On the Perfectly Curated Scene

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

This morning I sit in a beam of sun with a light breeze and the sound of water lazily lapping against the boat. Blue water and gentle waves surround me everywhere, rocking the boat to & fro. The slightest poofs of wind pop against the dark navy blue Bimini every so often, adding a different sound to the nautical melody that plays upon my ears.

Finally, I am relaxed for a few minutes and enjoying a cup of freshly pressed coffee while it’s still warm enough to enjoy—but not so warm that it is creating more heat than I want so early in the morning.

It’s not too cold or too hot today, but the constant rocking in Vineyard Haven harbor woke me up at 6am. It is actually dry this morning, so I didn’t mind coming up top into the cockpit with some blankets to temper my body just right. It’s already 7am, which means I have an hour before we dash off to the next place, in which I will sleep about 90% of the trip—and my life away.

It’s already 7am, which means I should start to hurry. Start putting away things that will move during the passage, and take a truly nasty, rocking and slamming dinghy ride to some of the sketchiest streets Martha’s Vineyard has to offer—just to walk the dog.

What at home takes less than a minute to get the dog outside for a walk (or even faster when we open the back door) turns into a 3x-a-day, at least 10 minutes each way (60 minutes total) event involving a dinghy that I still can’t figure out how to use. Add walking past dozens of warning signs about not allowing a dog in the made-up looking “pristine” spots amongst ship garages, the smell of diesel on a hot summer day, and tools strewn about. Dog pee on that small grass bed would of course ruin the whole scene.

So it is at least another 10 minutes per trip—or longer, since I actually like moving my body more than a few steps at a time. This makes walking the dog eat, at the bare minimum, 2 hours a day.

When I crash (and I mean crash) into bed every night, I wonder what the heck I did all day. I brought pastels to do art with. Yarn to knit with. A yoga mat. Books to read. But somehow day after day passes, and I’m happy if I just walked on land for more than a few minutes.

Yes, I am happy. It really is nice to appreciate small things like stretching your limbs by taking full steps on solid land. Or the feeling of a cool breeze (or any breeze really) when you are hot.

Or the art of doing nothing.

No—I lied there.

There is no doing nothing. Just living is all we do. Preparing something to eat, washing the dishes from it, cleaning up, changing my clothes. Even washing my face and brushing my teeth seems like a lot of work—and a lot of time. So much time that these things kind of take the whole day.

Some people refuse to boat with dogs—too much hair, too much pressure to get them on a walk. And they are absolutely right that it does consume your time. But I love my dog that much. His excitement makes bringing him so much more worth it. But he is a time suck.

Yesterday is what Daren called maintenance day. We got fuel and water. We did laundry and grocery shopped. It was Saturday. Seems like a good day to do those things. But other than sailing from Cuttyhunk to Martha’s Vineyard (which, for someone who doesn’t know how or like to sail, is sort of like throwing hours of your life into the sea) and having dinner with our friends (and dog walking, which I slept through the first iteration of), we did nothing else.

What would take maybe an hour or two for chores at home consisted of at least 6 hours of what shouldn’t be (especially on a “vacation”) labor-intensive work. The level of exertion in doing the smallest of things, combined with the lack of exercise, leaves my body feeling like a total pile of mush.

No lounging, no reading, no art, no exercise, no catching up on shows, no knitting—just keeping ourselves and the dog alive and fed.

We have and will see some absolutely stunning places. I’ve been vlogging the trip. These do not take a lot of work. I take short clips all day, and in my years of work experience with technology and multitasking, I can whip these together throughout the day rather efficiently.

Look at this perfect photo! These are not hard to capture—they are everywhere. I picked those flowers from wild areas by the fire tower while on a run in Cuttyhunk. Cool, huh?

But the vlogs and photos only show the beautiful stuff. I crop—or if I can, never capture—the many unsightly things right out of the crafted, curated scene. You don’t see the dumpsters everywhere. Us taking out our stinky trash or figuring out how to get pumped out. Recycling is an issue that we are temporarily choosing to ignore.

The surroundings of boating areas are often filled with broken lines and lobster traps, utterly despicable bathrooms, sparse maritime stores that look like a sad mini version of Home Depot, and slimy barnacles growing on everything you might need to touch during the day.

I like this, but I also dislike it. I miss being able to freely use water or taking a real shower. I miss not worrying about how and when to charge my devices. This is all very nice, even without modern conveniences—but not for a “vacation.” I don’t want to work so hard during my time off.

