Ponderings

• May 20, 2025
• 3 months

Emotional Content

I was in a dissociative state the last three days at work, completely numb to the utter chaos around me.

It’s REI’s biggest sale of the year — “A Sale,” or “Anniversary Sale” — and I can say, without a doubt, it brings out the most heathenish side of people I have ever witnessed. There were 2-3 dozen people outside the store doors on Friday morning, Day 1. The store traffic is insane; the phone line is constantly occupied. Footwear, call on line 3. Action Sports, line 4. Service Advisor, line 6. People are shoving shoes in my coworker’s faces, asking for attention when each of said coworkers is already working with 5 other customers. I folded more pants this weekend than anyone should have to do in a lifetime and re-racked hundreds of items of clothes. I am exhausted.

The only way to get through it all is to literally dissociate. There is truly no possible way to maintain a level of caring, optimism, and upbeat energy when you are being emotionally pummeled by customers. All you can do is tackle the problem in front of you as best you can for your 8 hours, then clock out. Think too hard about it, and you’ll break.

Well, after 4 days straight of dissociation, I thought a little too hard about it. I got in the car, called my parents, and cried over the fact that I had spent literally 32 hours of my life cleaning up after grown adults, putting things back in place. When a year ago I had a full-time job — with benefits. With paid time off. With open weekends. With reasonable pay. I reminded myself that it’s all temporary and that I’m doing my best. I took myself for an hour-long sunset bike ride and felt better. But I wish I had stayed dissociated.

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Since it’s A Sale, management has been trying to boost our morale by providing free food and creating themed days. I don’t know how much our morale has been boosted, but none of us were complaining about making one or two (or three) hefty sandwiches each day of this last weekend with sides of chips. Friday was Hawaiian shirt day, Saturday was crazy sock day. Crazy sock day was sort of a conundrum for me, since I own — one could say — TOO MANY crazy socks. In fact, I own 5 pairs of donut socks alone. And I didn’t purchase a single one of them. I was able to narrow the socks to four options: beer steins, yellow submarines, donuts, or foxes. Not long after posting a poll of these socks on my Instagram, I had this revelation that my entire personality could be boiled down to my sock collection. Like, you could literally come to my house, and without looking at anything but my sock drawer, determine the person I am. I wonder how many people this also applies to…

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Part of my dissociation at REI was a tactic to hone in on my “emotional content,” a term from my favorite yoga instructor at the rock gym, LeAnne. She explained in one class how our emotional content is the energy we’re unknowingly putting out. She explained, “You know, sometimes you’re having a great day, and you get your coffee and you thank your barista in a sunshiney way. But other days, you come into the coffee shop and you’ve already spilled yogurt on yourself and pulled a button off your shirt — and so you thank your barista, but in a snappy, harsh way. And that barista absorbs that emotional content, even though they had nothing to do with the things that happened.”

I realized a few ways that my emotional content showed up like that in the weeks following. For instance, a dad at the gym came up to me and introduced himself. He exclaimed, “I recognize you from 503W and REI! You work at the two best spots in town!” I gave a hollow laugh and replied, “Yeah, well, they’d be better if they paid me more.” He got a little quiet and awkward after that, and I realized that my words were so unfair and unsuspecting.

I’ve also found that when I’m at 503Q and it’s really busy, I don’t always do a great job of remaining calm and kind when more customers enter the restaurant. I think my face and tone betray my stress, and I can tell the customers then feel bad for simply coming out to eat. So I’ve now tried to greet everyone who enters with the same enthusiasm, whether the restaurant is empty or packed.

At REI this weekend, in my dissociated state, I had a pretty much neutral face the entire time. I stayed unphased by the piles of clothes in the dressing rooms and answered customer questions with a smile on my face. The emotional content was level, consistent. But it’s so much easier said than done.

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You know how Friends names all of its episodes starting with “The One Where …” something happens? Last weekend, it occurred to me that some of my best memories — best days — can be boiled down to a descriptor like that. I specifically had told Ryan how I remembered him scoring the winning soccer goal at his game on Cinco de Mayo last year.

“Remember that day? How we went to the climbing gym and then I went to your soccer game and you scored the goal? And then we went to Costco with your parents and then downtown to get a Mexican lager? And how we made Mexican food when we got home?” See, that was a memorable, fun day. An episode.

