Thursday, September 10, 2015

The thing about my power bill

I like to think of myself as a pretty environmentally aware person. I listen to a lot of NPR, I don’t litter, I recycle whenever possible, I turn off the lights when I leave a room, we have a Subaru (you know, ALL the tenets of an environmentalist) (not sure why "NPR listener" makes a difference, but I'm just going with it.) (I don't, however, own a Prius.) I may not be winning a prize anytime soon, but I try and be a good steward of the resources.

Which brings me to my power bill. In an effort to get people to conserve, every other month I get an extra page in my bill. It lists my account information and shows a terribly distressing graph of three categories of neighbors:

  • Energy efficient neighbors (who get a green bar! They are amazing human beings.)
  • Other neighbors (who get a blue bar. Not amazing, but still…in comparison.)
  •  Me. (Blackish-grey bar. Basically, a piece of shit.)

I cannot tell you how hot and bothered I get by this energy shaming. I walk around my house and look for a hidden, giant, energy-hogging appliance. I unplug chargers and electric blankets. I worry that someone is siphoning our power in a secret, government-backed project to get humans on Mars. (OK, not really on the last one…but still.) Where is this usage coming from? What is wrong with me that I can’t be the green bar person, or at least the blue bar person? Why am I the 78th person out of 100 in my neighborhood? How does this happen?

Maybe it’s a publicity stunt. Maybe the difference between the 2nd and 78th person out of 100 is less than .01%. I don’t know and my power company certainly isn’t going to be telling me any time soon.

The most important fact is that I can pay my damn bill. I might not like it, but I can pay it.

I talked with Amy about it a few weeks ago. She said her bill is the same, and she finds it every bit as bewildering. Together, we made a pact not to worry about our energy-shaming bills. I vowed to her that I will always dispose of this document in the least environmentally-friendly way possible, just to be spiteful. It would be fun to say that I will roll a blunt with it; fortunately, I’m not currently doing drugs, so that won’t happen. Maybe I’ll let Ben tear it into strips and burn it with a magnifying glass. I don’t know – I’m going to have to explore ways and means. Shredding is always an option. But I’m not going to let that piece of paper bother me anymore.


I am more than that blackish-grey line, dammit.

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

One week later.

I look back and think of how long I've felt on edge and I wonder. The past few years have been tough. A lot of big things happened, and a lot of little things happened, and they all affected me. I've felt like a top. I spun along happily and unhappily for a long time. I've felt wobbles - spiritually, emotionally, mentally, physically, socially - that set me off. I kept trying to self correct, to get back to spinning. For the most part, I was very successful, but I still felt those wobbles deeply. I think that this summer, for whatever reason, I finally just stopped spinning. It felt like I would never spin again. I couldn't even remember how to spin, and the thought of trying to pretend to the world that I was still spinning was one of the most frightening things I've ever encountered.

A few weeks ago I met with a therapist. It was supremely unhelpful. I'm sure that he was well-qualified and probably had a lot he could have done for me, but I wasn't impressed. After 45 minutes of talking over what had gotten me into his office in the first place, he looked at me and asked, "So, what do you want to do?" To say I was let down is an understatement. Isn't that what he was supposed to tell me? I mean, I know he can't tell me what to do, but some guidance would have been helpful. Armed with a few pages of recommended self-help books, I left.

However, that hour wasn't totally unhelpful. While talking, I realized that one of the things that has always kept me spinning has been by looking for approval. I can explain this best from the perspective of my time as a gymnast. To get along during a workout, the trick was to do everything as perfect as possible in order to stay out of trouble. Very little that I did went by unnoticed: my toes weren't pointed, I bent my legs, I didn't cast all the way to handstand, I held back on a tumbling pass, I didn't complete the twist, I fell off the beam, etc. When things were bad, coaches yelled and threatened and told me to get out of their faces, only to expect me to come back a few minutes later, confessing what I did wrong, and promising to do better. When things were good, I got praise and approval. There was some in-between with some coaches or events, but mostly it was all or nothing. Good or bad. And so I got used to reaching for approval from the outward things I did, to being rewarded when I followed the rules.

Of course, real life isn't the same. I don't always get praise for doing something well, or for following the rules. Doing outward things doesn't win other's love or approval. I know that. But sometimes I forget and I revert to that person. I have a hard time letting go. I like structure and rules and when I feel like they aren't being followed, I find it hard to keep spinning. 

I know that this part of my personality has contributed to getting me to where I was last week. I'm so glad to say that I'm feeling a lot better this week. After all of my bravery, I ended up talking with my doctor on Tuesday (after a truly awful night on Monday) and I'm now taking something for my anxiety. It's helping. My days are better, and my nights are getting there. I still have a very hard time turning off my brain. But I'm not as anxious about the lack of sleep, and that helps.

We spent Sunday night in Park City. It was such a nice way to finish off the summer. Although I still felt edgy at times, I enjoyed the time away. I'll admit I was super anxious about staying in a hotel room with insomnia. But it worked out. Life is hard. It's hard to spin. It's hard to spin for yourself and for others. But it's necessary. I have people who need me, and I'm grateful they do.