I’ve been sick for over a month now.  Perhaps it would be more accurate to say I’ve been in varying stages of sick.  There was very sick, and there was kind of sick, and now there is mostly well except for this annoying tendency toward not being able to breathe every once in a while.  I haven’t slept really well (see the not breathing thing) or felt really well since before Christmas. 

Since I haven’t been feeling or sleeping well, I’m also not handling  other areas of my life as well as I would like.  My work annoys and irritates me more than it should.  I let things to which I should be attending slide.  I make plans and don’t follow through.  I mostly want to spend time holed up in my apartment reading or watching television.  I really don’t want to think about my life or myself or anything more weighty or portentous than what I might have for lunch.  Most of the time I don’t even want to make that decision, so I just have a bagel.

For those of you who might be wondering, all of these things are warning signs.  When I get overstressed, or overtired, or sick for too long, the chemicals in my brain that say “be happy” seem to take a bit of a hiatus.  Things that would normally bring me joy and satisfaction like, for instance, writing this blog, become chores, and ones I’ll happily ignore if I can.   I stop believing in the possibility of change, and start feeling mired in the dark, trapped in the gluey mud of my present circumstances, held in place by all the things I don’t like. 

Luckily, I know the signs, and I know what to do if this sort of thing goes on too long.  Taking a break every once in a while is fine.  Holing up for the odd day or weekend to recharge is great and necessary.  Avoiding a chore that doesn’t absolutely have to be done that day can be freeing.  Doing any of those things for too many days means the dark is tapping on my shoulder and asking me to take a spin around the floor.

The good news is that I can decline to dance.  I know that the dull, grey place where I live right now is temporary.  I know I will start to feel better.  I know I can change the things about myself and about my life that displease me.  I have that power.   The dark only has the power that I give it. 

Luckily, as long as I remember that, the dark doesn’t have any power at all.

Crystal at Boobs, Injuries and Dr. Pepper wrote a fabulous post today about the Martin Luther King “I Have a Dream” speech and about how we should all renew that dream.  I’ve been reading Crystal’s blog for a long time, and don’t comment often, but I love what she writes.  She has the rare talent of making you laugh and think.  This post was one of those that made me think, and I felt compelled to do as she asked at the end of her post and share my thoughts about how to renew the dream. 

 I have a dream that someday doing what you love will replace doing what you have to do as a way to make a living.

I have a dream that someday corporations won’t just pay lip service to the idea that people are their most important asset.  I dream that when they say those words, they’ll really mean them.

I have a dream that someday people won’t be judged on the size of their bodies or the beauty of their faces, but by the size of their hearts and the beauty of their souls.

I have a dream that one day differences in religion, ethnicity, and sexual preference will be looked upon as opportunities for learning and growth, and not as reasons for hatred and divisiveness.

I have a dream that one day Cancer, Parkinson’s Disease, Muscular Dystrophy, ALS and MS will be eliminated and all people will walk free and live long healthy lives.

I have a dream that one day education and intelligence will inspire the same admiration as the ability to hit or throw a ball.  I also dream that educators and scientists will be paid the same as actors and baseball players.

I have a dream that one day I will be asked by a child what war is, and there won’t be anywhere in the world that I can point to by way of explanation.

I’m sorry if this sounds a bit blunt,  but I generally dislike doctors.  At lot of my dislike comes from the fact that doctors and hospitals played a large part in my childhood.  I was born with a heart defect and had open heart surgery at four.  Every year after that, until I reached adolescence, we would make the trek to Ann Arbor to have me poked and prodded by doctors and interns for a day.  Although I was an active child, I wasn’t necessarily a well one.  I had skin problems.  I had migraines.  I had scoliosis.  It seemed sometimes like we were always going to one doctor or another for something.

 When I grew up, I went through a period where I wouldn’t go to the doctor at all.  A lot of the problems I’d had as a kid seemed to settle down when I reached adulthood.  My skin, although still sensitive, stopped breaking out.  My migraines decreased in frequency and intensity.  My heart seemed inclined to work as it should.  I figured no news was good news and avoided doctors like they had, or could give me, the plague.

Then, about six years ago, I got pneumonia.  In the process of fixing that, it was discovered that my blood pressure was wildly out of control.  In the process of investigating the causes of that problem,  doctors determined my mitral valve was compromised and not functioning.   I had another surgery to fix that issue.  Suddenly, I was right back in the thick of the doctor game again. 

