2019: The Year in Review

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In my last post, I wrote about how I was taking stock of all that I did in 2019 and making some plans and goals for 2020. Then I got sucked into the holiday madness and was too busy addressing holiday cards to write another blog post. But now I’m back and ready to reflect more deeply on 2019. So let’s do this!

Writing: I wrote in my journal almost every day and worked on the first book of my fantasy series as much as possible. I am about halfway finished with the rough draft and very happy with the progress.

Motherhood: I still sometimes yell at my kids, but I am yelling a lot less than I did in 2018. I am hopeful that one of these days, I’ll wake up and realize it has been months since I yelled at my kids (unless I’m cheering from the soccer sidelines or yelling at them to get out of the street). My patience muscle has definitely gotten stronger. I am learning that when I have an issue with my kids, I have to change myself rather than nag and admonish them to change. Overall, I feel like I have become an even better mother than I was in 2018.

Mental and Emotional Health: I returned to therapy and saw my therapist once or twice each month. Thank goodness for flexible therapists! I am getting better at feeling my feelings (instead of drowning them with sugar) and I’m listening to my feelings’ messages and using those messages to improve the way I live my life.

Bookworm: I set a goal to read 100 books in 2019 and as of the time I am writing this, I have read 103!

Challenges: Wow, 2019 had its fair share of challenges. Julian’s school had to close for six months after asbestos contamination; a little girl drowned at Pippa’s camp and my heart just broke; and then our school district closed several elementary schools due to low enrollment and for several weeks, it seemed like Pippa’s school was going to be closed. These challenges forced me to reckon with the reality of uncertainty and forced me to do a lot of growing up. It was like boot camp (a six month long boot camp) for my soul. It was good. But damn, I hope 2020 is a little more boring. I could use a good rut.

Exercise: I started the year with a goal of walking an average of 10,000 steps/day. As of December 27, I have averaged 10,684 steps/day. Mission accomplished! I can spend the next week in bed, and I will still hit my goal. I also stretched nearly every day and started attending Hot Yoga classes in mid-September.

The Food Front: Some people smoke. Others drink too much. My battleground is food. That’s okay. Everyone has their struggle. Anyway, after asbestos closed Julian’s preschool, I started eating and eating and eating and gained 20 pounds in like five minutes. But I recognized what I was doing. I hit the Pause Button. I read Atomic Habits and learned lots of ideas to change my eating habits. I started tracking the foods I eat. I quit soda in October. I drastically reduced my refined sugar intake. And now, even with the holidays, I have managed to lose a few pounds in December. I am ready to transform my relationship with food in 2020!

Shoulder Pain: My shoulder went out on January 13. I remember the date well because it was the day after I turned 40 and felt like a cosmic joke. I suffered with the pain for months but started seeing an osteopath during the summer and now my shoulder pain is almost completely gone. I spent a lot of time taking care of my shoulder in 2019 but it was worth it.

Aquarium: We have an aquarium! With three fish! Three fish have died! But three still live!

Trips: We went to Las Vegas for the annual Henning Family Reunion and then Nebraska for nine days to visit Nathan’s family. I love Pasadena but it’s good to get away.

Decluttering: Huge progress on this front. I cleared out my clothes and now only have clothes I like to wear. Same with the kids’ clothes. I went through our books and donated bags and bags of books to Goodwill. In November, we got a new couch and needed to have professionals haul it away (because it was absolutely disgusting and though we left it on the street for a week, no one was interested in a free disgusting couch). So while we had the professionals coming, Nathan and I gutted our garage and basement and got rid of so much crap. I love decluttering!

Whew, that’s enough for 2019! Of course there was a ton more that happened, but if I try to capture it all in a blog post, I’ll miss half of 2020. I feel like I am ending the year more authentic, more resilient and more magical than I began it. Sometimes, being a stay at home mom, it can feel like all I do is deal with dirty dishes and laundry. But looking back, I can see just how far I came. And now, onward to 2020!

Reflecting on 2019 and 2020

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It’s December, and though it is easy to get sucked into the holidays, I am taking some time to reflect on my life in 2019 and consider what I want to do in the coming year.

I started reflecting on 2019 yesterday. I just opened a Word document and started writing all the major points that came to me, with generous use of bullets. (Damn I love a good list.) It’s mostly done, but as I was walking today, I realized I forgot to include my decluttering victories. I’m going to give my subconscious a week or so to sort through 2019 before I turn my document into a blog post.