If we were retired and this was our life, I would be all in for a month or two a year.

Being on a slip vs. a mooring or anchor is better in that at the very least I could go for a run without being charioted to land on a dinghy. I ran a total of one time. I had 45 minutes before I had to meet Daren and ran with the flowers that are in that great picture most of the way.

At a slip on the dock, we can use water and electricity without conservation. But it’s still cramped and hard to cook and shower. It’s still a hike past the “no dogs” signs. The marinas and boatyards are often still very sparse, smelly, and ugly places. Not to mention the heart-stopping average rate of $8–10/ft per night during the summer.

I do love seeing places by boat. I truly do. I love Koji’s excitement when we get in the dinghy and he has no idea where we are going, but he is excitedly up for anything because he is with his owners. I love being with my dog and husband, and when we get to—friends—doing a little of nothing but existing.

However, it’s not just the curated shots and video clips it looks to be.

I have worries too aside from this pretty great trip. I feel guilt sharing them because my problems seem small in a world where stable food, shelter, and clothing are not a given. But I refuse to be another number out there using social media to only highlight the good stuff in my life too, adding to the fluff of it all.

I don’t want to feel guilty for telling the world it’s not all perfect here either. I am real, and I do not have a great day every day. More than that, I don’t want to be a part of the social media problem. I don’t mind sharing the not-so-great parts of my life because I’m a real person with real feelings, and most of my life is not the perfect pictures posted.

This is the first time in 9 days I’ve had 45 minutes to just sit and think and write. It was quite lovely. The scene was perfect. But my coffee is now cold, and it’s time to get up and do all those ugly things. Time to charge my phone again, which mysteriously uses battery power 4x faster about 10 feet from the shore.

Maybe I’ll have time like this again before I go back to work in 8 days. Or maybe I won’t. What I do know is that while I do enjoy this and I am having a lot of fun—this really is, for me personally, a far cry from a vacation.

It’s a beautiful, perfectly curated scene in which you can choose to ignore the ugly, focus only on the ugly, or find a medium in between.

I’m toeing the in-between line—but I haven’t been swayed to ignore it.

Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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On Taking the Crutch

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

My father is 72 years old, and his health is drastically failing. He was released from a two-month stint of back-to-back hospital and nursing home stays just last weekend. He is now staying with one of my brothers because he cannot be on his own. While he is home alone most of the day, he refuses any licensed home care. Why?

Most of us grew up with the important message that it is vital to be independent and to do as much as you can on your own. It’s a great message. We should learn as early in life as possible to care for ourselves—do our own laundry, prepare meals, provide for our own food, shelter, and clothing. Relying solely on anyone else for the long term is risky.

What we have interpreted is to not take the crutch if we don’t need it. Walk on your own two feet.

But when is the message taken too far? When should we take the crutch and lean on others?

Example—

Back in 2014, when we first got our dog Koji, he was an exuberant, wild little 28 lb plaything fresh off the trucks from the south. I hadn’t had a dog in over 25 years, and I could count on my hands the number of times I ever leash-walked a dog. My husband and our children had never had a dog. We put a leash on him, and I instantly realized I couldn’t control him. So I purchased a harness.

Before that harness arrived, we had an electric fence put in, and the installer/fence trainer told us we would have to take control or the dog would control us. This applied to walking, eating, crating, drives in the car—basically everything. When that harness arrived, I was embarrassed to have ordered it and put it in the back of the new space I cleared out in what was now the dog’s cabinet.

Fast forward a year—I was walking Koji one morning before work and, as usual, having trouble controlling his pulling with his now 70 lb body. A squirrel ran by, and he pulled me down forward while the leash came out of my hand, and he ran off into the woods.

This became a regular occurrence. I stopped wearing flip-flops to walk him. I had my cell phone close by in case I needed to call for help. I often had pain in my arm from being yanked, and my right hand and lower arm were perpetually red from wrapping the leash around so many times. Being pulled down and sliding on my belly a few feet was a regular occurrence that I lived with.

It took another TWO years when one hot summer morning Koji saw a squirrel and I was pulled down again that I saw the area was safe from cars, and I just let go of the leash.

At this point in my life, I was in a 30-day mental health outpatient treatment program and going to be late if he didn’t come back soon. I didn’t want to walk in with my legs and tummy scraped up. I only imagined what they might think. And that is when I realized that they would think I needed to walk that dog with a harness.

