Touchy subjects

I need to talk to people about my depression and anxiety. There, I said it. It's a really hard topic to breach. I don't really know how to let it out. And part of me feels like it's this dirty little secret that I have, and that if I share it I am somehow making people accomplices to misery. When people ask me, "How are you," I really sometimes want to reach out and just answer candidly.

At the beginning of yoga practice, there's a time when we go around the room and people mention their injuries and how they are feeling. Some people mention knee injuries, others have tendinitis, and some people convey an overall frazzled feeling. Sometimes I just want to say, "Today and everyday I have mild to moderate Major Depression and off the hook Generalized Anxiety disorder." I want to explain to them that my periodic absences aren't because I don't like yoga, or am not committed to my practice, just sometimes I can't get out of my pajamas and off the couch.

Then there's school. I've made passing jokes to my peers about needing medication since beginning graduate school. I also have one peer who knows about my hair pulling (is a hair puller, as well). But we don't discuss those things at school. And it just stops there. We have study groups, and people are friendly and socially supportive, but I feel like a freak unloading myself onto them. I don't want to be the rambling headcase.

Then there are my parents. My father doesn't understand mental illness. I mean, he grasps the concept, but he thinks that any amount of effort and determination can pull a person out of depression. He has encouraged me to flush my medications down the toilet and pull myself up by the bootstraps. If only it were that simple.

Then there's my mom. A huge wedge between us now (that I feel, which I don't believe she feels) is that my mom cannot possibly understand why or how I have been diagnosed with depression and anxiety or even have struggled with Trichotillomania. My mom has had a particularly hard life, and she doesn't understand how I could be so depressed with all of the privilege I've had in my life: an childhood in an idyllic place, 16 years of dance lessons, an ivy league education, travels abroad. It's something she's never been able to accept. I was 13 the first time I approached my mom and said, "Mom, I think I'm depressed and I want to go to the psychologist." To which she replied, "Oh sweetie, you're not depressed, you just think too much."

And there's O. who is completely and totally unconditionally here for me. But it gets to a point where I can't be this needy, weepy blob all the time. O. isn't depressed. He doesn't pull out his hair. Sometimes he's obsessive, but in a totally determined "I won't quit" way, and while he will stay here by my side for eternity (I hope).

I have one absolutely best friend on whom I depend, with whom I can talk about this openly, but we unfortunately have not lived in the same state since 2003.

So I've determined two things:

I need to find a support group. What I need, really, right now, is some intense Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, but unfortunately I don't have time for that right now. Or money. There aren't any groups listed on Craiglist. I am a semester long veteran of an anxiety support group at UT, but in all honesty it wasn't helpful for me at all. I need something that is perhaps a bit more challenging. If I have to, I will start my own. I might have to wait until I go to Durham. But, so be it.

I also am going to start a separate blog about the topic. Basically, a recovery blog. A blog about recovering from hair pulling, a blog about trying to be healthier, and a blog about living with depression and anxiety. Because I need to talk about it. I'm not sure that this is the right forum. I mean, this blog has always had a sort of hybrid existence. Partially about moving to Texas, partially about being an ex-expatriate in Chile, partially about having an international marriage. Sometimes it's about my blended family. Sometimes it's about cooking. But sometimes, like with the people around me, I don't want to unload these feelings in a place where people might not feel like reading them. I mean, maybe you get here because you're googled, "Chilean men" (as many people do) or maybe you've arrived here from another Expat in Chile's blog and you just sort of blind-sided by all this content that maybe you didn't want to deal with in the first place. I guess the bottom line is that if you don't relate to this, you probably don't want to read it, and you probably have nothing more to say but, "Oh, feel better, soon." But there are others with whom I really feel I've connected, who might find some odd ounce of solace knowing there are other functioning people around facing the same problems. I don't know if it's fair or wise to mix the two.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

More and more I feel like this is turning into a mental health blog. But that's okay. I think it's really important. I have found so much solace in Therese J. Borchard's blog called, "Beyond Blue." And the truth is that I'm interested in this stuff. I'm especially interested in helping people with Trichotillomania. So much, that I'm actually considering getting an MSW.