I like this exercise of looking back at 2019 because as a Stay at Home Mom, sometimes it seem like I do so little. So much of my vocation involves little mundane To Do’s like flossing my kids’ teeth and sweeping dried spaghetti bits off the floor. But looking back at the entire year, I can see how much I have grown as a person, and that is very encouraging.

As for 2020, I realize that I cannot control everything that will happen. If I learned anything from 2019, it’s that life is full of uncertainty. But it still feels good to set some goals and intentions. Just twenty minutes ago, I opened another Word document and started listing ideas for what I want to do in 2020. I’m trying to be ambitious yet realistic while also realizing I need to stay flexible.

For example, I know I want to continue deepening my spirituality in 2020, and I have a few ideas how I can do this, but spirituality is a journey. I might start the year thinking I want to go to church with my family at least 20 times but discover that what we really want to do is take weekend hikes and talk about nature. Who knows! My goals and plans are starting points to ignite some momentum, but they are not commandments carved in stone. Instead, by reflecting on my goals for 2020, I am basically buying a ticket to travel around Europe, and I may stay in Europe for the entire year, but it’s just as likely that I’ll end up in India, Australia or Antartica.

And you know what? I think that’s marvelous! I’d love to explore the villages and castles of Europe, but I’d also like to see the Taj Majal, the Great Barrier Reef and the march of the penguins in real time.

Of course, this is all just a long analogy! In 2020, we will travel to Las Vegas and Nebraska and maybe take a weekend trip to San Diego. As uncertain as life can be, I am certain that 2020 is not the year that the Novaks voyage to the South Pole.

Then again, who knows???

I Need A Sabbatical

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I know, I know. I’m a mom. I can’t just walk away for a year while someone else packs the school lunches, drives my kids to school, and does all the thousand little tasks that amount to motherhood. Even if that was an option, I would not take it. I feel called to be a Stay-at-Home mom so that is what I am going to do.

But I also feel called to write, and the past nine months, I have had very, very little time to write. For the 2020-2021 school year, I am going to make sure I get the time to write by taking a sabbatical from all the work I do for my children’s schools.

Julian is currently in his second of three years at a co-op preschool. I love his preschool, the teachers, the parents, and I have devoted extra time to volunteering beyond the basic requirements. I have served as a board member in charge of the book fair. This was fun and fulfilling, but after this school year, but for Julian’s last year of preschool, I am retiring from that role. Someone else can do that extra work for the school.

I am a Room Parent for Pippa’s first grade class. I was Room Parent last year for her kindergarten class. Next year? Someone else can do that job.

I will still be involved with my children’s education. And I am sure I will be Room Parent again. Maybe I’ll run the book fair at their elementary school in a few years. But right now, I am depleted. I need to write more. If I don’t, I will feel like a shadow of my best self. It is time to apply the principles of crop rotation to my life and let myself lie fallow for a school year.

Whew. I feel like I can more gracefully handle my extra responsibilities this school year knowing that next year, I will let them go and invest the extra time in myself.  

The Night Before Thanksgiving: A Quick Gratitude List

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  1. A rainy day, to keep the Southern California drought away
  2. A roof over our head to keep away the rain
  3. Baking Thanksgiving dishes with my kids (oh, I can’t wait to eat this sweet potato casserole tomorrow!)
  4. Snuggles with Pippa and Julian
  5. A husband who understands that sometimes I just need some alone time after the kids go to bed
  6. Our new fish swimming around our new aquarium
  7. Warm fuzzy socks
  8. Lavender hand lotion
  9. The dishwasher which has done overtime today
  10. And lastly, I am grateful for gratitude, because the simple act of thinking about my blessings always makes my heart soar.

Coming Soon: Adventures With My Forties

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I turned forty years old last January. A few months later, an idea bubbled to the surface of my conscious: I should start a podcast about being a woman in my forties.

No! I thought. I don’t have time! Besides, I had just ended my first podcast, Adventures with Postpartum Depression, and it felt like I would be betraying my first show if I launched a new one so quickly.

But the idea would not leave me alone. There were a lot of things I wanted to talk about that did not feel appropriate for Adventures with Postpartum Depression. I created that show to help women in the darkness of a maternal mental illness. But now, as my experience with postpartum depression becomes a hazier memory, I want to talk about the things that are currently helping me feel like my best self, but these are not topics I would necessarily want to discuss with a postpartum other.