It was like the clouds parted as I lay on the ground watching Koji happily bouncing back from across the street that I remembered I still had that harness somewhere and that there was no shame in using it. I saw plenty of people with large and small dogs alike using harnesses. I didn’t think any less of them, and even if I had—who cares? They are using what they feel comfortable with to live alongside their furry companions.

Later that morning, while I shared my morning dog walk story with my group during check-in, I tied it to a tool we had learned just the previous afternoon. It was about adjusting our expectations to be able to live alongside others by accepting reasonableness versus reality.

I don’t want to digress too far down the rabbit hole, but this does tie in.

The previous afternoon, our group lesson therapist made the connection to the reasonable/reality tool while one of the younger male participants was complaining about what a poor role model his father was. Our therapist asked him if it was reasonable for him to want a father he could look up to, and the young man said yes. He was then asked—knowing the reality of how his father behaves—if it was a realistic expectation to have of his father… the answer was no.

I didn’t like that answer. I was sort of struggling with it the previous 24 hours up until I was describing my morning walk with Koji. Was it reasonable for me to want to walk a dog with just a leash and a collar around his neck? Yes, it was. Given my dog’s size and lack of professional training, was it realistic for me to do so? OH HECK NO.

I went home and took out that harness and never fell down since.

This is now a famous story I tell when teaching yoga and my students are in pigeon pose. As I lead the student to the pose, I encourage them to grab some props around them—a blanket, bolster, or block. As I walk them through the pose, I demonstrate where to use the props should they need them. Most do not touch the props. As we lower our foreheads down, I often see students struggling as they attempt to take their bodies to places their body is resisting.

A woman practicing yoga on a mat with blocks, in a seated posture, smiling peacefully.

Pigeon is a pose that is held for a while. As your body adjusts to the new position, the worried, clenching muscles loosen and the body is able to go deeper into the stretch. I tell the proverbial crutch/dog walking harness story and how there is no shame in just accepting what is reasonable to want and realistic to accept. More often than not, a few students will reach their arms around and find a prop to help support the pose.

There are many tools I have forgotten until I heard them enough and ones I scarce use from that outpatient mental health treatment and other forms of therapy I’ve participated in before and after that. But the reasonable vs. realistic one has stuck to me like a welcome new invisible and incredibly helpful limb. It has allowed me to take the proverbial crutch and adjust my expectations in the healthiest of ways.

There is a part of that initial ingrained message about doing it without help that is important and shouldn’t be forgotten either.

Example—

I had toe surgery in January and knew I would be non-weight-bearing for at least 6 weeks. I knew I would get crutches, but I know how much I dislike crutches. I knew I would have to depend on help with driving the entire time and doing almost everything, particularly that first week when my foot had to stay elevated all day.

I took the crutch. I accepted my husband’s help.

But I took it further in both directions.

I purchased a knee scooter and one-legged half crutch so I could be arms-free.

I got up off the couch and crawled to the floor to stretch when I could.

I took my third shower alone while my husband was working. I tried out the half crutch and performed every movement slowly and mindfully. I knew he was close by if I needed help, but I attempted to do it alone.

Taking the crutch doesn’t mean taking advantage or giving in. It means using what is available when it’s needed, but not using it if it’s possible to do without it.

It’s about taking only what is needed.

It means accepting what is reasonable vs. what is realistic.

It means using props in yoga until you no longer need them. Should it be one minute later when your muscles relax, two years down the line, or never… it’s all okay and the way it is.

I often tell students in pigeon that my left hip is inflamed (which it is) and demonstrate using the blanket to cushion that side.

I will often see a smile break out as I then tell the dog harness story. I see their bodies soften, visually communicating the acceptance they feel toward their body and personal abilities. I tell the story often and premise it with, “If you’ve done pigeon with me before, please bear with my story as I tell it to the ones who haven’t heard it.”

I hope, like me, that hearing the same message several times helps it to stick. I hope they take the message off the mat like I took a lesson hot off a therapy session and can apply it to other areas in life. I hope they create their own stories of taking the crutch and sharing it with others who struggle.

We all struggle. We all remember a lesson or two that has stuck. I’d love to hear what has stuck with you—as it might help me too!

Love to all. Namaste.

