Pain Shouldnʻt be a Punishment (for Being Poor)

It was fricken hot today, wasnʻt it? Iʻm sweating in my jeans and tank top on my way to the bus stop, and itʻs only eight in the morning. Iʻm wearing my new New Balance shoes with the expensive insoles because Iʻve decided to wear them every day this week to see how they work. So Iʻm paying attention to my feet and how they feel in the pavement, and Iʻm paying attention to how the insoles feel on my arches-- are they too much? Iʻm paying attention to my knees to see if theyʻre turning in and my back to see if anything aches.

And then it occurs to me just how privileged I am.

Not blessed, not lucky. Privileged.

1. I have great health insurance that allows me to receive quality health care. Youʻve seen me write this over and over, how lucky I feel to have health insurance! I went to see my primary care physician who referred me to a podiatrist who, after seeing my X-rays and examining my feet, recommended I start investing in quality footwear and insoles.

2. I can afford to buy orthotic slippers. These are my everyday wear. If you see me wearing them at work, itʻs because theyʻre the most supportive and comfortable things for my feet. The podiatrist says that a good supportive shoe/slipper will feel uncomfortable at first because itʻs changing the alignment of my body-- changing its center of gravity. Until earlier this week, these slippers I have were the only orthotic thing I owned.

2a. I can afford Amazon Prime. The slippers were nowhere to be found at any local retailer, and they were cheaper on Amazon than on the brandʻs website. And having Prime, shipping was free. Returning them would have been free, too, if Iʻd discovered upon delivery that the slippers werenʻt a good fit.

3. I can afford supportive athletic shoes. These babies are not cheap. At all. Neither are they the most expensive, but itʻs priced so far out of my comfort zone that I had waited months since seeing the doctor-- months that the status of my feet worsened-- before spending the money.

4. I can afford the time it took to purchase the shoes. I was at the store for hours. Literally, hours. I tried on several pairs and even thought Iʻd found the right one when Noah brought out another pair and I realized THOSE were the shoes for me. I didnʻt have to rush off, I didnʻt have distractions. In fact, I didnʻt even have to share my sales person with anyone but once for a total of two minutes.

5. I can afford the insoles, which cost almost half of what the price of the shoes themselves. Crazy! Madness! But I knew I needed them, could tell immediately that I needed the arch support or my feet were going to scream at me every day I found myself on the treadmill. And then what would have been the point of buying the new shoes?

When it occurred to me how privileged I was to be wearing these shoes on my feet, to walk in such comfort, I thought about all of those people who were experiencing pain like me but couldnʻt do much about it.

You can buy slippers at Old Navy for as little as a dollar if you catch the right sale. You can buy cheap insoles anywhere. You can find cheap shoes at many discount stores. You might not even know if something was really wrong with your feet or your knees or your back because you couldnʻt afford to visit the doctor. And this describes so many people-- including me just a few years ago!

Hereʻs another thing: I donʻt take care of my feet. I know I should soak my feet and moisturize them regularly. It probably wouldnʻt hurt to get a foot massage every now and then, either. My feet are dry and rough from going barefoot and wearing slippers so much, and the places that are roughest are also sensitive.

My new shoes are good. I can tell the difference in my knees and back. These shoes give me the support I need so that my feet arenʻt throbbing after the gym (or after work, for that matter). I may actually go back to the podiatrist to purchase the orthotic insoles instead, and thatʻs some bucks, too. I also want to buy an orthotic pair of casual shoes, which are more my every day style than athletic sneakers.  Those casual shoes are expensive. For that matter, anything orthotic has turned out to cost a pretty penny, so you gotta have money to give your feet a rest! To alleviate the knee and lower back pain.

I wish money wasnʻt a prerequisite for good health. I see so many people on the bus whose feet look like they must ache all day and night. They look like theyʻre going to burst out of their skin, wearing Locals slippers from Longs, and theyʻre struggling to get on and off the bus. And the thing is, having quality health care and health insurance now doesnʻt mean Iʻll have it 5, 20, 37 years from now. I could easily be one of those people. What happens when my situation changes and I canʻt meet the demands of my health and age?

Three Reasons to Give Bullet Journaling a Go

Hereʻs one argument for why all of you, my dearest readers, should take up a bullet journal (or bujo).

CARVE OUT PERSONAL SPACE

I never thought it was all that important, this personal space. I grew up in a three bedroom townhouse that I shared with my parents and four siblings, so we were pretty much piled on top of each other most of the time. Iʻm used to that. Iʻm used to noise and chaos and sharing the TV and doing homework on the couch instead of at a desk.

Sharing spaces is familiar to me.

And yet sitting at my desk, which is only my desk, is comforting. Itʻs like returning home after a long trip or taking a shower after a sweaty, arduous hike. Itʻs like this scene from one of my favorite movies, Centerstage (with a very young Zoe Saldana):

My desk is one of my sacred spaces. Here, I create, I work, I relax, I read, I drift off to sleep with my neck at an uncomfortable angle. I need the space to store my pens and stickers and Post Its so that I can set about the fun and comforting business of building my templates each day and thoughtfully planning what I need and want to do. This may take only a handful of minutes or it might take an hour, but the bujo forces me to

CARVE OUT PERSONAL TIME

on a regular basis. Every weekday I begin my day with my journal, and every day ends the same way.  Itʻs Me Time in which I check in with myself. Having a designated space for Work or Writing or Creating or Journaling forces me to switch my brain to the task at hand. So if Iʻm at my desk, Iʻm there to write or pay some bills or doodle, and itʻs time to separate myself from the daily chores, even if only for fifteen minutes. One of the most important functions of my bujo, though is to

ROOT MYSELF IN MY INTENT

My journal isnʻt (merely) a list of errands and reminders. This journal is a way for me to guide myself toward my own happiness. I know that sounds so New Agey. But when I write my To Dos and my Daily and Weekly Goals, itʻs done deliberately with consideration and resolve. Sometimes the To Do list is unreasonably but necessarily long, and having it written down ahead of time, I feel more prepared and less stressed. These errands and goals are no longer simple tasks-- I see them as steps I need to take to get to where I want to be.

