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I have been asking that myself. Where I have I been that I can't find the time to blog? I will have to write more later (all these blogs post in my head and no time to blog!), but I have been undeniably absent due to:
- Trying to figure out why I'm so darned tired - blood work (results showed low iron but nothing else - good for health, bad for a solution) and adrenal fatigue test (mailed this week, the symptoms are so me)
- Working with chiropractor twice a week to get this two year neck pain to go away - how lovely to work out emotional stress through neck pain ("It's like a workout," my chiropractor said)
- Nursing olnar neuropathy ("Sounds important," my doctor said. Indeed, especially if you make a living and keep sane by writing/typing, and olnar neuropathy happens to be similar to carpal tunnel, but a different nerve. Fortunately, caught it early and low key treatment has helped. But why does my hand keep falling asleeep when I'm sleeping?)
- More projects at work and increased fundraising events to plan for - not my forte but you gotta do what you gotta do - and working on increasing online presence (more blogging? More Twitter?)
- Manning the home front while Michael increases hours at work (which is great in other ways) and traveling (every week for the last three weeks) for a new project
- Helping to get Michael's private practice further off the ground to launch a website (very excited about the draft of it) and bringing on other therapists
- Starting yard work now that we've had our last snow (just three weeks ago!)
- Working out the details of buying a new car
- Traveling to San Francisco last weekend, which was a wonderful trip with just Michael.
Hopefully, I'll be back soon!
The church we attend in Boulder, All Souls, is a fairly new church with a plethora of college students and a smattering of 30 somethings and upwards. This makes for very few children (though the church is lovingly tolerant of children and their antics . . . and the Behmer children who are still learning how to actually behave in church, i.e. no climbing on the pews, at least during the service). Perhaps this is why the six month old baby was so fun and amazing to see today. During the service, the baby's mom handed her off to dad, who was sitting right in front of me. Playing gaily with a molecule-looking baby toy (never to early for some chemistry, right?), I noticed her ear, small, precious and so perfectly made. For some reason, a baby's perfect form looks strange to me, as if they are too small to be so well formed and should be more blobby until they are older. I remember when Asher was born wondering at how clearly his outline was and expecting him to have a fuzzy outline until he was older.
One day last week, I was talking to a church secretary, answering her questions about registering her church's youth group for the Reformed Youth Ministry (RYM - the youth conference I've worked with for some time) Colorado Conference. It was the day we got the foot or so of snow, and I mentioned how I'd been hoping we would get one good snow before spring and warmer weather. "God takes care of even the small things," she said happily. True, so true.
Last week, Michael was notified that he would begin back fulltime at his job in April (cuts were done back in November due to the bank lending crisis - oh, how I love being part of history) with a promotion. Such good news! When I told Ardis, she replied with how it was such a blessing. Indeed, as have been the last few months as Michael and I work together to make a reduced income and new opportunities work, and as God has provided over and over for us.
I have been struggling with some areas of forgiveness (outside my family) and thinking about what I need to move forgiveness along, let alone how I will get to actual forgiveness (you see, without being too specific, it's as if I have a spiritual haunt who I need to release). This has been surprisingly exhausting and slow going, like walking through wet cement. Today I have been thinking that, once again, this is a place in my life where God can be of great help, where I can turn to Him not necessarily for answers but to help carry me through. For He provides for even the small things - finances and baby ears and snow wishes. How easily I forget.
(Now, if He could just take care of my neck, and a new car, and finish Harper's potty training . . . neverending human needs!!)
Before winter set in, I was pretty good about getting out to run two or three times a week in the evening after Michael got home. Timing was more difficult with the shorter days, but I found something new in January to get me through - home workouts, both on television and from Self magazine (which my sister, Clare, got me for fun - and it is great girly fun). I am totally hooked! I started out with half hour Pilates and Yoga two or three times a week, and then with the March issue of Self, tore out the eight Self Challenge 2009 exercises in the handy dandy flashcards and did those twice a week. The most encouraging thing is that I could actually feel and see a difference in my muscle strength (plus, I could do them inside, whenever, watching television or when the kids were up in about 20 minutes). I just started the April issue exercises, adding in an exercise band and dumbbells as described and think I'll stick with it, even though the prescribed series is to be done two times each time twice a week. I have to admit that I feel a little dorky doing the home workouts, but, hey, they work, and I get a little exercise high. Gotta do what you gotta do.