For example, I recently quit soda and in the past month, I feel healthier. My skin has a little extra glow and when I wake up in the morning, I have more energy. But if I am talking to a woman who has a maternal mood disorder, I’m not going to tell her to quit soda! That mom needs to hear about very, very different things – things I discussed already on my first podcast. I

So I am starting a new podcast to share all the things, like quitting soda, that I am doing to feel like my best self. The show is called Adventures with my Forties because I want to consciously and intentionally this stage of my life. I have already recorded the first four episodes and once I take care of a few logistics, the show will be ready to go. Woot woot!

I am excited for this new adventure!

What Are Your Values?

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I assumed I knew what my values were, but when the subject came up in therapy recently, I froze. Values? Huh. What the bleep are my values?

For the next few days, I thought, Oh fuck, I’m forty years old and I don’t know what my values are. Sure, I can rattle off a few big important words like “love” and “joy” but seriously, what the eff are my values???

I started journaling about my values, convinced it would take me years to sort this out. But after a month of work, I am feeling better. I have a better understanding of what my values actually are. Or, more accurately, I subconsciously knew what many of my values were, but I had not yet taken the time to think and classify them as such. It feels good to have done that work.

In no particular order, here is my current list of values:

  1. Being healthy and fit. For me, “being healthy” includes physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual health.
  2. Paying attention and being curious.
  3. Living my life consciously and intentionally.
  4. Being authentic.
  5. Answering my inner divine call.
  6. Doing the work! By “work,” I mean the work that I must do in order to be my best self.
  7. Doing my best, whatever that means at any given moment.
  8. Being compassionate and merciful with others and myself.
  9. Going slow and with the flow. (Though I am still figuring out when I want to go with the flow, and when I need to be conscious and intentional about directing the flow of my life.)
  10. Being connected to others.
  11. Embracing change and uncertainty.
  12. Being impeccable with my word.

I do not think these are all of my values. Now that I am curious about my values (see Value #2), I expect I’ll keep adding values to the list. Also, as I accumulate life experiences, I’ll have more wisdom to draw upon, and that wisdom will shed further light on what I do and do not value.

I am also far from living my values my perfectly. (Value #1, ahem, needs considerable work.) But now that I have a better handle on my values, I have noticed in my journaling that when I feel uncomfortable, it is often because my actions are not in line with my values. Hopefully by knowing my values, I can get better at consciously and intentionally (Value #3!) living in line with them.

But always, I try to remember Value #8: being compassionate and merciful with others and myself. I am going to make mistakes. Lots and lots of messy mistakes. When I make a mistake and life in discord with my values, I hope I can be compassionate and merciful with myself, take a deep breath, and keep trying to do my best (Value #7).

Remeron Weaning, Take 4

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I have had such a long, epic relationship with Remeron, generic for the anti-anxiety medication Mirtazipane, that I had to look through old blog entries to reconstruct my timeline. I am about to wean off it again and could not for the life of me remember if this would be the third or fourth attempt.

It’s the fourth.

I am going to blatantly plagiarize my blog post from April 2019 to reconstruct my timeline:

  • I started taking Remeron in July 2013 when I was first diagnosed with postpartum depression. I took it at bedtime and it definitely helped me sleep. I wrote all about it in my memoir, Adventures with Postpartum Depression.
  • My first psychiatrist yanked me off Remeron and Zoloft in February 2015 when I learned I was pregnant with my second child.
  • When Julian was born in November 2015, I started taking Zoloft again. My new psychiatrist and I decided that I could wait on the Remeron.
  • Three months after Julian was born, I started experiencing increased anxiety and insomnia. I tried to tough it out then realized I was being a martyr for no good reason. I called my psychiatrist and we decided to (1) bump my dose of Zoloft from 100 mg to 150 and (2) put me back on 15 mg of Remeron at bedtime.
  • I took Remeron for a year or so and then my psychiatrist and I decided I was ready to wean off Zoloft and Remeron.
  • I weaned off Remeron and was off it for several months but then, early 2017, when I made some dietary changes (quitting sugar, reducing carbs), I noticed a surge in anxiety at bedtime. Along with the anxiety came insomnia.
  • I realized that I had been numbing some unaddressed anxiety with food, so I went back on Remeron for the rest of 2017. I did a lot of journaling to work through the anxiety and food issues.
  • About six or seven months ago, in Fall 2018, I started weaning off Remeron for the third time. By the end of 2018, I was sleeping beautifully sans mirtazipane and assumed I did not need the drug anymore.