But that's an aside. The purpose of this entry is to talk about something that a lot of people might not think about.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Shell shock. When I first think about this disorder I remember the book "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien. A bloody good book (no pun intended) about the Vietnam War. Or I think about the Ernest Hemingway short story called "The Big Two-Hearted River" which is an absolutely brilliant story which also approaches the topic. But the most common thing we think about is war veterans. So I never even considered the thought that civilians could experience PTSD, or at least civilians who haven't had experiences with violent crime or disasters.

But the truth is that PTSD is a lot more general than you really could know. If you had asked me, before two days ago, if I've ever had it I would have said, "Absolutely not."

Although crazy at times, knowing I have anxiety issues, a past of pulling out my hair and an awful genetic predisposition to depression, I am a fully functional person. I actually consider myself to be quite normal. I have issues--who doesn't? Maybe I just talk about it a little more freely than I should. A functional person, with no horrible, truly traumatic experiences, or so I thought.

Yet, due to the almost 2 hour evaluation that I had in relation to my ADHD testing (which came up negative) I happened to be speaking to a psychologist who has special training in PTSD, who happened to have completed research at the National Center for PTSD.

And after relating my history and responding to his questions for nearly an hour, in addition to diagnoses that didn't surprise me (since I already knew I had them, i.e. Generalized Anxiety and accompanying depression) he informed me at the end that I appeared to have suffered from (and am still suffering from, in some regards) a classic case of PTSD.

I don't really want to describe the situation which caused this out of love and respect for the parties involved. But this quote from the book The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (so cliché, I know) really sort of sums it up. (Note, it's kind of morbid so if you get easily disturbed, skip the italics):

"It was like the first time I saw a cadaver. For weeks afterward, the cadaver's head--or what was left of it--floated up behind my eggs and bacon at breakfast and behind the the face of Buddy Willard, who was responsible for my seeing it in the first place, and pretty soon I felt as though I were carrying that cadaver's head around with me on a string, like some black, noseless balloon stinking of vinegar."

For me, that's the best description I've come across to explain what that felt like after the initial shock and horror has worn off and the weeks go by and everyone else in your position seems to be moving forward. These intrusive thoughts and images follow you around in your day and it's like no matter what you're doing you just can't shake it. Weeks turn into months. Months into years. It's follows you into your dreams, sneaks into your reactions and your happiness. I woke up and went to bed every single day to the thoughts of the event. Once I even questioned, "Will I ever reach the day when I can finally forget?"

When I had PTSD I was 11. I finally moved on from it when I was 14 or 15. It caused me to go through a lot of thought processes that normal 11 year olds don't experience. Today, I'm 25 and it took me 14 years and 3 psych evals to figure out what it was.

PTSD doesn't just happen to soldiers or people who have experienced massive disasters. My event was something horrific, but within the confines of what you'd find in the daily news report (but of course on a much more personal level). One person might not experience the same reaction to the same event. We're not all wired the same way. And how an adult might process information is not the same as a child.

I had no idea that these things were still affecting me until the psychologist mentioned the content of frequent and reoccurring nightmares. I guess that if things don't get resolved, they still operate deep down in the subconscious.

That's why it's not silly, and you're not weak, if you suspect that you perhaps have, or had PTSD at one point. I just think that perhaps we don't automatically equate it with its true symptoms. And I really think it's important to work through these issues so you don't have to carry them around on a string, with you, for the rest of your life. Obviously, events shape us and form us, for better or for worse, but you don't have to support the weight or burden on your own. It's okay if you need help cutting that string.

And you might not even realize you have one, cause I sure didn't.

Don't come a knockin...

Part 1: Rewind back to this past mid-December. One random Sunday morning we wake up to the sound of guitar-playing at 6 in the morning. It sounded like our next door neighbor was practicing guitar solos. For exactly an hour.

Next day, same deal. I start to get annoyed. "What planet is this guy from?" I post in my Facebook status. "Obviously Planet ROCK, Amanda," replied one of my friends.

On the third day of this behavior, I started getting really quite mad and indignant. I go so far as to knocking, quite loudly on the wall. No response, it doesn't stop. At this point I am convinced that my neighbor is on drugs.