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On Wiggle Room

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

TThis week I attended a work conference on business fundamentals in healthcare. A slide came up about two glasses—one that is 75% full and another 100% full. At first, I thought to myself, “What the devil?”

The speaker explained how when our cup is 75% full, it looks and feels pretty full. We can take that cup and walk around fairly comfortably. The water can slosh a bit without spilling over.

A totally full glass, on the other hand, not only feels full, but requires us to walk around on high alert with caution. The odds for even the most deft among us are to have a spill or two on the way from one destination to another.

The water glass slide, it turns out, is about how full a Primary Care Provider’s panel should be. My mind instantly drew the relation to life.

A few slides later came one with our normal baseline heart rate at 60% of its capacity, and then the rate at 100% when we might be chased by a vicious bear.

Which really answers the question of why we have an upper limit and why meeting the gold standard for everything we do is unrealistic.

It is for the same reason we don’t keep our heart at max capacity. The limit is there for emergencies to keep us alive and afloat. It’s not an aim; it’s a safety measure.

So why do we routinely schedule the last possible flight home? Fill our week with an event every night? Or permeate our kids’ schedules with enriching activities every free possible minute?

At what point in history did we lose the knowledge that full to the brim is better than wiggle room, or you are a slacker?

Another analogy I love is what we called the “Jiggle Jar.”

The first time I saw this jar demonstration (at the top of the page) was when I began yoga teacher training. I’m sure I rolled my eyes with these fru-fru yogis demonstrating visuals like business people do. The jar is filled with water and mud. The premise is that when you are still, your mind is clear and we are able to see well. When you are running around or getting bumped from the outside, it stirs up the muck and clarity cannot exist.

Of course it makes sense. But it wasn’t until a few weeks into teacher training, when I felt a relaxed sense of mind on a regular basis, that I was unable to tolerate being riled up any longer.

I had been the frog that was initially put in tepid water and the temperature turned up so slowly that I didn’t realize it was nearly boiling. Vacillating my mind between tepid and boiling made the anxiety disorder I didn’t know I already had unleash to where I was non-functional.

Just like the frog, if you moved it from a near boiling state back to tepid water, that frog may have been quiet and happy while nearly boiling to death, but it would scream and fight once it was tossed back into immense heat from something comfortably warm.

While it was my home life that was out of control, without leaving my husband and kids in a lurch, the only control I had over my life at that time was leaving my job as a Strategic Planner and taking a part-time, lower GS pay level job.

It was the best decision I ever made.

It’s the wiggle room that makes the difference between life and death, tolerable and intolerable, sanity and insanity, and even a safe panel size for a patient and provider versus one that is at maximum capacity and bound to have accidents like water sloshing out of a cup. We don’t want those water droplets to be any patients or pieces of our providers’ state of mind.

In the jiggle jar analogy, we need to see that it’s not possible to bump into anything or anyone when we create space in our schedule—and totally related—our mind.

Wiggle room is what saves us. It should be as important, or dare I say even more important, as our most important regularly scheduled appointment.

Like the temperature gauge only someone on the outside can read as the frog’s heat is being turned up, our schedule may be the only gauge we have. We can’t walk around forever with a full cup. One false move or someone else with no wiggle room or a full cup will bump into us and inevitably create undesirable results.

If you are feeling the heat, turn it down and create space. No matter how important everything else seems, it will all be figuratively dead in the water when you are no longer around to keep it all going.

Choose wisely! Namaste.

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On Being Middle Aged

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

When I was a teenager, then a twenty-something, I thought middle age—or (gasp) older—was an absolutely dreadful place to be. Like many younger adults, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I knew better. I was always right. I did things the best way. Older people were out of touch.

I don’t want to be younger, nor do I look back at my own life or the younger beings around me with envy. I like where I am. I will even go to the mat and say I think middle age is the best part of life—after the crisis part, of course, if you are “lucky” enough to have a midlife crisis at all.

I’m 45. To some, that sounds like “only 45?” and to others it might sound like “45??? Gulp.”

The crisis was the worst and best part of coming to terms with life on life’s terms and with who I am. Not everyone will have one, and many who do will not change. With that aside, I believe that even without one, midlife is an awesome part of life.

The best thing is a combination of experience and health. If you reasonably take care of yourself, you can be fairly healthy during midlife. With almost 30 years of driving and workplace experience, these years are a sweet spot of cruising with confidence through otherwise tricky or unknown areas. There is no major physical decline yet, combined with good reflexes, memory, and the ability to pick up and respond to life’s surroundings.

