Reading with Global Intentionality

 I turned 40 earlier this month. It’s big, but I always knew it was coming. Two years ago, I set myself on a reading challenge to see how globally I could read by my 40th birthday. 

I have always been a diverse reader, but I know I can get stuck in location ruts, so I set out to see how many places I could read about in two years. This could be done through the setting in a fiction book, a location for a memoir or biography, or just learning about that location in a non-fiction book. Going in, I knew I wouldn’t be able to do every country within the two-year deadline, so it was more about seeing how far I could travel when being intentional about my settings.

By being deliberate about finding new locations, I’ve read books I would never have picked up otherwise; I enjoyed some that I did not. By seeking new places, I found my literary horizons expanding not just globally but with new authors, new types of stories, and new understanding of cultures other than my own.

Where have I been able to travel read over the last two years? I have read books set in 33 of the 50 states (taking recommendations for the Dakotas and Idaho). And I have read books set in 47 countries, including El Salvador, Lebanon, Tanzania, and Croatia. I am working off of a list of 201 certified and named countries, so ending at around 25% isn’t bad, especially since I know that I read some countries more than once (default of a historical fiction junkie). 

Just because my 40th birthday has now passed doesn’t mean that I am finished. Far from it, I’ve already got books set in far-off places waiting for me to dive into soon. I will continue to read with global intentionality, and now I want to see how long it takes for me to mark off every state and country from the list. 

Do you have a favorite book set in a place where you don’t live? Drop the title so I can check it out!

Thoughts after a conversation

 Mental health is important to me.

Words that are followed up by actions are important to me.

Being kind and caring to others is important to me.

Having your family accept who you are is important to me.

Having someone treat you as they expect to be treated is important to me.

Being true to my values and core beliefs of kindness and acceptance in important to me.

Being told that I am in the wrong for focusing on what is important to me, on what furthers my hopes of healing myself and the world, is not alright with me. 

Being told this by someone who claims they can see through our differences but then refuses to accept my being different from them is not alright with me.

Sharing my feelings in a way of taking care of my mental health to then be told that I am being mean and hypocritical is not alright with me. 

Being accused of saying things I did not say is not alright with me.

More After the Break

At one point in my life, I wanted to become a journalist. That changed in the spring of 1999 when journalists invaded my community in ways that were unforgivable at the time. To be fair, we were the exception back then. In 1999, a school shooting was instantly national news, especially one as destructive as ours.

Even so, they still felt intrusive. I remember walking into church on a Sunday morning after attending a classmate's funeral the day before and having someone offer me condolences because they saw me on the news the night before in a camera pan clip of funeralgoers. I did not even know that news crews were there.

I recently read Jen Maxwell's memoir, More After the Break, in which she revisits some of the news stories that she covered that have had the most impact on her over her years of reporting. Through her stories, I have gained a new perspective on those reporting through the tragic moments that happen. Looking back almost 24 years later, I see how the reporters and news crews were just doing their jobs. Some of our local news people were possibly trying to find information on their niece or nephew; maybe they were related to a staff member.

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I had never thought to give them that type of consideration before. Until I had read Maxwell's book, I still saw them as unfeeling, cold-hearted leeches. I mean, they had us on the news for months without any appearance of sympathy or understanding for our situation, so why wouldn't we hate them.

Maxwell's entire book is interesting, but the last two chapters really tugged at me. I cried, smiled, and saw the side of journalism that interested and intrigued me in my younger days. I remembered the pre-Columbine girl who wanted to tell stories about her community and the world around her. I never lost my desire to write or share stories about what is happening around me. And now that I realize that doing their jobs on the worst day of my life wasn't easy on the newscasters either, I feel bad that I have spent over 20 years being angry with them.

Losing what you never had

 They say you can’t lose what you never had, but you can. And sometimes that hurts.

I have two children, but it is highly likely that I will never be a grandmother. Most days, I am good with that. It doesn’t usually phase me at all; it is just what is likely. I knew

that eventually, I would have a day where this fact would hurt, and today was the first of those days.