Then, I have to stay up nearly all night three days in a row writing final papers. As I crawl into bed, completely exhausted at 4am each night, I am practically homicidal when I hear the same whiny guitar solos at 6am. And they last for an hour.

At this point I sit down, fuming, ready to write a really rude note when I take a deep breath, calm myself down, and write that I apologize for bothering him, but his guitar playing at 6am everyday is interrupting our sleep schedules. And that I can imagine we make noise, too, as we have a dog, and please let us know if we are ever disturbing him. I also congratulate him for being such a disciplined guitar player and suggest that maybe he turn down his amp or play out in the living room.

Well, the note stays taped to his door for two more days, and I think it's a little odd. Then, we go to San Antonio for the night, and when we come back on Sunday, we get a note on our door.

He apologizes profusely, saying how "embarased (sic)" he was and explains that he has been away for the entire week and forgot to turn off his guitar-alarm clock. He offers to buy us "beer or liquere (sic) as compensation for our troubles.

I laugh about it, as well, you know, leaving an alarm clock on is something I would totally do. I write him a cute little holiday card tell him not to worry and that we completely understand and thank him for being so nice about it.

Part 2: As of two weeks ago, Rockin-alarm-clock neighbor seems to have acquired a lady friend. I know this, because, as of two weeks ago, I could hear said lady friend shrieking at the top of her lungs one night around 3:30 in the morning and it woke me up from my sleep. My first instinct was that maybe some woman was being attacked next door, until I heard this accompanied by the bed slamming against the wall. For 15 minutes straight. I'm not even kidding.

Okay, I thought. People have their needs and since said-neighbor seems to be alone most of the time, I thought I'd just let it slide. One night stand? Some girl he picked up at a bar? Who knows, but considering that was the first time I've heard that since we moved in in July, I figured maybe he needed a lucky night or two.

Well, it seems like the lady-friend has become a more permanent fixture, as I was able to hear them talking one evening through the walls. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but while I was trying to read I could hear in their voices it was one of those awkward "we are just starting out in a relationship and getting to know each other" talks where you share your deep secrets and expose yourself to vulnerability. Yeah, so sweet, but uninvited intimacy weirds me out and I had to get my headphones on.

Now, lady-friend has fully earned the title of "Nocturnal Banshee Woman." For three nights straight I have been woken up around 3 or 4 in the morning to the sounds of their headboard slamming into our shared wall and her best renditions of a porno audio track. Seriously.

I don't know what to do. I already wear ear plugs. I'm a horrible sleeper and terribly sensitive to noise. It's been so loud that it has even woken my husband up one night, and another my dog decided to join in with her banshee screams by adding his own barks.

These have been some of the possible ways to deal with the situation that I've dreamt up:

1. Confront Rockin-Alarm-Clock Neighbor either in person (not likely I have the balls for that) or through written correspondence.

Possible notes:

Please tell your Screaming-Banshee lady friend to shut the F up.

P.S. She's faking it.

---------

Dear XXXX:
Hope the sex has been good. We prefer the alarm clock.

2. Pound on wall.

3. Complain to manager / file noise complaint.

4. Take our new Bose Sound System, place it next to our shared wall at 7:30am (a time when normal people, LIKE US, wake up) and blast music. I'm thinking "Holidae Inn" by Snoop Dog featuring Chingy.

5. Print this article and tape it, along with some condoms, to the neighbor's door.

Any advice? What would you do?

Right-brained or ADD?

And the results:

Right-brained (with major perfectionist issues)

Right-brained or ADD?

I've always declared, with utmost pride, that I am right-brained. I'm emotional, mercurial, I feel things deeply. While this is something that I love about me, I have sometimes felt somewhat cursed by my thin skin. But I'm really good at imagining myself in situations, stepping back and empathizing with people. While I don't have a wide circle of friends, I do know the people close to me deeply and would give or do anything for them.