By middle age, most people (not all, of course) are financially comfortable. There are fewer worries about paying bills, less interest in having more, staying fashionable, or climbing the ladder. It allows me to live and work with comfort. I’m old enough to be taken seriously, experienced enough to understand life and work dynamics, and still young enough to switch on a dime to learn new programs, policies, software, and phone apps.

Aside from my farsightedness slightly declining each year at my annual optometry visit, I’m in the best physical health of my life. I’ve learned to make sleep important, exercise a routine part of life, and make wise food decisions for the sake of my health.

Mental hygiene takes a front seat as well. I’m no longer embarrassed about having human responses to stress and pressure, so I don’t pretend they don’t exist. I take an active stance in dealing with those things. I no longer view self-care or downtime as a reward or something reserved for others, but as a necessity to keep myself fresh, healthy, and useful to society.

Speaking of embarrassment, caring about what other people think just isn’t a thing anymore. I’m not afraid to be myself or of failing. I know it’s a part of life, and if anyone else judges that, it’s none of my business. As long as my intentions are pure, I have nothing to hide or be ashamed of. I actually enjoy realizing when I’ve messed up or been wrong—it feels good to acknowledge that to myself and to others.

I have enough years of cooking experience to cobble things together from my pantry that taste phenomenal. I try all kinds of art projects I would have once felt like a poser attempting. I love the way I dress, decorate, garden, clean, cook, love others, and live my life. I have go-to recipes, outfits, and ways to entertain that work. I am comfortable with the skills I have and aware of my limitations in the skills I don’t. I am completely okay with what I lack. No one can have everything.

When it comes to taking risks, I am excited to try new things. What’s the worst that can happen if I don’t like it? I just won’t do it again.

I believe I can now live life with a good balance of safety and risk. Being young is often accompanied by an irrational sense of invincibility. I see many older people living with too much fear of too many things. I might get to that point too, but right now I know I do not like the way fear feels. It makes me feel small and trapped rather than safe. Instead of succumbing to it, I live safely in my actions but am courageous enough to push through what a rational mind knows will be okay. That was not my experience in my younger days.

There is so much more to say, but I’ll stop here. Honestly, the midlife crisis and coming into what Richard Rohr calls “the second half” is what brought me to a really beautiful place where acceptance of what is is how I want to live. It was about 8–10 years of chaos, and something for another blog.

I do not know better. I am absolutely not always right. There are so many ways to do things, and different ways work for different people. Older people have wisdom, and our elders are our teachers.

So I will ride the tides and adjust the sails instead of fighting the waves and expecting days of perfection. And I will enjoy this moment—which will pass too—where I am grateful to be healthy and middle-aged.

Namaste.

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On Lessons from the Garden

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

 

We have a fairly large personal garden at our home. There are flowers, shrubs, vegetables, trees, bushes, and fruit. I spend a lot of time in our garden during the warmer months, and for a while now I’ve been wanting to write about the thoughts that come to me when I’m out there.

The first time I spent a considerable amount of time weeding as an adult was at the condo I lived in in Naugatuck. It was a really small patch of dirt in front of the house, but I spent hours picking weeds and rocks from that little space that I “owned.” It was early spring, and I wasn’t sure what was going to come up out of the ground and what might be a weed.

It was incredibly therapeutic, and what I loved most was how easily my mind wandered while I worked. I remember thinking about how hard it can be to tell the difference between what belongs and what doesn’t—both in the garden and in life. I went out there many times over a few weeks, removing rocks, turning over the soil, planting seeds and flowers. That small garden took off, and from that point on, I only needed to go out occasionally to tend to it.

In my next house, we had much more land—and much more yard work. It became a weekly chore through the spring and summer. At first, it felt time-consuming and a bit overwhelming. I would go out, pull weeds, toss them aside, even out the mulch, then move on to trimming and mowing. But something would always happen once I got started.

As much as I dreaded it beforehand, once I was out there with my hands in the dirt, I could lose myself for hours. I would notice small changes from week to week, watch the worms, pull tiny weeds, dig up deep roots and old rocks. When I was finished, I loved sitting down with a book or a glass of wine and looking at everything from afar. The difference was always noticeable—not just in how it looked, but in how it felt.

