Profiles Encourage: Tanya

Hello again, everyone. Today we're talking with Tanya. She's a talented researcher and an expert at curling (the sport, not the hair. Although I'm sure she's very good at that, too). We have worked together for several years and she occasionally laughs at my jokes, so that makes her an excellent judge of character and quite smart, in my opinion.

Take it away, Tanya.

Hi Tanya. Let’s start with some basics. Tell me a little bit about your life. Where do you live and what do you do?

I'm a mother of a two-year-old girl, wife of an awesome husband who cooks me dinner every night and washes the dishes. I feel like I put on an act sometimes, but he is genuine, has no filter and is funny. I find it very refreshing, and while sometimes, OK often, I feel he takes things too far, more often I wish I could be as honest as he is.

Where I work matters less to me than what I do. I work at a non-profit membership association for HR professionals, but I have never been in HR and it's not my interest. I am a survey researcher. I like designing surveys, learning things about people and analyzing data. My job allows me independence, variety, flexibility and has good benefits and decent pay. Plus I've got some pretty great co-workers.

I live in Maryland, a suburb of D.C. and work in Virginia. It's a conflicting place to live. Nice parks, green areas, a river, hiking, close enough to take a beach weekend, tons of great restaurants, entertainment, art, and lots of friends here plus some family (in-laws). But I'm a Wisconsinite, so the traffic, entitled folk, politics and sheer number of people is not so desirable.

Now tell me a little bit about your background. What is your heritage? Where does your family come from? Do you have roots outside of the United States?

I grew up in a small city of 20,000 people in central Wisconsin. It was a unique population because we had a large clinic and hospital with a research center. So we had a large number of doctors in the town. Almost all of my close friends in high school had a parent who was a doctor. My mother is a musician, teacher and stayed at home to raise me and my three brothers. My father is a small business owner selling feed and seed to farmers.

Both of them grew up in Wisconsin and earned college degrees. My maternal grandparents also went to college in Wisconsin, my Grandma teaching English and my grandpa still known as "the Judge" at 100 years old in his town. My grandpa was also a pilot, taking us on flights in his Cessna when I was a kid. He was trained in the military, and went on bombing missions to Berlin until his plane was shot down and was captured as a POW.

My father grew up on a farm and his father worked for the postal service after serving in the Aleutian Alaskan islands in WWII. He remembers hearing Danish being spoken by his grandparents. But my heritage is very mixed as my relatives have been in the U.S. for many generations. A smattering of Danish, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, Norwegian, English, Swiss and possibly others. But certainly I'm very white with blond hair, though my mom had dark brown hair. I remember eating lefsa as a Christmas tradition, but otherwise nothing seemed very reminiscent of a foreign culture.

Is there something about you – a physical characteristic, a personality trait, an aspect of your job or any part of your life – that is frequently misunderstood by people? If so, please tell me about it and what you would say to dispel that misunderstanding. 

Rather than being misunderstood, I feel I am perceived as always being in a good mood even when I'm not. Probably not a bad thing, but on my worst day, a stranger might stop me and ask for directions. Can't you see the scowl on my face!? I think, but alas they make me realize it must not be so bad. One of my high school friends once told me, "Tanya, everyone likes you!"

Let’s flip that around now. Tell me about a time you learned more about somebody – or something – after looking a little deeper, beyond the superficial.

One of my good friends started dating this guy, and when I first met him, I was like, really? What do you see in this guy? He is so childish, but as I got to know him I realized he was a great guy and just liked to have a good time. I think he was really more mature than we all were and knew who he was and what was important to him. He certainly didn't care what others thought about him. They are still together several years later and I can see why.

What really drives you? What’s your reason for getting out of bed every day?

I'm a morning person and like to get out of bed and start the day. I feel like the morning is the most important part of the day and determines how the rest will go. I guess I'm driven by accomplishment. I wake up thinking about what I will get done that day and feel bad if I don't meet my goals.

I'm not driven by my job, other than I need the money and want to get my work done. I'm driven by my daughter and want to spend time with her before I go to work. Otherwise it's just habit and human nature. I would like it to be more, but honestly it's not at this point in my life. But I'm OK with that.

Tell me about a difficult period in your life, how you coped with it and how it made you stronger.

I don't feel like I've had many difficulties in my life. I guess I've gone through depression, but I feel many people have. It's hard to remember since it has been over five years ago. Medication probably helped and I learned to recognize my thoughts and signs before I slipped into depression.

It was a pretty amazing feeling when I recognized harmful thoughts and nipped them in the bud. Luckily it has not returned, but I feel very aware if it were to try and come back.

We all know there’s no shortage of bad news out there. Now tell me what gives you hope and what’s good about the world.

What gives me hope is that life is short and I have no idea what comes after death. Therefore live life to the fullest. I also have great friends who remind me of what great people there are and we far outnumber the not so good people. My master's degree in positive psychology has taught me to be grateful.

Let’s have a little fun here. Tell me about your worst job. And if you haven’t had one, tell me about the most interesting one.

My most interesting job was milking cows. I had no experience so they trained me. I helped a cow birth a calf and chased an escapee in the dark. Not a long-term job, but interesting for a summer.

