Confessions of a Travel Addict

Organizing the Spice Rack

2025-12-28T19:13:32.332-08:00

Hello Invisible Audience,

Elizabeth Gilbert said once that the first step to writing a book was organizing the spice drawer in your kitchen.

In my case, the steps it took to sit down to write to you were many. I had to finish unpacking boxes from when I moved in May. I had to shred a bunch of files I didn’t need to keep from 10 years ago when I unpacked those boxes. I needed to clean my house and make food for lunches for the week. I had to organize my bookshelf by author. And this morning, I had to reconcile my books for the two businesses I don’t really run anymore so that I’m ready for tax season. Oh yeah, and I had to get through my first semester of grad school, and take my car in multiple times because suddenly the gas tank wouldn’t let me put gas in it. Despite the fact that I drove 7 hours round trip in the pouring rain, the new battery I got for my laptop hasn’t kept the thing from draining to dead in a couple hours, so I’ve spent far too many spare minutes with customer service trying to figure out what the fuck is going wrong while every single one of those customer service people has tried to sell me a new laptop instead.

God I miss writing, Invisible Audience. I told someone the other day that there is no doubt in my mind what I am on earth to do, and it is to write. Which feels silly to say, when AI has taken over that little pastime for everyone. When I am working so hard doing everything but writing. But there’s also a very important reason why I had to do all those things I talked about before I got to the part where I could actually write to you, Invisible Audience.

It's because this isn’t fucking working.

Six little words. They look so nonchalant, don’t they? The way they’re just marching across the page, as if I didn’t spend months procrastinating because it felt so hard to write them. As if the courage it took to type those words, one letter at a time, didn’t include some ice cream multiple weekends of anxiety and some walks and swims and who-knows-what-else while I first tried to feel my feelings and now to write them out loud, to you, after months of radio silence.

Because this isn’t fucking working.

If I’m going to be honest, it feels like I’ve been in an abusive relationship with the American Way my whole life and it’s finally coming to the point where I’m admitting that the relationship is dead in the water. What am I saying? I’ve flirted with other countries multiple times—even found some happiness abroad—only to be pulled back to what is familiar. But I’ve just spent 460ish words to get to the point, so here it is:

I am working part time. I am trying to go to school part time. I cannot afford to live off the amount I make, mostly because of medical expenses, which went up $600 a month when I got my job and was making more money than I had been. I cannot afford to pay for school with what I make, and despite applying for about 30 scholarships, I didn’t get enough to even cover a single semester’s worth of tuition, so I am relying on student loans if I want to do this program. They are already accruing interest. I tried working a second job during the semester, and almost wore myself back into chronic fatigue. I went to the dentist and they said the reason my gums were bleeding so much was probably because of stress.

But here’s the thing, Invisible Audience: people do this shit all the time. People work full time and go to school full time. They take out student loans to go to school. And if they talk about how much that sets everything back—as far as saving for retirement, having time to enjoy their lives, even managing a healthy balance—it must be in rooms that I’m not in. Because it doesn’t fucking work.

It may be because I am trying to do this to create better financial stability, but here I am, forty-four years old, wondering how exactly I’m supposed to save anything substantial for retirement when I am trying to pay off debt from both student loans and the time I spent trying to keep afloat with chronic fatigue.

Do you see why I feel gaslit, Invisible Audience? When I was shredding those files I mentioned earlier, I found medical bills from 10 years ago—because, if I’m honest, there really hasn’t ever been a time when there weren’t medical expenses. Trying to juggle all these pieces at once is actually impossible, yet even admitting that makes me feel like I’ve failed in some important way. What about my boot straps? What’s wrong with me that I can’t seem to pull myself out of this huge, deep, messy hole with them? I am already trying to figure out what needs to change to make my life more manageable. But damn it if it doesn’t feel like my choices are a Catch 22. Do I leave the town and community I love so much to try and find somewhere new in a different country, where medical costs—and probably school costs—won’t be as high? Or do I stay here, try to make it work, and just pretend like I’m not about to drown?

Love and spicy kisses,

Morgan

Can We Talk About Death?

2025-06-29T11:28:00.000-07:00

Hello Invisible Audience,

It’s been a really long time. I want to apologize, but I won’t. I haven’t had the energy to write, and that’s all there is to it. However, in the last month or so I’m finally feeling a lot better and different than I have been, so I wanted to write.

And why tiptoe in? Why not dive?

Today I want to talk about death.

Recently, a friend recommended a book to me that I can’t stop thinking about: The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett. It is an amazing book, about a woman in her 80s who spent most of her life taking care of her mother, never married, and has decided she is going to go to Switzerland to a clinic that helps people who want to die.

She starts the application process, and is simultaneously swept up in friendships with two of her neighbors—one a young girl who recently moved in next door with her family—after spending many years mostly alone. The book is beautifully written. It flashes back to some very hard things she went through in her life that have shaped her into the cantankerous, judgmental woman she has become.

Yet throughout the book—there are some spoilers here, so if you want to read it, you might go do that first—her hard exterior is slowly chipped away by these friendships and she slowly becomes a lot more of a caring, feeling human than she appeared at first.

Nevertheless, she’s decided she will be less of a bother if she goes ahead with the assisted death, so she lies and tells these people who care about her that she’s going on a trip. Her friend Stanley takes her to the airport, and as they sit and have a final coffee, he finally gets her to tell him why she’s going to Switzerland.

He says a lot to her, but one word in the dialogue stood out to me, Invisible Audience.

Coward.

He called her a coward for leaving. For not trusting that her friends would want to be there for her in her last moments—that they wouldn’t take care of her.

Since I’ve already spoiled some of the main points of the book, I’m going to spoil the ending: she stays, and dies at home, with her friends around her.

There’s a reason this book hit home for me, Invisible Audience. It’s because I have thought about doing the same thing when I am old.

A big difference between Eudora Honeysett and I is that she lives in the UK, where they have a lot more social services available for a lot less—or zero—money. I do not live in the UK. I have a friend in assisted living nearby who is paying $5000 a month to basically live in a motel room that offers three meals a day and will come to her aid if she falls or needs help; where she can stay until she dies. She chose this place after her husband died, knowing full well that she has dementia, because she didn’t want to burden her son by living with him on a property that would be hard for her to get around on because it’s rocky and uneven and she uses a cane, to say nothing of how hard things will be when her dementia gets worse.

She has a choice I do not have, Invisible Audience, because if assisted living is $5000 a month now, there is no way I will be able to afford it when I am her age in 40 years. And I don’t have the choice of whether or not to live with a child.

I spent nearly all my savings and went into significant debt trying to heal from Lyme Disease. In hindsight, most of that money was wasted, but there was no way to know that until I tried every possible thing to get better—when the system is so broken that paying for help was the only way I could find any, let alone get someone to even consider Lyme Disease as a possible reason for my huge array of symptoms. And thankfully I’ve recently found some things that have given me back my working memory and executive function, but only after spending about a year terrified that I had early-onset dementia myself. Dementia, more than physical deterioration, scares the ever-loving shit out of me: how will I advocate for myself if I can’t remember who or where I am?

To be honest, the whole reason I’m looking at going back to school in the fall is to try and create some financial stability in the second half of my life that I haven’t found in the first half. But after looking at the debt I’ve accumulated and savings I’ve spent trying to get better, I am still not looking at spending retirement in style somewhere. And after all the health problems I’ve had already, it feels foolish to assume I will be in good enough health to take care of myself as I grow old.

Does it seem so strange that I am relieved there is a way to choose my own death, knowing all those factors? That, if I get a dementia diagnosis and they have yet to find a cure, I have an option that will give me the peace of mind of knowing I will not be stuck in a terrible facility with sub-par care because it’s for people who can’t afford to be anywhere else?

Does that make me a coward, Invisible Audience, or simply a realist?

The average life expectancy of someone in the U.S. is about 78 years, so I’m over halfway there. Sure, there’s a lot that can change in that time. But can you blame me, in the current political climate, where social services are being slashed, for wondering what will happen to me when I’m too old and potentially ill to take care of myself?

I am not going to make platitudes now to make you feel better, Invisible Audience. As a single woman with no kids, I think about this a lot. It has felt like a secret I’ve kept to myself—my fear, and shame that I haven’t been able to create more financial security for myself already. But I can’t be the only one thinking about this. I am certainly not the only one that our policies affect. And if it’s cowardly to consider traipsing off to a foreign country to end my life on my own terms, it is also cowardly to pretend it is not something I consider to be a better option than many I have available to me.

Love and somewhat cowardly kisses,

Morgan

P.S. Thanks for reading, Invisible Audience member. Interested in reading more and supporting me in the process? Check out my profile on Patreon. Pledge as little as $1.50 a month to get access to more of my ponderings and become one of my Semi-Invisible Patrons. When I can't find time to post both here and on Patreon, I prioritize posts on Patreon--there's always more to read there.

The Writing On the Wall

2024-12-23T11:52:00.000-08:00

Hello Invisible Audience,

On Friday, December 13, I taught my last Spanish class.

I can’t say with 100 percent certainty that it will be the last one I ever teach, but it seems rather likely that’s the case at this point. And I’ve had a hard time sitting down to tell you about it.

I always knew that owning my own business teaching Spanish classes was not something I’d do forever. Part of that is just self-awareness—I’ve held a lot of jobs in my life, and lived a lot of places. It seemed likely I would either change professions or move again, or both. I also knew it wasn’t a recession-proof business model, and while I was proud of myself for being able to know that, I have to admit: it didn’t help when things started to go downhill.

I don’t think there’s a single reason that things stopped working. I think it’s likely some of the reasons were not something I could control, and some of them were. Although inflation is cooling, it does not change the fact that costs are much higher than they were several years ago. I had to raise my prices like everyone else. I also had a very long, significant health scare that ate up most of my savings, which left me less I could fall back on when enrollment dropped. At one point, I was teaching 80 kids a week. This fall, I was teaching 35. That’s a significant difference, but I couldn’t bring myself to hustle at finding more ways to increase revenue within the Spanish class sphere. And that, ultimately, is what really brought about the end: the realization that I was relieved there were less kids to teach, even as I started to panic about how I would make ends meet.

I’ve quit things before, Invisible Audience. Jobs, sure, but also businesses. I stopped selling the cookbooks I’d compiled and moved toPanama. It was one of the most painful and necessary things I’d done up to that point. And I feel like I’m standing in another similar place: as much as I enjoyed teaching local kids Spanish for a lot of years, at some point I had to admit it was not working anymore and move on.

I recently ran into someone I know who used to be a farmer. Now she’s a biologist, and her kids were some of the first ones I taught. When we talked about me closing my business, I told her that I knew she understood, because she and her husband had had to make a similar decision when they stopped farming. “We probably should have stopped sooner,” she said.

I’ve thought about that a lot, because it’s a summary of what happened. It barely touches the surface on what a decision like that can entail. I have no idea what it looked like inside their decision, but I do know a lot of what it looks like inside of mine.

The first time I admitted out loud to a group of people that I knew I needed to stop teaching and it made me sad, I cried.

On one of my last days of class, when I was getting over a cold and had half lost my voice and a kid wasn’t listening to me, I was grateful it was going to be over.

When one kid leaned against my leg while we waited for the rest of the students in another class on a bus that was late, I felt my heart tear a little bit.

When another kid needed helping blowing their nose for the umpteenth time in an hour, I swore I’d never teach kids again.

When several kids handed over thank you cards, I wanted to weep.

When I’ve thought about telling you about my decision to stop, Invisible Audience, all I’ve felt is numb.

