Funk That
SMAD
It's Wednesday night, and I'm in a funk.
So I decided to do something differently this time and write down on a huge Staples Stickies pad in my purple Sharpie Flip Chart marker every. single. thing. that made me SMAD.
You know: sad + mad = SMAD.
I came up with a list of 47 things. 47 things! That's more years than I've lived!
The tears began to trickle at #3, and yet I kept going until 44 more purply problems poured out into my puddle of pitiful tears. #alliteration
That's how many things were clogging my heart, my soul, my brain, causing my body to shut down into SMAD Mode. Like a hangover or when your WiFi is crappy.
47 THINGS
Some Things I Expected:
my PTSD, depression, and anxiety
relapses with my "disordered eating"
how funking unfair Life is
how after 12+ years I still think of my mom more than twice a day
how I regret not going to U of M
how my sister lives 4,477 miles away from me
am I parenting "right"? / am I "good" mom?
Some Things I Didn't Expect:
why can't I fix my wobbly coffee table?
why does my Masters +30 salary never seem to help me "get ahead"? What is the opposite of inflation and when is that going to happen?
why haven't I made a new vision board lately? Is it because I don't know what I want or is it because I just want Life to surprise me?
why can't I feel totally confident in my 42-year-old skin?
why do I prefer to text and type my real feelings?
why do I feel like I can't eat pasta when I love carbs?
why do I have to unclog the toilet, again?
Never thought I'd have something in common with a toilet, but it turns out we're both clogged with shit.
Funk That.
I'm 42. The average lifespan of a woman my age is 78.54 years. (.54...really? ) Which means that if I'm lucky, I've got about 36 years left.
Ironically, that does not make me SMAD.
Why?
Because all 47 items show a life fully lived: it's the good and the bad that make a life.
Here's something super interesting that my Seminar students love. Watch the whole thing or just minute 1-1:45 to get the gist: most people want to live a life filled with the good and the bad. Not just the good.
So I have this funky shit list. Now what?
NEUTRALIZE
"Neutralize": a thing that Life Coaches bill you a lot for, but that your brain can actually do on it's own. #shocking Think of a two-sided coin. Pros and Cons. For every Con in your life, you can reframe it into a Pro. Or Negative into a Positive if you're into that kind of ion thing. Did I use ion right? Speaking of the periodic table...how cute is this?
Okay I may not know how to ionize, but I know how to neutralize.
Take for example #22 on my list: I won't be able to surprise my kids with the car they want tied up with a big red bow.
Unless I hit it big.
But...
I will be able to surprise them with my 2019 Equinox, covered with Frankie's fine black dog hair.
And that's fine by me for lots of good reasons.
They'll have a car to drive
They watch me work my budget, pay my bills, ask good financial questions (liquid?) and walk around our nearby dealerships exploring sticker prices #stickershock
They're learning to use the Investment option on their Greenlight cards. (Mady just bought shares of the S&P 500 Vanguard ETF (VOO) option. And she's still just 13. #proudmom)
They are cultivating the foundation of a work ethic. Even if they don't love their first jobs (i.e. Mady babysitting), it pushes them towards their second, then their third, and then the Great Beyond
It makes them want to attend college. Even with student loans, college is an investment that pays off in the long term (@ramit).
See? I just earned +5 for my -1, which is 4 ahead. #winning
For an English major, I'm getting pretty savvy with numbers. And numbers are paramount to everything I mentioned above. And I want to be as financially savvy as I can (since worrying about money was obviously on my list), so I read as much as I can.
But it turns out there's this guy who's already done all the hard work for me, and he speaks in words that I understand. Meet Ramit (@ramit). He's cool. We're going to be friends someday, he just doesn't know it yet.
HOT AND COLD
A big part of my funk had to do with money, obviously. Because my son's ceiling succumbed to what's called "heat expansion", nearly collapsing, which mesme