Will the cycle be broken?

My friends have always told me I'm a perfectionist. I don't see it. There are so many things I don't do perfectly that it's hard to understand their perspective. Of course, I guess it says a lot about me that I am aware of my imperfections and all the things I don't do perfectly perhaps proving their point.

But recently, I've come to understand that I might just be suffering from perfectionism. Since I've enrolled in small animal massage classes and started working at a hydrotherapy pool for dogs, the perfectionist in my has emerged -- well, emerged more clearly to me.

I am on a steep learning curve. My brain is trying to wrap around learning all the anatomy and kinesiology of dogs at the same time I'm trying to remember all the details of my new job and stay on top of my own business as a dog walker. Because the learning curve is steep, I make mistakes. They are minor mistakes mostly, but to me they feel major. I forgot to take the garbage out at work, for instance, feels like a huge transgression and then not taking the time to schedule a dog into the scheduling book, a big mistake, feels monumental.

I am lucky in that my boss is forgiving and compassionate and in many ways, that's part of the problem. I have the utmost respect for her not only as a business owner and my boss, but as a person. And that's what made me realize my perfectionist tendencies are in overdrive. I want to do a good job both in massage school and at my new job not just because it's my nature to do the best I can (personal perfectionism), but because I so admire the woman I work for and the business she's created. I'm not sure what kind of perfectionism you'd call that, but it's moved my perfectionist tendencies into a whole new realm.

When I make mistakes -- in my work or personally -- I am extremely hard on myself. I eventually can let it go, but it takes time. Now that I feel the need to do an exceptional job because of my high regard for the work of my new employment as well as for the respect I have for my new employer, I am exceptionally hard on myself, which takes a lot more time for me to overcome.

I realized all of this yesterday while I was walking dogs. "Ah," I thought, "This is why I can't let this go!" No one, of course, is in control of this except me. I'm the one who creates all these pressures and while others are willing to forgive and move on (in fact most don't really see any reason to forgive because the transgressions are minor), I can't.

What's most frustrating about all of this is that I've been here before. Not in this exact same position, but similar enough that I bang my head against my fist and scream, "When will I learn?! When will this cycle be broken?" I get frustrated with myself that I haven't yet learned this lesson. Just when I think I've worked through these issues they circle back around and I moan in their arrival. "Not again!"

Apparently, I haven't learned what I need to learn and once again have put myself in a position to face them head on.

Argh!

What Is Seen

Yesterday, on a walk with a dog through an impoverished neighborhood, I came upon this planter box. I had to take a photo. I'd walked this street countless times, but I'd never seen the flowers or their creative "pot." Each day is like this. I walk past the same neighborhoods with one or two or perhaps three dogs on a leash and see something new and interesting -- a house, a car, a yard, a mailbox, a flower -- as if someone were sprinkling presents on the path before me each and every day.

Helicopters woke me last night. They were searching for a suspect, the white of their searchlights tracing the grid of each block. I couldn't sleep. Instead, I got up and watched the helicopters fly their pattern methodically through the sky. My head ached, a migraine knocked at my temples and so I drank a glass of chocolate milk, downed a heavy dose of medication, and waited for the swelling and throbbing in my head to subside. By the time I got back to sleep it was 3:30 in the morning.

In the past -- as in when I was a teacher -- nights like that one would drive me insane. I knew I needed every ounce of energy to survive a classroom day and lack of sleep made it difficult to do my job well. But I'm no longer a teacher and while I'm still grappling with what that means in my life and while I was still irritated that I didn't sleep well, I knew I'd be okay today -- tired, but okay. Which is weird because my work is now much more physically demanding than when I was teaching.

Teaching was all in my head. It was endless hours of questions, of thinking one step (sometimes ten) ahead of what needed to happen next, and of planning for all the options if things didn't go as planned. I came home exhausted both physically and emotionally though I didn't put out much physical exertion. Still my body was tired because of the obstacle course my head had to navigate.