It’s so hard to encompass into a sentence: the summer camps in a fellowship hall without air conditioning; the countless times the kids have made me laugh, or cry. The things those kids have taught me, even when I didn’t appreciate the lesson. The ones who came in eager to please and the ones who came in with their own ideas about what class should look like. The things I did over the years to try and make the business more sustainable that just didn’t work out long-term, and the things that were more popular than expected.

I fell into teaching Spanish in Leavenworth not long after I moved here, after someone posted in a local Facebook group asking if anyone locally taught Spanish. When I put on the flyer for adult Spanish classes that I used to teach kids to ski, someone asked, “Do you teach kids Spanish?” and I thought, “I used to teach small children to slide around on slippery sticks stuck to their feet. How hard could teaching Spanish be?”

Foolish me.

Watching these kids has been a great gift that has nothing to do with the language. Telling me in no uncertain terms what they like and don’t like. Naming four unrelated emotions when I ask them how they feel (sad, mad, happy, excited). Breaking my heart into tiny pieces by crawling onto my lap when I read a book, or saying that their favorite part of class was getting to be with me.

I am happy I made this decision, Invisible Audience. I am also sad. I’m mad it felt like it was thrust upon me in a lot of ways, but I’m also excited about the new possibilities I’m exploring. Those will likely entail pivoting to a completely different career path—I’m currently applying to graduate programs for mental health counseling—and may involve moving. But none of them involve completely forgetting all those kiddos whose tiny hands left sticky marks all over my heart.

Love and excited, sad kisses,

Morgan

You’re Not Alone, But (I believe) I Am.

2024-11-11T15:22:00.002-08:00

Hello Invisible Audience,

I realized something important a couple weeks ago. There’s a very specific way to untie me from a knot I tend to tie myself in a lot. It’s pretty straightforward, now that I know what it is. Getting to this point, though? Getting here has taken decades.

Recently, I had a really rough day. Things did not go well for me. I went deep into a shame spiral because I felt like I’d really botched a parent/teacher conference where I was interpreting for a family that doesn’t speak English. I felt humiliated and awful, so—using the tools I have learned over years of work—I admitted how awful I felt to a group of people that I thought would understand and be able to empathize.

I got radio silence instead.

Radio silence, for a whole 14 hours. From a Friday afternoon to a Saturday morning. From a group of people who are scattered all over the world, in at least four different time zones from mine.

My point here, Invisible Audience, was that it was not actually that long of a silence, and it was an understandable silence, given all the factors at play. But that was not how it felt in my body.

In my body, a voice rose to the surface, just as it has countless times before in similar situations.

“See?” It whispered. “You’re alone.”

I recently read a meme on social media that pointed out that hyperindependence is the result of neglect—of never feeling like you can depend on anyone, so you decide you can only depend on yourself. After what has felt like a lifetime of untangling the ball of yarn inside me and taking responsibility for every last fucking piece of anything that is mine to handle and fix and change, regardless of how I learned it, I have moved into a new stage. I have moved from accepting my autonomy to seeking to improve relationships with others around me. Trying to be authentic; trying to allow myself to be as messy and chaotic as I feel in front of other people. Letting people in, both figuratively and literally, despite the mess I live in.

So, going back to my story, when I didn’t get the reply I wanted in the timeline I was hoping for? It felt devastating. Like the Universe was gleefully whacking me across the face with a baseball bat while I tried to run like hell to the next base.

This is when I discovered it, Invisible Audience. The answer. The code. The password.

There is one thing I need to hear in these situations. It does not involve someone fixing the thing for me, whatever the thing is. Although in fairness, for a really long time I thought I was looking for someone to fix it for me—I thought that someone could fix it for me, if I just found the right person. It does not involve someone distracting me away from the thing. It does not involve binge eating or binge watching or binge exercising or binge reading. No binging necessary. Can you guess the one thing I need to hear?

You are not alone.

I don’t even need someone to tell me that I probably did a better job than I thought I did. I need someone to tell me that, even if I did the most horrendous job possible, I am not alone. That this person—whoever I have chosen to seek out in this moment—is willing to stand next to me, even as I tear myself apart due to the ways I was not perfect. Even as I am grappling with whether I am still loveable as I stand there, utterly defeated. Even as I fight tooth and nail against the old, old story in my head that tells me that I am worth nothing if I cannot do things perfectly. Every. Single. Time.

This realization led to a bunch of others.

Why I feel absolutely bereft if I share something big with someone and they say absolutely nothing at all, change the topic or even tell me, “you got this!”

Why I keep friends’ shittyversaries in my calendar and send cards or at least text messages on days that parents died and miscarriages happened, so they know they aren’t alone on those days, even if they feel like they are.

Why I cry every fucking time someone says, “I am here with you.” Because I cannot actually believe it unless you say it, Invisible Audience. It is not about being just physically present, because there are a thousand and one ways to be checked out while standing next to someone. I need to hear it said, or see it written to believe it.

It is why I write to you. Because maybe something I say could possibly make you feel less alone.

Even if we’re not in the same room. Even if you can’t hear me when I say it out loud to you.

You are not alone.

Love and together kisses,

Morgan

The Feather and the Sledgehammer

2024-10-12T18:17:00.000-07:00

Hello Invisible Audience,

I’ve been working a lot with my therapist on a skill set. Or rather, on my lack of a skill set that I wasn’t even really aware I was lacking.

She was the one who came up with the metaphor. It will comeas no surprise to those of you who have read my work for a while that Istruggle with saying what I want and need. In turn, this means that I struggle in relationships, because I find it so hard to 1) identify that I have a need in the first place and 2) say that need out loud. But my therapist pointed something out that has turned out to be an important first step toward untangling this block:

Do I even know how to ask for what I need?

I mean literally, in actual words. Words, and the energy behind them. She gave me an example once, talking about doing somatic body work on one of her patients. She told one patient that she could tell her to stop anytime. The patient said yes, of course. And my therapist said, “Let’s practice.” She put her hand on the woman’s shoulder. And even though the words were simple and small and do not seem like they would be as loaded as they were, even in a safe place with a woman she trusted, the patient could not say them. She could not say no; please stop; no more please.

The feather and the sledgehammer, my therapist said. It’s like there’s a whole array of tools available to me, but I’m only aware of the feather and sledgehammer. The feather so soft and light that it’s hard to tell what I’ve brushed away; the equivalent of speaking so softly about what I want that no one can hear it. The sledgehammer, large and unwieldy as you might expect, and it gets the job done but it obliterates everything in the process. Like screaming at someone to leave me the fuck alone and slamming the door on the way out.

There are all these tools in between, she said, but you don’t seem to know what they are. There are many ways to ask for what you want. We can practice.

I believe you, I said. But I can’t come up with any on my own, and when you give me some examples, they go in one ear and out the other.

It feels like we’ve been talking about this for months, Invisible Audience. And I’m slowly understanding what she means. Last week, I came to an interesting realization: any request I make for something feels like I’m using the sledgehammer. It feels like I am unlikely to get it; that the other person will register my words, look me in the eye and tell me to fuck right off and die. So I only ask for what I need when I’m emotionally prepared for a relationship to end. Sometimes I end the relationship at that point because I’ve let it go on too long, you see: I couldn’t ask for what I wanted, and the tension became so unbearable that I was ready for the relationship to be over and past the desire to try and salvage it.

My therapist has observed that I don’t seem to believe people in relationships can change; that someone can ask another person for what they want and get it. She’s right: at a very deep, visceral level—one that defies what I logically know—I don’t.

So I’ve been sitting with that for a long while. Sitting with how that leaves me on the outside of many relationships, because I don’t know how to stay in them; how to have healthy conflict; how to stay connected to myself when something comes up that creates stress or tension. But it goes even deeper than that, Invisible Audience. Because last week we talked about some of my past relationships, and I realized my own role in their endings: when I did try to state what I needed, I was using that sledgehammer to demand what I needed, but I was also expecting far too much. I wanted someone to save me, Invisible Audience, because I could not figure out how to save myself.

This is one of those places where I want to make it black and white. I want to know where the line is. Because the number of times that I have felt abandoned to shoulder all aspects of the very deep pain I have felt at various points in my life is beyond counting. But so is the number of times I’ve probably pushed the moment upon myself, by only having a feather and a sledgehammer at my disposal.

When we talk about scenarios when I could say what I want with curiosity and kindness, it still feels like a sledgehammer; that bringing up something like that will inevitably lead to rejection; to being completely and utterly alone. So I use a feather instead, and gently allude to the fact that I have a request. If no one picks up on the miniscule strokes I’m making on the project of getting my need met, I drop it. Then I feel abandoned; left alone to tell myself, “See? This is just the way it is. No one can give you what you need.”

I am tired, Invisible Audience. I am tired of everything feeling so hard. I am tired of being seen as strong and capable when I’d give nearly anything to be able to fall apart just a little bit. Most of all, I’m tired of being the one who keeps me here, in this place, with only the feather and the sledgehammer for company.

Love and feather light kisses,

Morgan

It's Not Enough, But It's Something

2024-08-02T19:43:00.000-07:00

Hello Invisible Audience,

This has not been the summer I hoped for.

Although bit by bit I have felt better, I can’t say I am feeling absolutely fantastic. I had hoped that a summer of not having much on the agenda would have given space to a fair amount of creativity and productivity, but it hasn’t happened.

· I still have a finished novel that I need to send out to more agents.

· I am still not sure if I want to continue my Spanish teaching business long term.

· I still need naps nearly every day.

· I’m not writing to you as often as I would like to.

· My car still needs the kind of deep cleaning that involves removing the seats.

· I’m still not hiking much, and definitely not near as much as I want to.

But here’s the problem: I tend to focus on the ways I’m failing instead of the ways I’m still managing to make forward progress. I walk around any given day, vacillating between trying to get myself to do more and trying to convince myself that the amount I have done is enough.

And in many ways, what I can do is not enough, Invisible Audience. I cannot work enough to make ends meet at the moment. I have an online job that is easy to log in and do anytime I want, but I can’t stare at my laptop for more than a couple hours before I start to get a headache. And my right hip and left foot have been acting up, making it difficult to do a job that requires any amount of physical work, including just standing for long periods of time.

I sound like a wreck, don’t I? But that’s the thing: I am a wreck, but not a complete wreck. I am struggling, but not exactly failing.

I decided to continue to run my Spanish classes for the next school year, partly because of the social aspect it provides that is a necessary part of my life, and mostly because there is demand for it and people are willing to pay me for the work. When I combine that with the online work, I have the resources to cover most of the bills, for the most part. It’s not enough, but it’s something.

My foot and my hip hurt (especially when I sleep) and I can’t hike as much as I want to, but I’ve discovered that swimming, the Peloton bike at the gym and yoga all help, and I haven’t been crashing after exercise the way I had been for months. It’s not enough, but it’s something.

I still need naps every day, but I can get up in the morning and get a fair amount of things done before lunch, which is good because there’s something about eating lunch that makes my body crash into a hard nap. It pretty much ruins my productivity the rest of the day. It’s not enough, but it’s something.

My car still needs a deep clean, but today I loaded a bunch of stuff into a neighbor’s truck to donate to a local fire department yard sale, including stuff I’d cleaned out of my closet that I’d been holding onto for years. It’s not enough, but it’s something.

I don’t have enough, Invisible Audience. At this rate, I will never be able to retire. If I have to go into assisted living when I’m old, I won’t have the money to do it. I can’t make enough to make a different choice at the moment. It’s not enough. But I do put a small amount into retirement every month. It’s something.

I have a lot of debt—most of it related to medical costs. It will take me a long time to pay it off, and in the meantime, it makes it hard to make ends meet. It’s not enough. But I still have a 100 percent track record for making payments on time. It’s something.