The sad thing about life is there are a lot of non-episode days. No one wants to watch the episodes titled, “The One Where Sarah Woke Up, Worked All Day, and Went to Bed.” But many days — for some people, most days — are like that. They’re like the “building” episodes in a TV show; they’re necessary but decidedly boring. We’d all much rather watch the fun college episodes, like, “The One Where Sarah and Marta Borrowed A Friend’s Dolly to Steal a Clawfoot Bathtub in an Alleyway Because Marta Wanted to Create Her Own Hot Tub.” Those are the episodes you want to watch over and over again, with the friends involved. (As a side note: Adults tell you not to stress too much in college about exams and grades, because you’ll forget about them. And they’re right! The studying and the classes are totally NON-EPISODES. The college debauchery with your friends? Undoubtedly episodes.)

I think I get unsatisfied with my life when too many days are “non-episode” days. I also have a lot of arguably episode-worthy days, but they feel repetitive. For instance, last Monday: “The One Where Sarah Was Supposed to Climb with Casey in Golden but Casey Had a Work Snafu So Sarah Did Errands and Had Lunch with Ryan and Climbed at the Gym with Casey and Ran at Run Club with Mira.” Kinda interesting, but also, I have so many Mondays like that — errands, climbing, run club. I feel like those days also don’t count as episodes, since you don’t watch shows where episodes across a season are virtually the same.

I want episodes all the time in a world where society keeps us boxed into non-episode routines and rituals. We’re told to get up and do the same job for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. We try to spice it up in the evenings with a happy hour or physical activity or social group, and we pray that the weekend will come soon to have free time. But then we’re so behind on the mundane tasks — cleaning, fixing things, organizing — that our weekends turn into non-episode days too. We’re not afforded episodes easily. I think that’s why I’m always scrambling, packing too many things into too few hours — I’m trying to make an episode out of each day. Otherwise, why bother watching the show?

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The last time I talked to my brother, Fletcher, we talked for an hour. He is one of the most wholesome people I have the fortune to know. He had had a stressful situation go down at his work (he’s a teacher at an all-girls’ middle school), and he was facing backlash from frustrated parents despite feeling very secure in the decisions he and the school had made surrounding it. He told me, “The kind of silly metaphor I’ve been using this school year has been that teaching is kind of like curling. And each student is one of those stones. And we teachers are the curlers, and we are furiously scraping at the ice, trying to direct each student as best we can. Sometimes, though, the stone comes out too fast, and we can’t direct it the way we want. We can only try.”

I found the metaphor quite the opposite of silly. It was profound. Because you could really make it a metaphor for life. How each stone is an event, and you, as the curler, react to it by scraping the ice. A stone could be the unexpected loss of a loved one, a stone you can’t slow down. Or a stone could be like the business I’m starting to create: a slow roll that I am meticulously guiding as best as I can. This metaphor comes from the same guy who regularly secretly leaves home in search of a coffee shop for a good cookie he can eat.

Ponderings

• May 7, 2025
• 3 months

Spite is a Great Motivator

It’s been raining. Kind of a lot. When they say that Colorado gets 300 days of sun a year, it’s not an exaggeration; in fact, sometimes it feels like more. It’s weird when it rains here, so when it rains several days in a row … it’s downright upsetting. I was doing alright initially, but the weather really does affect my mood. I’ve felt mopey and down the past few days when nothing is wrong.

I could see the weather coming in on Sunday afternoon, and I made a comment to a customer checking out at REI. He responded, “I actually love this weather. I love how it makes for a quiet ambience.”

“So does my best friend. He likes that it gives him the opportunity to wear cozy clothes indoors but also sick rain gear outdoors.”

“Ha, so it’s a sort of aesthetic thing for him?”

“I suppose so.”

I need to work to make my rainy day aesthetic not scream “sad girl spring.”

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I serve a lot of couples at both of my jobs. For the most part, the dynamics amuse me — there are distinct archetypes. At REI, there’s the male partner who comes in and tells me exactly what sort of hiking boot or running shoe his female partner needs, without her getting so much as a word in. Despite it being her feet, he knows best. There’s also the male partner begrudging that he has to buy new shoes, with his female partner trying desperately to get him to just try a pair on. The male usually insists he doesn’t even know his shoe size, to which she replies, “You’ve always been a size 10!” I hope I am never one half of ones of these couples. But then there are the couples who are buying shoes for one or both individuals in earnest. These couples will tell me each other’s entire shoe stories. She’ll inform me how he’s always worn Hoka Bondis, but she thinks he might branch out to the Hoka Gaviota. He’ll tell me how she’s got a pair of Oboz Sawtooths that she’s worn for the last 10 years. Did you know they’ve been REI members since 1983? These are the couples who really warm my heart.

