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Friday Zen: Your Greatest Achievements

Earlier this week, Dina posted a fantastic question on her blog:  What are your 5 greatest achievements?  (She has a knack for this, Dina does.  She's always posing thought-provoking questions in a gentle and open manner.)  Picking up on such a rich and fertile topic for discussion, Elizasmom turned it into a meme, and I'm now perpetuating the meme.  (That Elizasmom is one smart, funny, literary, music-loving, weapon-wielding chick.  Quite a heady mix, isn't that?  Check out her blog on a regular basis, it will do you good and you'll probably learn something new.)

I love Dina's question because it sort of intrinsically challenges you to explore your definitions of achievement and success.  I noticed that the three of us (Dina, Elizasmom and I) picked up on a common theme:  our notions of success have changed greatly over the years, and much of what we are proudest of has little to do with our older, more traditional, notions of success. 

For instance, in response to Dina's question, I gave two answers that are deeply linked together.  I said that my greatest accomplishments included leaving my old job, and living my life according to my values.  A great part of that was figuring out what my values actually are. 

My old job had all the trappings of "success":  it paid well, I worked in a fancy building and had a large office, I traveled business class and ordered dinner from fancy restaurants (but ate at my desk, alone, probably 5 nights a week).  That job provided me with many fantastic opportunities, but it also drained the life out of me.  It wasn't just the demands on my time or energy:  it was a cultural mismatch.  Simply put, I didn't fit in.  I didn't have the same priorities that my colleagues, or the organization, did.

So I quit.  It was scary.  There were personal and financial risks involved.  But now?  Now I have a job that's so much more in line with my personal values.  As a result, I have more in common with the people that I work with.  I'm proud of what I do, and I enjoy it.  I have time for a personal life, and I am enjoying living more than ever.  It took a long time to get here, but I'm so glad I made it.  My priorities are in order, and that has generated a peace and an energy that's exceeded all of my expectations.

So, now its your turn: tell me what your 5 greatest accomplishments are.  This shouldn't be too hard -- tell me what comes to your head immediately (and you can list more than 5 if you want)!  And if you can, make another such list tomorrow.  Once you start thinking about things this way, you may find yourself on a roll.

Friday Zen: Sleep Deprivation

Most of the time, I love being pregnant.  I really do.  I have been truly lucky to have a really lovely pregnancy thus far: barely any nausea, my energy returned fairly quickly, and I've so far avoided any major complications with the pregnancy.  I've got some aches and pains, but nothing I can't handle.

Except for this once teensy thing:  sleep deprivation.  The culprit is a new restlessness that strikes at about 3:30 in the morning, waking me up and causing my body and legs to twitch whenever I return to the cusp of sleep.  It hits a few nights a week, and let me tell you -- I was pretty dependent on 8 hours of sleep BEFORE I started growing an additional human being in my body.  It is NOT PRETTY now, with my emphatic need for extra rest. 

This has been worrying me a bit, because I've heard that babies don't sleep so much when they first arrive?  And that they eat like every 3 hours, including through the night?  And that they poop something like 15-20 times a day in the beginning?  And OH MY GOD HOW AM I GOING TO HANDLE ALL THAT FEEDING AND POOPING WITHOUT A SOLID 8 HOURS OF SLEEP?????!!!!

I have to admit that on the days following the nights of sleep deprivation, I have been less than my best self.  And of course, the person bearing the brunt of my sleeplessness is also not very happy, which makes for a household of two not-so-happy people who are expecting things to ONLY GET WORSE.  AND STINKIER.

So, after a particularly bad week of sleep deprivation and related social issues in the household, I've made a decision:  I'm going to learn how to be nice while sleep-deprived.  Its going to be hard.  This may be the biggest thing I've taken on since lawschool.  But I'm going to do it!!!  The fact is, this is one of those ways in which life is changing:  Tired is the new Normal.  But I don't want Crabby Awfulness to be the new Normal, too, so I'm just going to have to find a way to harmonize all this together.

Any suggestions?  :)

Happy Friday, everyone.  May your weekend be full of sweet dreams and restful slumber.  And please enjoy this poem from Michael Blumenthal, from whom I've taken this line: 

may whatever holds you up stay forever beneath you

 

September 11

I can't believe its been 8 years since that morning when the Towers fell.  We lived across the river then.  It was a gorgeous morning -- bright and blue-skied, a crisp and perfect herald of the autumn.  I turned on the morning news just in time to see the second plane hit, to hear the shock in the newscaster's voice as the collective realization dawned, that this was all more horrific than an accident... this was purposed.  I left voicemails for my husband, who was teaching school on the Upper West Side -- far enough away from the scene to be safe from immediate danger, but trapped with millions of others on the island of Manhattan, all bridges and tunnels closed, all trains stopped.  We were all potential targets.  I ran through the apartment, shutting the windows, stuffing towels under doors and around vents, convinced that the next step was biological warfare.  My mind ping-ponged between filling the bathtub with water and hiding in the closet under a blanket.  (Where I got the idea that either of those responses would help, I don't know.) 

As the minutes ticked by, I regained some sense.  I didn't go into the closet or the tub, but stayed fixed on the couch in front of the television, cell phone clenched in my fist.  In those first frantic hours, we texted and called and left messages, frantically identifying everyone we could think of and asking, "Are you there?  Are you okay?"  The stories started spilling in... yes, so-and-so was fine.  They were walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, covered in soot.  They were at work on Long Island, far away and safe.  They were standing in their backyards, watching the smoke drift across the river.  My husband and the other teachers stayed at school until the last of the parents had picked up their children.  Some of the parents had walked hundreds of blocks from their jobs to the school.  By the time my husband left, the subways were functioning and he was able to make it home that night.

We were lucky not to lose anyone close to us in the attacks.  We all know someone who died, but we were blessed, so blessed, to escape an intimate acquaintance with the tragedy. 

In the days afterward, we were all on high alert... every time a truck backfired or something dropped, there was a collective shudder through the city.  The bridges were closed several times to chase suspicious vans or marked cars, none of which rendered any help, because as we now know, the assassins died that day.  No one got away.

We watched lower Manhattan smoke for weeks, the long, vertical cloud changing direction with the wind.  We went to Ground Zero to witness the splintered roots of the buildings twisting out of the ground.  Every surface covered with thick ash and soot, the remnants of God-knows-what.  The shoes in the street.  The eery silence. 

Its a testament to the human spirit that the city and the survivors are still here today.  Those killers, those vermin, those twisted souls who somehow justified the murder of thousands of innocents -- their acts were in vain, their lives an ugly stain.  We continue.  We survive.   We thrive.

We pray for the lost ones and those who loved them.  We give thanks to those who worked to save others, who rebuilt our city.  We remember you, and honor you.