Inside Out Reflection

    Whoa, this is a heavy set of baggage when it comes to movies. It’s heavy emotion wise for me, both movies, actually. 

   I know I usually have some witty starter to my entries, but I don’t really feel witty of late. It’ll come back, I am sure, hopefully soon, because writing about “heavy” stuff isn’t my usual style. Of late, I have been bogged down with a lot of emotions. All I can say of that is, IT’S ABOUT DAMN TIME!

   For a long time now, I can’t even pinpoint exactly when it started, I have had an emotional wall around me, a strong one that kept a lot inside. I think it was designed to protect myself from, well, whatever. Not a lot was getting out except a few moments of anxiety, frustration, and anger. But once those moments were gone, the wall repaired itself. 

   I was not even aware there was a wall. I should have been. Looking back on the recent past , I see where I wasn’t being myself, not opening up to people who are important to me, especially my own family.

   Then I saw “Inside Out 2”…and a few days later I saw the first one. The wall crumbled. Slowly at first, but a week later I rewatched some parts of both and after a talk with my counselor, I began to understand that I was finally beginning to feel liberated in terms of feelings.

   I’ve been crying a lot at odd moments. Lots of thoughts, Lots of reflections.

   In the first one when Riley is finally able to tell her parents she is sad, wow, I think that moment will elicit tears from me every time I see it. That’s ok, that’s my personal connection. Really, I see that moment in the movie and I want to hug that girl myself and let her know her feelings are normal and right to have. The fading of Bing Bong is also a biggie, though I appreciate Richard Kind’s perfect voice for a character created in a toddler’s mind. It made his fading away all the sadder just like the fading away of all young children’s wonderful imagination.

   Some might think it’s only a Pixar movie, why am I getting so worked up and emotional? I guess the answer is that it had to happen. I have been reading and watching videos online about these movies and that I am not the only one reacting this way.

   The main musical theme in Inside Out is also a touching one for me, evoking a lot of emotions about my daughter and the carefree innocence she once had before becoming a "moody" teenager. Believe me, I feel that sense of loss now regularly. I know that childhood innocence and fun is an era I will not feel again, nor see again in Natalie. Another sad feeling, but one I really have no choice but to accept. Thank heaven for all the recorded bits we have of her!

   A lot of sadness and grief in a short time. Playing catch-up I guess, and it is YEARS worth. That's ok. I feel more alive emotionally than going through the motions.

   I am happy to be experiencing these feelings again and to be enjoying a better relationship with my family and myself. So if a couple of animated movies got the tear ducts going, so be it. 

Inside Out

    Whoa, this is a heavy set of baggage when it comes to movies. It’s heavy emotion wise for me, both movies, actually. 

   I know I usually have some witty starter to my entries, but I don’t really feel witty of late. It’ll come back, I am sure, hopefully soon, because writing about “heavy” stuff isn’t my usual style. Of late, I have been bogged down with a lot of emotions. All I can say of that is, IT’S ABOUT DAMN TIME!

   For a long time now, I can’t even pinpoint exactly when it started, I have had an emotional wall around me, a strong one that kept a lot inside. I think it was designed to protect myself from, well, whatever. Not a lot was getting out except a few moments of anxiety. But once those moments were down, the wall repaired itself. 

   I was not even aware there was a wall. I should have been. Looking back on the recent past , I see where I wasn’t being myself, not opening up to people who are important to me, especially my own family.

   Then I saw “Inside Out 2”…and a few days later I saw the first one. The wall crumbled. Slowly at first, but a week later I rewatched some parts of both and after a talk with my counselor, I began to understand that I was finally beginning to feel liberated in terms of feelings.

   I’ve been crying a lot at odd moments. My biggest moment, though was to my daughter. With my wall up, I was sharing things with her that a teenager did not need to hear from her dad. I apologized for that. A moment in the second movie when the main character Riley was having a panic attack struck me immediately and I made the connection to Natalie’s own struggles as a teen. I had no right to add to them.

   And in the first one when Riley is finally able to tell her parents she is sad, wow, I think that moment will elicit tears from me every time I see it. That’s ok, that’s my personal connection. Really, I see that moment in the movie and I want to hug that girl myself and let her know her feelings are normal and right to have.

   Some might think it’s only a Pixar movie, why am I getting so worked up and emotional? I guess the answer is that it had to happen. I have been reading about these movies and that I am not the only one reacting this way.