I'm also spontaneous and creative. I don't like set schedules, I live by my heart. I have held office jobs and have wanted to poke my eyes out with pens. I do very well working in environments with flexible schedules that involve moving from place to place. I adored my work as a part-time English teacher in Chile, traveling from office to office, interacting with different small groups of people. I loved my students and I think they liked me too. I had a really great way of adapting different activities to different learning styles. And while I hated crowded public transportation, at the same time I adored the daily movement. My routines varied and I loved that freedom.

Because of my ability to come up with fresh perspectives and my flair for interesting writing styles, my professors have always sort of ignored my glaring grammatical errors and own renditions of English/Spanish grammar. However, there are some professors with whom I simply didn't mesh, especially in the English department at Cornell, where I felt snubbed about not knowing how to pronounce certain words or not having mastered different grammar nuances. However, in creative writing classes, I flourished. This is why I never imagined myself in academia.

I'm often late and I cannot bring myself to wear a watch. My nickname in my parent's house is "the hurricane." Everywhere I go I leave strewn objects in my path. I can't seem to remember to turn lights off when I leave a room. My only system of "organization" is piles.

But it does get worse. I suffer from extreme, paralyzing procrastination. No matter how much I know I need to start something, I simply cannot. I wait and wait and wait until the deadline looms and until I have no choice but to panic and then get into "the zone." Usually, I then work, completely focused for extended periods of time without interruption or even caffeine. When I finish, and usually have to bolt like a crazy person to make it to turn in my work, I usually emerge sleep-deprived by triumphant, totally wired and on a natural high.

I also have the very bad habit of starting projects, usually for pleasure, and then totally giving them up half finished. I have a box full of half-knitted objects that I can't seem to give up. I also held on to a half-finished quilt for years that I began in 2003, until my mom finally secretly gave it away to someone who actually knew how to make a quilt (I really had no idea how to sew). I bought tons of books and materials to do crewel work and never even started the first step. I sometimes buy organizational supplies and vow to organize my desk, which usually means taking disorganized piles and separating them into "organized piles" and then usually jump ship and abandon them half-sorted.

You might say, "But I've come to your house and it's impeccable. I don't believe you."

But I've actually mastered the art of the 1 hour power clean, which involves stuffing objects into drawers and deep-cleaning my dwelling like Mrs. Clean on crack. You might marvel at my attention to detail and things like napkins and candles but these are all things that I manage to produce at the last minute, usually after 3 trips to the store because I've forgotten things. (That's where my husband usually comes in handy.)

Well, now that I'm becoming a "real adult" with actually people who must cohabitate with me and suffer my wake, I'm realizing that what I always thought was simply my artistic temperament might actually be a problem. This spring I am facing my Masters comprehensive exams in which I have to prepare a list of over 150 works that span time periods between Latin America and Spain and be prepared to answer 6 essay questions in 6 hours.

Holy shit. Is all I have to say. Some of my peers have been preparing for this exam since last summer. I tried, with all my might, to join them, but I kept showing up to meeting after meeting frazzled and unprepared. After completely blowing off my own responsibilities for the group they kindly suggested that I start my own group with other students who haven't been working with them.

I guess I can't blame them. I don't know how to do things in advance, I don't know how to be organized, I don't know how to look at a list of over 150 works in prose, poetry, novels and short stories and even know how to start organizing their information, let alone comprehensively read them all.

After sobbing to my psychiatrist about how I feel like I just can't accomplish what I know I'm capable of, and explaining how my desk is just covered in crap and I can't bring myself to even begin, she suggested that I get evaluated for Attention Deficit Disorder.

Right-brained or ADD? I have the test on Monday. We'll see what they say.

Moseying on out of TX

Have I made this announcement yet? ...

No, I don't think I have.


Maybe I made an "extra-official" announcement (my mother in law used that term today, and I thought I'd use it in English) but now it's time for the official, official announcement.

In July, 2010, O., Simon and I are moving to North Carolina!

O. got into the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University!

Now, let me be honest. Sometime around 2006, (say, Duke Lacrosse Scandal) I wanted to spit at the name. But they were found not guilty, right? Yes, it's still the south. Yes, I still feel like I've stepped through the looking glass here in the southern United States. (I'm sorry, Texans, really. It's not me it's you.) So how I am ending up at this place, could it be just as bad? Am I not going to go insane because of the humidity?