I will never have enough to own a house at this rate. But I have an amazing place that I rent and absolutely love. It is something. It is more than a lot of people can say at the moment.

I struggle with saying what I need in relationships, but I still have wonderful friendships with people I can lean on and show up for me. It is something necessary and essential that I am grateful for every day.

I am not writing as much as I want to—I am not prioritizing sending my finished book out to agents. But I am still writing some to my Patreon patrons, and to you, here, today.

It is not enough, but it is something.

Love and something kisses,

Morgan

Home.

2024-05-28T14:02:00.000-07:00

Hello Invisible Audience,

Something interesting happened recently.

I finally reached out to a friend who lives in Mexico and asked him how much it costs to live there.

His answer? It was roughly what I spend to live here.

And although there are clearly ways to live cheaper, I was hit with an overall feeling of relief.

I don’t have to leave.

Without realizing it, I was telling myself that I was making a huge financial mistake by staying where I am. And although there are many things that are more expensive here than they are elsewhere, the cost of living is going up all over the world. Moving somewhere else is easier in some ways, but harder in others. If, after the cost and emotional toll of moving to another country, I wasn’t able to relax into a significantly lower cost of living, would it be worth it?

Right now, the answer for me is no.

And although there are certainly parts of the world where the cost of living would be significantly cheaper, I am not drawn to those places like I am Mexico—like I was to living near someone I already knew, who had established a friend group that I could envision being a part of.

But even putting that aside, the fact that my first thought was one of relief gave me more clarity than I’ve had around this issue. Instead of a constant dance in my head of do I? don’t I? going around like a merry-go-round, it became crystal clear: if the financial piece was not a factor, where would I rather be?

Here. I would rather be here. For better or for worse. In sickness and in health. Maybe not ‘til death do me part, but for now, I don’t want to leave. That’s where the relief came from. That I no longer had to question whether that was true.

And guess what? I’m feeling better. Significantly so, compared to how I felt in the beginning of March, when things felt impossible. And though I can attribute that to many things, I am sure that this clarity helps immensely. Being undecided takes up an unprecedented amount of space in my head.

Although this doesn’t solve all my problems, this clarity certainly makes at least one thing easier. Now I’m looking for ways to stay, instead of fighting with myself about whether I want to leave. And that’s a gift I will gratefully wrap my arms around and hug to my chest.

Love and clear kisses,

Morgan

How Do I Save Myself?

2024-05-19T19:54:00.000-07:00

Hello Invisible Audience,

I have already written about The Conundrum, but here’s the gist of what I’ve been thinking a lot about the past six months or so. Do I stay in Leavenworth, or do I go somewhere else? If not here, where? If I’m not teaching, what do I do instead?

And although I still have all those questions, the context in which I’m thinking about them has changed since the last time I wrote about it.

Here is what I have figured out:

I don’t want to leave where I live.

I would rather be here. I would rather be able to walk out my door and straight onto hiking trails. I would rather continue to hear the river when I’m outside, even if I can’t see it. I would rather continue to enjoy the changing seasons, with long summer days and long starry winter nights—although if I’m going to be honest, I could do with less snow. I want to continue to enjoy the cold, clear, glacier-fed water that I swim in all summer in so many alpine lakes and river eddies.

I want to continue to feel like I am a part of this community—that the work I do somehow benefits some of my neighbors and friends. I want to revel in the deep knowing in my blood that comes from having been born in this place. Although I grew up 50+ miles from where I now live, North Central Washington is home in a way nothing else ever has been.

Do you know what I don’t want?

I don’t want to continue to struggle so much to pay all my medical costs, even when the care is either substandard—i.e. the sinus infection I had misdiagnosed three times a couple years ago, etc.—or my insurance that balks at paying for things it already agreed to pay.

I don’t want to continue to hope that I feel well enough that I don’t have to choose between eating foods that don’t hurt my gut or paying for that thing my insurance doesn’t cover that will reduce my pain.

I don’t want to think about how rent has doubled and sometimes even tripled since I moved to this area nine years ago, and how there is no way in hell I will ever be able to afford to buy a house here.

I don’t want to spend so much time looking at my budget, over and over, to make sure what I make covers my expenses plus my debt.

I don’t want to feel like I’m fighting so hard against a culture that tells me it’s my fault if I’m sick, or not thin, or I don’t have enough money, instead of considering the implications of the policies that have brought me and so many others like me to my knees.

I don’t want to think about how hard it is to save for a supposed future retirement when all my money goes to treating my illnesses now, and how that wouldn’t be the case in any other country in the world because our healthcare costs are so astronomically high.

I don’t want to continue to feel so isolated in what feels like a nuclear-family-centric society. I want to be part of a thriving, interdependent community.

I want to be here, Invisible Audience, but I am not sure I can afford it, in more ways than one.

I was listening to an On Being podcast episode today with a climate activist from Louisiana named Colette Pichon Battle. She talked about how it doesn’t matter if she already knows the land her family has had for generations is going to be underwater soon, no matter what. “My last name is Battle,” she said. “I am not going down without a fight.”

So here is my question, Invisible Audience: do I stay and fight toward creating a place for myself here to make it feel even more like where I want it to be? Or do I leave?

I had a thought start dancing through my head in the middle of the night a couple days ago.

Why wouldn’t I save myself?

Why wouldn’t I go where it’s easier? Where I don’t have to adhere to the culture because it doesn’t feel like it applies to me? Where the cost of living is cheaper; where I can live better on less? Why wouldn’t I do that, when I have the language skills that would allow me to live more comfortably in 20+ Spanish-speaking countries, not to mention the number of English-speaking ones? Where the kinds of people I would likely befriend have probably also checked out of the American dream and all the lies that stack of cards is built upon?

Why wouldn’t I save myself, Invisible Audience?

Because maybe saving myself is not as simple as leaving North Central Washington behind.

Every day I listen to podcasts or read books or go to theater productions with people who are trying to change their worlds from the inside. People who are eschewing the larger cultural messages of conformity and fighting to bring change to their communities and their world. And when I ask myself if I want to leave and the answer is no, not really, it means the alternative is to become the kind of person who creates the world I want within this one that I don’t. The one who builds a bubble of my values and invites others in and we watch diet culture and bootstrap culture and terrible, expensive medical care press down on our bubble but it does not burst. And we take care of each other instead hiring someone to do it like we’re told we should. We become each other’s families because ours are not right for us. And we move into spaces that do not welcome us and we dig in and we stay. And maybe that is a way to save myself just as much as leaving would be. In fact, perhaps it is even more the case.

Is it possible, Invisible Audience? Is there room there for me? For the me who is tired a lot of the time, and wants to have enough energy to write to you more than I want a paying job? Is there room for the me that is terrified that I will not be able to afford assisted living for myself one day because of all the money I’ve had to invest into my care now instead?

What does saving myself look like, Invisible Audience? Does it look any different than what my life looks like now? It’s hard to know.

Love and life preserving kisses,

Morgan

Where Do I Stand?

2024-04-29T09:22:00.000-07:00

Where Do I Stand?

Hello Invisible Audience,

Last week I started a new 6-week support group/workshop for people with chronic pain. It’s from the makers of the Curable App, which is a roadmap of sorts that helps people with chronic pain find their way out of it using mind-body techniques. Basically, the whole program is about healing the divide we have in Western culture that the physical body is one thing and the mind is another; that the two aren’t really all that connected. Instead, Curable teaches its users the science behind pain, and how often people with specific tendencies like perfectionism and people-pleasing (yes, that’s me raising my hand) are the ones who end up in chronic pain.

We’re also the ones who have likely experienced trauma, and the ones who felt like love was conditional. We’re often the ones who end up with chronic health conditions of any kind. Basically, we’re the ones whose nervous systems were already jacked up, and now our danger signals are crossed and anything that feels remotely dangerous—physical or emotional, whether it is or not—will send us into a pain spiral. Or, as has been my case recently, a long-lasting case of fatigue.

So it’s only been two weeks. Two 1.5-hour zoom sessions with a facilitator and a dozen other people like me. Two 90-minute videos teaching about how our identities have been hijacked by pain or how pain works in general, although I’ve only made it through one and a half of those videos. I want to say it’s making me feel better, but it’s not yet, Invisible Audience. Instead, it’s freaking me out.

I watched the first part of the second video today. The first half was actually very interesting, about how pain is in itself something that occurs in the brain to teach us not to do things that are dangerous. But without meaning to, I stopped the video on a specific slide as soon as they shifted from from talking about physical pain to talking about emotional pain. That slide said in big letters:

DO YOU FEEL SAFE?

Last night, in the second zoom session, I got really angry. There are many rules around what we can and can’t say in those sessions. We can say our “symptoms are worse” but are discouraged from going into detail about those symptoms. And although the facilitator has encouraged us to be authentic, I have not found her methods very encouraging, despite what she says. The first class, a woman said, “pass,” instead of answering a question everyone else in the group had already answered. The facilitator tried to press her. “I was really excited to show up for this, but now I’m feeling a lot of mixed emotions. I pass. It’s the most authentic I can be right now.” The facilitator didn’t press again, but at the beginning of our second session, she stated that everyone was required to participate in the next exercise. When another member said she’d realized how she was using pain instead of setting boundaries and how hard boundary setting is for her—something that I also struggle with, and deeply resonate with—the facilitator dismissed her concerns and told her she was just thinking about boundaries the wrong way. That as soon as she realized that she could use them as a way to express love, they wouldn’t feel so hard. I wanted to explode with rage.

This is something I come up against time and again, Invisible Audience. Someone in a position of authority makes a statement that does not reflect my experience, and I start to lose my ability to take in anything they say. Take in, believe, or respect. Which has, I know, made healing difficult. At the same time, the amount of people who have fed me bullshit advice when it comes to healing is very long—especially the number of people who have told me that they know better than I do what I am feeling and how to get out of it.

So what about when the message is good but the messenger sucks?

I know this is a worthy program. I’ve been using the app for quite a while and found it helpful. I know that figuring out how to calm the nervous system—the whole point to all of this—is a logical way to address not just my fatigue, but the revolving door of health issues and symptoms I’ve had my whole life. The premise makes sense to me. And I am aware—VERY aware, Invisible Audience—that the strong emotional reactions that I’m having to some of this content is good. It means I’m digging into patterns and beliefs and emotions that have kept me stuck in a spiral of illness for a long time.

But do I feel safe? No. I most certainly do not.

Fortunately, I am not dependent on the Curable group for all my emotional support needs. I have friends to talk to about this; I can bring it up with my therapist. And it seems like an important step at the moment is to try to separate the message from the messenger, and continue to work through some of the prompts and all of the educational pieces as best I can. I am aware that trauma survivors fall into black and white thinking; that this could be an example of doing that.

I want to rage against the facilitator. But am I actually angry at her, or at the idea of letting go of what I’ve held onto for so long?

I don’t know yet. And trying to figure out whether one of those is true or it’s somewhere on a spectrum between those two extremes is one of my least favorite places to stand.

Love and lost kisses,

Morgan

I Was Feeling Better. Now I'm Not.

2024-03-02T14:01:00.000-08:00

Hello Invisible Audience,

The last time I wrote to you, I was feeling better. It felt like this time it was going to last; that things were finally changing for the long term.

For several weeks since then, I have felt awful again. It feels this time like it’s going to last; that things are changing unavoidably for the long term.

Neither, of course, are true. Just today, I woke up, felt ok, then felt not so great, then felt ok again so I tried to go for a walk; then had to turn around six minutes in because I don’t feel so great anymore.

But I have some decisions to make, and it feels like those decisions depend a lot on how I feel.

Like, for instance, if I want to keep teaching kids.

