Here’s to Autumn

It happens subtly until at some point each August it becomes noticeable. The sun has become lower in the sky making the shadows longer. Dusk has started to creep upon us earlier than before.

It signals the waning of summer and the coming of autumn.

Now September is nearly over and autumn is upon us. It’s my favorite time of year in Michigan. The long, sunny days of summer that give us the chance to wear shorts and T-shirts and walk barefoot on the soft grass and the sandy shores are gone, replaced by shorter, cooler days that call us to bring the jeans and sweaters out of storage boxes and pair them with boots and maybe a light, decorative scarf.

We make time to explore the landscape that in summer was green, but in autumn is aglow with the crimson, coral, and amber leaves. Even the soy fields display the fall colors in vast, golden waves. And we make sure to include apple orchards in our autumn adventures.

A warm cider donut with a dusting of cinnamon sugar is among the best bites of fall, but then again, so is a sip of fresh, cold cider. I like to sample cider from a variety of orchards because each is different, some more tart and others more sweet depending on the varieties of apples that the growers use in their cider mills.

In addition to the amazing apples, ciders, and donuts that are available to us in the fall, the flavor of pumpkin also returns to fall products.

I definitely look forward to pumpkin spice lattes, and I love to make mom’s pumpkin bread recipe – several times during the fall and around the Christmas season. My husband and I have also taken a liking to a pumpkin pasta sauce made with smoked sausage and fresh sage, abundant in our backyard.

Though I am clearly a fan of pumpkin, I can see that the trend toward pumpkin everything has definitely taken a turn toward the absurd in some cases, including recipes for pumpkin spice pizza and appearing in cleaning products, including pumpkin spice bleach…seriously, who thought that was a good idea?

Overall though, I am a fan of the fall fav, and we are also fans of some other autumn veggies like butternut squash, and other varieties of squash, and the root vegetables that make both a nutritious and colorful fall side dish.

In addition to the foods of fall, I like the activities of the fall. I have already mentioned going sight seeing to view the lovely landscape, and even though we’re not big corn maze people, we did do a mini maze at an autumn event a few years ago.

I think the hay bail mazes that are set up for the kids are a better fit for me personally – given my often noted lack of patience. An adult can’t get lost in those mazes; if you get bored or annoyed with it, you can simply step out.

I know that some people find the big mazes to be quite a lot of fun though, and there are those people who like to go to the night mazes, especially as Halloween nears.

I’ve only been on one hayride in the last ten years or so, but I do like them. It’s just fun to climb up on to a bunch of hay and bounce along out in the fresh fall air with a bunch of strangers who are out enjoying the same things.

And of course, fall wouldn’t be as much fun without football. Those of you who read my blog on a regular basis know from my post a few weeks ago, dedicated entirely to the topic of college football and our devotion to the Michigan Wolverines, that football is a substantial part of what makes fall a favorite for me.

Along with the football comes the small town high school homecoming parades, which will take place in our town this evening. Since I don’t work on Fridays, I have the chance to do what I often do, and walk down to the end of the block to watch the little parade pass on its way to the high school. It’s quaint – “ain’t that America.”

Many of us in the Midwest and Northern states find that autumn is the perfect balance of days warm enough to enjoy and nights cool enough to cuddle up with someone special, either human love or fur baby, and to sleep restfully.

I like living in an area with a distinct change of seasons; each one has its own charms. For me, autumn always seems to bring something special to life.

If you have the change of seasons as we do, I hope you can get out and enjoy this pleasant time of year.

 

 

 

 

 

What If You Fly

What if this isn’t where I belong? What if I don’t have all of the answers? What if I don’t measure up to the expectations?

All of those thoughts filled my mind as I tried to look forward with anticipation, rather than dread, to the new job that lie ahead of me as this week began.

I have been searching for a meaningful job for a long, long time now. I had tried personal training with limited success, and I love doing it, but I’m not an entrepreneur.

I tried working at the hospital, as a tech who observes the data of patients who are on monitors, but visual limitations and the psychological stress had made that attempt at employment the worst month of my professional life.

I even tried taking a job at the grocery store just a few blocks from home, just for the paycheck, but every time I went to work one of my four-hour night shifts, I felt like a total failure. I left that job hoping for something better – better schedule, better pay, and a better professional outlook for myself.

With only limited success and abundant failure, my what if concerns are certainly justified right.

As I pondered what ifs though, I began to realize that, at least for me, that statement is always followed by a negative and often by the worst case scenario.

According to the Cognitive Therapy Guide, “All-or-nothing thinking is the most common type of negative thinking, and it is a common cause of anxiety, depression, and addiction. All-or-nothing thinking leads to anxiety because you think that any mistake is a failure.”

That’s definitely me – the anxiety part at least, and the thinking every mistake is total failure that will lead to everything from being fired to the end of relationships.

