Writing | BulgingButtons

May 28, 2014
by BulgingButtons 11 Comments

All or Nothing Has Got to Go

I don’t know where we get the “all or nothing” attitude. I suppose it stems from perfectionism. If we can’t do it all, why bother doing anything? But that thinking is flawed, and it keeps us stuck.

I’ve been thinking about this as a negative, but let me turn it to the positive for a moment. I’m a “big picture” kind of person. A while back I had a principal who provided the whole staff with Strengthsfinder 2.0 books, and we all took the test to find our strengths. I wasn’t terribly surprised to find that my strongest came out as “ideation.”

According to the Strengthsfinder folks, “People strong in the Ideation theme are fascinated by ideas. They are able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena.” In other words, I see things as part of a whole, and can envision how they all connect together. This is very helpful when I’m planning lessons and units in school, when I’m renovating parts of my home, or when I’m designing a quilt.

The flip side of this, for me anyway, is that I sometimes get lost in the details. I know what I want the whole thing to look like and how I want it to function, but all the little bits and pieces of making it happen sometimes trip me up. That’s where I get stuck.

Instead of writing a whole novel, I need to start with an outline. Instead of cleaning the whole house, I need to wash the dishes. Instead of losing 100 pounds, I need to go for a walk. Breaking down these big goals into smaller, more manageable ones, isn’t hard, it just doesn’t come easily or naturally to me. I want to do it all, and I want to do it now. I know that’s not realistic for large goals, so I tend to do nothing instead. How crazy is that?

I have to stop myself and make myself hear how ridiculous I’m being. I would never expect a student to get an idea for a research paper then turn in that finished paper the same morning. I wouldn’t expect my son to take up a new sport and be and expert at it in the same week. I wouldn’t expect my dog to master a new behavior the first time she tries it. So why do I expect so much of myself?

I CAN lose a hundred pounds. It will take a long time and I will get tripped up along the way, but I have to expect that and forgive myself and keep moving forward. I CAN be a published author, but not if I don’t hone my craft and submit my writing to publishers. I CAN keep my home neat and tidy, but not if I don’t spend 5 minutes here and 10 minutes there to keep up with it.

Many imperfect steps in the correct direction will lead me far further down the path I wish to travel than just a few perfect steps. I have to keep this in mind and just keep moving. Living in a state of inertia, while easy, holds no rewards. With risk comes reward, and with work comes success. Wish me success and I try to learn this lesson over and over again.

May 18, 2014
by BulgingButtons 9 Comments

Check Me Out – But Not Too Closely

Blog stats are a funny thing. They can give a blogger a sense of what people are interested in reading, and they can practically make a blogger (ok, me) giddy when they spike. I want to be read! I also get a kick out of checking out the map. I enjoy it when people from far-flung places visit, even if I suspect the majority of them aren’t actually reading the content.

That being said, I still have to write content that’s worth reading. My dear readers, I know I’ve been missing that mark more times than hitting it lately. What can I say, other than, I’m sorry? I promise to try harder.

Still, you continue to hang with me, and some of you are even getting out your tool belts and rolling up your sleeves to dig around BulgingButtons to unearth some oldies but goodies. I think it’s often the catchy titles that attract readers to start with. Some of the posts with the most hits have odd titles, like “Goodbye Zebra Mules,” and “The Devil, Karma, and Frito Pie.” Hopefully, though, you enjoy more than just the title.

Hopefully you enjoy reading about my daily ups and downs, and the perils of being a fat girl in a skinny (or desperately trying to be skinny) world. Today’s fat girl problem: the shelf. You know, that place along the boob line where dropped food always seems to hit before careening off into the unknown (or just settling there).

As I write, I am wearing yet another shirt with a stain along the shelf. Why? Because salad dressing stains. Yes, I got it on myself while I was at lunch with my friend. The food never goes straight down when it falls off the fork (and why exactly does it fall off the fork in the first place? I don’t know). It invariably hits the shelf and leaves a tell-tale mark, which, 90% of the time leaves a stain.

This is why fat women wear prints. The stains are far less noticeable on a print than they are on a field of solid lavender (like the shirt I have most recently stained). This is also why this fat girl hates to spend much on shirts or dresses. About 1 in 5 never make it past the first wearing. 20% people! This is a distressingly high statistic. It’s alarming, really.

What can be done? I don’t know. A better fork? Less messy food? IV fluids only? It seems like there are some options out there. This problem needs a solution, and it needs it fast, because I’m running out of clothes, and I really don’t want to go shopping.

March 3, 2014
by BulgingButtons 4 Comments

Stuck on Hope

My boy ten years ago.

I have this writing assignment that I have to do. It’s way overdue. In fact the course ended. Still, I want to do the assignment. My teacher is a friend and amazing writer herself. She has been overly patient with me. Maybe I need a swift kick in the rear to get it done. I WANT to get it done. I just can’t seem to do it.

I think I’m stuck on the prompt. The focus of the class is using the experience of parenthood as a framework for writing. The particular prompt I’m stuck on is “hope.” It seems too big. It seems too vague. How on earth do I even poke a stick at this one?

I imagine that the idea is to form some sort of concrete response to the prompt as it applies to my son. I tried this approach, but it seemed stilted and dishonest. Yes, I have lots of hopes for him, but they all came out as a kind of bland pablum. I couldn’t bring any passion to the piece. It worried me.

Am I a bad mother? Do I truly believe the things I wrote? Why wasn’t there any fire to the piece? It could have been written by any parent for any child. It didn’t seem connected to me or my son at all. In fact, it seemed as impersonal as a piece of trendy wall art picked up from the local craft store. You know the ones with the pithy sayings? Of course you do. You may even have them in your home. If you do, I’m sorry for not agreeing with your design aesthetic. Live, Laugh, Love. Yeah, right. If only it were that easy. Some days it just isn’t.

What it boils down to is this, I hope he knows, really knows deep in his core, that I love him and that I’ve always done the best I could for him. I hope he understands that although I mess up in a hundred different ways every single day, I believe that the choices I make are ones that will ultimately help him to be a successful person. I hope he figures out all the stupid stuff that life throws at him, and I hope he manages, somehow, to get his grades up so he has as many options for his future as possible. I hope he understands that he has options. Maybe that’s not personal enough, but it feels pretty personal to me.

I hope that boy grows to be a man that the boy can admire. I hope he remembers his worth and his sense of kindness and his playfulness. I hope he navigates acne and braces and learning to drive and making smart choices without too many permanent scars. I hope his life is rich and fulfilling. I hope he loves and is loved deeply. I know, it’s starting to sound sappy again. I can’t help it. I love that boy. I hope, no matter what comes his way, he always remembers that.