Well friends, it's all professional and academic: They have a kickin' MBA program. AND their Spanish program is absolutely amazing. In fact, I applied and am absolutely petrified that I won't be accepted because it's one of the best programs in the country and very competitive. They have THE Ariel Dorfman on their faculty.

O. visited their program last fall and loved it so much he applied Early Action. They have a great international focus, and there are 5 Chileans in this year's entering class. Things just came together and it worked out.

Durham seems to be an up and coming place, near to Chapel Hill and just outside of Raleigh. This whole area is just bustling with industry. I like that there's access to urban, but with a smaller-city feel. Smaller than Austin, Durham is less than half the size.

They also have 3 dog parks (very important) as well as tons of natural areas nearby.

As evidenced by my last post, I have enjoyed Austin and recognize it as a truly amazing city. But, I'm ready to leave. North Carolina is still the south, but it's different, so I've heard. And I'll be only 8 hours away from my family and my beloved Pennsylvania.

In the spirit of my impending farewell to this godawful (oops, did I say that?) state, I leave you a map of the USA, from the TX point of view:



Funny aside: When referring to Texas, I keep accidentally referring to it as "this country." Like I did in Chile. Sometimes, in Spanish, I'll say, "Odio este pais." And I don't think Texans would mind. A lot of them DO think of it as it's own country.

My Austin 10

Come the end of July, I will have spent two years in what some argue is the Best City in the World... Austin, Texas. Living here has been very nice. After learning that fellow Chile blogger, Sara, will be visiting, I got excited and decided to make a list of my personal top-ten favorites of the Austin area. I'm bound to be leaving something out, and keep in mind I'm not really a fan of barbecue. P.S. Most of these things have to do with food because, that's right, I love to eat.

1. Mexic-Arte Museum

Love this place! Small, intimate. Helps that they let our department have occasional soirees here. Their exhibitions are always fresh, and their annual Dia de los muertos altars are amazing!

2. Zocalo Café

Probably not the "best" Tex-Mex restaurant in Austin, check out lists online for those ones, but this one is informal yet chic. Their homemade frozen sangrias, margaritas and their Horchata is amazing. The salsa is served warm and you can mix your own guacamole. And as an order-at-the-counter kinda place, it has a fabulous ambiance.

3. Quack's Bakery

This is sometimes the only place that gets us out of bed on Sundays. Their pastries are amazing and made from scratch!

4. The Spiderhouse
This place is chocked-full of people who want to look intellectual (is the term "hipster" still valid?) and I think the service really stinks and the food is overpriced, but I love it anyway! Their patio is sooooo kitsch, you can't miss it for that reason. I like to go there and pretend I'm cool.

5. The Trailer Park & Eatery

Food trucks are all over Austin and soooo much fun! This is a whole park of them, and home to Torchy's Tacos, my favorite tacos in Austin! Eating food made out of stationary trucks takes me back to both County Fairs in PA and the Hot Truck from Cornell.

6. South Congress Avenue
This place is soooo Austin. You've got tons of hip hotels, restaurants and shops. On nights out it's the place to be, unless you're an undergrad on east sixth street or a young professional on west sixth street. Or at the ...

7. The Warehouse District
This is my new favorite place to go out. When do I go out? I don't know. But if I were to go out for drinks I'd suggest this sector of Austin because it's really cool and urban. If you've got some money to burn, Tapas at Malaga are phenomenal. I also love the coffee-shop cocktail lounge fusion of Halcyon.

8. Stroll around Town Lake
The Hike and Bike Trails around townlake go through the heart of Austin and are a great way to see most of its mobile inhabitants because I swear to god that everyone walks there. You can start at the famous Congress Avenue Bat Bride, walk through Auditorium shores and then continue on to Zilker Park and ride the train, or cross the bridge and check out Cesar Chavez and the Lamar area. On a weekend, everyone who is anyone is walking/jogging the trails.

9. Dog-friendly: Red Bud Isle
This is a great-sized off-leash dog park (lots of "feces," but no "fences" though). The park is literally peninsula surrounded by water. The walking trail isn't particularly long, but the pups run around and enjoy themselves. The dogs that like the water (and owners alike) have plenty of places to swim and it's just generally a fantastic place to spend the afternoon with your pooch.

