Here’s the thing. I don’t typically care what others think of me. I know I’m weird. I know I’m different. I am comfortable enough with myself now to own that.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not hard when I get really bad reviews, or when someone doesn’t seem quite as enthused about something I’ve done than I am.

I’ve encountered this in 2 ways this week…

The first was during an appointment with my doctor. I have several chronic conditions – things that have been going on for years – and some health challenges related to that. Yet I’ve been making some real progress on those challenges, feeling better than I have in YEARS. And I was excited for her to see that my numbers were improving, that I was feeling better, and stronger, and more like myself than I have in months.

From her demeanor you would have thought that I was dying. She has this kind of, well, Eeyore personality. She rarely if ever smiles. She rarely if ever gives me positive feedback. You know, “You’re doing well, now what can you do to keep it up and improve further?” or something like that.

Instead, it’s more worry, more concern, more furrowed brows. I’ve contemplated saying something to her, or seeking another provider. But I also like the care I get, I like her med tech, I like the office and it’s close to my house. So do I just suck it up? Say something? I feel like if I say something then she’ll make an insincere effort. I guess I’ll just hang in there. But it makes for some pretty depressing appointments.

The other experience was more common in my academic world. I got a revise and resubmit on a manuscript. And I swear to you Reviewer 1 is the most petty person on the face of the planet. My initial response to the review was “What the HELL?” (they wanted us to completely redo it using another method. Um, no.)

While the review itself wasn’t much better on second read, I was able to deal with it and come up with a plan and how I will respond to the comments. I will also be sure to have someone read through my response to de-snarkify it before I send it in! (Better safe than sorry…)

This makes me think of my demeanor when interacting with others…colleagues, students, family, friends… How do they see me? Am I giving enough positive feedback? Am I coming across like Eeyore?

A little self-awareness is not a bad thing. I know I’m not the best listener out there – something I am actively working to improve (although failing pretty spectacularly at it…). Maybe these experiences will help me move that along faster. I can hope, right?

I have been saying this for weeks here at work, but man, it’s been a week.
I guess I need to change and say man, it’s been a month. And the only way it’s going to get better is to just get through it, again.

Nonstop meetings. Deadlines and stress and students and interviews and decisions and the whole mishmash of things that come with being in academia.

Yesterday was like a condensed version of the last month.

• Today (Wednesday) I was supposed to be on a plane to California. The conference was canceled, thanks to COVID-19. I was disappointed but also, honestly, relieved. I do love staying home and while I’m disappointed that I won’t get to network and learn more about research being done by others who share my interests, I suspect they’ll find a way to help us interact and learn more from what should have / would have been presented.
• Sadness. I also had to cancel a trip out East next week, which was for dual purposes, seeing my parents, and getting a long-awaited medical consult. But given the current COVID-19 situation, and the fact that my university actually asked people to refrain from leaving the county if they didn’t have to do so, plus my provider’s recommendation that I not travel (due to the condition for which I was getting the consult), plus my parents’ reluctance to have me expose myself to potential infection, well, it was kind of a no-brainer of a decision. But oh, I’m still so sad. While yes, part of the trip was the consult, the real reason I really wanted to go was to see my parents. They’ve had some major challenges this winter, and I just wanted to see them in person, hug them, and make sure they’re okay. (Or as okay as they can be…) Sigh.
• Frustration. Ha. This one makes me laugh at myself, but I get so frustrated with a colleague who uses weird and unnecessary abbreviations in emails. Really, you can’t spell out “committee”? It takes you that much longer to type than “Ctte.” (Note the period, and also? I don’t get the two t’s. I’d do it “cmte”, but I also, um, wouldn’t abbreviate it. I also abbreviate the entire name of the committee as the “CC”.) Anyway, it’s such a small thing, but every time I read one of her emails, I get twitchy. Fortunately, it also makes me realize how ridiculous I am, and then I laugh at myself. 
• And fatigue. Good grief, I’m getting old, but the time change on Sunday seems to have hit me like a ton of bricks. I’m sleeping hard, and I’m so, so ready to get in bed when bedtime rolls around that I can hardly keep my eyes open. I’m hoping this move on soon. 