I wrote a letter this morning to the parents of my students. It says that I am going to teach classes through the end of the school year, but I’ve decided not to teach summer camps, despite the fact that I already said I would. As much as I want to wait and see how I feel before canceling them, there are several reasons why it makes more sense to do it now. For one, March is the month when most summer camps open registration. If I’m not offering camps, parents have a better chance of finding other options right now instead of if I wait until, say, May to decide.

But more importantly, it’s because of this question that I don’t have an answer for: am I as tired as I am because I don’t want to teach summer camps?

It seems woo-woo and wishy-washy, I know. But ever since it became clear to me how much of my pain and illness seems to revolve around the state of my nervous system, I’ve paid more attention to how any number of things make me feel.

Almost always, writing a blog post to you or my Semi-Invisible Patrons makes me feel better.
Very often, teaching a class of kids makes me feel better.
Saying no to an invitation that I didn’t want to do in the first place gives me some life back.
Having a hard conversation that I was dreading makes me feel less anxious.
And many, many times in the past, making a decision not to do something that I thought I wanted to do has filled me with not just relief, but also a renewed vitality.

The thing that makes this decision hard is that, as I said, teaching kids makes me feel better. But that’s mostly teaching kids after school, or once a week, like I do during the school year. That’s different than the burn out I can experience teaching week-long summer camps, even if they are only 3 to 4 hours long.

I keep trying to apply logic to this; to try to convince my body that week-long camps every other week is really not that much. But when I felt worse this morning, I was thinking about doing summer camps; when I felt better, I had just drafted that letter saying I wasn’t doing summer camps.

If you’re a regular reader here, you’ll know that I’ve been questioning since last fall whether continuing my business teaching extra-curricular Spanish classes is sustainable, not just in terms of my energy, but also in terms of the money I bring in. It’s a tough balance: the amount of energy I have to teach does not equate to enough to cover all my bills. But I keep running up against a wall around this: I choose my own schedule now; if I’m having a rough day energy-wise, I can take it easy and just do the essentials. That means teach the classes, but otherwise lay on the couch if necessary. But are those short bursts of the intense energy it takes to facilitate a class of kindergarten to second graders costing me more energy than, say, a desk job, especially a remote one, even if it was more hours?

I love to teach, Invisible Audience. I really do. And I think that’s why this decision has been so hard. I get a lot of joy out working with my students. But is there a better fit out there for me? Something that feels as rewarding, and doesn’t take as much from me energy-wise? Or isn’t as rewarding, but covers the bills better and doesn’t leave me as zapped by the end of the day or the week?

It’s also not as cut and dry as giving up teaching, though, is it? Which is why I want to first try cutting out summer camps. Because it doesn’t have to be a binary decision: I can choose not to teach summer camps, but continue with classes during the school year. I can cut down on how many classes I offer during the school year, and do them in tandem with some as-yet-to-be-determined part-time job.

Or I could get partway through a summer free of summer camps and realize that I’m done teaching and needed the space to let myself realize that was true.

Love and tired and confused kisses,

Morgan

P.S. I've had a hard time keeping up with my blog lately, but what writing I have done recently has gone mostly to my patrons on Patreon. You can check out my profile here. Pledge as little as $1.50 a month to get access to more of my ponderings and become one of my Semi-Invisible Patrons. When I can't find time to post both here and on Patreon, I prioritize posts on Patreon instead.

I’m Feeling Better. I Think This is Why.

2024-02-06T08:22:00.000-08:00

Hello Invisible Audience,

I have a stuffy nose today, that started as a sore throat and a headache on Friday. But unlike other recent illnesses, this one feels different: it feels like it’s just a minor physical symptom that will fade, instead of the portent of an unending illness that will slowly erode my will to live.

It feels different because I am different, in some ways that feel remarkable. I want to share those ways with you, but not because I think I’ve figured out some hidden formula to help others get better. I want to share it with you first so that I don’t forget what’s been working, and second so that, if you chronically feel terrible, you know that the way out is not something you can adopt from someone else’s treatment plan. You have to find your own treatment plan that works for you.

The Nervous System

The biggest change in my life has come from learning something from a friend of mine who works with people trying to recover from chronic illness. According to him and the research he’s done, the reason some people recover quickly from illnesses and some just don’t has to do with trauma. If you’ve experienced trauma—like I have, and like my friend has—your nervous system is already jacked up, to put it bluntly. Add in a long-term bout of pneumonia, or a case of Lyme disease, long COVID, etc., and your body’s already panicked outlook on life is going to skyrocket and stay there. This is also true of chronic pain.

Learning this made my entire life make sense, Invisible Audience. I have been sick in one form or another for as long as I remember. I kept trying to treat the symptoms, or the illness. It would work for that one thing, but then I’d get sick in another way. One thing after another after another. So even though Lyme disease has been the latest and greatest, it was not even remotely the first thing.

Most of the following things that have worked for me have worked because I’ve been able to put things in the context of trying to calm my nervous system. After I found the things that worked for me in that framework, things began to change rapidly for the better.

Find the People Whose Words Make Sense to You

“Being a human is weird,” my friend says. I bought him a website domain name that ended in .guru as a joke, because he’s supremely uncomfortable with the idea of being lumped in with other healers or coaches who claim they have the one right way to help someone. He talks about the science behind the tools he suggests, but he also says, very often, “If this tool doesn’t work, we’ll try something else.”

There are undoubtedly others who do similar work, but use vocabulary around God; the Universe; Divine Light. None of those words or dogmas hit me where I need them to: in a way that I can take in and appreciate fully. So I don’t seek them out. I seek out more people who speak in the way my friend does, because what he says makes sense to me.

Stop Listening to People Who Won’t Listen to You, and Stop Trying to Convince Them of Your Validity

Boundaries are hard for me, Invisible Audience. It feels like I am risking death to tell someone how I really feel about how they’ve treated me sometimes. But it turns out this is a really big part of healing a jacked-up nervous system. It turns out that there’s more than one way to traumatize someone: the first is the act itself, wherein I learned that what I wanted or needed or felt didn’t matter. The second is learning from that trauma how to perform that same act on myself, over and over and over again. Staying friends with people who don’t listen to me, validate me or show up for me. Saying yes to things I don’t want to do. Spending all my energy trying to convince people that my experience is real, and valid, and that they should believe me.

Stop Doing the Things That Make You Feel Worse or Have No Impact

It is true that there are some foods that make me feel worse if I eat them. However, none of them have conclusively shown up on a blood test or stool test or any other test. I eat it and I don’t feel well. It sounds simple, but it took much longer than I wanted it to because I was too busy listening to what everyone else said I should be eating instead of just listening to my body. This led to some doctor-prescribed disordered eating, that connected nicely with an eating disorder I had in high school and continued body image issues I’ve had to make me feel awful and blame myself for not being able to eat well enough to feel better, or lose weight. Invisible Audience, getting a dietician who practiced Intuitive Eating was the very best thing I’ve done for myself, ever. Now I eat what sounds good. Period. I am less likely to choose things that make me feel like shit. I eat a lot of healthy foods, because they make me feel good. And so, so much less of my head space is taken up by thinking about what other people think about my body. It is the most amazing gift I have ever given myself.

Meditation makes me feel worse. So does focusing on my breath. This is not true for everyone, but there is a growing body of research that shows that many people with trauma and PTSD have similar experiences to mine. I have stopped trying to convince breath coaches and yoga teachers and meditation enthusiasts that this is real, even if it still enrages me that they’re shaming people like me for not “doing it right” if we feel worse instead of better when we try. But I’m no longer trying to get them to own that they’re wrong. I just don’t do the things that make me feel worse, because it was teaching my body that what I felt didn’t matter.

Writing

Writing makes me feel better, Invisible Audience. Last week I felt so, so tired. I wrote about it, and the feel immediately went away. I have no idea why this works for me. I’m going to keep doing it.

Safe Touch

I live with two, super-cuddly cats. I’m single. It turns out that I need human touch, and that, until now, I’ve only allowed myself to get it from people who were helping me recover from pain. The problem was that these people were aiming at seeing me less as I improved, when what I subconsciously needed was to continue to get the validation and touch they were offering. So I’m going to start scheduling preventative massages that aren’t dependent on feeling awful to go in. I’m just going to go because it feels so good to have someone I trust touch me. Hopefully, with time and more work, I will feel comfortable enough to try to find others I trust who I can enjoy even simple amounts of physical affection with.

Brainspotting

I have been in talk therapy for years, Invisible Audience. Recently, I started with a new counselor, who is fantastic. Not only do I feel like her general approach to therapy is helping me, we also started brainspotting recently. She describes it as a cousin to EMDR, and it is impacting me SO. MUCH. Some things can’t be talked out. Some things must be felt through. Brainspotting is helping me identify and clear those kinds of things that have been stuck for a long, long time.

This isn’t anyone’s pathway to health but mine, Invisible Audience. I hope you can find yours, too.

Love and better kisses,

Morgan

Where’s the Line?

2024-01-28T16:38:00.000-08:00

Hello Invisible Audience,

Have you noticed that I think a lot? It’s hard for me to gauge how much I think compared to anyone else—I don’t live in anyone else’s head, after all—but man, sometimes I wish I were better at shutting down the thoughts. Sometimes I wish things felt clearer to me, when, in reality, I think a lot of life just exists in murky gray spaces that are hard to define. And even as the world tends to lean more toward black and white, I’m finding myself standing in more of a gray area and trying to figure out how to be comfortable here.

I always want to know where the line is. It doesn’t even matter which subject we’re talking about, but that question constantly haunts me.

· Where is the line of trying to stay friends with someone who frustrates me or doesn’t show up how I need them to?

· Where is the line of how many lies is too many in a conversation with a potential new friend?

· What is the number of times a promise is broken before it’s not worth keeping the promise-breaker around?

· Where’s the line of how much I can exercise before I will tip myself into multi-day fatigue?

· Where’s the line of number of voice memos it’s ok to send a friend in a day?

· Where’s the line of trying to hold onto a job versus trying to find a new one?

· Where’s the line of medical appointments that help, versus the number that simply exhausts me more?

· Where’s the line where I start to feel better?

There are so many lines, Invisible Audience. And I don’t know what to do with most of them.

To be honest, I want someone else to define these lines. I want a concrete number of lies I can catch someone in before I give them the boot. I want the number of minutes I can exercise to be the same every time I try, regardless of whether I’ve had a busy week or a bad night’s sleep. I want to just clearly be making so much money that I don’t have to ponder whether it’s time to throw in the towel on the business I’ve built because I’m too tired to grow it but I don’t want to let it go.

I want black and white lines, Invisible Audience, lined up in neat little rows, spaced exactly equidistant from each other.

But here’s the thing: when I have tried to live in that kind of black and white world, things have been worse, not better. People are shittier to each other. People judge each other more, because they say things like, “If I can do it, so can you. It’s easy,” because to them, it was easy. And that’s the kind of black and white thinking that has made things worse.

So I have to slog through each of these questions for myself, Invisible Audience. I have to decide for myself what works best. And dammit, that’s a lot more work than just deciding it’s one way or another, always and forever amen.

I listened to a podcast last week with a woman who kept her father in her life, even though he was verbally abusive. The podcast itself was about how boundaries are not black and white, either: the question is not whether to cut someone out of your life completely or not; it can be much more nuanced than that. In this case, the woman would allow her dad to be part of her life as long as he didn’t drink in front of her or her son, and wasn’t mean. As soon as those things fell apart, she’d stop talking to him again until she was ready to reengage.

She said something that I’d heard before, but it stuck with me this time: There’s no right way. There’s just the way that I pick.

Certainly, there are things that really are black and white. If you don’t eat, you will die. Children should be loved, not abused. Peas are disgusting.

