Losing my Zombie Eyes. Or, Getting Work Done.

I'm not a deeply vain person.

You know this is going to be a good post with a solid self-justifying start like that!

I’m not a deeply vain person. I don't blow dry my hair or wear makeup. I've never dyed my hair. I mostly accept my crows-feet and gray hairs as hard-earned through a pretty well-lived first half of my life. I like nice clothes, but I'm not obsessed about what's in style. I subscribe to zero beauty or lifestyle magazines.

None of these things are inherently wrong, and Lord knows I have plenty of pride issues. But, I just don't tend to fall into the beauty trap too hard. I think of myself as pretty well-balanced in that department. I definitely never saw myself as a “cosmetic surgery” kind of person (whatever that implied in my imagination). 

But, like most people (most women?) I have that "just one thing" that drives me batty - the bags under my eyes.

I know, you're saying, "Jamie, I have literally never noticed this thing about you ever."

I get it.

This really wasn't about you or anybody else - it was about me. I felt like, no matter what I did, I always looked tired.

So, I started investigating what was going on and found out that the poochy bags under one's eyes are actually fat deposits, and there's really nothing one can do about them - this isn't about creams or diet or exercise because it's all under the skin. It's mostly genetic, and some people just have more generous fat deposits under their eyes than others. I just happen to have prodigious under-eye fat.

About a year ago I started to investigate what could be done about this. I had several requirements (not saying these are everybody's requirements, but they're mine):

• No fillers or weird injections
• It had to be something I couldn't correct with diet, exercise, or a healthier lifestyle
• It had to look natural
• Whatever I did, it had to age gracefully and require no upkeep/maintenance/touchups. I was not about to sign up for a lifetime of regular surgeries or injections or whatever to keep things looking right

And after a ton of thought and many discussions, I decided to go for it! And because I know you're wondering, Steve was against the whole thing (mildly, not passionately opposed) and willing to support whatever decision I made. He's a good man.

My surgery was originally scheduled for Thanksgiving and then that didn't work out for our family's schedule so it got pushed to April which, of course, didn't happen for many weeks because of Coronavirus. But, eventually, schedules aligned and surgery centers opened and it was time!

The surgery itself was pretty fast and for sure the worst part of those first day was recovering from anesthesia. Steve lovingly prepared many icepacks for my swollen face. I went back to work (from home, of course) after 5 days. Most of the swelling was gone after a few weeks, and the bruises are still there (faintly) 7 weeks post-surgery.

Here are a few choice shots:

Day 2

Day 11

Day 25

Day 37

And here's a pic from today:

I'm super happy with the results - the bruises are almost gone and I think the overall effect is my normal face, just without the big bags under my eyes (which is what I was hoping for).

I think that getting cosmetic surgery or any permanent/long-term cosmetic intervention is an intensely personal decision with lots of pros and cons.

Am I glad I did it? Yes.

Would I do it again? Yes, having been through it, I would go back and do the same thing agin.

Would I do other surgeries? I don't think so - I stand by my original rationale for which surgeries were ok for me to consider and there aren't many that fall into that same category. Plus, there are risks with any surgery and the recovery, as easy as it was, was still no joke.

So, there you go - the story of my first surgery (unless you count getting my wisdom teeth out)! One surgery every 40 years seems like a decent pattern to perpetuate.

What I'm Learning from Coronavirus

Oh, 2020. I know everybody is saying this, but I just have to throw in my opinion that you are one crazy-ass year. I'm learning a lot, but, boy oh boy, it is not cheap or easy learning.

To be sure, nothing worth learning comes cheap or easy. I know this... I just don't like it.

Also, I'm learning a toooooooon right now about being an ally to African Americans and fighting for justice, but those learnings are all super raw and need a little more time to settle before I write about them. More hard, expensive learning. More essential learning.

So, with that meandering preamble, here's what I'm learning through the dismantling of normalcy through coronavirus disruptions, in no particular order.

Lesson A: There's simultaneous freedom and claustrophobia about the shrinking of my world

It's a very curious sensation having my practical, everyday world shrink down to the footprint of my house. I used to travel across the country every other week and internationally every 2-3 months. It's been a part of my normal schedule for years. And now, although I may be on Zoom calls with Seattle and Krakow regularly, it's also just two people talking from their home offices - we could be down the street from each other.

Overall, I'm surprised how much I like it. I like not being jetlagged. I don't mind not flying (although I miss the snobbery of my business travel). I like knowing I'll be home every day and not having to remember which time zone I'll be in on a given day. There's a simple contentedness in this constriction of my practical world.

I also miss feeling like a global citizen. I worry a little that in not being in the various corners of the world, my heart for the whole world will likewise constrict. I worry that somehow I'll start to only care for the people within the footprint of my home.

I am glad that this is only a season. I can't wait to get out into the big, wide world again. But for now, I'm also glad to be content in this small corner of it.

Lesson 1: I've found (some) peace in not excelling right now

From a professional perspective, I don't feel like I'm doing the best work of my life. I'm doing good work. In some ways, I love it, because I'm doing different work and that feels good. But I don't feel like I'm doing brilliant work right now.

