Dear Gentle Penguin,
Someone once told me that when a person is stressed, they revert to the worst of who they are. Not behavior (though I believe that’s true too). More like, the opposite of their strengths.
For example, my life has been rife with uncertainty the past three weeks, and so instead of writing to you as I most often want to do, I find that every time I sit down with spare time, or paper and pencil or pen, I crunch numbers. Budgets, bills, invoices, calculations of my “f*** you fund” endurance, time to resolution of this uncertainty…
Math, it’s the reason I’m a writer and not a physicist.
It’s true. I really wanted to be a physicist once upon a teenage dream. I even earned a scholarship from the Army to study it in college. But sophomore year I was introduced to advanced calculus at the same time I met behavioral science. And that was the end of my career as a physicist.
Did you know a ball thrown at a constant rate, or even an accelerated one, will always fall in the same predictable way because gravity is predictable? Turns out most of the laws of the Universe are pretty predictable. Except people’s behaviors. That’s where science gets interesting, as far as I’m concerned. And if it means I don’t have to know calculus, then it’s the course of study for me!
So why am I so drawn to math as I sit in the midst of this stress? Why can’t I seem to find the words to write to you?
I think I’m convinced the answer to the uncertainty lies somewhere in the math. Perhaps if I could just crack the code. If I could just see through the data. If I could just be certain about something…
After awhile, I have to pour myself a glass of wine or I think I’ll go mad. I envision myself the Johnnie Depp of Dayton with my curls unruly and a hat perched atop my head as my eyes seem to stretch outside what is visible seeking a saving force…or a return to certainty. Why is a raven like a writing desk?
It’s not a pretty vision. And the wine helps take off just enough of the edge so I can see that this stress of a thing called consulting—where sometimes the chips are high, sometimes they’re low, and sometimes you have no idea where they may fall—is just a natural part of my chosen career. I’ll get through it just fine. I’m not destitute; i have work and clients and irons in the fire like no one I know. I’m just not certain about the next step.
Honestly, I even have moments of pure bliss about the uncertainty and where it will lead me. For it always leads to something…different. I like different. Or maybe that’s when I know I’ve had plenty of wine?
Which leads me to a different thought.
Perhaps also, my inability to write is the simple fact that putting on paper fears and concerns and doubts is far less lovely than putting on paper thoughts and ideas and answers.
As always, the Muses have me covered and a piece of advice floats across my path unbidden “The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlights reel.”
I feel immediately better. I like the wisdom of this and settle down. But isn’t this part of that against which I rail? I mean, I believe strongly we should all work on showing our best side. Etiquette, personal hygiene, fashion, etc. But I don’t believe in being insincere, nor inauthentic. It alienates us from everyone else and doesn’t make for good relationships. But in the other hand, I don’t believe in airing dirty laundry. But I do believe vulnerability can be immensely beautiful. And necessary. But I struggle with vulnerability. I make my living handling sticky situations beautifully. They’re just usually other people’s’ sticky situations…not mine.
All this swinging between emotions and opposite ends of the spectrum is making me motion sick. Or perhaps it’s the constant rise and fall of adrenaline in my system as the uncertainty gets bleaker, then better, then worse, then fine. Or perhaps it’s the unending sense of being perpetually lost in the mist of these swells. I seem stuck in this vacillation between terrified and calm, shell-shocked and frozen, broken and hopeful.
And when I’ve had enough, I channel mu energy to just do something. ANYTHING. Action makes me feel better. But how odd that something is more frequently math than anything else. Why can’t I go for a hike? Why can’t I just march into that networking meeting I’ve been dreading? Why can’t I write?
I sit back down and try again. But all I can see is my path strewn before me like the Christmas lights after they came off my tree, all tangled and twisted so that I couldn’t even find the ends with which to start unraveling. And soon, here comes the math again!
I chew my fingernails as I stare at the mess. I alternately can’t eat a thing and want to eat everything. I even have to remind myself to breathe. Again. Here comes another vacillation.
The thing is, I always envisioned that in these times of uncertainty, I would be the pillar of strength and poise. Able to sit back beautifully and ride the waves like a professional surfer. It’s not that I don’t have options, it’s that all of my options are in a constant state of flux at the moment so that they can’t be grasped. I still have work to do…and therefore pay coming in.
So, why can’t I be that me I wish to be? Why do I dwell on that which I can’t control? Why can’t I do what needs to be done, breathe without having to be reminded, then go home and enjoy that which matters to me most. My family, my friends, my home, my writing…Those things are certain.
Buddha tells me to “lean into my uncertainty.” Is this what he means? I try to spend a day embracing uncertainty and moving on as if it’s a natural state. But then I find a moment to fall apart and instead of letting it happen for a moment and pulling myself back together, I lean into the falling apart bit until I’ve succumbed to the fear again.
“That’s enough!” I hear myself say it aloud as I once again stare myself down in the bathroom mirror. Instantly, I’m grounded again. Perhaps the words are what allow me to fall apart in the first place. Math merely keeps the words distant. I relax into this thought just about the time I drift off to sleep.
I dream of bombs going off all around me, of going deaf, of living with black bears.
The dream dictionary tells me dreaming of bears means “overwhelming obstacles; the three-fold cycle of life and death and renewal; the need to get things of your chest.”
As I lay awake at 3 o’clock in the morning, I feel only an overwhelming urge to write suddenly. To get things off my chest so I quit hiding from it. So I don’t continue to succumb to the fear and uncertainty. Perhaps if I see these thoughts in black and white in front of me, I’ll see they’re not so nebulous.
The fact that my laptop is downstairs somehow makes it better too. The cool air of my sleeping house, the solid steps beneath my feet, the 100-year-old plaster walls against my palms as I search for my writing tools makes me feel more steady.
And then finally…here come the words…
