I am that

I recently wrote about doing too much and trying to be superwoman.  In the short term after the post, the problem got a bit worse, and I blame the work-related training that I attended near the end of April.  It was basically an extended oooh-rah session to get us new scientists excited about working for the organization (and familiar with the rules so that we stay out of trouble).  As the information simmered on my brain over the next week, my struggle to find my familiar balance temporarily worsened.

Familiar balance:  Just do your best, Heather.  You always do a great job.  Good things will come your way.

Ooh-rah balance:  Don't be satisfied with your best.  Try to do one better than your best in everything.  That's how you get promoted.

Decontaminating my brain from the ooh-rah balance has been a slow process, but I'm happy to announce that great strides are being made.  Helpful milestones along the way included:

• I served as an expert in agriculture (specifically agricultural microbiology) and a roundtable moderator at the first ever World Food Prize Iowa Youth Institute.  When I was invited to do this, I thought they were ridiculous to invite me because I don't know anything about agriculture.  Well, it turns out that I actually do know a fair bit about agriculture, and of course I know a lot about some specific things.  Additional useful things about me are that I'm a fast reader (I had to skim a 3-5 page paper in 3 minutes while the student verbally presented it and then ask questions about it, N=20 students), I'm supportive, I'm constructively critical, and I'm a small town success story (the youth were high school-ers from around the state).  Importantly, as I sat in the first of two full rows of experts (N=at least 50 experts) I realized that I was one of the youngest experts and that there were at most 10 female experts.  This showed me that it was important for me to be an expert if for no other reason than to inspire the young women of Iowa.  So I put on my expert shoes, exuded confidence but not too much, and smiled because I love being a scientist.  I am trying to continue walking in my expert shoes.   

• I caught a bit of an episode of Talk of the Nation on NPR the other day about things you won't hear in a commencement speech.  Here's the piece of advice from Charles Wheelan that I internalized: 

It comes from some advice that was actually given to me by a talk show host in Chicago. It's a live TV show. And about 30 seconds before air time, when you're nervous and worried about falling off your stool with everything else, he leans over to the guest and he says, don't try to be great. And the reason it was so effective is that it makes you far less nervous. At that point, you don't have to worry about being the best guest ever. You can say, look, I'll be solid. That was what he says, just be solid, because at that point, it's in your control. You know the material. You don't have to be wonderful. ...

Just be solid.  I love it. 

•  In yoga this week we learned a chant, saying "so" and "hum" silently on every inhale and exhale, respectively.  You breath slowly and deeply, and think these words in your mind while you clear away the mind debris.  It means I Am That.  It means, accept who you are, accept what you do, accept your greatness, accept your perfection.  

• My sister Hilary a baby yesterday!  Babies always put things in the right perspective.  

My stepmom Barbara and I with baby Heath!  He is so wonderful!

I'm not crying

What is with me lately?  It might be my ovaries awakening from my 55-year-old chemo body into my renewed 30-year-old body, but I'm a tad bit sensitive.  However, my sensitivity doesn't feel hormonal, so I'm trying to pinpoint another cause.  The stress of a "normal" life while still having skin pain, arm pain, boyish short hair, etc. is certainly a culprit.  And I think it's highly likely that I have not yet processed this whole cancer thing yet.

For example, the other night I was writing some notes in my Wonder Woman notebook and I had to flip back to reference a previous page.  I was intrigued by what I found on that previous page, and I just kept flipping back and back and back until the beginning on the notebook, which started just after the cancer diagnosis.  The page that got me and jerked out some tears was dated Oct. 27, 2010.  It is almost entirely in my brother's handwriting--the cause of my undoing.  He detailed some of my goings-on:

10:30 pm  lethargic, nervous, drowsy.  Going to try to sleep.  Tummy hurts.
9:30 am 1 prochlor, 1 vitamin, 2 tylenol, 1 vitamin D
12:47 pm 1 ondansetron, 2 tylenol
6:30 pm  1 ondansetron, 2 tylenol
etc.

On the next page are some questions for Dr. Oncologist, in my own handwriting.  One question is, "On major fatigue days, I nap twice and can't do much of anything.  Is that okay?"  Doesn't that just make you want to reach into the past and give me a cuddle?  It kind of breaks my heart.  I had to stop reading.  I kind of can't believe I experienced that.  And the rest of it, too.  

The other example of my sensitivity-slash-need to process the whole cancer thing happened at work.  Before my diagnosis, my boss had planned to host a seminar series in June 2011.  So in January, between chemotherapies, I invited Heidi Goodrich-Blair.  She is an outstanding scientist in the field of microbial interactions and symbioses.  In June she visited, and I was her host.  I packed her schedule with all sorts of exciting meetings with excellent scientists, both at our center and at the university in town.  When the visit was over we embraced, said our thank yous and goodbyes, and I felt like crying.  It was supposed to be this professional, non-emotional work thing, and I felt like crying.  Why?  Because although I had gotten to visit with her, I didn't really get to sit down and talk with her about science?  Because I realized that she represented all of the wonderful people and things and places that were Grad School, and I missed all of them?  Because I realized that cancer had changed me, both professionally and personally, from the person she once knew, and that disappointed me?

The trick to these emotional things, I think, is that I am getting so deeply engaged with my normal life that I am not taking the time to Release these emotional things.  I eagerly bounce from work to kids to friends to family to chores with scarcely a moment for myself.  And I'm not mad at myself, because I think this is a natural response to not doing jack___ for 7-ish months.  The current lifestyle, however, urges me to deny the tears.

"For your information there's an inflammation in my tear gland."  (If this is your first introduction to the Flight of the Conchords I highly, highly recommend that you check 'em out.  Hilarious.)

But seriously, now I think it's time to work some Heather time into the schedule.  To just go sit and watch a sunset somewhere, savoring every dip of that orange globe towards the endless midwestern horizon.

Where should I go, now that my dad no longer lives in the best sunset-viewing house in the universe?  I'm taking suggestions.