Yes, I am a worrier, and I tend to see the negatives before I start to look for the positives. Looking for the positives is something that I actively have to practice in order to prevent myself, and those close to me, from wilting away beneath the dark cloud that hovers over me.

Even as I work to change my thought processes though, I am met with internal resistance. Positive thinking can’t change a negative situation. It’s almost like wishing, and most of us stopped wishing on a star about the time we left grade school.

As I consider again the statement from the Cognitive Therapy Guide, I cannot argue with the notion that our thought processes do affect our stress levels and thus our quality of life. And as I think back to the psychology classes I took, I know that a fair amount of evidence exists to support the theory that thought processes, or expectations of success versus failure, can even impact outcomes to an extent.

So, what if I were to practice concluding what if statements with something positive.

What if this job is the right fit for me – a position I wouldn’t have thought of, but one I will enjoy. What if I don’t have all of the answers, but I ask the professors who have offered to be a resource, and what if I do what I do fairly well and search for and discover the answers. What if, in time, I am able to meet and exceed expectations, and what if a career success that I am not yet aware of is waiting further down the road for me.

While I know that a what if statement will not guarantee an outcome, either negative or positive, I am absolutely certain that I would like to leave some of the anxiety behind that comes from the negativity that follows mine.

It will take some effort. Even after writing out the positive versions, I find myself going back to “What if at the end of semester I end up heart broken and unemployed again?”

I remember reading a Facebook post shared by our local Girls on the Run council that went something like: “What if I fall? Oh, but what if you fly!”

I’ve fallen plenty of times, and reality (not just negativity) dictates I’m likely to fall again. But for at least a little while, I would like to try “what if you fly!”

 

 

 

Just Along for the Ride?

It was about noon. My husband and I were on our way back across the state after having been away for a few days. We were looking for a specific apple orchard, one that we both were interested in visiting.

We had taken a bit of a wrong turn though and had found ourselves on a dirt road, initially to turn around, but then my husband found out that it went through to the road where the orchard was located.

As we headed down the wrong road, I said, “Typical road trip with you…always ends up on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere.”

My comment, that could have been interpreted as either teasing or as a slight, was more of the later on that particular day.

It has been the case over the past several months, probably longer honestly, that I have felt like I am just along for the ride in someone else’s life.

Because I am unable to drive, the world can seem small, and is indeed small in actuality. We live in a nice little town, walker friendly – to the grocery store a few blocks away, the bank and the coffee shop downtown, and the dentist. While those are nice things for me, the town offers noticeably little in the way of career opportunities.

The town is like an island for me because it is cut off from the public transportation system that serves the larger university towns and one other community not far from us. Incidentally, our town is part of that same county and does pay to support that public transportation system that has ignored our portion of the county, frustrating that.

We have been selective as it relates to jobs. Certainly I could be working in retail or something like that if we desperately needed the money. We have made the choice to keep hoping for a better option, with better hours so that my husband isn’t driving into town at 10:00 after the malls close to pick me up from my four hour shift at Bath and Body Works.

Though we are in agreement about my not taking that kind of job with it’s distasteful schedule at this point, I find the lack of an income of my own to be frustrating. I also find the lack of any meaningful independence to be frustrating.

Before we married, I lived in town, and at one point, I lived only four blocks from my place of employment. I could use the bus to do things like get my hair done and get groceries.

So when I got married, I traded independence for companionship? It seems that way at times.

While my situation is a bit unique, I know that it’s not me alone who has made some trade-offs to make a marriage work.

I know that there are couples who live in an area that is much more “home” to one member of the couple than to the other. I know couples make fairly major moves, even out of the country, for job opportunities too good to turn down.

I know that there are couples who choose to take turns supporting each other in the completion of their degrees, and that often means that one works in an unsatisfying job or puts in long hours to pay the bills until their partner is able to start the career for which they have been training.

While some of the compromises one makes as part of a couple are more temporary, some are quite long term, and it’s those long term compromises that can wear on a person and eventually on a relationship.

I often see those memes about how if one doesn’t like one’s circumstances, then one should go ahead and have the courage and make that change.

Easier said than done. Even when you’re on your own the logistics of change can be challenging, but more so if you’re in a marriage. 

The options then become making a change that means leaving your partner – either living apart and pursuing individual careers or ending the marriage outright and going your separate ways, or trying to find a way to accept those things that you cannot change.

As the years of practicing acceptance pass, sometimes the patience starts to fade.

In my case, my husband is not entirely unsympathetic to my lack of satisfaction as it relates to our location and to my career success – or lack thereof. It’s probably the case in many relationships where compromises must be made that the partner who has asked the other to make sacrifices is sympathetic and appreciative. It helps, in fact without that, I expect the relationship wouldn’t survive, but it’s not a solution.