10. Movie at the South Lamar Alamo Drafthouse
Dinner and a movie anyone? Fried pickles? Ace Pear Cider?
Best idea ever! This is a movie theatre with tables in front of the seats. Your server walks down below the tables and you write your orders on pieces of paper while the movie is on. They've got all sorts of options and will even do special movie-themed feasts. They even did a Breakfast to Dinner Lord of the rings marathon that lasted 12 hours with a lord of the rings meal for every course. Swoon! (I couldn't go, tickets were like $135. I totally would have, though.) Anyway. If I become a ghost when I die, I will forever haunt this place because I frickin love it. Oh wait, ghosts can't eat, can they?

So, that's my list. Had to leave some definitely favorites off. Maybe others will mention them. So are you an Austinite? Have you been to Austin? Tell me your favs!

What I was missing

I started taking dance when I was 3, almost turning 4. Dance was such a large part of my life for many years. I loved movement set to music, the creativity of putting together steps to convey emotions. Yet, my dance studio was not a school of performing arts. We put together numbers for the recital at the end of the year, and while I loved my dance teachers, we were limited as to how we could perform and what we could perform. That's to say, while our numbers dazzled and our songs were cutesy, as I got older I felt incredibly limited in the creativity and what I could express in this environment. I would have loved to have danced in a more "serious" forum, where dance could really express human emotion, not just be girls in sequins doing faute turns to Britney Spears songs. But I was already too tall, not skinny enough to really pursue dance seriously. And I'm grateful at this point because I probably would have had an eating disorder. I never could really accept my body until I stopped dancing.

Fast forward to college, it was mostly logical that I would naturally enjoy things like pilates and yoga, as they are closely related to dance. But I realized that, specifically, yoga was more about how I felt on the inside as opposed to how I looked on the outside. While people become physically fit in yoga, no one is ever turned away for being too tall, too short, too fat, etc.

But, my approach to yoga, sadly, felt a lot like how I had learned over many years to approach dance. I focused on flexibility, alignment, moving to the music, even feeling the music. In many ways it became mechanical. While the endorphins that yoga caused my body to release gave me an overall sense of well-being which elevated my mood, my transformation stopped there. It was something new, something exciting. It felt good to be in my body again.

Then, life got hectic, and it was easy to abandon my practice. I longed to get back on the mat, fearing I was losing my stamina, fearing that I had lost all my upper-body strength. But it was easy to abandon it for me, because I wasn't really "in" it.

I got back on the mat last Monday. I know that beginning again after the new year is a cliché, but if that gets me back on the mat, then so be it. But somehow, this time, things are different.

All of my explorations as of late, into empathy, into dreams, into abstract matters which I don't conscientiously explore on a day-to-day basis has gotten me doing a ton of reading. And suddenly things seem to be coming together in weird ways.

I found out that this has a term, it's called synchronicity. It's when sometimes life is just little puzzle pieces fitting into a big picture. It's the realization that everything, however random it might seem, happens for a reason. It's sounds so cheesy, but when you can step back from things and see how it's all flowing together, for me, at least, it gives me a sense of continuity, of security.

But back to the yoga. Since going back to yoga this week, it seems to have fit together in ways I never understood, with other aspects of my life. Since exploring empathy, since exploring psychic tendencies that everyday people experience, I have begun to realize that these are things that are all related.

Yoga, before the physical postures and the flexibility, has to do with something much deeper. While I understood the concept of "prana" I never realized that this is the same energy that we sense in other people. I knew about chakras, but I had no idea that so-called "auras" correspond to the chakras. For me, I couldn't associate the physical and the mental, the emotional and the spiritual. I simply couldn't wrap my mind around it.

Yes, when doing yoga, I felt sensations. My body felt good. But when people talked about being "centered" I automatically associated that with simply centering my "balance" but didn't let that balance reach into my interior of exterior surroundings.