But most things aren’t, Invisible Audience. And the more I try to make them that way, the less it serves me.

Love and gray kisses,

Morgan

If I Told You What It Was Like to Be Fat and Sick, Would You Believe Me?

2023-12-24T10:22:00.000-08:00

Hello Invisible Audience,

I got in to see an ear, nose and throat doctor a week ago; I’ve had a sinus infection for nearly two months. I was relieved at how well the appointment went, although when I thought about it later, I really only had one set of criteria that I based that on: the doctor didn’t tell me that my sinus infection would go away if I lost weight.

That may sound absolutely ridiculous, Invisible Audience, but unfortunately, it’s perhaps a much more likely to occur than you know, depending on your body size. A couple years ago I went to a urologist because I had frequent UTI-like symptoms, but none of the urinalyses that my doctor had done showed anything. The urologist told me that it was likely my issues were caused by recent weight gain and the only thing she could offer was a referral to a pelvic floor physical therapist. When another doctor performed a PCR test of my urine, it revealed bacteria that shouldn’t have been there; as soon as that was treated, my symptoms went away.

Unfortunately, that’s not my only experience with fat bias within the medical system, and I have to tell you something, Invisible Audience. As someone who has frequent doctor appointments and a lot of health issues, bracing myself for this sort of response every time I see a new doctor makes healing infinitely harder.

This morning I woke up and had the same struggle I do on any day that I don’t have concrete plans: do I try to do some work? Do I do some writing? Do I attempt to do some things around the house? Or do I try to exercise?

If I choose exercise, I am gambling on whether it will make me feel better or worse. I’m gambling whether or not I’ll have the ability to focus on work afterward. I’m gambling on whether I’ll have the energy to also do the dishes later, or the laundry. If I don’t exercise—and if I haven’t had a really busy week—it’s likely I’ll be able to maybe do a couple hours of work and some housework. I’ll also probably need a nap. If I choose exercise, it goes one of several ways: I get home afterward and need to lay down and am down for the count for the rest of the day (and maybe the next day, too); I get home and feel ok for a couple hours, then my energy slowly fades to nothing within a couple hours; or I feel completely fine and can tackle some other things, but probably not things like vacuuming or moving furniture around or shoveling snow.

I had a sinus infection last summer that got misdiagnosed. When I told my then-chiropractor that I was so tired I was easily taking two naps a day, he told me I should take the first nap and exercise instead of taking the second nap. Maybe this works for healthy people; I don’t know. What I do know is that I finally stopped seeing him when it became clear that he was always going to advocate for more exercise instead of listening to my body. I had to choose to listen to my body instead of listening to him.

Do you believe me, Invisible Audience? Because there’s a part of me that feels like any time I try to talk about what this is like for me, it sounds like I’m making excuses; that if I just shut the fuck up and worked harder, I’d get better. That it’s all in my head. And if you feel that way—even a little—I’d like you think about something my therapist pointed out to me when I was trying to do that to myself a couple weeks ago: those ideas are ableist.

It is a trap to try to argue with you that I wouldn’t be as fat if I could exercise as much as I want. That may not be true. It’s even a trap to tell you that there many known causes of weight gain that have nothing to do with what a person eats or how much they exercise. Because it shouldn’t matter: I should be able to go to the doctor, the same as any thin person, and get treatment for what ails me. I shouldn’t be told that the reason I’m sick is because of my weight, before they’ve established whether I could possibly have gained weight because I am sick. And I shouldn’t have to base my impression of a doctor on whether or not they managed to look at my symptoms instead of my weight when they decided how to treat me—“treat” referring both to how they alleviate my symptoms, and how they interact with me in the exam room.

Before you decide to write back and tell me how I have no idea what I’m talking about—that I really should lose weight to be healthier—please read some of the resources below. But even if you don’t, here’s what I want you to know: I am one of your fat friends, but I’m sure you have others. If you no longer believe in shaming your children or your friends into acting differently, why would it be ok to try to shame us into looking differently? This feels apropos during the holiday season, when many of my friends dread seeing friends and family who will likely comment on their weight. If I broke my leg and my injury were apparent, obvious, and not hard to diagnose or treat, would you feel the same way about deciding that I would get better if I just stopped making excuses? What about if I were thin?

Love and big fat kisses,

Morgan

·      Fit and fat: Not all agree obesity should be labelled a disease
·      Healthy Lifestyle Habits and Mortality in Overweight and Obese Individuals
·      It’s the Diets that Fail, Not the Patients They Are Prescribed To
·      Size acceptance and intuitive eating improve health for obese, female chronic dieters
·      The BMI is Junk Science
·      The Weight-Inclusive versus Weight-Normative Approach to Health: Evaluating the Evidence for Prioritizing Well-Being over Weight Loss
·      Weighed Down by Stigma: How Weight-Based Social Identity Threat Contributes to Weight Gain and Poor Health
·      Weight Science: Evaluating the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift

More Resources

The KNOWing

2023-12-03T16:52:00.000-08:00

Hello Invisible Audience,

My therapist said something to me that stuck with me during one of our recent sessions. I’m paraphrasing, but basically she said,

“All that anyone else ever says—your doctors, your chiropractor, your friends, me—is only their opinion. It’s your job to choose whether or not to use it, or even take it in, for that matter.”

This is not new. The last post I wrote to you was basically the same thing. Hell, if you’ve been following me for a while now, you know that I struggle with this TO THE N^th DEGREE. But when she said it, it made me realize something that I never had before.

I thought I had to find someone to validate how I felt before I could let myself feel it.

Do you ever have one of those moments, Invisible Audience, where you feel like you’ve logically known something for a long time, but suddenly it feels like a huge vault door twists itself through its combination and suddenly unlocks? Like maybe you knew something before, but now you KNOW it with all the cells in your body, not just your puny little mind?

Well, that’s what happened.

I have always known that I was supposed to be able to take what I like and leave the rest. What I never realized was that I would just pivot from one person to the next. If someone’s opinion of the situation wasn’t true for me, I would look somewhere else to find someone else to hold onto who did agree with me. I never stopped and worked on figuring out if I KNEW the thing for myself.

There was a second part of the discussion with my therapist that I think made all the difference, Invisible Audience, It’s a larger theme, too; one she and I talk about a lot but is really new to me.

When I say I KNOW something, I don’t mean that I am 100 percent sure. I mean that I KNOW, in my bones, that I am going to do the best that I can with what I have. I do not have to be 100 percent sure that I KNOW in order to make a decision that’s best for me. All I have to KNOW is that I am doing the best that I can with what I have. I am ultimately the one in charge of my life, and sometimes my choices are going to be the ones I make between a rock and a hard place.

I have never differentiated it that way before, Invisible Audience. I never realized that I needed to separate myself out from others and not just borrow someone else’s support of my decision. To borrow their belief that I am making the right choice. That I could actually just live in the gray space and say, “Here’s all the information I have. Here’s how all of this makes me feel. Here’s what I’m going to decide to do. Here’s my confidence that I’m doing the best I can, and if I need to make a change later, I’m allowed to do that.”

This feels HUGE.

I still don’t know what’s coming next, but it’s become clear that I’m the one who needs to decide. It may not be what I ultimately need. It may be that I need something else. But I don’t need to have it all figured out. I just need to KNOW that I’m doing the best I can with the information that I have.

Love and KNOWing kisses,

Morgan

P.S. Enjoying what you read here? Please consider becoming one of my patrons on Patreon. You can check out my profile here. Pledge as little as $1.50 a month to get access to more of my ponderings and become one of my Semi-Invisible Patrons. When I can't find time to post both here and on Patreon, I prioritize posts on Patreon instead.

Acceptance

2023-10-21T09:31:00.002-07:00

Hello Invisible Audience,

It’s here—it’s finally arrived. It feels like I’ve been fighting toward this moment for years, and it’s been an ugly, brutal fight, but it’s finally here.

Acceptance.

The last time I wrote, I had had a pretty big breakthrough about how it wasn’t working—about how my life as I have it set up is simply not sustainable. I am no closer to knowing the right way to move forward, but that realization seemed to be the first step in getting me to this moment.

This moment is where I have finally accepted that many of the things that I was trying to control are not controllable.

This moment where I finally give up trying to change the world so I feel safer.

This moment where I finally decide that the only way forward is to change myself to find that safety.

I know it’s been a bumpy ride, following me through this process. And I want to thank you, Invisible Audience, if you’ve stuck around this long. There’s a part of me that has hated sharing every resentful, pissy moment with you, but it also felt necessary, because so much of my life I’ve hidden those moments from others and myself. There’s a saying that I’ve heard that feels apropos here: let go or be dragged. Before I could let go, I feel like I had to let myself be dragged for quite a while first.

I’m tired. I’m sick. I’ve tried so many things to try and get better, Invisible Audience, and a lot of my resentment has come from doing everything anyone told me to do, only to remain sick, or have a new ailment or injury come up.

But do you know what I didn’t do? Check in with myself while doing those things to see if they were working, or if they felt good to me. Not felt good in a “cotton-candy-and-lollipops” sort of way; felt good in a “oh-shit-this-is-scary-and-painful-but-I-can-see-it’s-helping sort of way.” Because I think that’s something that people lose sight of in all of the memes and coaching packages and spiritual gurus and everything else that we have to contend with these days.

· There are the things that feel good and are good for me, like a great conversation with a friend I trust.

· There are the things that feel good but ultimately are a way to hide from my feelings and aren’t good for me, like venting to someone about how someone else hurt my feelings with no plan to address that issue with said person

· There are the things that feel terrible in the moment that ultimately help, like learning to have those conversations where I address my grievance with someone, even though it terrifies me and makes me feel like I’m going to die

· There are the things that feel terrible and ARE TERRIBLE for me, which include traditional meditation, milk, toxic positivity, people who think that there’s one way we should all behave to be happy and people who think that if I just did what they’d done I’d feel better

The theme that goes through all of this—not to mention straight through my last post and all the way through this one—is that I had been taught that if I just followed the rules, I’d live happily ever after. I’ve been pissed and resentful as I’ve tried to do that very thing over and over again and it just hasn’t. fucking. worked.

I know, I know, Invisible Audience. That’s the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Well, I’ve been insane. And it’s time to look straight into that and make different decisions.

The world has felt a lot scarier since this all came down, Invisible Audience. I’m terrified now that I’ve removed the blinders I’ve had on; now that I realize in a way that I didn’t before that, as much as I hate it, I’m the only one with the power to save me. But with that terror comes some relief, because it feels like I’m finally seeing the forest through the trees. And at least now I can see the paths that are really available to me instead of running myself into a tree trunk over and over again, waiting for it to become a door.

Love and accepting kisses,

Morgan

This Isn't Working

2023-10-05T09:39:00.004-07:00

Hello Invisible Audience,

It’s been an absolutely beautiful fall here. Last Friday, I stopped at a short path beside the river and went for a walk in the sunshine. I was feeling overwhelmed, and walking through trees—listening to their leaves rattle and sway—always makes me relax a bit. I was overwhelmed because I’d overbooked myself with social events, hoping it would help to pull me out of the funk I was in.

It wasn’t working. That night, I had yet another event planned, and although ultimately I was glad I went, at that moment, I was feeling pretty cranky and wiped out.

I don’t know when it happened. I was walking along, both enjoying the beautiful trail and also somewhat irritated that I could still hear the highway and the cars rushing by. When I get as overwhelmed as I was, every sound is like sandpaper on my skin. But anyway, suddenly it was there: not a new thought, but a new realization about that thought. Like my mind finally turned around and looked at my body, where she had been pounding on a glass door and screaming to be heard, and my mind realized she needed to unlock the door.

This isn’t working.

