Change is good

This week, I made a big decision. It will take along time to put into action, but in my gut it feels right. I'm going to let go of a dream that has been dead for a long time now. I'm very fortunate that the change I'm going to make can be done slowly, and in a way that shelters me from uncertainty, but it will be a big change. Looking back, I realize that I have been working hard in the last few years to make positive changes, but the paths I followed were dead ends. It's time to cut it all loose.

No more gnashing of teeth, no more chasing my tail, no more struggling, mired in the Slough of Despond. It exhausts me; it is dreary, and boring, and it could go on forever while I sink in over my head, every semester, and gasp and drown and flail.

I hereby declare that my war on reality is over. I surrender, and I'm going to move on. I have tried valiantly, and then foolishly, to change things I cannot change. (Because it wasn't FAIR!) They are not going to change. I, on the other hand, have changed, and need to make change, for the better. I'm must try to move forward  from possibility instead of fear. The fears have not gone away, but now I also feel a sense of certainty that I have always trusted in the past. This feels right.

Already, I am flooded with relief and eagerness for the future. At the same time, I'm humbled to recognize that I have choices that most people won't have. I can't, I won't let fear prevent me from making them.

Small steps.
I'm taking a medical leave to regroup, rest, recover. I'm leaning on my medical team: changing medications, working to find the right therapist, doing my spiritual homework.
So much clutter. It's time to cut it loose.

Argle Bargle

One step out the door. I'm requested a medical leave today, something I should probably have done two months ago when I fell into the Slough of Despond *shudder*

Maybe I put it off because the round of paperwork, phone calls, and permission is so daunting,  argle bargle. I have been waiting two months  (TWO MONTHS) for a medical appointment with a specialist because the only way to be seen any sooner would have been to check myself into a hospital. Which I very seriously considered, but then I decided to hold out as long as I could.

Is it an omen that when I got home the cat had barfed on the bathmat and peed on a blanket in his basket on the porch? I think I need to take him to the vet, poor baby.

P.E., fitness, and getting back into shape

I'm thinking about my relationship to my body and fitness as something that I didn't engage with consciously until very recently, despite the fact that I have been very fit for most of my life, if not terribly athletic. If you are old enough, you'll remember when P.E. was subject in school. This was before sportswear was acceptable street clothing, before everyone "worked out at the gym," before Jane Fonda started her second career as an workout guru, and before Title IX was enacted in 1972 and girls began to have the opportunity to become athletes as children. I don't think young women are aware of how different their experience and the expectations of their bodies in relationship to sports are today compared to the experience of women in their late forties and older. Yet, although most of my P.E. experience was of the separate and vastly inferior kind that was provided to girls in the late sixties-early seventies, we did have to change into special clothing and do exercise or a sport, even if it was only kickball, every day in Jr. High and three times a week in high school. I learned how to play kickball as a prelude to softball, how to serve at volleyball, the rules of flag football and field hockey. We also played badminton, I think. In the name of the President and his physical fitness goals, we were taught how to do push-ups, sit-ups and jumping jacks, made to run laps and throw a softball. We climbed ropes and were taught the basic step of the waltz. Oh, and square dancing, we did that in sixth grade. I remember our gym teachers, all women, made us do something called "squat thrusts," (aka "burpees" but a true burpee has a pushup and a jump in it). In Jr. High, the girls' P.E. outfits were a dark blue, short- sleeved one-piece shorts thingie with elastic around the leg holes for modesty, with a belt. This outfit had a special name that I cannot remember. It wasn't bloomers, but it was something like that, and if you did not have it on for P.E. you got into a lot of trouble.

My mother signed us up for swimming lessons, and I even was on a swim team for one season, but I was never very good at the crawl or the butterfly, and mostly did the breast stroke or the back stroke when I swam laps as an adult.

Despite this level of activity, I was always of the "last picked for the team" crowd, partly because I was myopic and refused to wear my glasses so I couldn't tell how far away a ball was. I was also painfully shy after sixth grade, mortified if anyone looked at me. I longed to be invisible. Yet, somehow in college, when I was 17-18, I ended up being recruited by my P.E. major roommate Natalie to be on our co-ed volleyball and softball teams because, I was told, they needed one more person to be able to sign up the team. Again, I was always the weakest link, but some of the guys took pity on me and actually helped me develop a few skills at throwing and catching the ball, even if I would occasionally just lob it in some random uncontrolled direction. Although they purported not to care, I knew my teammates were terribly competitive and I was alternately ashamed and resentful that I didn't measure up, but also thrilled in a puppy-like way that they included me, the dork, in their group. It was a mixed experience, to say the least.

Once I finished college, my main form of exercise consisted of not having a car: I walked, biked, hauled stuff, and generally tramped all over town for hours everywhere I lived, whether it was in the U.S. or Europe. I also started having the symptoms of fibromyalgia (fatigue, pain) but didn't know why or what it was. I was fit, but I hurt all over and all of the time. Because nobody could tell me why, I just lived with it. I would finally get a diagnosis at age 32 and start doing things like yoga and stretching to help manage the pain.

Walking and biking were my primary ways of keeping fit in graduate school because I no longer hung out with people who played organized sports, the whole world was not yet "going to the gym" and my stab at running proved to me that I would never stick with something I found boring. I had been told by the doctor when I had my first of many childhood sprains that I had "weak ankles" and he told my mother not to let me dance (curse him forever!!!). In my twenties, I did join some friends at the pool from time to time. They were dedicated swimmers; I was not, but I was used to being less competent at sports than most people I knew.