While I lament the fact that I don't make a whole lot of money at my job (or have any kind of retirement plan and pitiful contribution towards health insurance) and that I'm not saving the world (because, after all, that's the reason behind the huge student loan for graduate school), I do have the kind of job where
- I can make my own schedule (as long as I get my work done and keep having success with shaking my money maker, i.e. fingers on the keyboard) such that
- I can take a day off pretty much whenever I want, like tomorrow, with two days notice and then
- I can do some work outside in my backyard, in the sunshine, with Michael next to me on his computer after running to the hardware store for fun colored resin (as the lady at Lowe's corrected me) Adirondack chairs
- barefoot
- and with a beer.
That has to count for something . . . at least in the meantime (I do feel a little spoiled while also panicking at the thought of my non-existent retirement).
I have often thought of myself as one who has a poor memory. I seem to have many missing pieces that are filled in with images from pictures, and I tend to overcompensate (what, me a perfectionist?) with keeping journals (and blogs). I read an article in "Real Simple" recently about how to improve one's thinking, and the author states that one's memories are usually skewed in some way and skewed just in the act of being remembered (and no doubt skewed by each person's point of view/personality/world view).
Recently, I was contacted through Facebook by four friends who I knew either from fifth through eighth or fifth through twelfth grade, and hearing from them brought back so many memories - mostly forgotten memories, and I wondered if my memory is as bad as I think it is. One of these friends wrote to me about the difficulty of making friends as she has gotten older and how strange it is not to be friends with old school friends with whom she was so close to. I realized that my high school friends have scattered all over the world - Australia, Trinidad, Canada, New York City, Washington, different parts of California, Colorado - and, indeed, we are no longer close either in proximity or relationship.
A friend at work knocked Facebook during a staff meeting. She commented, "I don't need Facebook. People who want to get ahold of me know where I am." She is from a small midwestern town, and I have no doubt that most of her old friends do know how to contact her - if not directly, than through her parents. When I lived in Mississippi, most of my co-workers were born and raised in their Mississippi town, still lived there, and, in some cases, had never left the state for even a vacation. Their old friends also know how to contact them.
But for some reason, where I grew up, a lot of the people left, starting with college, and moved around and never returned to California. I wonder why this is. Perhaps it is cultural, a message that proximity to one's family and birthplace is not valued. Or that we are destined to go out into the world and make something of ourselves in a new place. Perhaps it is happenstance, a leading of one thing to another, a decision to marry someone from another palce, a falling in love with a city. I did not return to California because of traveling for school, a desire to see other places, following a path lead by school and job choices rather than family and friends, and a desire to live someplace with less traffic, fewer people and lower cost of living (although, indeed, there are few places as beautiful or as culturally and naturally fulfilling as California).
But I wonder in all this, how our memory is changed by who we live near. If I lived closer to family and old friends, would my memory be better? Did I leave to escape memories, as no doubt places and people bring back old memories? Are we losing collective memories by moving away from "home?"
I for one still believe Facebook has a valuable roll in our social webs - providing a bridge in a mobile society where we can and do live all over the world.
Incidentally, Asher pulled out a book the other night called "All about Me," written by Dr. Seuss, and littered with details about my elementary school self. My penchant for keeping histories started along time ago and while spurred by a bad memory no dobut started a long time ago (and possibly as a legacy from my grandfather).
your therapist calls and said you missed the appointment that morning and wants to know where you are, and you get all flustered like you got caught ditching class, and are panicked until she calls back and you get it worked out, after profusive apologizing. And then you realize a few hours later that she was mistaken but you keep checking to make sure you think it is the day it really is (and secretly you want to bring in your calendar the next week and all the proof that you always meet on Wednesday and not Thursday). In the voice of Superman struggling to hold up something huge, must keep everything perfect (shhh . . . and not let anyone know).
I have a hot and cold relationship with charter schools (you know you're talking to me when I claim to have a relationship with a type of school structure so if I ever end up switching bodies with someone and claim to be me, this is one way to identify I'm telling the truth). On the cold hand, they have, historically, been part of the racial divide in education, used in the south to keep segregation during desegregation and, presently, often continuing "unintentional" segregation(as in, we didn't start this school for only whites but it turned out that way, which just might have been our wish), especially in less urban areas (inner city charter schools seem to do a better job of having a diverse population of students). In Longmont, for instance, the percentage of people of color attending charter schools is about half of what it is in other public schools. Neighborhood schools then lose out on money and involvement of - likely but not necessarily - better educated parents.