Just a simple sentence. Not even a new concept. Not the first time I’d ever felt it. But with it came a rush of…absence of angst.

This isn’t working.

Suddenly, it was no longer about whether I was strong enough to make it work, or brave enough. It was not about whether I was trying hard enough or if I’d done all the right things. It wasn’t about whether anyone believed me, or would give me permission to let go. It was as if my ego fell away and just a stark, honest truth lay before me.

This isn’t working.

I am profoundly unhappy. I love where I live and also feel isolated living here. I love my job but it does not pay me enough. I dedicate hours and thousands of dollars a year and thousands of miles of driving to my health every year, and it is driving me deeper and deeper into debt that I cannot fight my way out of because each month there is a new ailment or headache that requires the kind of treatment my insurance doesn’t cover. That, or the treatment doesn’t work and I have to dig deeper into my credit card and into other options to see if I can find something that will let me function just enough to get through the days.

This isn’t working.

I have been waiting for someone to tell me that I have suffered enough, even as I hide my suffering. I want the martyr award, but the first rule of the martyr award is you can’t tell anyone you’re a martyr.

This isn’t working.

I am exhausted. I walk around caring for myself like I would a demanding toddler: feeding her regularly, trying to have patience with her spates of sleeplessness, taking her out into the sunshine because they say it’s good for her. Taking her to all her doctor appointments, and yet secretly resenting each and every second that caring for her takes because it takes me away from the things that make me feel alive: things that I know exist, and yet feel profoundly out of reach from where I’m standing.

This isn’t working, Invisible Audience.

Something needs to change. It may actually be everything: I may need to find a new job, in a new town. I may need to throw all the chips in the air in the way I have before, and let myself revel in figuring out how to make them land in a way that feels good to a new, future me: the one who loves new adventures. I may need to let go of the business I built and start over.

When I think about what the future could look like, I feel immense relief. I feel interest in exploring options; at the idea of getting to know a new place.

I also feel some hesitation, because this is something that I’ve done several times before, and I wonder if I am running away.

But it’s not as simple as one or the other, Invisible Audience. Because when you run away, you simultaneously run toward something else. It can be true that I find it easier to start over because I enjoy the adventure, and that I appreciate the prospect of severing ties with an old me that otherwise feel hard to break.

I have no idea what the future will bring at this point. I have no idea what parts I will choose to allow to fall away and which I will decide to keep. But that’s ok—I’m not in any sort of hurry. For now, I can just sit here and know that I get to change. Because I finally realized that I need to in order to find my way back to me.

Love and not working kisses

Morgan

P.S. I had a hard time keeping up with my blog lately, but what writing I have done over the summer has gone to my patrons on Patreon. You can check out my profile here. Pledge as little as $1.50 a month to get access to more of my ponderings and become one of my Semi-Invisible Patrons. When I can't find time to post both here and on Patreon, I prioritize posts on Patreon instead.

When Grace Fails

2023-08-28T18:02:00.004-07:00

Hello Invisible Audience,

I am home, on my couch. It is Monday evening, and I have been here since Friday afternoon, after I limped up to my front door after a week-long vacation with friends. The week had ended with a sore throat and a rolled ankle that the emergency room had just informed me was not broken.

My cold is worse than it was on Friday. Despite multiple days of lying on the couch, sucking down herbal teas and chicken soup, the congestion is the same—I’ve gone through nearly three boxes of Kleenex—and as of last night I have a hacking cough.

Today I canceled all my plans for the week: a physical therapy appointment; a private lesson I was supposed to teach; a haircut. I managed to ask one neighbor to pick up a grocery order for me at Fred Meyer; another neighbor brought me a COVID test and is going to pick up some prescriptions for me tomorrow. Those last two things are a big f’ing deal, considering how hard it is for me to ask for help. But that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about what it feels like when grace fails.

When I lived in Panama, I had a lot of really shitty things surface in therapy. At one point, my therapist there told me that I was handling all that emerged with a lot of grace. I took this to mean that I was accepting things well and seeking ways forward through the muck that kept coming up.

I’ve thought a lot about that for a long time, Invisible Audience, because even if I was accepting things with grace then, I don’t feel like grace is part of my repertoire anymore.

I’ve been through a lot in general, but especially in the past 10 years or so. A lot of my pain has been physical, and it seems never-ending: Lyme disease, mold sickness, foot pain, neck pain. Colds, sinus infections that lasted months. I suspect many treatments made things worse, like the 10 rounds of antibiotics I had in a year that caused a bunch of food sensitivities that had never been there before.

I do not have any grace left to give, Invisible Audience. And I think that’s ok…because although I don’t think this was how my therapist meant it, I think a lot of people look at people who are suffering and think that the only suffering that is worthy is the suffering done with grace.

This is total, absolute, bullshit.

We have several narratives in our culture that are dangerous. if you work hard enough, you can have whatever you want. You get what you deserve. Attitude is everything. And even though it’s not quite as blatant as the others, there is another one that is just as insidious: if you’re suffering, be sure that suffering is admirable in some way.

Suffer to make someone else’s life better. Suffer to prove your worth. Suffer because you have to, okay, but damn it, do it with a smile, and faith. Do it in a way that inspires others. Get them to talk about how upbeat you are as you’re beaten down. Forget how you’re actually feeling. What we want to hear is how you minimize it to make the rest of us feel better; to make it possible for the rest of us to forget our own mortality, even as we’re staring yours in the face.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while now, but those thoughts have been top of mind for the last several days as I’ve laid on the couch, yet again. I’ve been thinking about how many times I’ve kept my bouts on the couch to myself, not because I wanted to be alone, but because I didn’t have anything positive to say or learn from my pain. I cut myself off from contact because if I’m tired of how often I’m sick, how could anyone else not be?

There is no grace here, Invisible Audience. There are no fairies that are flying around granting me fewer sneezes because I’ve managed to make jokes about how crappy I feel. No one has shown up to give me the martyr award for suffering best in silence. I am not winning anything by fighting to present grace instead of what is really here with me. Resentment. Fatigue. The beginning of a temper tantrum because life is so fucking unfair. And so. Much. Snot.

Is it the worst place I’ve ever been? Definitely not. But I shouldn’t have to do that: compare it. Say it’s not so bad. Say things could be much worse. Even if all of that is true, it could also be better. And naming what it actually is does not give it less value than blind grace would.

Love and snotty, graceless kisses,

Morgan

The Gauntlet

2023-04-27T18:14:00.002-07:00

Hello Invisible Audience,

In my last therapy session, I talked to my therapist about something that I know quite well about myself that drives me nuts: it takes a lot for me to connect what I want over others’ voices and needs. It’s as if I need to run a gauntlet of others’ needs and expectations before—exhausted and gasping for breath—I finally reach my own.

I’m so much better at this than I used to be, but it’s still incredibly difficult to separate out what I need with what someone else needs, or even what they think I should do. And it drives me absolutely insane sometimes.

I have been thinking a lot about what my business looks like lately. I’ve been thinking about how to make it sustainable long-term. And one of my biggest pain points is having employees.

This clearly isn’t true for everyone. And even though it’s supposed to be a very logical way to grow your business—more people to do the work, therefore more work can be taken on—I have struggled with it for as long as I’ve had them, which is awhile now.

I’ve told several people about it lately, as I think through this summer and into what my lineup will be for next school year. And after discussing it with several different people, I found myself saying to a friend, “I feel like I’m just asking for permission to not have employees.”

I said it out loud and then I couldn’t stop thinking about it, Invisible Audience. So then I took it to my therapist, and that’s part of what sparked our conversation about the gauntlet.

And—like a good therapist—she asked me a very insightful question.

“Who exactly are you waiting for permission from?”

God damn it, Invisible Audience.

When I was in high school, someone told me that my brother would be a CEO and run a company, and I would struggle for the rest of my life, being self-employed.

Without realizing it, I’ve been trying to prove that person wrong for decades now. And the way I was trying to do that was by having employees, even if I will ultimately be happier and a better business owner if I don’t have them. Because wouldn’t that mean I’d be proving that person right?

My therapist had another question for me that she assigned as homework:

Who and what do I want to be?

Sometimes I think the answer to that question is buried so deep I’ll never find it, Invisible Audience. Underneath mountains of norms and expectations and medical debt and logistics. Under people-pleasing and fatigue-filled days and a lot of fear. Under pathologizing every single part of me that’s ever brought me joy and made me tick. Under the biggest pile of shit that can only be described as self-doubt.

And sometimes it’s readily apparent who I really am. When I take 2 hours to walk through the woods, stopping under the cottonwoods as their leaves unfurl to smell their scent. When I wade into ice-cold water and can’t stand not going further and have to dive in fully. When I stay up late finishing a book that feels as satisfying as drinking water in the desert. When I rise from bed when I can’t sleep in the middle of the night and find solace in my journal; that the simple act of writing to myself will inevitably send me back to sleep. When I write to you about things others would keep to themselves.

One of my favorite poems has a stanza that I think about a lot. It’s called The Invitation and the stanza goes like this:

It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

You know what, Invisible Audience? I’m not always sure what sustains me. I think it’s likely that it changes. But there’s something there. There’s someone there, underneath all these other pieces, and she gets louder and more solid every day.

She is me, and I don’t quite know her yet. She is me, and she stands on the other side of the gauntlet, waiting for me, as exhausted and gasping as I am when I reach her.

Love and breathless kisses,

Morgan

What If I Never Get Better?

2023-04-08T10:31:00.002-07:00

Hello Invisible Audience,

I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine who has also been to therapy. I asked if they had ever had a specific thing that they learned in therapy that made a big change in how they saw the world.

I’m paraphrasing here, but they basically said that coming to terms with the realization that they would sometimes feel sad and there wasn’t anything that needed to be changed or fixed about that made a big difference.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since.

The last month or so, I’ve felt better than I’ve felt in YEARS, Invisible Audience. I’ve woken up with energy, been able to concentrate all day and exercised multiple days in a row. Then, about a week ago, the fatigue I lived with for a long time came back. It hasn’t gone away again. Although I can still concentrate for long periods of time, I’m wiped out by eating, I sleep 10+ hours a night, and I can’t bring myself to exercise because I’m afraid it will make things worse. And before you go thinking, “maybe exercise will make you feel better!” please just trust me that I’ve had this specific fatigue feeling before, and it means my body is inefficiently operating on its last legs. Exercise will NOT make it better.

I’ve tried all the things that have worked before. I have spent whole days lying around, doing as little as possible. I have swallowed the supplements that have helped in the past. None of that has helped. But I’ve also had a thought swirling around my brain since my conversation with my friend:

What if I never get better?

What if the last month was a fluke, and my normal—my status quo—is more like what I’m experiencing now? What if it’s always an ebb and flow, and I have to live with this forever?

During my month of feeling amazing, I also felt emotionally calmer. I realized that a lot of the angst I have felt over the past several years has to do with not feeling well: trying to fit in doctor appointments and stretch my dollars to cover my supplements; feeling frustrated with having less energy than I want to have. Accomplishing things as a much slower pace than I want to get them done. This is why I’m stalled on the book I finished in 2021, Invisible Audience. With limited energy, I am budgeting mine for what puts food on the table and a roof over my head. Sending a book to agents doesn’t fall into that budget.

I have to admit something that makes me feel really ashamed. I don’t think I would spend as much time and energy on trying to get better if my weight wasn’t a factor in the equation. I keep hoping that all I’ve done to try and improve my health will stop the scale from tipping ever upward. I got a new therapist to help with body image issues, and although it has helped to some extent, I recently realized that weighing less is still a big motivator for me. This makes my anxiety worse when I can’t exercise. I can’t exercise because my body can’t handle it, for reasons that are elusive and hard to pin down. To get help with this, I pay a lot of money for care. Care that has been worth it, but costs me a lot of money. And time. And energy.

