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All of the Feels

It always happens that right after I tell my therapist how great I’m doing I have a shit storm of a week. This time I felt so confident in how life was going I didn’t even schedule another appointment!

My life is a roller coaster and this week has been riding though loops. I feel both amazing and terrible all at once. I’m feeling joyous, excited, motivated, energized, while also feeling terrified, shameful, sad, hurt, and anxious. I have all my plans and all my doubts all wrapped up into one little me.

I know a big part of it was going on thyroid medication.

I’ve spent the last two years basically feeling like crap all the time. Very low energy, slow metabolism, anxiety, depression, nonspecific pain, and just feeling down for no apparent reason. A few months ago my new doctor finally helped me find an explanation, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, a not uncommon disease, and especially not surprising considering my family history of autoimmune disease. I knew someday one of them would catch me. My thyroid function isn’t actually all that terrible (according to the labs), but being the sensitive person I am, just it being a little off has affected me in big ways. So my doctor put me on a very low dose of synthetic thyroid hormone.

After a few weeks of being on my new daily pill I started feeling amazing! I was calm and comfortable in my own skin. I was motivated and energized. I felt like a new me! But a few weeks later, as the hormone built up in my body, it was too much. I started having anxiety again, but it felt different, it was more like hyper active anxiety instead of depressive anxiety. For several nights I did not sleep well and the days in between were the worst, tired but unable to rest and full of anxious energy. I emailed my doctor and after talking to me she decided to discontinue the meds. I’ve only been off a few days and it takes time for the hormone level to come down, so hopefully in a few more days I’ll start to feel more “normal” again. Whatever that means. Then we will be starting a small dose of “natural” pig thyroid to see how I do on that.

At the same time as all this I’m changing my diet. I’m totally gluten-free at this point and working toward grain free, for the month of January I’m going to attempt to follow the autoimmune protocol. If nothing else I know that will help my blood sugar, gut issues, and overall health. Eating more veggies and less sugar is never a bad thing!

I don’t know what it is about telling my therapist that life is great that always proceeds a rough week. Maybe thats the cycle of life, life is always going to have ups and downs so inevitably a period of a few good weeks will be followed by lower or more difficult period.

I do feel like I need to go in less often regardless. I’ve learned so many tools and I’ve used them well this week. I know the things that help me and ground me. I’ve been doing yoga, skateboarding, reading, writing, breathing, and it helps! Talking to Ace has been really important as well, sometimes I just need to get my thoughts and feelings out into the world and he’s been a fantastic listening ear this past week (not to mention all the great sex).

I don’t feel like I’m done with therapy, its been huge in my personal growth and I never want to stop growing, but its nice to look at my life and see that some of these things are becoming habits. I can see better when I’m anxious and what I need to do to help myself though it. I feel more confident in my own skin and like I’m more often doing the best I can with what I have. Looking at my life and seeing growth is an important step sometimes and right now I’m taking a little breather from therapy and focusing on my physical health.

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“I’m Going to be a Writer!”

The past few months have been an exercise in patience as I wait for a potential space for Stronger Skatepark to be ready for occupancy. As of this writing there is no date in sight, as the owners of the space are slowly jumping though legal hoops before the city will grant them the permits to begin construction on the ADA bathrooms they need to be approved for occupancy. Long story short, this space will not be available for several months.

In the meantime I found another potential home for the park in Milwakie. It is much closer to my home and needs far less work before we can move in. This space has kept me up at night again, fully renewing my passion for this project. I can’t sleep becuase I’m designing ramps in my head, thinking of the best way to make a 7500 square foot space both friendly to beginners while being big enough and fast enough to keep veterans like myself entertained during the long winter months.

Its been a full two and half years since I started working on Stronger. Its been over a year since I started looking for buildings. I honestly thought that getting funding would be the hardest part, but it hasn’t been. Finding a building has been exponentially more difficult. Strict occupancy rules and high fees in Portland have pushed me to neighboring cities, where empty large spaces are in short supply.

I wax and wane in my involvement in my own social media for the project, feeling like a failure as I have nothing to post. I’m still here working away at this, but it just hasn’t materialized yet. Having the support of my ramp designer and builder has been absolutely key to my not giving up. As I apologize for dragging him to yet another space, and asking him so many of the same questions again, “Would this space work?”, “Can we fit a mini ramp in here?”, “Would we need to put in our own flooring?” he reassures me, “Its fine, I don’t mind at all!” and “I think you are doing this the right way, taking your time to find the right space.”

It doesn’t feel right to me, I want results, I want a tangible skatepark. The one that fills the gap Portland still has; something larger than commonwealth, friendly to beginners, clean, safe, and close to town, a place to hold contests and other community building events, a place where the skate community can gather under one roof, a place that can bring us together. “Together we are Stronger” thats the whole idea. This has been needed in Portland since before I lived here, since Department of Skateboarding closed its doors in 2010.

Along with the frustration of the slowness of my vision to materialize is my frustration that I don’t have a career to be working at while I’m waiting. In the past I’ve been a children’s pastor, a nanny, I’ve worked in my families restaurant, I worked in a skatepark as a teen, I’ve worked with animals in several capacities, and currently I’m hustling in that new gig economy, primarily delivering food with Caviar.

To be honest, I don’t hate it, I actually like it. I spend hours driving while listening to podcasts and music. I’m introverted and often feel refreshed after a shift, spending five or more hours almost totally alone, with only a few short words to restaurant employees and customers. I’ve learned that usually customers don’t want to talk to me, and that is just fine. But its not paying the bills, the hours are limited, and I’m working almost exclusively when my child is not in school, evenings and weekends.

While driving I often find my mind wandering away from whatever podcast is playing and I start thinking. I can spend a lot of time thinking, planning, finding problems with my plans and ideas and refining them and suddenly realize I need to start my podcast over completely. Gui Raz has been droning on in the background for thirty minutes about art art and I didn’t catch a damn thing, I’ve been exploring every career possibility in my head.

After a lot of thinking and probably not enough research I’ve decided to try and develop my writing skills and look for some freelance writing jobs. Its a skill I already have, and one I feel very comfortable in. One of my earliest jobs was writing for a website, with weekly live call-ins to an internet radio show. I was 13 and it was 1999. Each week I would write about something related to skateboarding, usually a review of a product sent to me, or an overview of an event happening at my local skatepark. I would report on demos coming to town, contest results, new skateparks opening, and I got paid in lots and lots of free stuff. I loved it.

In high school, I was consistently praised for “my natural wiring voice” and in college I continued to excel at writing, without trying all that hard. Honestly, I’m excited about taking some time to refine my writing skills further. I’m hoping that I can attempt to develop these skills and make some money along the way and maybe some day have a real career I can lean on when my crazy passions aren’t panning out as hoped.

Again, long story short, if anyone knows any writing gigs that would fit my interests and passions (skateboarding, alternative education, spirituality, personal growth, small business) please send them my way, or throw my name out there. I’d appreciate it. I’m officially throwing my name out there!

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I wear glasses now, so you know I fit that writer stereotype.