Now the obstacle course is physical. While I must engage my brain to figure out the dog walking schedule of the day, the actual walking is a relatively quiet activity. There are no questions, no need to think about the next activity, no worries about options if things fell apart. There is this dog then that dog and on most days, two or three dogs at once. And then it's off to the hydrotherapy pool where I greet the owners and their dogs, spend an hour in a warm pool encouraging an elderly dog to use an injured limb or thinking with my hands as I massage a nervous, overweight hound.

I lift dachshunds in and out of the pool, maneuver mountain dogs to the side of the pool, and level hounds in the water as they tend to swim vertically at first. I talk softly to scared mutts, ignore nervous Labradors who seek my attention, and cuddle with Newfoundlands whose nature is to trust without much encouragement. After miles of walking all day, the warm pool is an elixir for my tired muscles. There's a meditation to my work, a meditation I never found while teaching. 

And every day there is something new, something unseen before. I found the soft belly of a Bernese Mountain Dog especially comforting last night. She's had the same belly every time she's come in, but last night it was particular warm and inviting. I saw a side of my own dog I never knew before -- the one who allowed other dogs to tackle him like nephews on their favorite uncle. And then later, he remained calm and mature when my boss's Doberman raced around him in blissful puppy joy. A hawk followed me through the park yesterday and the trees seemed to enjoy the cooler weather as much as I did.

There is so much unseen or maybe it's that I've never had the space in my head to be able to see it before. People always ask me if I miss teaching. I really haven't been away from it long enough to really know, but at this point I have to say that I don't. This doesn't mean that I'm not proud of the work I did as a teacher or that I regret my choice to become one. I think it means that I've walked that road to its end and now I'm on a new journey, a new road. I think it means that I've seen the sights I needed to see and am seeking a different landscape I can explore with different eyes.

This road is calmer. This road allows me to breathe and take in the full sensory experience of my life. It's not a better road than the one I walked teaching, it's just very different and if it's better, its betterness comes from the fact that it is the road I need to be on now. It is the road that lets me see what must be seen at this time in my life.

And so I'm tired this morning, but still ready to step into the pool with a nervous hound, an aging Lab, and a sweet and compliant spaniel.  A long day ahead.

The Smell Next Door

It's not a bad smell. No. It's a glorious smell and it reminds me of our vacation to Mexico a few years ago. Mexicans live next door and they have been dancing in the backyard all evening. Oaxacan, they practice the traditional dances of their people and perform them at street fairs throughout the summer. It's fun to watch the line of men (and one woman) hop and skip and laugh as they memorize the steps over and over again.

And then there's a feast. The kitchen, which sits just outside our office, is a flurry of cooks stirring up pots of delicious food that wafts out their windows and into ours. Everyone sits out on the back porch and quietly talks and eats. The music of their dance is as beautiful as the music of their language and my only regret is that I can't speak any Spanish...

...oh and that I can't have a plate of food!

It's too dark to take pictures or I would. I know they wouldn't mind. They see me with my camera all the time and when S. was pregnant (their first child) we snapped photos of her belly's progress. In fact, Ann went over and helped her make a belly cast right before the baby was born. Now the sculpture hangs in the baby room and S. makes jokes about wanting to wear it again just so she can feel skinny.

I'm tired tonight. Big, big day. Not a bad day, just lots of activity. I should go to bed. I'm certain I'll dream of Mexico and maybe I'll even hear the ocean out my bedroom window. That would be nice, but for now I think I'll just have to settle for the smell of Mexico.

And I know...the photo at the beginning of this post has nothing whatsoever to do with the post itself. I just liked the photo!

A Good Tired

I took a nap on the couch this evening after working at the pool. I didn't really want to sleep too much because I worried it would keep me from sleeping tonight, but off I dozed into the ethereal kind of sleep that feels refreshing and drugged all at the same time.