Anyone who has ever done some serious healing—physical or emotional—can tell you that healing is not linear. I know it’s very likely I’ve gone to a very dark place that is not warranted by this fatigue setback, Invisible Audience; that this is just a temporary setback in an inevitable upward swing in my healing.

But at the same time, I’m wondering if there’s a clue about a way forward in this place where I’m sitting right now: if there’s a hint of acceptance that I need to delve further into. Instead of pouring time, money and energy into striving for a life that is more comfortable and feels better, what if I got better at accepting where I actually stand?

What if I could finally accept that I may always struggle with body image issues, no matter how much I weigh?
What if I could come to terms with medical costs always being a big part of my budget, instead of hoping that this month will be the month that I don’t need to spend so much?
What if I let go of all these things I want to do—and think I should do—and spent more time assessing how I feel in the moment and planning my activities around that energy level?
What if I stopped trying so hard to make myself different than I am and just accepted it instead?

What if I never get better, Invisible Audience? What if the path to hell is paved with good intentions is actually a phrase related to what I’m experiencing right now? What if the best of intentions related to “getting better” is just another whipping stick I beat myself with?

How would it be different, Invisible Audience, if I just let myself be?

Love and fatigued kisses,

Morgan

When Can I Own What I Know?

2023-03-18T19:27:00.003-07:00

Hello Invisible Audience,

Recently, I started meeting weekly with a friend. We each have projects related to our businesses that we want to make some progress on, and have decided that having someone else to be accountable to and bounce ideas off of will be helpful. So far, we’ve been right. It is really helpful.

My friend wants to pivot from her current career to a new one helping women with small businesses. At our last meeting, she asked me what kinds of things I would want to know about business if I were just starting out…three pages of notes later, she had a whole list of things to help her. Most of the things I mentioned were things that I already know…things I know other women don’t necessarily know, because many have asked me, or mentioned something that makes it clear to me that they don’t know something that I do about how to make a business work.

I’ve been having some interesting feelings come up around this when my friend and I have met. In fact, this same friend started a women’s entrepreneur group in the area, and I went to a couple meetings. I ended up talking a lot, because I had answers for others’ questions…but then I’d leave and feel a lot of shame because it felt like I hogged the stage and wouldn’t shut up. Or was I being helpful? Or both?

And that’s the issue, Invisible Audience. When can I own what I know?

I’ve owned several small businesses. Some of them failed. Others I let go of. With each one, I learned something that made the next one work better. I’ve been supporting myself with my small businesses for over a decade now, and yet I find myself pulled in several different directions when it comes to giving advice to others about this.

The same is true—even more so, actually—with some of my life experience. I’ve lived a lot of places. I’ve experienced some truly awful, soul-wrenching shit. I’ve tried out a lot of ways to heal. Most did not work, but—sensing a theme here, yet?—with each, I learned something that made the next one work better.

So when can I own what I know?

I have to admit something, Invisible Audience. I absolutely LOVE IT when people come to me for advice. I. LOVE. IT. Nothing makes me feel more useful. And yet I also can feel utterly deflated when someone doesn’t listen to what I have to say. I have to be really careful with this, especially because the feeling I get from giving people advice that they follow is fleeting. And, perhaps more importantly, because when I go overboard with this urge, 1) I push people away who want to be listened to and not told what to do and 2) I go into fixer mode and start to present myself as a person who has the answers instead of letting myself admit I don’t know everything and need to ask questions or get feedback instead.

In my twenties, I did a lot of angrily assuming that peoples’ lives would be better if they just did what I said. I didn’t realize then that I did this because I was uncomfortable with others and my lack of control over a situation; that I wanted others to change so that I wouldn’t have to change. And somewhere in there I found Al Anon, which helped me a lot with this tendency by teaching me about co-dependence.

It’s a lot of the reason I write this blog about my own personal experience, Invisible Audience. Because having an advice column doesn’t feel genuine for me, when I am in the midst of learning so much of this for myself. It’s also the way I remind myself that I do not have all the answers. Blogging is the one place where I admit my fears and faults in a way that I don’t in my regular life.

But it also means I get resentful sometimes, because I feel like I have a lot of wisdom that could potentially help others but no one is asking me for.

Even writing that sentence makes a voice inside me rear its ugly head.

“Oh, boo-hoo. No one’s asking you for your experience. You poor, self-absorbed, spoiled little girl. What makes you think anyone would want to listen to YOU?”

I’ve been waiting, Invisible Audience. I’ve been waiting for someone else to tell me that it’s ok for me to own what I know. If I’m going to be honest, I’m waiting for that hideous voice to tell me that I’m good enough, even though she’s never done more than tell me how terrible I am. (My therapist and I call her Mildred. She has A LOT of shitty things to say about me in general).

And you know what? She’s never going to do that. She’s never going to admit that I’ve done anything noteworthy. She’s never going to give me permission to own what I know.

So my choices are continue to stew in my resentment over this, or own it, despite what Mildred says.

So here goes.

· I know I’m a good teacher.

· I know a lot of Spanish.

· I know a lot about business. And spreadsheets. And creating systems that work.

· I know how to write a book. I know how to get published and that it’s a long, ugly, convoluted process. I know how to publish myself and the drawbacks of self publishing.

· I know what it’s like to be told that there’s one right way to do something, and what bullshit that is.

· I know how to get the medical care I need to feel better, and it’s not from listening to anyone else or the goddamn broken system.

· I know a lot about eating disorders, recovering from them, falling back into them in the name of medical care, and struggling to find value in myself when I don’t look the way I was promised I would if I followed all the rules.

· I know more than I ever want to know about making hard, life-altering decisions that involve cutting out family members, and how much it hurts when others don’t trust that my reasons were good enough.

· I know a hell of a lot about therapy and psychology, both from being in therapy and avidly following the field.

· I know a lot about operating the world as a super sensitive human, and what it means on a daily basis to give my sensitive system what it needs.

· I know what it feels like to have others decide that they know what’s best for me, and how alienating that can feel when I just want someone to tell me that I’m loveable, just as I am.

· I know what it’s like to have wanted many things in my life and not gotten them. I know that sometimes not getting those things has been a blessing, and other times it has been a curse.

· I know how to be incredibly content being single.

· I know how to travel safely—and happily—by myself.

· I know how to spend whole days reading.

· I know how to spend whole days alone, and how utterly blissful that can be.

· I know that it can be true that someone did their best to love you, and how they loved you was simply not enough.

· I know that I am worthy of love, even though most of the time I am trying to prove to myself and others that that is true.

Love and Owning It Kisses,

Morgan

Where’s the Line?

2023-03-01T16:44:00.001-08:00

Hello, Invisible Audience.

I’ve been having a rough couple of weeks, mainly, I think, because of some really terrible insomnia. It seems to be getting a bit better (knock on wood) which has made it a bit easier to think. And now that I can think a bit more clearly, I find myself coming back to the same question over and over again:

Where’s the line?

The story I tell myself is that these lines are much easier for others to see; that what appears as a sort of hazy gray spot is an actual, honest-to-goodness line in the sand for others. I’ve always struggled with this line…although actually, to be more accurate, it’s about several different kinds of lines that all tie back to one thing: boundaries.

The main line I’m talking about is this: where is the line between continuing to try to have a relationship with someone and letting them go? The friendship; the family tie; the romantic relationship; the boss; the employee. How much is too much shit to put up with? When should I keep fighting; talking; bringing up how what I need is different than what I’m being offered? And when is it just time to admit that there’s no solving this thing and it’s time to pull the plug?

Although I think I’m likely to fall on the side of sticking around too long, I’m always afraid I haven’t stuck around long enough. I beat myself up a lot for not being able to make a relationship work. I tell myself that if I were better at stating my needs, this relationship would be working. If I could figure out how to present my concerns in the right way, the person would realize where I’m coming from and how wrong they’ve been, apologize profusely, see things my way, and we’d all live happily ever after, never to have a conflict again.

Did you notice the problems, Invisible Audience? On the one hand, I’m taking responsibility for another’s actions by assuming that it’s all my fault if I can’t explain myself in a way that they can hear. On the other hand, I think that the only way to solve it is to get them to see things my way.

Relationships exhaust me, Invisible Audience.

At what point do I just admit that it’s not working? Even more importantly, can I arrive at that conclusion without vilifying the other person? Instead of needing to decide that they’ve been borne from a demon dead-set on making me lose my mind, can I just admit that my needs are different from theirs, and that we can go our separate ways without making it anyone’s fault? Can I gracefully exit a relationship without throwing myself under the bus first? For example, instead of saying, “It’s not you it’s me. You’re just too good for me,” or ghosting or some other platitude, will I ever be able to get to the point where I can just say, “This doesn’t seem to be working for either of us, and I’m not interested in pursuing it further. I wish you the best, but I think it’s best if we sever contact.”

If I could get to the point that I could say that without feeling like the world was about to implode around me, could I also get to the point where I could tell someone when they’ve hurt my feelings? Could I do that without serving myself up on a platter first?

“I was having a really bad day the other day, and that’s why what you said hurt my feelings. Other days it wouldn’t have mattered so much…”

“I know you’re having a bad day, but what you said really hurt me. I know you didn’t mean to and I should just make sure I don’t ask for things on the days you’re busy…”

{radio silence}

I’m not sure I’m ever going to figure this out, Invisible Audience. I’m not sure I will ever feel safe having to talk to someone about how I need our relationship to be different. It’s why I live alone; why I work for myself; why I have quit every other job I’ve ever had.

Here’s another line that’s unclear to me:

When do I stop beating myself up for not being who I wish I could be?

When do I just accept that this is how I am and let myself just be me? When do I lean further in to who I am instead of whipping myself bloody for not having this figured out?

I can’t see the line, but it sure feels like I’m standing on it.

Love and walking the line kisses,

Morgan

The Bullsh*t Bills of Goods

2023-01-29T19:03:00.002-08:00

Hello Invisible Audience,

Something in me is changing. It’s been coming about gradually for quite a while, and I’ve felt hesitant about sharing it because it doesn’t feel like I’ve actually arrived wherever it’s taking me. But then again, some of my oldest friends—as in those friends who are twice my age or more—tell me that change is constant, so maybe by the time I feel settled into this change I’ll start to change again.

If that’s the case, I may as well share, right? Although if I’m being honest, another reason that I’ve been hesitant to share is because it’s not…well, it’s not pretty.

I’m not coming to a place of acceptance.

I’m not finding forgiveness, whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean.

I’m not even looking for forgiveness, Invisible Audience.

Instead, I’m really—fucking—PISSED.

It’s hard to pin down specifically what I’m pissed about, except maybe to say that I’m pissed to have been sold a bill of goods, over and over again. And perhaps I’m as pissed at myself as I am the peddlers of all these various bills of goods that I’ve been handed, cheerfully paid for, and stuck in my pocket to try and use as an instruction manual in my life.

You know why else I’m pissed, Invisible Audience? Because I’ve talked about some of these bills of goods before, and I want to stop talking about them, and I want them to stop affecting my life, but IT’S JUST NOT HAPPENING. I’M STILL FUCKING PISSED.

I recently found a podcast about cults called A Little Bit Culty. I don’t listen to all the episodes, but I find myself really drawn to the ones that talk about other places besides honest-to-goodness cults where you can find coercive control. It can be many things, but there are two pieces they’re touching on that flare up in me when mentioned. One is when something is presented as the one answer; the one way; the One Thing everyone should do. The second is having a fear to question it or leave it, whether that fear is that someone will hurt you, or insult you, or abandon you.