Having grandchildren has never been an expectation, but knowing it may not happen still brings a level of grief and disappointment. I’m at a point in life where some of the friends I have raised my babies with are becoming grandparents, and I know that means that I’ll be having more days like this as I see them experience things that I likely won’t get to do. 

We were out today, and I saw a junior edition of one of the games our family loves to play. I picked it up to look at it, and my husband saw something on my face because he asked me who I would buy it for. All I could do in response was cry. I cried because my first thought when I saw it was that it would be great for our daughter’s kids since she loves the original version. And since our daughter probably cannot have children, I probably won’t have grandchildren to buy that game for. And every time I think about it, I cry all over again.

But I know that not every day will be hard. And when the hard days come, I need to acknowledge, accept, and validate those feelings because they’re natural and reasonable to have and won’t last forever.

Rowing

A while ago, I read something about the meditative aspect of repetitive workouts-running, swimming, etc. The innate movement, when you can get lost in it and zone out or think through life, especially when you are overwhelmed, can be healing mentally while you are physically caring for your body.

The last few months have been extremely busy and laden with stress of all kinds. I noticed that I was gravitating toward my rowing machine through all of it when it came time to work out. After I read that article, I understood why.

Rowing is repetitive: you sit, pull, slide up, and then do it all over again. I often gaze out the window or even close my eyes when I row. It is just easy for me to get lost in the movement and feel my brain settle for a while. And it has felt amazing to find that space just to be quiet.

Next week begins a new round of stress-inducing activities. But knowing that my rower is waiting for me every day to be there when I need a moment of quiet comfort while also working out frustrations makes it all easier to face.

Inside Out

While cleaning out my office recently, I found a journal entry I wrote sometime in 2020. I still feel that these ideas are ones to keep in mind despite being a few years separated from the pandemic chaos, so I thought I’d share that with you.

In a rare moment of being alone this morning, I decided to watch Inside Out. I have wanted to watch it for a few days, and today gave me the time and opportunity.

For those that need a refresher, it is a Disney movie that goes through the turmoil of emotions experienced by an 11-year-old girl during a large change in her life. If you have seen the movie, you know that it is about feelings and how experiencing those feelings makes us who we are as a person. It demonstrates and explains how our emotions evolve as we grow and experience new things. By the end of the movie, you remember, or maybe learn, that memory is built on more than one emotion. All of our experiences are mixed emotions that form that piece of our lives.

I feel like this reminder is critical right now. We are all experiencing new things or new combinations of emotions. I know my feelings mix has been all kinds of new combinations throughout every day.

But these combinations build the people we will be when this is over. It is revealing new aspects of who we each are as a person. Some of that may not be good (like realizing that you are angrier than you originally thought), but we have time to learn and work through these new revelations.

I am trying to be intentional with sorting through my emotional combinations. I have been trying to talk them through with my family because they are experiencing their own combinations of emotional mixups.

This pandemic and all that has come with it is shaping who we are now and who we will be moving forward. Focusing on the pieces of that mentally and emotionally will help us to understand it better.

Fight Back

Children of the latchkey generation are standing up for themselves and our health, especially our mental health. 

We grew up in daycare and after-school programs, sometimes before school, too, because our parents worked 50+ hours a week.

We were signed up for every sport or extracurricular until we found something we enjoyed, and then it became our way to a better life.

We split time between school, activities, jobs, and our parents' homes; many of us had two homes due to having divorced parents. We had to please people and be the best in all of those places.

We experienced burnout before we hit puberty. We didn’t know what it was then and pushed through as we were told. But we know now, and now we’re fighting back.

But our parents, teachers, coaches, bosses, and even friends are mad that we are finally pushing back. But why are they mad? Who knows, and who has the energy to find out? Not me because I’m setting boundaries and refocusing.

When I began setting boundaries and sticking up for myself, when I began truly advocating for what I needed, it was difficult. It still is. But I like this version of myself better than earlier versions. My marriage and parenting are better. My sleep is better. My physical health is better.

Yes, some of my relationships don’t seem better, but maybe they need to be removed or at least adjusted. And yes, that is hard, but it is worth it. 

So, find new friends. Change jobs if possible. Take the silence when they cold-shoulder you. You are doing the right thing because you are taking care of yourself.