I love taking naps, but I've tried to avoid them lately because then I have trouble sleeping at night. But today, I needed it -- even if the nap only lasted 30 minutes -- I needed it.

Six months ago I never would have imagined myself living the life I'm currently living. Not all that much has changed -- I still live in the same house, with the same woman, the same dog, the same friends who come over to visit, my same family all still alive and well -- but in many ways, everything has changed. Part of it has been difficult. Having been a teacher for so many years, my summers have been mine to craft as I saw fit -- naps were routine and each day I made myself lie down on the couch and feel the glorious dreamy glow fall over me. No papers to grade, no parents to confront, no staff meetings to attend -- yes, glorious.

Now I'm self-employed as a dog walker as well as holding down another part-time job at the pool working to help dogs rehabilitate from surgeries, maintain their mobility, or just strengthen old bones and muscles so that they remain relatively fit in their old age. I work six days a week now and though my days aren't the traditional 8 hours a day, I work hard and the work is physical.

The difficult part is not the jobs, it's not the physical nature of the work or the one day off a week. The difficult part is that Ann, also a teacher, is used to spending her summers with me and the leisure pace of our days were a strong part of our marriage. I know it's hard on her now that I'm gone for long stretches of the day and even harder when the weekends are short and I'm off to work. She doesn't say anything, but I know she misses the "old times" when we were not tied down by anything except our playful plans to swim at the lake or visit friends or see a movie.

She's adjusting, as am I, and while I'm trying not to feel as if I've put a strain on our time together, I fear I have. Yet I'm torn because the work I'm doing now feels so right, so exactly perfect that it's hard to feel any need to change. Ann has never asked that of me nor would she. Instead, she's taken on this amazing role of doing things for me -- things I normally did for her like making me meals or cleaning the house -- and I am immensely grateful for her support.

I suppose this is what makes our marriage strong and steady -- we adapt to what is needed and though it means we must change in ways we are unaccustomed to, we are making the transition relatively well. I've thanked her repeatedly for her support in this move from full time teacher to...to what? Business owner? Massage therapist? Dog walker? I still struggle to define exactly what I am these days and often find myself saying, "I was a teacher" avoiding the thing I am now.

The thing I am now is a good tired. My work is rewarding and exhausting. My work has got me on a steep learning curve and yet each day I feel a little bit more sure of myself, a little bit more accustomed to not being a teacher. It's made time all the more precious. Working with dogs -- on walks or in the pool -- has provided me with so many lessons already, but if there is one that really sticks out it's that living in the now, in the moment is much more fulfilling than the pauses in between the teaching.


I have to remind myself that most people live like this -- working without long vacations, doing a job and then leaving it behind when they head home in the evening. I have to remind myself that living a teacher's life is very different than the vast majority of the working world and while I appreciated the gift of those summer vacations, there's something more powerful living inside of me right now.


The other day I sent my blood pressure numbers to my doctor. We're keeping track as I continue on with the medication she prescribed. My numbers are lower than they've been in years and I jokingly told her it's either the medication or retiring from teaching -- I'm not sure which. She smiled and said that whatever I was doing I should keep it up because it was working.


I think what's working is me. I think what's right is that I'm on a path that feels true. Not that teaching didn't feel true in many ways -- especially after 23 years of it -- but this true feels deeper on some levels. As a teacher, I always doubted myself and while the doubt raised my blood pressure and gave me sleepless nights, it also drove me to be better, to give more, to overcome my insecurities by striving to be the best teacher I could possibly be.


Now I still have doubts -- especially with the dog massage -- but instead of the doubt defining me or driving me forward like it did in teaching, this doubt feels more like an opening up of sorts -- an allowing, as it were, to live at a different pace and see that not knowing is as important as knowing, that the angle of the learning hill is all the sweeter when I'm not so worried about getting to the top but more focused on this moment's step.


