I had this feeling like I was never going to get everything done, that I was a failure and that everyone in my life was currently laying in their bed thinking, “wow Katie has really let me down…” and then listing out all of the ways I had been a disappointment. I mean, I know I was currently making that list, so why wouldn’t everyone else be doing it?

I took a deep breath, walked to the Mr. Coffee and started scooping in coffee grinds and shaking in cinnamon, as it brewed I sat down in front of my favorite window overlooking the Green Mountains, and started scratching out a plan. I made lists, I made to-do’s and I created deadlines and wrote out affirmations. I was trying to write my way out of panic.

I wrote, and wrote, and wrote.

And sitting there with my hands cramping and my lap full of lists, I was still in that same mental spot – absolutely panicking.

I re-read what I wrote, and everything there was pages and pages of ways in which I wasn’t good enough. A litany of ways that I felt I was messing up. I took another deep breath, grabbed that freshly brewed cinnamon coffee, I looked out the window at this bonkers beautiful view of a sunrise that had just unfolded before me, and I made decision. I was going to write a different list.

I made a list of all of the things that I have done in the last few months that I am/should be proud of. The things that I have done, the ways that I’ve been successful, kind and thoughtful. They ranged from the very small, like learning how to make a new soup to the very big, like joyfully officiating two wonderful friends wedding.

I looked down at my two lists, the “To-Do’”s and the “Have Dones”, and I folded up the To-Do list into a small square, and put it in my purse to look at tomorrow. Then, I sat with my Have Dones for a little while longer, let myself delight in the good that has been achieved over the last few months and drank my cinnamon coffee down to the very bottom of the mug.

 

If you have some time today, I think you should find yourself a warm beverage, and focus in on everything that you’ve done that you’re proud of over the last few months. It won’t be easy, but throw some cinnamon in that warm beverage – it’ll help you process how awesome you are a little faster.

Two Monday’s ago, I woke up at 5 am and took the bag I had packed for a weekend in the Hamptons full of shoes and once worn dresses and re-zipped it.  I grabbed the nearest big blue Ikea bag and tipped my laundry basket into it, watching as the clothes cascaded out of it, like a cotton avalanche. I kissed my boyfriend good-bye as he sleepily slid toward my side of the bed.  I heaved this monstrosity of dirty clothes over my shoulder and lifted my rolling luggage out the front door to the 2011 Subaru Impreza that I share with my little brother.

This little silver bullet of a car has almost 150,000 miles on it, smells like my little brothers dirty gym clothes, and in that moment opening up  the car door made me happier than I can even express. I needed a break from Brooklyn, and this sweet little four wheeled wonder was my ticket out. I didn’t worry about the wonky back bumper, or that the check engine light has been on basically since we got it a few months ago.  I just saw the E ZPass was in place, and that Google maps told me it was blue all the way from Brooklyn to Vermont – I turned the ignition and pulled out of the parallel parking spot that had taken me at least 5 tries to get into.

I needed a breath because I have been feeling unsteady lately.  This unsteadiness is partially of my own doing. When I consciously uncoupled from my job, I saw it as a real opportunity for me to figure out what I wanted for my life to look like, and to try to build the fuck out of  it.  Which in theory is BRILLIANT! I’m following my dreams, going with my gut, being brave – thinking about what I want to do with my wild and precious life! I am doing the things that I promised myself I would do! I almost died, don’t I deserve to give myself the opportunity to find happiness.  YES all of these things are SO TRUE.  

But, what they don’t always put at the bottom of these quotes in the prettiest calligraphy I’ve ever seen, is that while investing in yourself, and listening to your heart is incredible – it is also really, really scary.

I’d been doing what I normally do in the face of things that terrify me: I work super hard, I don’t take care of myself and most charmingly I try to control everything I possibly can.  This includes myself, my relationships, my social interactions, money, food and breathing.  For the last few months I’ve been dancing on the razor’s edge of this control. Trying, trying, trying to keep myself balanced – praying that I won’t fall, knowing that eventually, I will.

My brother had called me a few days before I left for Vermont and asked me how I was, I took a breath and before I could speak he said – ‘You’re not doing well.  You know it, I know it, and listen that’s ok.  Stop struggling against it.  Lean into kid.  Don’t make any decisions, except to get the fuck out of town.’  

I called my parents right afterwards and asked if I could come up for a visit. I needed to fall apart, and apparently, I needed to do it on a pile the dirty laundry that was currently sitting in the backseat.  

Owning a car in New York City is a bit of a luxury, and it was still pretty new to me. We had only owned it since March, and most of the trips in it had been to see family, or friends and I was rarely by myself.  

The joy of being in charge of the playlist, and being able to stop whenever I wanted to was not lost on me. I sped up the New York Thruway the same way that I would have when I was 19.  Windows wide open, drinking gulps of milky sweet iced coffee, singing to songs as loudly as I wanted – feeling free, totally ridiculous  and like I could stop and pee at every rest stop because I have a small bladder, I love beverages and goddammit I was in charge.

For the last few months, I have been searching for something to make me feel steady.  For that one thing that I can lean back on and say – “Alright Katie, see this thing happened and that means that everything is going to be ok.” But that thing hasn’t come.  As I drove past service stations and farm towns that smelled like fresh cut grass, I realized that it probably never would.

Not because steadiness isn’t in my future, but because I have a tendency to move the goal post whenever I get close to that feeling – to say it still isn’t enough. That I need to work harder and smarter to be worthy of a concrete feeling.  Which is exhausting and shitty, because it makes it pretty impossible to ever score a point.

I rolled up to my parents house, still buzzing from all of the coffee and the number of indie-pop songs I belted out, hugged the crap out of my mom and sat down to start working.  My dad walked in looked and me and said

‘Katie, you should go and lie down.’

No, Dad I’ve got some stuff to do, I should really take care of it now.

‘Do you have a deadline? Or is there someone who is waiting on it right now?’

No, not exactly.

‘Then I think that you should go upstairs and rest.  That’s why this house is here, that’s why you’re here – so you can relax and rest.  You need to rest Katie.

I looked at both of my parents, and in their eyes I saw love (and more than a little concern) so I walked up the stairs and did what the told me. I laid down, and I slept.  I woke up hours later from the nap that I didn’t think that I needed, feeling unwound.  I had a cocktail and a chat with a my dad, and dinner and a tearful heart to heart with my mom before tucking myself in tightly to my bed for the second time that day.

My alarm went off at 5:15 and I padded down to my parents front porch with my journal in my hand.  I wrote as the sun came up over the Green Mountains, thoughts and feeling and nonsense poured out – nothing particularly life shattering, but it was honest and it was real and I meant every word.  Which felt fucking awesome.

I closed the journal entry with these thoughts:

You’ve got this, I promise.

Keep falling.

Go through it. 

Show up.

I love you.

In the off chance that you’re reading this, and maybe feeling like everything is so stinking out of control –  I want you to say all of the things above to yourself. Because it made me feel so much better, and I hope that it will help you too! Oh, and also, I think that you should lie down for a little bit.  You deserve it, I promise. 

I couldn’t control this sunrise, but it turned out pretty gorgeous.