I’ve always tried to walk a line when it comes to my health.  On one hand, I don’t want to be the hypochondriac who runs to the doctor for every little thing.  I don’t want to be the bore at every part who has to talk about her latest medical problem in excruciating detail.  At the same time, however, I have to recognize that I have health issues that people who bodies were created without defects don’t have.  Some of those issues require monitoring, which requires doctor visits.  It is really as simple as that.

In the end, I know that part of my settling for more is being as healthy as it is possible for me to be.  The best way to achieve the health that I want is to find a doctor I like, who listens to me, and who will work with me to overcome or manage my particular challenges.  I think I may have finally found that doctor.  The jury is still out, but initial signs look favorable.  I’ll keep you posted on how things go.

For about the past year and a half I’ve been saying I’m going to buy a house.  If you want to get precise, I’ve been saying I’m going to buy a condo, but whatever the property, the expressed intent has been the same.  I want, I tell people, to put down a bunch of money, assume a mortgage and buy a place to live that will eventually be mine forever and ever.  I really do.  I mean it.  Except, perhaps, I don’t.

For the past few months I’ve been trying to figure out why, if I keep saying I want to buy a condo, I’m not doing anything about buying a condo.  I make a reasonable living.  My job is, so far as I know, secure.  I like the area where I live well enough.  Still, in spite of the fact that I keep saying I want to put down roots and buy property I don’t seem to be doing anything about it.  I apply online for mortgages and then don’t make a follow-up appointment.  I contact realtors and then don’t go look at condos.   I keep setting deadlines on my current apartment lease and then keep extending those deadlines just a few more months.  Luckily I have understanding landlords.

For those who believe that actions speak louder than words, it would probably seem evident that I’m ambivalent at best about buying a condo.  There is some truth to that.  The thought of assuming a mortgage and being tied to a home gives me pause.  I’m also not entirely sure this is where I want to spend the rest of my life and, while I know that condos can be and are sold all the time, there is considerably more hassle involved than would be involved were I to leave an apartment. I’m also having trouble with the idea of owing that large a sum of money.  Financial security is still somewhat of a new thing to me. The prospect of going into debt that far causes me more than a little anxiety.

My rational side tells me that buying a condo is the logical thing to do.  I’ll be building equity and getting tax credits and will have the privacy that apartment living, however nice the apartment, just can’t provide.  My irrational side is telling me that I’m not ready to commit to staying here, that my financial security could fade away tomorrow and that my life could change in an instant and then I’d be encumbered with a house.   Even though I know my rational side is right, something still keeps stopping me from making the next step.  Maybe the thing stopping me is just fear, in which case I could power through it.  The problem is that it doesn’t feel like the only problem is that I’m afraid.  It feels, to me, like right now I simply don’t want to make that commitment.

As I’ve said before, part of the hardest part of settling for more is holding on to your idea of more when practically everyone around you is telling you to do something different.  In this case, at this point, my idea of more doesn’t seem to include owning my own home.  My problem is that I don’t know if my reluctance is simply because I’m afraid of the responsibility or because my “more” genuinely doesn’t include owning a home right now. 

Guess I’ll have to do some thinking about that.   

In 1985, I was 16 years old.  For some reason I still remember doing the math that year and realizing that I would be 31 years old in the year 2000.  At 16, I was confident I knew what my life would be like at 31.  I would be living in New York City.  I would have written several bestselling novels which were both literary and popular successes.  I would have met the man of my dreams who would be gorgeous, glamorous and dedicated to indulging my every whim.  In short, my life would be absolutely perfect.

 Fast forward to 2008, where I am just under a month shy of my 39th birthday, and we’ll see that none of the things I’ve planned when I was 16 have happened.  I do not live in New York City.  I have not written the great American novel.  I have not met a man who was willing to buy me a sandwich at Subway, much less one who was willing to indulge my every whim while being glamorously gorgeous (or gorgeously glamorous).  My life has has been interesting, and challenging, and filled with lessons and probably character building, but it has been far short of perfect. 