I know, I know. It sounds Oprah. It sounds like a self-help book filled with gibberish and impossibilities that only the wealthy have time to afford, but when I come home from six days of hard physical work where I've exercised dogs either on long walks or at the pool and I feel this good kind of tired, I know I've found something I've been looking for all of my life. Not only is it in the work I do, but it's in this house, in this marriage, with these friends, with my extended family. It all feels like a circle that's finally connected and I just want to hold it for awhile.


Enough of this sap, eh? I'm off to bed.

Dead Battery

I'm reclining in a faux-leather recliner sofa looking out over the Willamette Valley's walnut groves and mountain horizons while my brother lies snoring in the recliner chair. We are relaxing after a too big of breakfast and not much exercise. It's nice, but I'm bummed because my camera has a dead battery and the spare is still charging at home -- 200 miles away. I took a total of three photos before it died and those three didn't turn out so well.

I'm not sure why I miss my camera so, but I keep seeing things that I wish I could take a picture of only I can't. My sister-in-law's point and shoot just doesn't cut it and there's no way to catch the hummingbird on the flower with a lame lens. So all the photos I want to take aren't getting taken (took?) and my hands feeling itchy with the desire to frame something beautiful within the lens.

All morning I've been trying to figure out how to set up google calendar with different colors only it isn't happening. They only offer me one color, which isn't going to work for the purposes I need and it's frustrating. It seems like such a simple request -- multiple colors -- but maybe it's just me -- not tech-savvy enough to figure it out.

So the next step is to use the 60 day free trail for Mobile Me. That might do the trick, but then what? If I like it then I pay money to use it? Seems a bit like a scam.

Frankly, none of this is what I want to think about, or write about yet here I am in this beautiful house with the beautiful view -- my brother snoring beside me, my dog impatiently resting at my feet, and my partner asleep in that sad way she does with her mouth turned down at the other end of the couch -- and I'm thinking about calendars and my dead battery.

I guess I don't know what to do with my free time. I haven't had much of it lately and now that it's here, I've napped some, taken a couple of walks, and even watched a rather ridiculous movie. I think this is called vacation.

Okay, I best go play fetch with the restless dog before he wakes up all the napping. If only I had my camera to take a photo of it all!

Taking the Test

I am on my final chapter of my animal massage course. It's all about First Aide. I feel pretty confident, but I have yet to log in and take it. I'm too tired right now, my brain feels like cold oatmeal. So in the meantime I'm studying -- rereading and rechecking all the details I sometimes forget or overlook.

Once I pass this test, I must write a paper and take a week-long practical and then the first course is done. The next will be/should be more involved, but frankly I haven't been impressed with the rigor of this program. Maybe it's because I was a teacher for so many years or maybe it's because I paid so much money to take the course or maybe it's just me, but this course hasn't really prepared me for massaging dogs.

What's prepared me is my work at the pool where I get to actually work with dogs and apprentice with my boss who is, in my humble opinion, a great teacher. I wish I could have paid her the money I'm paying the school, but these are the hoops I must jump through in order to continue on in my new career.

It feels odd to call it a career. Teaching was a career, but I suppose at the beginning of it I didn't see it that way either. Twenty some odd years later, I can call it a career -- a profession even -- but I don't know if I'll have the same feeling with this new direction in my life. Maybe it's because I'm over 50 and I don't have a lot of role models in my life who have changed careers at this age. Or maybe it's because I'm really enjoying my new work and since it took me about five years to relax and enjoy my job as a teacher, I'm having a hard time believing that something so joyous can actually be a profession.

I'm rambling this morning -- another result of cold oatmeal brain -- but I guess the point is that I keep waiting for all of this to sink in. I am no longer a classroom teacher (with my summer's off, which is truly something I miss). I am a dog walker and K9 hydrotherapist -- well, not yet since I first have to finish the course -- but I'm on my way to being a hydrotherapist and every morning I still wake up and pinch myself. "Is this really my life?"

The cold oatmeal is warming up. I best go take my test!