Fast forward to my current home. When we moved here in 2012, Daren created a beautiful garden with multiple flower beds and a large vegetable area. I loved the idea of it, but it felt like too much. For the first few years, we barely kept up. We would go out once a month and tackle huge, overgrown weeds. The vegetable garden—the one we actually depended on—was full of them. No matter what we tried, they were always there.

When we finished, it looked better, but it didn’t feel good. I didn’t feel connected to it or proud of it. All I could see were the smaller weeds we hadn’t gotten to yet, and it felt like a constant reminder of something unfinished. It started to feel like a burden rather than something we had created.

Last summer, when I started working part-time, something shifted. I began going out into the garden once a week. At first, it was still a lot of work, but slowly, as I stayed consistent, things started to change. The big weeds became manageable, and the smaller ones were easier to stay ahead of. Eventually, I found a rhythm.

I began doing more than just weeding—smoothing out the mulch, trimming, rearranging rocks, cleaning the outdoor spaces. I started to care about the details again, and just like before, I found myself looking forward to it. When I stepped back and looked at the garden, it finally felt alive, like it was cared for and reflecting something back to me instead of weighing on me.

This year, I’ve been able to get out there even earlier. I know the space more intimately now. I know where the soil is thick, where the water collects, where the weeds tend to grow, and how to tell the difference between something I planted and something that doesn’t belong. To someone not paying attention, it all looks the same, but when you’re close to it regularly, the differences become obvious.

There are patterns in the garden that feel a lot like patterns in life. Everything starts from the same place—dirt. Something that seems so simple, but holds the potential for everything. If you plant something there, it will try to grow it. It doesn’t judge what you put into it; it just responds. What grows depends on what’s planted and how it’s tended.

If you don’t pay attention, you’ll get a mix of whatever shows up. Some of it might be beautiful, and some of it might take over everything else. Thoughts feel similar. What we focus on and give attention to are the things that grow. If we don’t notice what we’re planting or what’s taking root, it can become difficult to tell what belongs and what doesn’t.

Weeds can look a lot like the things we meant to grow, especially in the beginning, and if they’re not dealt with early, they spread. They compete for space, for energy, and for light, much like unresolved issues or habits that quietly take over when left unattended. But just like in the garden, none of this is personal. It’s not a failure; it’s simply how things work.

Weeds are inevitable, and the same is true for challenges in life. Growth requires both what we consider good and bad—sun, rain, wind—and those elements help everything become stronger over time. Tending to anything—really tending to it—takes time, attention, and a willingness to notice the details while also stepping back to see the bigger picture.

That might be the hardest part. We want a lot of things in life, but we can’t tend to everything. There’s only so much time, energy, and attention to go around. When we try to take on too much, the quality of all of it suffers.

I’ve seen that in my own life. Stepping back from full-time work and focusing on fewer things has allowed me to care for them more deeply. I see the details, feel more connected, and take more pride in what I’m doing. The garden reflects that.

The more time I spend in nature, the more connected I feel to it and to something quieter underneath everything else. There’s a kind of clarity that comes when you step away from noise and simply pay attention. The more I listen, the more it feels like the answers I’m looking for aren’t far away—they’re already here, if I slow down enough to notice them.

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The connection and beauty of two negative recent events in my life 

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

I have a deeper appreciation for life and moving through my day than I’ve ever had before. Two things happened in the past few months that helped me come to this realization: I started taking an SSRI, and I had outpatient knee surgery. Two very different things for completely different reasons—but in all honesty, both were the result of moving through life too quickly and absentmindedly. Both have completely slowed me down (and fattened me up just a little!), and it’s not all a bad thing.

Back in March, I quite literally lost my marbles and, thankfully, became fully aware that fooling myself into sleeping more, doing more yoga, or meditating more often was not going to be my cure. Truthfully, I was no longer able to do any of those things in a way that felt meaningful. Yoga still felt good physically, but it didn’t slow my thoughts or help me “just be” like it used to. Meditation was a joke. I sat there diligently, but I couldn’t stop the racing in my head.

I did everything I could to keep up with my life. I was (and still am) one of the most organized people I know. Everything was as efficient as possible. No time management tip was going to help—I would read them and think I could write a better article myself. I was stretched thin. There was no room for error. One small miscommunication between family members and the entire chain of well-planned events and pickups would fall apart. No way to live.