The thing that I find most interesting, and probably the most amusing, is the fact that the life I planned at 16 would most likely be making me miserable if I were living it today.  I’ve discovered, after actually visiting some, that I don’t like big cities, especially big city traffic and, while they’re fine for a visit, I probably wouldn’t want to live in a major city.  While I still write, and still hope to be a successful and prosperous writer, I’ve discovered I enjoy writing non-fiction far more than I ever did writing fiction.  I do have to confess that I still think a gorgeous, glamorous man who spoiled me rotten would make me happy, but I have yet to find such a paragon. 

As I’ve said before, part of settling for more requires knowing what more is for you.  At 16, my more involved a penthouse in New York City, a career as a best selling novelist and a handsome man who indulged my every whim.  At almost 39, my more involves a nice home in a smaller town, a career as a blogger and non-fiction writer, and a smart and handsome man who loves me enough to indulge me occasionally.   I’ve grown up and learned new lessons and changed.  That means my definition of more has changed as well.

If you truly, when you were younger, had a vision of how your life would be, and that vision still appeals to you today, than you should absolutely try to make it come true.  If, however, the dreams of your younger years have been changed by your life experiences, it may be time to let those dreams go and to find some new ones.   We can’t all be who we dreamed we would be when we were 16 or 10 or 50.   Times change, people change and the things we once thought would make us happy can change as well.

Sometimes, settling for more means letting go of old definitions of more.  If you haven’t done so in a while, it may be time to examine your dreams or goals and see if you’re holding on to any that just don’t work for the person are now.  You may be surprised at what you find.

Today, on January 7, 2008, we had a thunderstorm.  In fact we had a few of them.  The sky got dark and the lightening flashed and the thunder rumbled and the rain pelted down.  If this were April or May or August, a thunderstorm would be nothing unusual and might even be welcome.  Since this is January, this thunderstorm seemed out of place and vaguely threatening.  At least it felt that way to me.

Change has always been a bit of an issue for me.  I like routine.  I like things to go as I expect them to go.  In January, we get snow, not thunderstorms.  That’s how things have generally been, and that’s how I expect things to be.  I don’t feel comfortable when things happen that are outside my expectations, or when I don’t know what to expect.  Those types of events make me feel less safe and challenge my illusion that I’m in control.

Of course we all know that no one is ever really in control.  My illusion of control and my dislike for change are really rooted in my theory that I could insulate myself from life.  Of course, as I’ve now admitted myself,  it simply isn’t possible to do that.  Sometimes people whom you love will leave you.  Sometimes a change you really dreaded will be a great thing.  Sometimes it thunders in January.  The only certainty is that things most likely won’t be the same today as they were yesterday, even if it is only in the smallest of ways.

If I’m really serious about settling for more, one of the issues with which I must come to an accomodation is that of change.  Settling for more will require me to change a lot about my life.  It will require me to take chances, to abandon old, safe routines, and to put myself out into the world in ways I probably can’t even comprehend right now.  It will also require me to trust that change can be a postive force, and not a negative one.  

The thing about routine is that it doesn’t keep you safe, it keeps you small.  If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.  If you like your life and what you’re getting, that may not be a problem.  If, however, you are dissatisfied with the way things are going, the only way to fix that dissatisfaction is to change your direction. 

For now, for me, I’m going to try to make small changes first and work up to the big ones.  I’m going to work on getting fit and losing weight (you can read about that in my other blog, When I’m Thin).  I’m going to work on meeting some new people in settings in which I feel comfortable.  I’m going to start working on publicizing these blogs and building a readership.  The plan is to get some small changes under my belt, and get comfortable with handling them.  That way, when a big change comes along, I’ll already have the coping skills I need.

I have to say that, for me, change is probably the scariest part of settling for more.  Even though I know I am not happy where I am, and I know that I deserve and am worthy of the sort of life I want, there is safety, even if it is only illusory, in the life I live right now.  For me, at least in this moment, taking a step toward a change is rather like taking a step off the high dive.  Just like I have to trust there is water below me when I dive, I have to trust that my life will hold me up and support me while I make changes.  Some days writing about that trust is easier than actually having it.

I guess that’s something I’ll have to change.    