Much of the time I’m able to completely focus on what needs to be done, and I get it done.
The only way out is through, in so many cases.

And then there are the (thankfully brief) times in my life when I have what I refer to as “squirrel brain”. You know, when a dog catches a glimpse of a squirrel and immediately their attention shifts to the squirrel, and then maybe to the shiny object just down the street, and oh, look, something smelly for me to get into!

In other words, my brain is all over the place recently.

That’s not to say that I can’t focus… but sometimes, I feel like I am focusing on the wrong things.

It’s a busy time at work. We have the COVID-19 virus to worry about. I’ve had to cancel 2 trips because of that – and now worry that I won’t be able to use the flight credits within a year (because, honestly, who knows how this thing will look in a year?). The election…and, honestly, the future of our country. My parents’ health and well-being. My relationship. My career – especially my upcoming annual review. Meetings. Interview for staff positions and faculty positions. More meetings.

Sigh.

And on and on it goes. I know that it will end, eventually, but man, it drives me bonkers until it does. I prefer my typically-focused self, and this squirrel brain self? Well, it feels like tight, itchy, underwear, to be honest. You know how when something just doesn’t fit right, and it’s all you can think about? That’s where I am with this.

Trying to get through to the end… and I guess in this case, the only way out really is through.

I have to laugh when random memories pop into my head – without, it seems, any relationship to what I’m doing right now, or reading, or working on. This happens most often with music – a snippet of a long-ago movie soundtrack, or a random 80s song that wanders into my brain (yes, this happened with a Whitney Houston song the other week… I wondered about that one, too).

It makes me wonder what triggers these auditory jumps? I do have a constant internal dialogue going with myself. My brain is hardly ever quiet. Is my brain trying to tell me to stop thinking so hard about whatever I’m pondering? am I trying to distract myself? is there some cue in my thoughts or environment that prompted me to remember the song?

I have no idea. But it makes for an amusing mental soundtrack some days (particularly when I’m in endless meetings).

YouTube and Spotify have made it so easy to revisit the songs of my youth and early adulthood. Just today, I looked up a soundtrack to a movie that I loved in college and watched multiple times with my roommates. Now and Then. About female friendships in the 70s – and then when the girls in the movie grow up. And it had a fabulous soundtrack – seriously, just fabulous.

But roommate #1 owned the soundtrack CD (ha! we’re old…) and I did not. And when we eventually went our separate ways – several years after college, when I left to become a travel nurse – well, obviously she kept the CD. I was never able to find it until this morning – when I discovered that some lovely person on YouTube had uploaded it.

Talk about a fun blast from the past. I plan to blast it this weekend (and probably drive my upstairs neighbor bonkers) and reminisce about the good ol’ days of the mid and late 90s.

I love the opportunity that random memories give me to revisit happy days in the past… which also serves to remind me that a lot of good, and happy days, still happen in the present. Even when the week seems full of endless meetings, and various stressors… the good still happens, the smiles still come.

Josh Radnor, perhaps best known in the States for How I Met Your Mother (the TV show), has a periodic newsletter he sends out. Today’s resonated with me, especially this passage:

There’s no feeling I wish to close myself off to. I’m okay with despair and discontent s long as they’re only part of the story. I’ve no interest in blind optimism wherein I close my eyes and heart to the true suffering in the world. Nor am I interested in lazy, cheap cynicism where I feel the fix is in and change is impossible. I can hold both dark and light, while knowing that the light is going to need a bit more attention, care, and time.

Counteracting that self-critical voice requires daily vigilance. Despair and cynicism are always extending a tempting invitation. But I’ve found the rewards of working those other muscles, of telling myself another story, are immense. It serves as a shield against both individual and collective hopelessness. With hope comes faith and aliveness. And with faith and aliveness comes determination and right thinking. I intuitively know what’s being asked next of me. And there’s an effortlessness in the doing whose byproduct is a new kind of joy, that of being used for a purpose greater than myself.

Patience and humility are two other muscles that could use a bit more attention. And there’s some real relief on the other side of that. For today I don’t have to save the world. Today I don’t have to have all the answers. Today I don’t have to heal all my wounds.