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This is the last bit I will write about REI because I am honestly burnt out scanning pant sizes and telling people that we moved all the “Garage Sale” items to the west building.

It genuinely cracks me up when someone will come up to me and ask, “Do you work here?” No, I just willingly chose to wear a green vest covered in disparate pins and put a radio in my ear that will inevitably fall out. Of course I work there! I am as stereotypical as REI employees come — flannels, Blundstones, beanies, a Melanzana. But part of me thinks that I also just come off as a person who WOULD willingly choose to wear a green vest covered in disparate pins and put a radio in my ear that will inevitably fall out.

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I recently wrote about how I’ve developed this new level of equanimity that truly lets everything just wash over me. It actually worked in a super powerful way last week.

I was driving, halfway to Boulder, when my dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree. I had to make a meeting, though, so I soldiered on and decided I’d figure it out when I got there. I had my meeting, then went to O’Reilly to have the code reader see what was up. It was nothing. My gas cap was supposedly loose, which made the dash light up. No sweat. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the O’Reilly employee reset the code, so I’d have to live with all the flashing for a few days until my oil change — which I had ironically scheduled before the drive to Boulder. I could live with that.

A couple of days later, I was driving home from Denver when a rock hit my window. It left a little nick in the windshield, but I brushed it off. I’ll see what I can do Friday. Usually, any crack in my windshield will drive me to distraction. The next day, it rained on and off. I got in my car, and it suddenly occurred to me: the lights on the dash had disappeared. By themselves! Who knew a 2009 Impreza could figure out its problems all on its own?! And then I looked at the windshield to see that the rain had washed away the “nick” — it wasn’t actually a crack, just a mark. I’m going to try to remember this the next time I want to get panicked or frustrated about literally anything.

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Toothpaste is one of those things that you never think you’ll need to buy more of, until the tube is mysteriously empty. It happened to me last week. I am relentlessly cheap, so I buy a $2-ish tube of Colgate. The best part of this toothpaste is not the price, but that it literally says, “Great Regular Flavor” on the box.

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I was recently on a climbing trip with a bunch of friends, including Jonathan (“Jono”), a skilled climber and potter but also classic 22-year-old. I say “classic” because he brought no food or camping equipment, despite the group agreeing on everyone bringing their own lunch as well as sleeping bags, tents, etc. Though his age comes out like this, he said a couple of things that made me stop — because he said them so casually, but they were actually kind of profound?

The first time came when our friend Brit was attempting a pretty stout boulder problem. Brit has been training like hell, so we felt pretty confident he could send this one. There was just one move on the problem that felt like a tall order. Brit attempted it with improbable beta, to which Jono reacted, “There’s NO WAY that beta is going to work. You’ve got like a one in a thousand chance of getting it that way!” Well, two tries later, Brit successfully did the move (and cursed Jono under his breath). Jono promptly apologized, and quipped, “Spite really is a great motivator.”

As quick as that comment was, I have been thinking about it ever since. How many things have I done out of spite? Countless! It usually stems from being told I can’t do something because I’m a woman — I resent it so much that nothing will stop me from doing that very thing. It may not be the healthiest way to live, but it sure gets sh*t done.

Later, while we hiked out of the boulder field in the dark, our headlamps showed a fine mist encompassing us. “Is that dust?” our friend Casey asked. Jono replied, “It could be — the world becomes a much dirtier place when you hold things up to direct light.” If you read deeply into that sentence … damn.

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As a Nuggets fan, the first round of the playoffs was a harrowing experience. I’ve had it easy the last couple of years, us practically sweeping the first round without issue. To go 7 games against the Clippers, so evenly matched, was exhausting. I question how I made it to the finals two years ago. How many beers did I drink watching this team? How many hours did I agonize in front of the television?

I asked these questions after watching us close out the series at the bar. I was at my workplace, since I knew my fellow coworkers, also Nuggets fans, would be there. (And I could have a discounted beer.) After the game, we went straight into watching the Avalanche play in their own game 7, just to blow a 2-0 lead in the last 10 minutes and lose 2-4. As we all yelled and cursed at the TV, a guy a couple seats down from me — a regular I recognized — declared, “You know guys, sports just have to end!” All of us naturally booed at that, but he stood his ground. “I mean, think about it! We spend all this time following these teams, getting upset when they lose, feeling anxious the more they win. Sports just need to end and then we can just enjoy our summers!” I had to admit, he had a point.

Ponderings

• April 10, 2025
• 4 months

Are you happy?