When I wake up on a day Iʻm not working at either job (which is rare, and therefore too exciting), Iʻm so worried Iʻll squander the day fighting between two separate impulses: to catch up on the household chores or to drool in front of a binge session of The Great British Bake Off. My bujo affords me the opportunity to make time for both-- sometimes even on the same day! Youʻd think the scheduling and lists would make for a dull, rigid life, but it isnʻt. Bullet journaling actually liberates me. Thereʻs less indecision, less internal struggles, greater presence when Iʻm doing the things Iʻm doing.

BONUS REASON

Bullet journaling takes practice in both its creation and execution. You figure out what kind of book (hardcover? softcover?) and the template (what kind of prompts will help you meet your daily, short-term, and long-term goals?), and that changes depending on your goals. But you also practice doing the actual work of honing your intent and actually working toward those goals. For me, itʻs learning to find what makes me happy and then doing what makes me happy. Itʻs shedding so much of the "supposed tos" and replacing it with "want tos" without all the guilt I might usually summon.

But the really beautiful thing about bullet journaling is that itʻs forgiving. You decide what it looks like. There is no judgment (unless you check out how other people do such creative things with their bujos and you mourn your lack of creative execution, so advice: donʻt do that). If your last entry was a chilly Sunday in December and the next page is a hot and sweaty July Friday, you couldnʻt tell because you donʻt have those skipped, empty pages of the typical planner. No empty pages glaring at you.

Iʻve been sounding like a broken record about two things lately: eating the damn frog (ask Meredith), and bullet journaling. In my unsolicited opinion, you should probably do both.

Iʻm Not Crazy (I Just Like What I Like) . . . With Illustrations

I have pens all over the house. You can ask Shani, and maybe sheʻll remember, that for much of my life, Iʻve been on the constant prowl for the perfect reading chair and for the perfect pen.

Let me explain (although itʻs actually quite simple).

The perfect reading chair. Well, duh. One ought to read in comfort. To me this means that I can enjoy different positions-- whether it be seated upright, slouched, cross-legged, legs over the arm rests, or semi-prone-- without having to get up. Obviously, it must be conducive to naps because letʻs face it: sometimes "Iʻm going to read" is synonymous with *snore*. This chair shouldnʻt be too smushy or too rigid, may or may not recline, and should function without extra accessories such as pillows.

This one comes pretty close, but minus all those damn pillows

I donʻt ask for much.

Now, I canʻt go around buying up random chairs-- I canʻt fill my house with every chair that I see in a store that may fit the bill. I just canʻt. No room. But I can buy just about any and every pen I lay eyes on at Fisher. And if you thought my demands of furniture seem unreasonable (or at least unattainable), get ready for this ridiculousness.

Throughout the course of my life, Iʻve written. Iʻve written a lot, mostly epistolary. And before you get too impressed, weʻre not talking Jane Austen. More like Diary of a Wimpy Kid with fewer illustrations. As a child, I had only pencils, so my journals were all written in bold but fading grey scratches. It wasnʻt until freshman year of high school that I credit my BFF, Shani, with bringing me into The Adulthood of Writing Implements. She had a brown leather backpack with what seemed like endless pockets of pens. I didnʻt know pens could so interesting!

Iʻve always liked bold markings, so in the early years I really had to have roller ball pens. My preferred pen was this:

It glided across the paper and left behind bold lines, which made it easy to write quickly and permanently. The body of the pen made it easy to see how much ink you had left so you had a good idea of when to go back to Longs and get a replacement.

Later, I was infatuated with these:

They, too, left behind bold strokes and they also glided over the page, but they were also retractable! Amazing! And their points could be had in different thickness! How could you lose?

But finally, my tastes have simplified:

Pilot Easytouch fine-tipped retractable pens in blue or black, though I tend to gravitate toward the blue more often than not. These are perfect for my bullet journaling and for the daily crossword puzzles. They may not slide as gracefully as a roller ball, but they make crisp lines that donʻt bleed into one another. Theyʻre incredibly affordable (they were on sale for $0.69 a piece for Back to School), so I bought a truckload and theyʻre all over the house. On my nightstand, next to the couch, on my desk, on my dresser. Thereʻs one in my wallet, at least two in each backpack, one in each purse, and a few in my pencil pouch. I even have a few at school, and everyone at the Theatre knows which is the good pen (as evidenced by one of my coworkers labelling an individual pen with her station number to ensure it never walked away! And yes, in an office filled with a million pens, thereʻs only one of these at each station!). Thatʻs not even counting the pens I have in reserve.

Because you can never know when youʻll be inspired to write a haiku or jot down an errand you must  remember do by the end of the day. You never know when someone will say, "Kanani, try look at todayʻs crossword. Whatʻs 5 down?" You never know when your child will need that field trip form signed two minutes before you leave for work.

You can rest assured, world, that I am ready for your crosswords, To Do lists, and field trip forms. Iʻm ready.