And I'm mostly ok with it.

I'm pretty sure you didn't know this, but I kind of embrace "high achiever" as an essential defining characteristic. There's some good stuff about this, and there's some gross accomplishment-based striving that comes with it as well.

Thanks to the bizarrity of coronavirus reality, I've reached a new level of okayness with not excelling. There are so many contributing factors to this - the weight and distraction of national and international news, the extra burden of keeping 4 kids reasonably busy and productive and happy and harmonious and learning and not exclusively subsisting on Cheetos and Animal Crossing, the heavy weight of feeding myself (boy oh boy I can't wait to go back to the office and eat from a buffet line daily again. I really miss corporate lunches). It's a hard time, and I've found a new level of acceptance of not being ok. I've cultivated a new level of self-compassion for my own needs and wants and hurts. These are good lessons.

Lesson I: There's contentment in being a bigger part of our home rhythms

I do love being more involved in the goings on of our home. To be clear, I also miss the peace of compartmentalization that comes with being able to leave the largest part of my home worries at home when I go to work - and I really, really look forward to getting that healthy compartmentalization back. But until then, I do like being a bigger part of my kids during-the-day lives. I like us all being home more together and playing games and working our way through Clone Wars. I like cooking together. I like being on-hand to help my girls bake.

There are some really hard parts about us all being home together all. the. time. But there is also real sweetness in doing life intertwined in a way we haven't experienced since the kids were itty bitties. I don't want to lose this deeper connection with my family that we've developed over the past few months.

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Overall, I am really, really looking forward to going back to the office, having the kids go to school and youth group, and returning to lives that include a little more independent time.

But that time isn't now. It isn't safe or possible for us to go back to schools, offices, travel. So for now I'm doing my best to embrace the unique blessings and lessons of this time. They are good and sweet and hard and life-altering lessons. And I am grateful for them.

Running Away to the Desert (Again)

Learning: A four-day weekend surrounded by two four-day weeks is just about the right pace for me right now.

Last week, Qualtrics (and all of SAP) decided that in the face of hard times, they would turn Memorial Day weekend into an extra long weekend by giving us Friday off as well as Monday. It was pretty cool to be given that extra unplug and unwind time, and I'm extremely grateful for a company that is not only financial stable but also is attentive to and acting on the extra needs of employees in these tough times.

With this extra gift of time, we decided to high-tail it to the desert, along with approximately half of the state of Utah. Fortunately, the desert is pretty big, so there was plenty of space for all of us. The extra van in this photo is my parents', there wasn't actually a traffic jam of VWs on the dirt roads. Although... that would be pretty epic if it were the case.

We're self-contained in our van, so we don't need campgrounds (although flush toilets are awfully nice when you can get them). So we just headed down the Burr Trail in Escalante National Monument until we found a secluded (and ecologically responsible) side road to camp on.

There was a large sandstone hill-rock-thing down our dirt road that Ben immediately vowed to conquer. We had, of course, packed along a set of three unicycles so that he and WanYing had a few to choose from for whatever camping unicycle needs might befall them. We like to stick to packing only the necessities while camping - beer, hot dogs, unicycles, sleeping bags.

I got to play photographer for the unicycle slickrock adventures and it was a blast, except for the part where I got totally freaked out trying to climb down the giant sandstone mountain and my children had to talk me down. Yes, I was scared to walk down the same slope my son carried/rode his unicycle down. I stand by my self-preservation instincts.

Here are some of the choice unicycle shots and movies:

It had been years since we had hiked to Calf Creek Falls, so we decided it was time to make the trip again.

Here's Sasha on our last trip to the falls :)

And here's another one from the way-back machine! Thank goodness the kids can hike 6 or 8 miles under their own power now!

It was such a lovely hike - hot on the trail, cold at the falls. The trail was busy, but not so busy that you felt like you couldn't find your 6-foot bubble. And the dogs loved it.

I'm pretty sure this is the same place as where I took Sasha's photo 8 years ago!

On Sunday we decided to try a new adventure and drive to Spooky and Peekaboo Slot Canyons. This meant driving 26 miles down a dirt road, which didn't sound so bad until we discovered that the road was essentially one huge washboard. It was astoundingly awful and I have pledged to Steve that whenever he wants to upgrade the van's shocks, I will not stand in his way.

Deeply awful drive that it was, the hike more than made up for it. The 1.4 miles to the slots themselves was super beautiful and a total unexpected bonus to the day.

Like everything else, the slots were busy, but traffic moved through pretty well except for one chokepoint where we ended up waiting 30 minutes for a family to navigate one of the 12-foot drops.

The slots were the perfect level of adventure for us. Plenty of squeezes, a few drops to navigate, a few climbs to get over, but nothing that required a rope. I can see why these slots are so popular!

I am so grateful for the time and space to get away with my family. The freedom of running away to the desert, where we can experience adventure and move our bodies and still do it in a way that is safe for ourselves and the local communities is a huge blessing.

I'm sure we all have a bunch of figurative steep grades and sharp curves ahead in the coming weeks and months. I'm just grateful that last week we got to enjoy these literal ones on a family adventure!