I felt sobered the moment I walked in. It had been just a little over year since I had last seen my grandparents, but things felt palpably different. My grandmother, just turned 87 this March 31st, was now practically bedridden. My grandfather, just turned 90 two weeks before her, had worn himself down caretaking. Still adamant to do things himself, I watched him struggle to stand up from the couch, to reach down for a pen dropped on the floor. While I acknowledge that aging is a part of life, it doesn’t make it any easier to watch your loved ones slow down this way. When I entered my grandparents’ bedroom, I tried to hide my visible concern and disheartenment over the situation. As we chatted — me, my grandmother, my grandfather, and my aunt Kathleen — I felt my unease decrease, but never really disappear.

I was only spending 24 hours at my grandparents; the rest of my visit to South Carolina would be spent at Kathleen and uncle Marc’s house on Kiawah Island. I felt enormously guilty to leave them so soon, but also like leaving would be less of a stressor. My grandfather, preoccupied by my grandmother, now views any guest or break from routine as a threat to their homeostasis. While I’m a grown adult, perfectly capable of entertaining and feeding myself, I couldn’t quell his anxiety about hosting me. So leaving felt perhaps like the way to go, though it stung to leave them so soon — especially in this admittedly fragile state.

I resolved to do what I could in the time I was there — clearing out the fridge of all the old food, cleaning the kitchen, doing laundry. I went for my run while they napped, then spent the remaining time in their bedroom, conversing with my grandmother. Her short-term memory is poor now, but she can still recount stories in vivid detail. Though I’ve heard most many times already, I felt appreciative to hear them again and again.

At one point while seated with her, she asked accusatorily (Joan asks every question somewhat accusatorily), “So, are you happy?”

Her tone of voice made me chuckle, but it was a genuinely good question. Though I aspire to be happy most of the time, the reality is, I’ve been unhappy on and off throughout my life. Sometimes it’s been just a passing phase, while other times, it’s been diagnosable depression. I always come out of it, one way or another, but I can feel in the depths of despair.

Taking stock of my life right now, though, I can say that I truly am happy. I finally have made peace with the fact that I work two part-time minimum-wage jobs. After months of feeling ashamed, embarrassed, frustrated, and just plain exhausted by my job situation, I’ve come to accept it for what it is. It’s not for a lack of trying to find full-time work — I’ve applied to roughly 70 jobs since July — but I’ve also settled into my reality. Because apart from the jobs not paying a ton, they keep me active, sociable, and adequately fulfilled. I leave work without stresses hanging over my head; I don’t face any serious stresses when I’m at work, either. That’s not a bad way to live.

Though the two jobs occupy most of my time, it makes me relish any bit of free time I have now. I’m squeezing in going for trail runs and catching up for a beer or coffee with friends. I’m meal prepping and packing several changes of clothes every time I leave the house so that I can hit the trail, the rock gym, and both jobs in a single day. I’m often out of my house for over 12 hours. And when I have a day off, I’m outside, climbing my little heart out.

I think about just how lucky I am, returning from this South Carolina trip alone. Sunday morning, I was riding a cruiser bike on the beach in Kiawah; Monday morning, I was at the base of my climbing project, Sonic Youth (5.13a) in Clear Creek Canyon, Golden, Colorado. The fact that my life affords me time to work and play like that is incredible.

Of course, there are times when I lose sight of this happiness and good fortune. I get overworked running between tables at my restaurant job, hampered by nonstop customers at REI. Some weeks, I work so many hours, I barely have time to think, let alone see friends, go climbing or running, or even cook a normal, healthy meal. I wonder if I’ll be able to get the time off to see my family or hit the outdoor objectives I’m dreaming about. And when I do take time off, it means I make no money.

“Are you happy?”

After a beat (and that chuckle), I responded, “Yes. I am. I have great friends and I love where I live. I work two part-time jobs, one at a restaurant and the other at an outdoor gear store, and yes, they don’t pay well, but they are reasonably fulfilling and I like my coworkers. I’m also trying to start my own business, which will eventually get me out of them. And I just go trail running and climbing when I’m not working.”

“Good.” Joan answered, seemingly satisfied. And after another pause, “Any romance in your life?”

“It’s complicated.”

“In other words, ‘mind your own business.'”

I had to chuckle at that, too.

I’ll be calling Joan more often now, knowing that her world has shrunk. I want to hear her voice and her ornery quips. But I think I also want to call because she’ll ask me if I’m happy, and I’ll be reminded that yes, I am.