   The main musical theme in Inside Out is also a touching one for me, evoking a lot of emotions about my daughter and the carefree innocence she once had before becoming a "moody" teenager. Believe me, I feel that sense of loss now regularly. I know that childhood innocence and fun is an era I will not feel again nor see again in Natalie. Another sad feeling, but one I really have no choice but to accept. Thank heaven for all the recorded bits we have of her.

   A lot of sadness and grief in a short time. Playing catch-up I guess.

   I am happy to be experiencing these feelings again and to be enjoying a better relationship with Natalie. She is the best thing I ever created and the best part of me. So if a couple of animated movies get the tear ducts going, so be it. 

Transitions

    About six years ago, I looked at all the rent I paid to landlords over 16 years. It came to about $150,000. What I got from that is, hey, I wonder if we were able to buy a house, would we save some money? Strangely enough, we found a person who worked the numbers and found a way for us to get in someplace. After a very brief search (1 day), we found a house that appealed to us, and after all of the signings and applications and what not, we were homeowners in early August of 2018. In fact, we presented it to Natalie as her big 9th birthday present. Of course, we bought her some other presents, but this was the biggie. 

   And of course, for a few years our mortgage payment was higher than our rent had been so we had to negotiate that with one income. On top of that, our AC unit was old and rusted and needed replacing. Another expense. Plus, the water was crappy, so when a water softener company came knocking, we opened the door and bought. 

   I have no regrets about ANY of this, because I know after a little while, the rent would have become more than we could have handled. I have known for a very long time that with Vickie's health problems she would likely not be able to work again in a traditional job. 

    Having said "no regrets", I think new anxieties came up as a result of the new home dynamic and I did not deal with it well...meaning I did not deal with it in a healthy way at all. My anxieties were turning into sarcasm and anger and Vickie and I fought frequently as a result. And going from a fairly cramped apartment to a decently spacious house, I was able to find some space to "get away" here and there, and often that getaway was on the computer with the headphones on with Vickie watching TV in the same room. We had not fully utilized the loft yet so we were downstairs a lot.

   I am beginning to understand now that my walls were coming up big time at this point. I think I had a similar though shorter-lived period after I got married. Married life was a new thing to me for the first six or seven months, for Vickie, too. We had not talked about the changes we would have to deal with. For a long time, she had the partly negative, partly funny nickname "bachelor teacher guy" for me because even though we were living together for months before getting married, I still had a lot of habits and behaviors from years of being single...MALE single. I still looked up porn on the computer and lef tclothes all around and also said things offhand which I thought were mildly funny but I had not realized made her upset. It was a long period of adjustment. 

   Also in those early days we realized we had something else big in common: bad spending hsbits. I don't remember how many times our bank account got in the negatives back then but it was often, and a fuel for argument, especially at Christmas time. I remember one argument we had after Christmas about funds and I think I moved my body in a way that she thought I was going to hit her and she moved back a bit. I would never have done that to her and it changed a bit how I approached arguing...but not exactly in a healthy way...I just chose to let little bits of anger come out when I felt them but did not find a full release mechanism.

   Coming back to new homeowner days, I was withdrawing without knowing it by early 2019. I was also eating quite unhealthily and not moving a lot. Somehow through all of that I was getting some good blogging done. 

   Not only was I emotionally withdrawing, I was also feeling anger and frustration at work that summer as my bosses did not know what I would be teaching until 3 weeks before we reported back. I was also fearful of a kidney stone procedure coming in late August. Not long after that, we took in a 2 day old kitten that we needed to feed like a newborn, menaing many late night feedings and resulting lack of rest for a month. 

   And then months later COVID came. I was trying to get healthy by eating better and exercising. While this produced some good results, it was creating distance between me and Vickie. She supported what I was doing but she also knew I tended to throw myself head on into things and then crash and feel down about it. Well, time took its toll as I went about my health mission. We slowly got more distant. Well, I got distant, she reacted by buying lives and power-ups for games on her device and buying what seemed like the entire Amazon warehouse. 

   I reacted angrily to those instances which were many and I retreated into many social media platforms and posted and respended to others' posts, really just trying to get attention that I should have been seeking from Vickie. Not necessarily sex but just good 1 on 1 honest communication. She had seen some of what I posted and got very upset, understandably. Natalie had seen me be sneaky on the computer or phone and it affected her as well. And all of my harmful shenanigans were taking a toll of Vickie's relationship with Natalie, resulting in many dinner table arguments and storming off. I did not know how to deal with any of this, how to referee. I shut down even more.