On the hot hand, charter schools are able to be more innovative and, generally, have better parent participation and better academic results. As the parent of a new charter school student, charter schools have a new place in my heart. I agree with my Aunt Marilyn who wrote to me, I fundamentally believe in neighborhood schools (and in the public school system), but not necessarily for my child. What I realized recently is that I want my child's school to reflect our family and our values. When I visit Flagstaff Academy, where Asher will attend in the fall, I see my family and our values for education, character and healthy choices. A school is going to be part of our community, and I want to feel like we'll fit in.
We have a new high school opening in our district next year that will take many high performing, mostly white students from our lowest performing high school due to the schools' boundaries. I am waiting to see what kind of white flight we have. Talking about this change with a friend who works at the lowest performing high school, she commented about losing students to the new high school and charter schools. And right there I saw one of the other positives of charter schools. If principals of neighborhood schools, especially low performing schools, want to keep and attract high performing students (who more often have caring, involved, well-educated parents), principals are going to have to both take a look at their schools as to how to make them more attractive and be ready to give a good sales pitch to parents. The number one reason that I do not want to send Asher to our neighborhood school is that the principal tried to sell me on the school with a pitch about the school's history (you mean, asbestos?) and the bilingual program for Spanish speakers (so you have a lot of emphasis on Spanish speakers - do you have time for my son?). I definitely don't see my family and my values reflected there.
Harper will be at another charter school for preschool next year. I am so looking forward to being involved as a parent at two charter schools and deepening my relationship with charter schools (so dorky, I know. And I do realize there is life outside of school - they are just so fascinating!).
Unbelievable! It's been almost three months since I last posted. I really have no idea where the time went or what I've been doing that kept me from blogging. I suppose I just have not recently been bitten by the gadfly. But it's time to get back in the saddle! I started writing a blog post today for Ruminate Magazine's Editor's Column blog (which will be - shameless promotion - posted tomorrow, March 18!) after realizing last night, having finished my third self-help books about kids (kids haven't been that bad but I had a New Year's goal to learn more about boys and sibling rivalry, got on a roll, and amazingly actually finished three books - usually I get half way through one self-help/non-fiction book and start something fictitious) that I am ready - oh, so ready - for fiction and for beautiful words.
Perhaps, as I close that third book, I am also ready to get back to writing and the creative process. Or perhaps, as I have sometimes feared, in a time of joy, I am less creatively productive. In the last two months, I have recaptured a huge haul of happiness - having more fun in life in my activities, feeling the lightness of life, having fun with my kids, taking things a day at a time (for the most part). A co-worker stopped by my office this morning on her way to the third floor just to say hi, and how much I could feel her kindness and, to use a Boulder term, light.
Critical life events have certainly lessened for me, and, as well, as the fear (though, the reality has held off - even though Michael is still at half time, his slots for private practice keep filling with new clients) of the economic times threatens to creep into the nooks and cranny of my life, I have been able to respond by going back to basics, the basics of what makes my life good and joyful. Harper putting stickers on her leg. Asher inventing a new climbing and jumping game on the dining room table. Walking the dozen brown soccer fields at Sandstone Park. Pilates. A meal with Michael. A home cooked meal with all four of us at the table. Nature, relationships, physical health . . .
In one of the personality tests, there's a question about whether you prefer to have lots of friends or a few friends. I have always tended towards having a few friends who I know well, even as I was envious of those charismatic, dynamic people who know lots of people and attract friends like ants to a picnic. I've wondered about this, why this is my tendency, and recently realized that it may be because I have a hard time with "just having fun" with people. I don't easily enter into light, fun things - be it light conversation, going to a party, playing croquet, skiing, crafts, whatever. I have a tendency to want to make everything profoundly meaningful and for conversations to be profoundly meaningful.