This has been putting a lot of things in perspective for me, Invisible Audience. And one thing specifically: a feeling I have had many times in my life that I can best describe as a queasiness. Someone will tell me something they claim is true. I may even believe it at first. I try my best to follow along. I tell myself they’re right. Others think they’re right—right? And then, eventually, I get this queasiness that won’t go away. The feeling builds and builds until eventually, something takes over inside my brain and tells me it’s time to GET OUT. And I do. Awkwardly, maybe without a goodbye, without stopping to explain myself a lot of the time. And then I feel awful that I am missing the gene that allows me to face conflict to talk about hard things, and I think about what life would be like if I could just say the right thing and accept or not accept someone else’s idea of the truth without this deep desire to get away.

What I just explained to you is how I have experienced and felt about this queasiness for as long as I’ve been alive, Invisible Audience. It is only recently that I have realized that the queasiness is very likely my own sense of discernment that is telling me that something is RED ALARM WRONG, and that I eventually get out because a very smart part of me knows it is not safe for me to stay.

So now I’m pissed about all the time I have spent weeping and wringing my hands and beating myself up for getting out of situations that were not good for me. I’m pissed about the number of times I have gone along with the ideas of the “experts” in the hopes I could get some answers instead of doing the harder work of listening to myself. I am pissed at how many people I know subscribe to this type of bullshit related to various things in their lives, and how I want to blow up at them about it in a really unhelpful way, because I am actually pissed at the thing they’re subscribed to. But I can’t yell at diet culture, for example, in the same satisfying way I can yell at a friend who is obsessed with counting calories.

This affects so many things, Invisible Audience. And I’m not sure yet how it’s going to play out. Will I eventually be able to have rational conversations with people about topics that I currently seethe about? Or will I eventually blow up at someone for liking something that has totally not worked for me? Or both?

Love and seething kisses,

Morgan

It All Turned Out Fine

2023-01-17T18:16:00.004-08:00

Hello Invisible Audience,

I’m not sure if you’ve been wondering, but I want you to know: the big, scary decision that I made to raise my rates turned out fine.

When I look back on the 10+ days it took to finally see whether it was going to be ok or not, it seems like such a short amount of time to wait that I’m a bit ashamed about how terrified it was to sit in those 10 days. But I can’t change how scary it was—not knowing whether I’d even continue teaching Spanish classes, if the families who put their kids in my classes had all decided not to have them continue at the new higher prices.

As I’ve been turning it over in my head, I’ve been able to find some curiosity about my reaction to the whole process.

How it felt like I was making a momentous decision that could possibly lead straight to destitution.

How it felt like how people reacted would be a reflection of whether I was going to be accepted by or rejected by the community I belong to.

How I was already starting to consider moving and starting over somewhere else if it turned out that Spanish classes in this one town weren’t viable.

And you know what? It still feels like all those things could have been true. Simultaneously, I have realized that the big reaction I had to a very normal thing—raising rates in a business—is a reflection not of how the community was going to take it, but how I was prepping myself to be abandoned—by everyone.

If there’s one thing I can own about myself, Invisible Audience, it’s that I am resourceful. I have moved to foreign countries with little more than what I could carry and no long-term plan of how to make money. I have started over again—and again and again—and found joy in the adventure of reestablishing myself. But due to a variety of circumstances—battling both Lyme disease and mold sickness, for starters, and the deep fatigue that have accompanied them—I haven’t felt the pull to start over again lately. That in itself is pretty momentous. But the idea that I would end up living in a cardboard box because my business fails is just not accurate. I have sold liquor; worked retail; taught kids to ski; written; cooked; started several businesses; published. I speak two languages—the two primary languages spoken in the region where I live. And more than all those things, I am really stubborn. I would make it, here or somewhere else, because I don’t know how not to.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy. Or that I’ve enjoyed the survival mode I’ve been living in for far too long. But the place my brain went when I decided I needed to earn more to stop stressing out about money so much was straight to the direst predictions: losing my job; my community. Being punished for asking for what I needed.

That’s really what it was all about, Invisible Audience. I needed more than I’d been letting myself have. And before I could bring myself to ask for it, I had to get to a point of thinking I could lose it all.

This is a trauma response, Invisible Audience.

I am working on breaking it, but I’m not there yet. And what that means is that I have to do these things, even as a young, scared part of me curls into a ball and waits for my world to implode because I had the audacity to decide I need more than I have. I have to sit in the sheer terror of waiting to see if the dystopian future my reptile brain has imagined will come to fruition…or not.

It all turned out fine, Invisible Audience. But that doesn’t mean I can just turn off the switch of fear every time I need to do something similar. It just means I have to do it anyway, and know that I’ll survive, no matter what the outcome.

Love and just fine kisses,

Morgan

Letting Go of Martyrdom

2022-11-20T09:10:00.003-08:00

Hello Invisible Audience,

I did a terrifying thing on Friday: I sent an email out to my Spanish students’ parents telling them I was raising my rates.

I tried my best to make it clear how much I had struggled with this decision. I offered a sliding scale for the next session of classes, a “choose-what-you-pay” model. I still named the lowest price, and it was higher than what fall session’s had been.

And you know what? It might not work out.

I got a small flurry of answers pretty quickly, but nowhere near as many as I usually get. I give students in my fall session first priority on registering for the next session, and usually, about 70 percent of the kids continue. Right now I’m at 18 percent.

It might work out. Maybe. But right now, in this moment, I am sitting in the space in-between, where it could go either way. And I’m finding myself thinking about where I would move and what I would do if I didn’t live in this mountain town and teach Spanish anymore. And that makes me wonder if, despite my best intentions, I am seeing this as an abandonment by my community, or if maybe underneath all of this I’m just ready to move on.

The one thing that’s become very clear over the last several months is that I cannot continue as I have been. I waited too long to increase my prices. I’ve increased them incrementally, but never enough to make it possible to comfortably cover all expenses. I’ve been fooling myself about how much it costs to be me: Lyme disease treatment; medication; medical care; food; life. I was supposed to take a group to Mexico in the spring, and it fell through for various reasons. I needed to raise my prices as much as I did, because suddenly I realized that what I am doing is not sustainable, Invisible Audience. And instead of carrying all the burden and shame of not being able to make it work, I finally took a hard look at the balance sheet and decided not to internalize my shame anymore. I decided that it’s not my job to sacrifice myself for the good of the community without asking anyone else for their input about what that good might be. I decided that I needed to actually ask for what I needed. I decided to no longer be a martyr for the cause, because whatever the fuck that cause is, it’s not mine.

It may not work, Invisible Audience. I may have asked for too much. I may have accidentally alienated my student base, despite my best intentions not to. Maybe people would rather not have their kids in Spanish than accept that they need the sliding scale option. Or maybe Friday afternoon wasn’t a smart time to send out that email, and I’ll hear from more families soon.

And as much as I know it’s not about me—everyone gets to decide for themselves whether they can afford classes, I logically know that—I am trying my best to remind my reptile brain of that fact as I walk through my life, wondering if I just inadvertently blew it apart.

There’s a bit of space here, though, Invisible Audience, that I’d forgotten about. You see, I’ve been here before, when a space has opened up that scared the shit of out of me but also reminded me that change is not always bad. That there’s room in change for new and good things. That there might be a new reality out there waiting for me that looks nothing like the one I’ve grown so accustomed to.

Or maybe it’s just that this in-between space is extremely uncomfortable, and I’m trying to manage it in my head by planning all the ways I can survive if it all comes crashing down.

But now that I’ve taken this step, I find that I don’t want to take it back, even if I could. There was too much self-sacrifice in what I’d been doing. Too much suffering silently, hoping someone else would notice and save me. Too much resentment when no one did. Too much trying to get by on being as small as I could.

No more, Invisible Audience. Whatever is ahead of me, it will no longer be the same as what is behind me.

Love and no longer a martyr for the cause,

Morgan

What Sustains Me from the Inside

2022-09-24T09:57:00.004-07:00

Hello Invisible Audience,

I am sitting in my pajamas at my desk in my house. The dishes are overflowing out of the sink onto the dirty countertop. There are empty cardboard boxes and a single VERY LARGE zucchini scattered across the living room floor. My bed is unmade, and there’s a pile of clothes on the floor comprised of both clean and dirty clothing.

I am itching to go to the pool, but I am writing to you instead, because I have missed writing to you like I miss my cats after several days away from them; like I missed interaction with people during the pandemic; like I miss coffee when I have to wait until morning to have it again because it will keep me awake if I have any after noon.

There’s so much to tell you, Invisible Audience, but I’ve decided the most important thing to tell you today is about the discovery I had this week. A couple days ago, I wrote an overdue post to my Patreon subscribers about death. I have made it public so you can read it if you want to, but the important thing to know is that I was experiencing extreme fatigue before I wrote it, and the fatigue went away after I was done.

Certainly, there are other factors, too, but the immediate change in energy level was significant after I poured my heart out about some things that had been bothering me. It was a good reminder to me why I write to you at all, Invisible Audience: while I like to pretend my words might help you, I really write them because they help me.

I journal every day, so it’s not like I don’t write on a regular basis. But there’s something different about writing out loud. It fulfills a different need; scratches a different itch. A necessary one, apparently, if I can mark it so clearly within my body. Before writing. After.

Several weeks ago, I was talking to a friend of mine and she told me about the Curable App. Have you heard of it? It’s for people who suffer chronic pain. I have never considered myself one of these people, and as she talked I nodded and listened, happy that she had found some relief of her own without applying it at all to my situation. Then I told her about my fatigue, and she said something like, “I wonder if there’s a way out of your fatigue other than just waiting for it to go away. If maybe part of it is more than just the physical recovery you’re going through.”

She had already told me that a big part of what helped her was delving really deeply into emotions that she’d stuffed, and staring head on into her tendencies toward perfectionism; how she’d learned that people with chronic pain often have these tendencies, and that emotional processing and release of old emotions can help people heal from pain and fatigue issues that they have suffered from for years.

Suddenly, I was paying attention. While I no longer stuff emotions as much as I used to, I had never thought about the various ailments I suffer and my tendency to expect perfectionism out of myself in quite that way.

Then I thought about the shoulder pain I’ve had for years and done PT for multiple times. About the debilitating headaches I had throughout the pandemic, that I still get if I spend too much time looking at a screen. At the foot pain I have pretty constantly that seems to be getting worse. And the fucking fatigue, Invisible Audience, that has plagued me for so long.

I found stories on the Curable App and in their podcast of people suffering the same things I do, although often much worse. Debilitating chronic fatigue. Multiple chronic symptoms. And suddenly I began to hope that there was a way out that didn’t include a lot more money and, ultimately, more fruitless attempts to try and find an answer that would stick.

So I’m writing to you, Invisible Audience, because it turns out it helps. A lot.

I was at an event last weekend and someone mentioned the Spanish classes I teach, which are just about to start up for the fall.

“Is this your calling?” this person asked. “Are you meant to be a Spanish teacher?”

“No,” I said, before I could really think about it. Because it’s not my calling.

Certainly, it’s a thing I enjoy that makes me money. Certainly, I am fulfilling a need. But my calling? No, it’s not my calling.

My calling is writing.

There’s a line in the poem The Invitation that I think about a lot.

“It doesn't interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.”

It’s writing, Invisible Audience. It’s always been writing.

Love and writing kisses

Morgan

P.S. Thanks for reading, Invisible Audience member. Interested in reading more and supporting me in the process? Check out my profile on Patreon. Pledge as little as $1.50 a month to get access to more of my ponderings and become one of my Semi-Invisible Patrons. When I can't find time to post both here and on Patreon, I prioritize posts on Patreon--there's always more to read there.