I went to a fascinating yoga class called "Hatha and Meditation" where we did some postures, then completed meditation and relaxation exercises. We focused on the "root" chakra, and in the upcoming classes we'll explore the rest. Later, I started reading the book, "The Psychic Energy Codex: A Manual For Developing Your Subtle Senses" by Michelle Belanger, which really allowed me to put the two together. We are physical, but we are also energy.

My grasp on this, until recently was so western. I couldn't fit together the parts. Physical. Energy. Body. Spirit.

I don't know why it was so hard to grasp, it seems so simple.

These realizations have allowed me to have some really fascinating conversations with Oscar. He's such a wise person, with a real penchant for things like philosophy and physics, and I feel like these things have allowed me to connect with him on such a deeper level. Last night we went to the yoga class together, and he found it to be really interesting.

Yesterday, I left for yoga thinking, "I'm really in need of a teacher." Maybe I just felt so lost and so disconnected from everything. As an agnostic, I don't really have a spiritual grounding in my life. I knew it was lacking, but like my experience as a dancer, I just didn't have the place for it to fit.

I think I'm finally taking the steps I'm supposed to, and in a way I've found what I was missing.

My Favorite Splurges

I try to live a simple life without too many unnecessary material possessions. Okay, I lie. I'm just as materialistic as your next American. But we tend to try and save our money. This is something new for me. It's just not a part of my nature. But my business-minded, Chilean husband is trying to make me less of an impulse buyer.

However, there are a few splurges in my life that have been worth every single penny.

1. My Macbook Pro

They don't make my model anymore. I got it in the Spring of 2007. It's a great computer. I've had Apple laptops since 2003 and I'll never go back to a PC. Dependable, good-looking and easy-to-use. What more can you ask for from a computer? Even though it's two-and-a-half-years-old, my only problem has been battery power. I've gone through two batteries and I'm definitely in need of a third.

2. Honda Fit Sport

Except for the clunky Suburban nightmare I had to drive to school when I was 16 (that sadly got hit by a school bus, the only vehicle other than am army tank that could possibly destroy it), I've always driven (courtesy of my parents) a Honda. So in 2008 when I was looking for a new car, I wanted to stay loyal to the brand since those cars have surely been loyal to me. Buying a Honda is like buying a friend for life. Two years ago my Dad was able to sell the 1996 Accord that I drove with over 160,000 miles on it. They are just great, great, cars. When we are eventually employed we want to get a hybrid, but we're keeping this car for Oscar's daughter. You can literally run these cars into the ground. They never stop!

3. Le Creuset Cookware

I love my circular Le Creuset cast-iron pot and display it proudly on my stove top. And it's not just for show. It's the single-most used piece of cookware in my kitchen. It's virtually indestructible and I plan on passing them down in my will. "Them" because I plan on investing in more and more, once my kitchen storage space and our budget expands.

4. Hugger Mugger Tapas Performance Mat

I got this mat as per a recommendation from my Ashtangi neighbor. It was formerly called "Mandara" -- now it's same mat, new name. I like brisk, spirited practices that generally come along with lots of sweat, so I was slipping and sliding around on my $20 Gaiam mat. This mat isn't just thicker and provides more cushion, but it also prevents slipping. Of course, for really athletic practices I still need to use a yogitoes for extra grip.

5. Camper Shoes

Considering the price of shoes these days, I don't know if these Spanish beauties qualify as splurges, but I keep going back and back to this brand of footwear for its original and whimsical designs. I got my first pair after stumbling into their store in Rome adjacent to the Spanish steps. Every single pair I own gets me tons of compliments. I especially loved them because when my favorite pair of sandals literally split in half, I was able to send them back with no receipt to the factory, from Chile, mind-you, and receive a $250 credit for any pair of shoes that I wanted in return. If that isn't great customer service I don't know what is!

6. Bose iPod Speakers SoundDock® Series II digital music system

I guess you could say that I had never really heard my favorite songs until I hear them from these speakers. There's an incredible depth of sound that I couldn't find in another models that ran for $100 and less. So we splurged. My Dad is obsessed with Bose Systems and now I can really see why. I never knew such a little speaker could produce so much sound! One reviewer of this product said, "This isn't my first purchase of iPod speakers, but it will be my last." I concur.

What are some of your favorite splurges?