Though I cannot drive, I would still like to be able to do more of the steering as we move forward in our journey together. The possibility does exist for a turning point in my husband’s and my life, and the temptation certainly exists for me to view this as my turn to drive. To some extent, I believe I’ve earned it. 

Still, after having experienced what it’s like to just be along for the ride on someone’s journey, I’m not sure I would find the satisfaction I’m seeking in bringing someone else along for the ride in my life. 

I wonder if it’s possible to travel through life in unison, the two who have become one, yet very different people. 

The Listener is listening. Feel free to share your thoughts on successfully navigating the challenging compromises of life with your partner. 

 

 

 

 

Escaping Expectations

As I concluded the phone conversation with my parents one Friday afternoon recently, I heard them mention that they would talk to me on Sunday.

We had just spent about 90 minutes on the phone, and though I truly do love my parents and generally get along well with them, I’m never a fan of 90 minute phone conversations. I also wondered what could possibly develop between Friday and Sunday afternoon that would be cause for another 90 minute conversation on the phone. The fact that they had set the expectation that I would call them again on Sunday afternoon frustrated me.

But then, I suppose it was I who had set the expectation rather than them because I call them every Sunday afternoon or early evening.

Though I do love my parents and am aware that they are getting older, I have occasionally complained to my husband about this weekly ritual, and I did so again that Friday evening, making the point I just made here – that I wasn’t expecting to have any significant news to share that soon. I barely have any news to share from week to week as it is.

Speaking of my husband, he is a walker. He has decided to walk around the world in a decade and is well on his way. It’s an impressive goal I admit, and the fact that he has been working toward it for four years now is even more impressive.

On nice days, my husband walks to work in the morning then walks home for lunch. It was quite a while ago that I decided to put the dog on her leash and walk out to meet him. We do that often, except that I don’t always want to do it.

Sometimes I’m especially busy at that time of the day – preparing our lunches for one, and sometimes I don’t feel like it. I have my own workout plan and have completed my workout by mid morning at the latest. Though the extra short walks are likely good for me, I sometimes resent them.

I think objectively that it might be more the expectations that I have set rather than the activities themselves that cause me to be frustrated.

I feel like I’m boxed in by “the anticipation of what will happen” as Merriam-Webster denotes about expectations. I feel like, if I want something different to happen, other people will react negatively to it.

My husband assures me that, though “it’s nice to see (me)” when I walk out to meet him, it’s not necessary. While I believe him, I sense that he would prefer that I do.

Is it me putting these expectations on myself rather than others really expecting something of me?

This past weekend, my husband was off for the first time in three weeks. We stayed home and watched football and had football food on Saturday, and we went to church and did some grocery shopping and food prep on Sunday. I didn’t call my parents until Monday, which happened to be the Labor day holiday. So my mom’s statement was “what were you guys doing on Sunday?”

It seems in this case that others are expecting something of me. It’s not the first time I’ve heard a similar statement when I have deviated from the Sunday call.

Even if others are expecting something of me, is that so bad? People have expectations of us throughout our lives. Many are reasonable and help us to become better people in a variety of ways.

I suppose it depends on the expectations that have been placed on a person. If they are unreasonable or involuntary than in many cases, yes, expectations can be a problem.

Even if they are voluntary, it seems like some flexibility should be available because disappointment often arises from one’s failure to manage one’s own expectations.

Expectations not only exist within interpersonal relationships, but they exist within professional settings as well.

How many of us love those performance evaluation bullet points with the “exceeds expectations,” “meets expectations,” or the dreaded “fails to meet expectations” options available to our employers to “motivate” us?

No one does.

These expectations, probably best defined as “a belief that someone will or should achieve something” are placed upon us by those who have some level of authority over us. How do those people know what we should achieve.

While some evaluations are conducted by people with whom one actually works and interacts on a daily basis, many corporate evaluations are conducted by people who barely know the employee’s names, yet that person determines how the employee met expectations, or didn’t.

Though it was an HR trend in the recent past to allow employees to be involved in setting their own goals prior to reviews, I expect that rarely happens in the real workplace. I have only heard examples of that occurring in the field of education.

Whether we are involved in the process of setting goals that lead to expectations about our performance or not, I know that we have to be motivated to meet and exceed them as it relates to employment, at least to the extent that we please our employers enough to keep our jobs or move along in the company as we so desire.

Expectations in our personal relationships can be more challenging though. We don’t usually get feedback that we have met expectations or that we failed to do so, directly. I believe that we quite often get it indirectly though.

So what then are we to do about expectations, whether we have voluntarily created them or not. I’m not exactly sure.

As you are aware if you know me or read my blog, I am competitive and driven, but I don’t believe expectations motivate me. I believe they weigh me down, and I often want to drop them off of me and be free to make decisions based on something other than someone else’s idea of what I should do.