A few days before the marble-losing, I went to a routine Thursday morning report-out for senior leadership. As usual, I prepared at the last minute—rushed, but still pulled together something polished and well-coordinated. I walked into the conference room, my employee pulled up the presentation, and I slid my chair under the large dark wooden table.

SLAM.

I hit my right knee hard on one of the table legs.

There were the usual reactions—“Oof,” “I heard that,” “You didn’t need that knee anyway!”—and I shrugged it off and kept going. About 24 hours later, during a meeting with my small team, I noticed my knee hurt. I wondered why as I pushed through the agenda, then remembered hitting it the day before and briefly questioned why it took so long to register. That night at dinner with friends, it hurt more.

The next day, Daren and I went into the city. We were so busy and stressed that I didn’t think about my knee at all. The following morning, seemingly out of nowhere, I had my first long-overdue panic attack. I cried the entire way home. I noticed my knee hurt, but it wasn’t until late the next night—around 9 p.m.—that I realized how swollen and red it had become.

Daren was at hockey practice. I wanted him to look at it, but I fell asleep before he got home.

Long story short, the next few weeks were filled with panic attacks and knee aspirations. The panic worsened quickly. I realized I had to start medication—I had nowhere left to cut back. And have you ever tried to “relax” while in a nonstop adrenaline rush? It doesn’t work.

Once I started the SSRI, I began to notice how often my body was in fight-or-flight, even as my mind started to calm. It was eye-opening. I had been living like this all the time.

I first went to urgent care five days after the injury and was told to rest and monitor it. It stopped hurting—but it didn’t stop swelling. So I ignored the advice. I ran on it, did yoga on it, and didn’t call an orthopedist for three weeks. Who has time for this?

Eventually, I was getting it drained every couple of weeks… then every week… then it started swelling again almost immediately after each visit. At one point, the doctor tried to drain it and nothing came out. A wall had formed. Surgery or live with it.

It’s funny—my knee felt like a physical version of what had been happening mentally for years. Rushing. Ignoring warning signs. Doing the bare minimum to manage something that was clearly deteriorating. Until I hit a wall—mentally first, then physically.

It wasn’t until I had no choice but to deal with it that I realized how much my lifestyle was harming me. My body is all I have—why wasn’t I taking care of it?

After medication adjustments and a few rough weeks, the panic attacks lessened. And then I had surgery.

I’m not claiming I’m a changed woman, but I’ve had some of the most relaxing weeks of my life.

Since March, I’ve rediscovered the library. I’ve been reading a book a week—fiction. Nothing intellectual. Nothing self-improvement related. Just stories.

I’ve started getting bi-weekly massages. Daren and I have been spending more time at home—making the outside of our house beautiful, sipping cocktails, watching fun TV (not documentaries—actual fun TV). I’ve been coloring mandalas. Visiting local shops. Sitting in coffee shops with a matcha latte and a book. Writing for fun.

I’ve even started going back to sleep in the mornings when I don’t have to rush.

That, in itself, feels like a revolution.

My whole life, I woke up ready to go. Even when I was exhausted. There was always something to do. Something waiting. Something urgent. My dad used to bang on our doors and tell us we were “sleeping our lives off.”

Now… I listen to my body. And sometimes it tells me to rest. And I do.

After surgery, I slowed down even more. I slept. I sat outside with my leg up and a book. I noticed things. I wasn’t rushing anywhere.

One morning, I walked slowly down my own street and realized I barely knew it. The houses, the details, the quiet beauty of it all. It had always been there—I just hadn’t.

Later, on the ferry, I looked at my legs—one swollen, one not—and felt grateful just to have them. In the shower, I noticed their strength, their design, how they carry me through life.

I ate breakfast and actually tasted it. I thought about how each raspberry grew—slowly, over time—until it was ready.

I want that.

Slow growth. Presence. Awareness.

We spent the day outside. I modified yoga to meet my body where it was. The trees were alive with spring. Food tasted better. Life felt softer.

Healing—mentally and physically—is happening in small increments. Just like those raspberries.

This morning, I woke up early when Daren left to drive Kieran to work. I started writing this… then stopped.

I opened the blinds. Listened to the birds. Laid back down. Let myself rest.

I want to live like this more.

I’ve already asked to cut back hours at work—and thankfully, the answer was yes.

I don’t want to need medication or injury to slow down. I want to choose it.

We all need to live a little more and “do” a little less. Be present more and absent less.

Every single moment matters.

And I’m finally ready to live in them.

Namaste.

Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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