   Bigger shutdowns were happening in 2023 when a debt relief program I had signed up for two years before was showing it had failed and creditors were coming after me. On top of that, an old friend from my early teaching days was drinking herself to death and reached out to me for some kind of help. I had many long phone conversations with her just to keep her alive. She finally went for treatment in late July. When she was fully back on her feet, our conversations continued, but now I was sharing a lot of my grief in life as I saw it then. Once again I was talking to someone else but not my own wife and it was Vickie I was talking and complaining about. My mom was worried about Vickie hurting Natalie and my own frustrations made me lash out about that, too.

   In late November, everything came crashing down as Vickie told me she had seen messages between me and others, particularly the friend and my dad. It was a definite fork in the road on my birthday: sell the house and go our separate ways or work on things just the 2 of us. We chose to work. I was still doing things on social media, not thinking anything of it being damaging, but that was dealt with down the road as well, my need for attention. 

   Wow do I need help!

COVID

    I don't think there has been an era in my life that had as much of a negative effect on my life as the COVID did...or have. I leave that last part ambiguous because I am not entirely sure the whole thing is over.Most people say it is and that there are a just few cases here and there. 

   Either way, it put life into a strange sort of emotional vacuum for me. Well, not an entire vacuum. It left me with feelings of anxiety, obsessiveness, anger, and a good amount of withdrawal. Maybe the better thing to say is a HAPPINESS vacuum.

   Before the whole debacle began, I wasn't doing all that great, either. It's not like the pandemic suddenly thrust me into hell, I was kind of there to start with. My weight was not good and I looked horrible. The summer of 2019 had me diagnosed with a kidney stone and an uncertainty of  what I would be teaching in the fall. Not much exercise going on, either. In fact I remember a photo taken of me and Vickie at the Christmas party at a colleague's house. I looked atrocious. In fact, now when I see a photo of me anytime between 2012 and 2019, I feel a bit sad that I let myself get to that point. Very carb addicted, no self control when there were sweets in the house...and I sought them out at the store. Strange that about 15 years before, I was going to the gym and for a time was looking damn good. Also we had spent a good part of the fall raising a rescued baby kitten from two days old, menaing late night feedings. That had an impact on health as well.

   Right before the 2019 Christmas break, some people at work decided to lead a Biggest Loser challenge for the staff. I figure what was there to lose (except weight). I had already gotten an iWatch for my 47th birthday. The trick was to how to start things right. Someone from back home in Pennsylvania gave me a tip on low carbing my diet. I let the rest of 2019 roll by, getting the bad stuff for the last time for a while. 

   After some early stumbles in terms of my body adjusting (including a bout of gout when I didin't monitor my beef intake), I finally got into a groove of good fats, protein, and low carb snacks. 

   I preface the COVID era with all this because it was what had a major impact for the next few years. 

   In late 2019, I was 226 pounds. By mid March of 2020, I was 202 pounds. A triumph for sure. 

   And then COVID came.

   Well, let's back that up. The various sketchy news reports were starting in early February, translated by Trump as a "no problem, carry on" thing. 

   On March 13, nobody knew what was happening as more cases were reported nationwide and worldwide.

   On March 14, Vickie and I were given tickets for Billy Idol that very night. Not seats, right on the floor standing about ten feet from the man himself! Vickie and I took photos of each other ready for a good time. I was looking so much better than that Christmas party photo already! We had a great time!

   On March 15, Natalie had learned that school was canceled for the next week from her friend's mom and the news came within an hour of that officially.

   The next week was nothing except making sure we had good supplies of necessities in the house. I remember people hoarding water and toilet paper. I just wanted good food in the house.

   For the next two months aside from Spring Break week, we teachers were checking in with our kids weekly, sometimes giving assignments that mattered not whether they were done or not. It was already weird for me. Aside from the well checks and occasional Google Meet, I was doing puzzles and going to the store and watching whatever on the tube. My good eating slipped a bit but not badly.

   After the impromptu "drive thru" 5th grade graduation ceremony in mid to late May, I began what I now consider the insane walking program. It started with some simple walks to the mile-away Starbucks and back. The walks slowly increased to five miles, then six, seven, eight, and finally just one time a ten mile walk! I did this a few times a week, alternating with a "foot rest" day doing practically nothing. 