I took two P.E. classes in college: British Isles Folkdancing (loved loved loved it! why didn't I continue?) and the very first weight training class offered for women. Actually the women's section was filled, but they let me and a dorm mate into the men's class. The instructor was a woman, a track coach I believe, and I could tell the guys were not willing to grant her any authority as we gathered on the first day. She didn't say anything, just whipped off ten pullups to the back of the neck with some kind of reverse grip that were clearly of the kind that only Wonder Woman could do, and I saw all the guys visibly adopt a submissive posture. She had proven that she was as tough or tougher than all of them. My supercute friend had lots of guys "helping her" with her weights, but I was happy enough to be ignored. My goal for the class? to be able to do ONE regular pull-up. I never achieved my goal, but I did develop some actual muscle definition and a new relationship to my body. It was very satisfying.


After two years of walking and biking around Minneapolis I finally got a car, and my level of activity dropped precipitously. Walking around the lakes didn't quite replace it. But I also started taking an Afro-Caribbean dance class taught by an amazing teacher, who gave us a 45 minute workout before we even started dancing combinations. It took about a year of taking class from him, first only on Saturdays, then on Tues/Thurs/Sat, to finally overcome the body shame and shyness, get the level of confidence and fitness to finally feel as if I could use my body to express myself. It was a revelation that I could actually be good at something that involved moving my body through space. I owe that dance teacher so much. I stopped taking his class when I was five months pregnant, and then he moved away.


After I was 40, and had a small child, I looked to dance agin for the exercise and pleasure that gym classes never gave me. Until a few years ago, I danced either in ballroom classes or socially at least 2-5 times a week. I was in great shape and it helped me manage my fibromyalgia. But when I had my episodes with rotator cuff impingement and frozen shoulder, I stopped dancing and playing the piano. It hurt too much to raise my hands or my arms above my waist. This coincided, not at all coincidentally, with menopause. Hormanal changes and loss of activity have meant that I rapidly gained weight, putting on close to twenty-five pounds in two years. So I'm both out of shape and
I had to give away my wardrobe. I feel sluggish and weak. My fibromyalgia symptoms are worse. I need to get back in shape, not just because I'd like to lose a few pounds but because my future health as an elderly lady will be better if I get fit again. So, despite my fondness for the YWCA, we have signed up at the new LA Fitness about a block from where I live, and I have plunked down the money to have the services of a personal trainer once a week for six months. I know I will not get back into shape unless someone stands over me and counts those repetitions, and I know that if I don't get back into shape, my health and morale will not improve.

The manager put us through our paces in the intake, and my thighs are feeling it, but I feel so excited to have made this commitment, and I want to return to feeling strong and fit again. Then I had an evaluation session where we took measurements and tested what my limits were with a variety of strength exercises: "Pitiful" (that would be my term, not the trainer's).

Getting to know your hippocampus

PBS has a series called This Emotional Life. One of the topics the show addresses is depression: what is the difference between chronic depression and feeling sad?

"Major depression is profound depression. The person with major depression usually experiences a complete loss of pleasure in nearly everything that once brought them happiness. These episodes usually are not triggered by any specific event. During a depressive episode, even a positive event does not lift the person’s mood much. Major depression often interferes with a person’s ability to work or go to school, sleep, study, or eat. At least half of the people who suffer from one depressive episode will experience a second within 10 years. But other types of depression have been also identified, including dysthymia, postpartum depression, bipolar disorder (formerly called “manic depression”) and seasonal affective disorder (SAD)."

The show outlines research that suggests, through brain imaging, that people with depression show changes in the region of the brain known as the hippocampus. In other words, depression is associated with a physical change in the brain. This seems to have to do with the fact that nerve cells in the hippocampus are responsive to stress hormones, such as cortisol. Stress motivates us to both physical or mental activity;, but if we are not able to burn off the extra fuel our bodies produce in response to stress hormones, it can overload our systems and affect bone density, blood pressure, and other systems. Too much stress over too long a period of time (in the form of the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline) may disregulate this part of the neurological system.

The hippocampus is a structure in the brain shared by all mammals. Because of its shape, it was given a name derived from "seahorse." It is thought to play an important role in certain types of memory and of spatial recognition. Damage or lesions to parts of the hippocampus can be seen in people suffering from Alzheimers, forms of amnesia, and other conditiions. Shrinkage, or atrophy of the hippocampus ("reduced hippocampal volume" the studies call it) has been observed in people suffering from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder (MDD), and post-traumatic stress disorder. Although there are many unanswered questions about the implications of these recent findings, one striking implication that is being studied is that early diagnosis and treatment can not only help people manage their symptoms, but also actually help heal the part of the brain that seems to suffer the effects or cause (it's not clear which) these disabling conditions.

What is more, brain scans have also shown that anti-depressants, the medications used to treat depression, can not only alleviate symptoms, but also affect (halt or reverse) damage to the hippocamus. Studies also show increased hippocampal volume in London Taxi Drivers, who must remember every single street in London and pass a test called "The Knowledge". Part of the hippocampus was larger than average in these drivers, especially those who had been driving longer! The hippocampus helps lay down a spatial map, and has a role in the "recollection function" of memory.


Neuroplasticity! gotta love it.