Whew. So that brings us through December 2018 and what I thought was the end of my relationship with Remeron. But my old friend insomnia returned in mid-January 2019. It took me about two months to realize I had insomnia. Let me recap:

  • First, my shoulder went out on January 13, 2019 the day after I turned 40. The timing felt like a cosmic joke. I started having trouble getting enough sleep. I blamed my sleep issues on my shoulder pain.
  • Then I had a cold. I took Tylenol PM and Nyquil and got enough sleep.
  • Shoulder pain and insomnia continued. When the cold was over, I blamed the latter on the former.
  • Shoulder pain was brought under control, but I was still having trouble getting enough sleep. I would fall asleep easily enough but wake up and stay awake for hours and hours. Some nights, I’d be up from 2-5 a.m. Some nights, I was just up until it was time to start my day.
  • I decided I needed to wean off caffeine. I always sleep better when I’m off caffeine.
  • Another cold. More Nyquil.
  • Finally, by mid-March 2019 I was fully off caffeine.
  • But still, I was not getting enough sleep.
  • I realized I needed to go back on Remeron.

I have been back on Remeron since mid-March 2019, and though I have only been taking it for seven months, I feel ready to wean again. A couple months ago, I started taking a magnesium supplement called Calm at bedtime. My primary physician recommended I take it when I told her that I fall asleep fine but have trouble getting back to sleep if I wake up during the night. Apparently, for a woman, this type of sleep issue can be related to a magnesium deficiency. An hour before bedtime, I stir a quarter teaspoon of the powder supplement into an ounce or two of hot water. I drink it like its tea, and I have noticed a remarkable improvement in my quality of sleep since adding the supplement to my bedtime routine.

So. Deep breath. It is time for me to wean off Remeron for the fourth time. We shall see what happens this time around. As I have told myself before, I will take the medications I need to take in order to feel like my best self, stigma be damned. But I do not want to take medications if I can make lifestyle changes to manage my symptoms.

I feel like I am at the beginning of a transformation. I quit soda. I started hot yoga. And I found the Calm supplement. Maybe this time I will wean myself off Remeron and stay off it for more than few months. Who knows? This might be the last time I ever wean off Remeron.

Here’s the weaning plan:

  • I alternate between a full dose of 7.5 mg and a half dose of 3.75 for two weeks.
  • Then, I’ll take the half dose every night for two weeks.
  • Then I’ll take a half dose every other night for two weeks. On the off nights, I will just take the Calm supplement. (I will take the Calm supplement every night regardless.)
  • Then. I’m done.

We shall see what happens next! I have not scheduled a follow-up appointment with my psychiatrist. She suggested we leave it open and I can get in touch with her if I feel the need. I love her faith and trust in my ability to monitor my health. I love that I trust myself to do this as well!  

p.s. I drafted this post on Halloween, an hour after my appointment with my psychiatrist. This is being posted a bit later though because hey, Halloween + Mom Life.

Enough!

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Words are powerful, even magical. The words I use affect the way I feel. I can feel this most powerfully when I am journaling. When I write words like “effervescent” and “radiant,” my energy starts to flow and I feel as if I am in fact effervescent and radiant. When I write words that have negative charges, though, I feel my energy get heavy and slow.

I am paying attention to the words that feel right and the words that feel “ick!” when I am journaling. I want to use more of the words that lift me up and avoid the words that drag me down. Through journaling, I have discovered a word that is very important to me: Enough.

As a stay at home mom of a preschooler and first grader, I often feel rushed. There is not enough time to do all the things I want to do. Not enough time to exercise! Write! Run errands! Do all the things! I start to gripe – not enough, not enough! – and I get whipped into a frantic frenzy.

Except.

There is enough.

I have enough time to write. Sure, I could easily spend three or four hours each day writing my novel. But whatever I get, that’s enough. (J.K. Rowling got the idea for Harry Potter in 1990, but the first book was not published in 1997. So slow writing might actually be better than fast.)

I have enough time to exercise. Sure, I could do hot yoga every day. But so long as I wear my Fitbit and make an effort to walk, I get enough exercise. (Besides, it’s nice to give my body time to get in shape slowly. If I had time to do vigorous daily exercise, I might blow out my knee.)

I have enough time to read and stretch and paint and snuggle with my kids. If I am conscious and intentional with my time, than I have enough.

The more I pay attention to the word “enough,” the more I see how it resonates with my life.

I have enough money.

Our house is big enough.

I have enough friends. If sometimes I feel a little lonely, then I just need to make more effort to see the friends I already have, and when I see my friends, I need to make the effort to be authentic instead of struggling to be the person I think I am supposed to be.

Enough. Enough. Enough.