   All the while, I was still eating pretty well....wait! Not so fast. In my quest for low carb goodies, I got into a bad habit of listening to and reading ads for "healthy low carb" food and snacks. What I did not realize was that many of these snacks were filled with salt, the pork rinds in particular. Still, by July I was down to 185, my lowest in 16 years.

   I had also shaved my head in April, the reasoning being that I hated hair maintenance and if COVID was the end of times, I wouldn't be worrying about hair care. This look would continue for two and a half years.

   Mask mandates began in the summer. They are not missed.

   Our nice next door neighbors moved due to being kicked out unfairly by their landlords.

   In August, we were getting ready for a virtual school year, learning to combine "synchronous leanring time" with "asynchronous learning time" along with creating templates for a system called Canvas that wasn't really used until the next year. For the next three months I taught my kids for small bursts of time on Google Meet, then have a lot of nothing in between. I was sitting in my classroom alone, sometimes going outside for a quick stroll.

   Masks and daily health checks online were mandatory for work.

    And I walked and walked and walked, sometimes going into a short jog for a few feet. I am understanding better now that this was due to a lot of anxiety about myself. One of the things keeping me sane  on the work end was my weekly coffee rotations and brief chats with my friend and colleague Candice.

   In November, on our 14th wedding anniversary, I found out that with the COVID cases on the high rise, all of the teachers were being sent home to work from there for the time being. This was not to be the best time. We had two warring cats that I cussed at in front of my Google Meet. Coffee with Candice was also done as a result until we were all back at school.

   Alex Trebek passed.

   We got new next door neighbors who smoked regularly on their front porch, just 10 feet from our front door. It was to be an acrimonious year and a half.

   My stepdad Don passed on New Year's Day 2021. The odd thing still, to me, is that I shed a few tears when watching Alex's final Jeopardy episode and had not shed a tear over Don.

    In January, Vickie and I got 2 bikes for a total of $100 from an independent seller.

   And a new kidney stone from all of those salty snacks. Tried decaf for a while. Not fun.

   The day after that stone blast, Vickie had a hysterectomy. A week off for both recoveries.

    I finally met all of my kids in person in April. I had met with one over Christmas break at Starbucks. It was a fun almost two months. Even though we were online most of the year, that was one of my best groups ever.

   Another drive through graduation in May.

   With lots of Federal COVID money available, summer school was offered for all of June. I took the whole month for a good amount of pay. Deprived me of a full summer, which in hindsight might have been a mistake. I transitioned from walking to bike rides, including a massive 22 miler one morning, similar to my 10 mile walk a year before. Once again something to prove to myself.

   With that extra money, Vickie and I finally had a chance to stay at one of the Mt Charleston cabins for a night. We also went to Laughlin with our friend Kimberly for a couple of days.

   The new school year began in-person in mid August. Same mask crap, same daily check ins.

   And a new kidney stone from apparently not enough lemon water. Switched back to caffeinated.

   It was around this period, mid to late 2021 that I wasn't acting like myself. Spending way more time online, longer bike rides, avoiding quality family time. Natalie was changing from cheerful kid to  preteen, kind of like Riley in Inside Out.

   In early December, I accidentally backed into the neighbor's car as he was backing into his driveway. Nothing like adding fuel to a cold war!

   In early 2022, all the anxieties over masks, online checkins, available funds and what not, adding in my increasing withdrawal from life, was causing a depression. A few free sessions with a therapist over the phone hit at the iceberg's tip but really didn't resolve anything. My Dad reached out with some money for a fun Spring break and an offer to help with a new car, which came in June.

   Final drive through graduation in May. Mask mandates has gone away unless otherwise directed.

   Only three weeks of summer school offered and taken. 

   Asshole neighbor moved away. Left a bag of cigarette butts in my backyard as a memento.

   In the fall, the daily check-ins went away.

   You'd think with all of that strange hell leaving that I'd be feeling better. I wasn't. In fact, the worst was to come in 2023. 

   I am sure I am not the only person by far who this COVID era traumatized. 

   But then I am also figuring out things started further back than I realized. And it's helping to know that. I'm turning 52 this year and whatever time God has allowed me to have, I want to enjoy that time with my wife and daughter. Before we know it, Natalie will begin to drive and then down the road, leave the nest. I do not look forward to that. 

   Then again, how many parents do?

   To those who made it physically but are struggling emotionally from the COVID era, my heart is with you and wishes you peace.