Now let’s talk about music. I need it every day. In the car, at the gym, in the kitchen, you name it. Tell me what you like and when you need to hear it.

I love music, but it also pains me that I no longer play an instrument. I used to play violin, trombone and some piano. I loved it but no longer play. I still have my violin and bought a guitar, but don't really play either.

I sing to my daughter a lot in hopes she will love music, but I do hope to get back into performing some day. Music helps me work. I can focus better with it on in the background. I like a diverse type, but my favorite is indie rock. Give me some Sonic Youth.

Thanks, Tanya. Did we miss anything? Anything you’d like to add?

My passion is helping other people. I wanted to be a teacher once and was a life coach for several years. So if you are looking for someone to listen and direction in life, please reach out to me.

Goodbye, stranger

Katherine died Sept. 6, 2016 at the age of 75. My Mom was a secretary, a homemaker, a volunteer, a ball-buster. She taught me how to ride a bike, how to cook and how to use the laundry machine when she got tired of dealing with my smelly socks. She took me to all those practices and games for my baseball and basketball teams. And she waited up all those nights when I was out on the town and up to no good.

Above all, she loved her husband, her two children, her daughter-in-law and her two grandchildren. Here she is on my wedding day. She looks very happy, and who could blame her?

But that woman I knew was not the woman who died alone in a nursing home bed last week. That was somebody else, beaten down by three-plus years of sorrow after my Dad's death. When Dad passed on in March 2013, Mom's depression set in. We tried so hard to get her out of the house, to get her to remember what was still good in her life. But she wasn't having any of it.

After a pair of brief stints in short-term care facilities, the dementia started. Mom couldn't be alone at the house where I was raised -- where I'm sitting right now and typing this up -- and she had to be moved into an assisted living complex. Communication came in fits and starts. One-word sentences, punctuated by stuttering and occasional anger toward whoever was in the room at the time. I called her on the phone one time and she said she didn't want to talk to me, and hung up. I don't know if that was the sickness taking its toll on her, and it doesn't really matter. I just know that it hurt. A lot.

This went on for a couple of years. Then she fell and broke her hip this past spring, had emergency surgery and was placed in a different facility where she refused to do her rehab and refused to take her meds. That's where she died last week, unrecognizable to those who cared and loved for her after all these years.

That's not how I want to remember her, but goddammit, I'm mad right now. I want to know why she gave up. Why she decided that life wasn't worth living. Why she didn't get help when it was there for her.

I keep telling myself that this should be a relief. She's where she wants to be, right by Dad's side in Village Cemetery in Old Wethersfield. Truthfully, I haven't been the same since Dad died, either. I learned he had cancer about a month after my 40th birthday. I was there in the room at the hospital with my parents when the doctor said that Dad had between nine months to a year left to live.

There's been a cloud up here in my little hometown for these past four years. It's affected me in ways I cannot describe and I pray to God it hasn't harmed my marriage or the way my children look at their Dad.

I'm going back to Virginia tomorrow and I'm going to try and make sense of all this. I've spent the last week making funeral arrangements, rifling through paperwork, meeting with attorneys and handing out copies of death certificates. I'm fucking tired right now, pure and simple.

I'll never be able to repay you for all you did for me, Mom. I'll always love you. But it didn't have to end like that. So I'm going to stay mad for a while and try to remember what was good. Rest in peace.

Love,

Joey

Back to school

It's Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer. We're batting .500 on the enthusiasm scale among the kiddos. My daughter was ready to roll last week and cannot wait to start first grade. She's kinda like this right now:

My son. . .not so much. I can't say that I blame him. I'm sorry to see summer go, too. Even after all these years away from the classroom, I still get a little bummed out at the end of this weekend. One last day at the pool and then it's back to business.

That being said, I've compiled a short list of pros and cons regarding the first day of school. Here goes.

Pro: Kids get some time apart. This one is really, REALLY important. They had six weeks of camp together and another two weeks at a home child care in the neighborhood. They've really had enough of each other. Guys, go to your neutral corners, for Christ's sake.

Con: Prepping lunches five nights a week. A lot of people will tell me to let the kids buy lunch every day and this problem is solved, but come on. Number one, it's extra money. Number two, I've seen some of the stuff they're eating in the cafeteria. It's not bad, but let me tell you, it won't win any awards. We caved last year and let them buy lunch once or twice a week, but I won't do more than that. Can't do that to my kids. So it's time to suck it up and start brown bagging it once again. 

Pro: Making new friends. We've only been in this neighborhood for two years, and we're still getting to know everyone. There's also a heavy concentration of military families here, so we've already lost some friends (and consequently, so have the kids). New school year means new faces.

Con: Homework. Duh. Like this one needs an explanation.

Pro: Learning new things. This is different from homework, trust me. Homework is a chore, something that has to be done before soccer practice, etc. I'm talking about when the kids come home from school and tell us what they've learned. Granted, this exercise can be like extracting teeth from a honey badger, but when they really feel like talking and are completely psyched about a new subject, it's kinda fun to watch.

Con: Increased traffic and the constant reminder that so many people who live in our area think they're the only ones on the road and aren't averse to swerving around kids at crosswalks just so they can get to the damn office. I know, that was a long one. But it's true. It really pays to look both ways.

Thanks for listening. Talk to you soon.