If I stop worrying and griping, and really look around at my life, I have enough of all the things I need and want. Right now. This moment. This place. This life. I do not have to hold my breath until Julian is in kindergarten or until Pippa can do homework by herself or until I hit some other mothering milestone. Already I have enough.

It’s amazing how one word can make me feel so alive and blessed.

To The Mama Crying At The Mall

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I saw you as I was buying my coffee. You: sitting, eyes brimmed red and tears flowing, while the baby kicked in her stroller. Me: Just over six years away from those tender raw postpartum depression days.

I am projecting, of course. I had postpartum depression, so when I see a miserable new mom, I assume she is struggling with the transition to motherhood just as I struggled (and thrashed and suffered and nearly drowned) when my daughter was born. Actually, I project my PPD days on all the new mamas I see, not just the ones who are crying at the mall. Even the mamas who are smiling and seem radiant: I worry about you. What worries might keep you awake at night? What OCD rituals might you be performing to calm the anxiety? What intrusive thoughts did you have yesterday when the baby would not stop crying? I know how easy it is to look like everything is okay, because that was what I did. And I’m not even that great of an actress.

I saw you, Mama Crying At The Mall, and I wanted to say hello. I wanted to stoop down and ask, “How are you doing?” I wanted to look into your tear filled eyes and say, “I worry about mamas with babies, you see, because my babies kicked my ass.”

But I didn’t, because I was worried I would say the wrong thing and make you feel worse. Also, I was waiting for my coffee. But mostly, I was just worried that I would say the wrong thing. So I said nothing and by the time I got my coffee, you had wiped away your tears and pushed the stroller away.

To the Mama Crying at the Mall: next time I will try to do better. Fuck these 21st century manners. Fuck pretending feelings do not exist at the mall. Fuck all this social and emotional isolation.

It’s been over six years since I was diagnosed with postpartum depression, and damn, those raw intense feelings keep fading and fading. But I want to remember them at least a little so I can relate. So the next time I see a mama with a baby, whether she is crying or not, I remember to ask the most important question of all:

How are you?

A Very Sweaty Namaste

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I started doing hot yoga! I love it! During class, I can feel myself literally sweating out the crazy.

My first hot yoga, aka Bikram yoga, was about fifteen years ago. I went to a studio in Hollywood with my sister Katherine. I knew next to nothing about hot yoga, but my sister wanted to go, so why not?

Well, I thought I was going to die. I had to leave the room to dry heave a bit in the women’s restroom. At the end of class, the teacher came over and said all these flattering things to my sister about how she was a natural and so flexible and gosh, she should come again. Then she looked at me sideways, sighed, and walked away.

Needless to say, I did not go back.

But, I could not get the idea of hot yoga out of my head. Every now and then, a friend or aunt would talk about how much she enjoyed hot yoga, and the things I heard made me think that despite my first experience, it might be a good practice for me.

My friend Laura convinced me to try again last December. She gave me lots of helpful advice beforehand, like Be hydrated and Bring water and Eat an hour beforehand so you have energy but don’t need to puke. Her most important advice though was to arrive early so my body could acclimate to the 105 degree temperature in the studio.

Armed with this good advice, my second hot yoga class was so much better than my first. I felt like I was getting my ass kicked, but in a way that made me feel radiant. The poses combined stretching and strengthening and midway through the class, my heart was pounding as if I had been running. When I left class, I felt very calm and relaxed. My worries had receded. I had found my dream workout!

Except the schedule did not work for my life.

I could have attended the 9 a.m. class, but I would have been about ten minutes late. (Pippa’s elementary school starts late.) I knew that would make me anxious and affect the quality of my workout. The 11 a.m. classes were all too late, because at the time, Julian got out of preschool at 11:30. Blah blah blah, talking about my mom schedule is tedious and dull, but long story short, I kept walking and wearing my Fitbit, while promising myself that when the time was right, I would return to hot yoga.

That time has arrived!

Julian is older and his preschool days are longer. I dove into my hot yoga practice last month. I’d like to go twice a week, but so far, I’ve only been five times. (I ran a preschool book fair for a week. Pippa had a cavity. We went to Disneyland. Such is life.) But I can feel my body getting stronger. I am getting stronger, body, mind, heart and soul.

I am just at the beginning of this hot yoga practice, but I am excited to see where it takes me. A few years ago, if I had written a post about doing hot yoga, I would have used a lot of swear words and then said demeaning things about how my postures compare to the other students. But now I am forty, and I do not feel the need to ridicule something that is giving me such joy. I just want to embrace this practice, sweat and all.

p.s. There is so much sweat! It’s ridiculous.