When I was a kid I loved anything to do with words and hated anything to do with numbers.  Words were easy and I sopped up all the advanced English and History classes I could find.  Numbers were hard, and I had to work at them, and I wasn’t all that interested in understanding them.  So, I took the bare minimum of Math necessary to graduate and did that somewhat reluctantly.  I already knew by then that whatever I did as a career would involve words, so I didn’t really see the value in learning much beyond the basics about numbers.  I learned to add, subtract, multiply and divide and figured that would do.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve discovered that I’m not cut out, either by personality or temperment, to be a generalist.  There are things that I like to do and instinctively understand.  There are things that I like to do or want to learn and so am willing to invest the time.  Then there are the things which I don’t understand or don’t care to understand and about which I am not interested in learning more.   I’ve finally realized that time is finite.  You have to pick and choose the things on which you spend your time.  There is, after all, only so much time to be spent.

Take this blog for instance.  I love writing, always have, and I’ve always found it fairly easy and fun to do.  Oh sure, I have my occasional blocks and my occasional sessions of complaint but, overall, I love creating pieces that I know other people will read.  It has been my ambition to be a writer since I was six years old.  I have never, however,  had the slightest desire to be a web developer or a software designer.

If I were a masochistic sort of person, I would have sat down and tried to teach myself how to make these blogs work.  I would have probably blown them up more than I already have, there certainly would have been tears and swearing, but I probably would have mastered the mechanical aspects of blogging.   I don’t choose not to do so because I think I couldn’t do it, or because I fear I’m not intelligent enough to do it, I chose not to learn this stuff, beyond the extreme basics, because I don’t want to do it.  As it happens, I have a wonderful friend who understands the mechanical stuff,  and he indulges me by beating the blogs into submission when I blow them up.  What would probably take me hours he can do in mere seconds.  I am not exaggerating when I say these blogs would not exist without him.

For me, part of settling for more was realizing that I don’t have to be good at everything, and acknowledging that sometimes the best thing I can do for myself is to ask for help.  I’ve also had to realize that I have to be a bit selfish.  I have only so much available time and I need to spend it on the things that I love and that I think will be of benefit to me.  In an ideal world, I find partners, like the friend who manages my blogs, who can do and enjoy doing the stuff I can’t or don’t want to do.  Sometimes, when the world is less than ideal, I simply have to say “this isn’t worth my time” and move on.

Some people may call that attitude selfish, but I simply call it part of settling for more. 

Probably the hardest part of settling for more is determining what “more” is for you.  There are several different versions of “more”.  Society espouses one version.  Your family may think “more” means something else entirely.  Well meaning friends may make a variety of suggestions regarding what “more” should be.  Everyone will have an idea about what “more” means and what it looks like and feels like, and most will try to tell you that their idea is the right one for you.  They’ll claim to have your best interests at heart, and intend to be kind, but many people may try to steer you away from your “more” not toward it.

One of the hardest lessons for me to grasp has been the one that teaches that “more” will be different for every person and that those differences are o.k. and even exciting.  For a long time I tried to make my “more” be what other people, well meaning, kind people, told me it should be.  I knew that what they told me I should want was not what I wanted, and that a lot of the things they told me I should accept were not acceptable to me, but I wasn’t yet strong enough to stand up for my real, genuine “more”.  So, for a long time, and for a lot of reasons, I settled for a counterfeit “more” and tried to be happy.

I’ve finally learned that the first step to achieving your “more” is defining what that is for you.  Some people may say “more” involves a having a family, and raising children.  Another person’s “more” may be a fulfilling, high powered career with lots of perks and a powerhouse salary.  Someone else may discover their “more” involves living on a beach and selling crafts while making just enough to live on.   The definition of “more” depends on who is doing the defining, and one person’s “more” is no more right or wrong than the next person’s.

When it comes to determining what “more” is for you, the concepts of “right” and “wrong” should be thrown completely out the window.  I’m certainly not advocating forgetting what is moral or not moral, no one’s “more”, at least in my view, should include lying, cheating, stealing, murder, or harm to anyone else.   What I’m advocating is the idea that “more” should be considered in terms of what works and doesn’t work for you.  After all, the “more” you’re creating is your own, so who better to determine what your “more” is than you yourself? 

In the end, “more” is a relative term with no clear definition.  My “more” may not be your “more” and your “more” may not be mine, but that doesn’t make either of our choices about how “more” is defined wrong.   In the end, “more” is about listening less to what other people tell you and more to what your heart, mind and spirit tell you.  If you listen to yourself, and work to pay attention to what is being said, you’ll learn that ”more” is pretty  easy to define. 

 The moment you’ve learned that, you’ve taken the first step on the road to settling for more.