The second weekend of January, I went to Vail with my book club, driving up with one of the members who I didn't know very well. Soon into our drive, I asked her personal questions about her job (lawyer) and if she like it and other such things. Just dive right in to the personal. I felt like we finally made a connection on the way home when she asked if I had the same name as my kids (she doesn't), and I explained my interesting family situation (living with my ex, no longer having same last name, blah, blah, blah). She had been previously divorced, which brought up some interesting topics of conversation between us. But there it was, my tendency to just go for the deep with this woman I barely knew (and who kicked my butt on the ski slopes).
Perhaps this is a good tendency in some ways, but it can also be a problem, especially when living with someone. Because, in all reality, not every minute of a relationship can be deep, soul changing and intense or ridden with existential angst (a crisis I'm prone to have a few times a year). There needs to be light fun. So with Michael, with my children, and even with friends, I have to intentionally back off, let there be quiet or light conversation, and just time together to be in the beauty of a moment (though even then, I may be trying hard to find the meaning in the moment). It's hard - I sometimes even want to start a conflict so that there can be "deep" connection - but a worthwhile skill to develop (I think - I mean, there's something profound in that, right? Like discovering that there's beauty in the ocean deep and the ocean surface - stop me now!).
I am quite a fan of our new president. I am inspired by his message as well as the public response to his message, the upsurge of hope and energy for our country, the idea again that we are the country, and the profound statement to our nation and the world that our country elected a black man (though he was a black man who didn't run on race). I am inspired by the call to serve and the avenues and expectations that we can do so in a wide variety of ways. I am curious at the strong anti-response that some have to Obama, having heard people call him Satan reincarnated and others say that this country should have an IQ test before we are given voting privileges because so many people were pro-Obama (which hit me as funny because I thought the same back in 2004).
A co-worker forwarded to me a link from the Oprah show showing the "I Pledge" video put together by Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher. It's a great idea, pledging a way to serve, but, watching it, it's also kind of creepy because the actors chant about serving "our president." Just a reality check here, shouldn't we be serving our country? I don't want to serve the president, he's a human being after all prone to make mistakes and, God forbid, get on a power trip (oh, wait, that was the last president). I will, however, answer a call to service for our country. I belive that our country has to be more than our president, has to be all of us working together.
Check out the last scene of the video with all the little squares of people chanting, "I Pledge." It wasn't so much inspiring for me at the end as totally creepy, a la Third Reich at the extreme of my response.
I have realized that I prefer to work and live at a leisurely pace. In the last few weeks, work has been busier than ever before as I take on new grant writing for two other organizations (which has been fun, but a learning curve about new topics that had to happen rightnow because the deadlines were all on the same damn day) while I keep up the normal things and do beginning of the year stuff. So that, on Wednesday, when I finished the bulk of the grant stuff, I went home, put the kids to bed, lay on the couch in a weird between wake and sleep state for an hour before Michael came home, watched something on TV, and then slept for a good 9 hours. I took a nap Thursday and went to bed early again. Oh, how old my brain feels!
But I realized that I used to like working under a high amount of stress, but these days, I like to take my time and get things done days in advance so I'm not rushing around. I like to have time to breath and check in with myself and reality, rather than escape from reality. When I went skiing in January with a majority type-A personality group of women, we skied one blue run the first day and then headed straight for the black diamond bowls. Oh my! I lasted a few runs and then had to go off on my own because, what I realized, is that I am also a leisurely skier. Forget this fighting with myself to get down difficult runs. I just want to enjoy it. I want the freshly groomed blue runs where I can feel like I'm flying. My mom might say I've always been this way, not liking to be rushed when I was getting ready for school. If so, it's a tendency that's gotten worse.
I look forward to leaving work today at 3:30 and heading to Lefthand for a leisurely Friday afternoon pint with Michael. Between my work schedule and the return of indoor plumbing to my house, I feel quite spoiled (even if my car door won't open when I go to get in it).
It's a full month of moons or whatever astrological thing happens (is it Mercury in retrograde?) when things (fortunately material things) decide to break, like:
Our bathroom plumbing - it was a large root ball in the old terracotta piping causing the problem and no toilet for 24 hours (for which Asher suggested to me, "Just pee outside, Mom," and Michael said, "Just drop trou like you're camping" . . . in 8 degree weather? I thought Amy Poehler's character in Baby Momma might have a good idea);
The brakes, driver's side door (though, confession, it's been broken for awhile such that I can't open it from the outside, but it has finally gotten to me), and heat on the Volvo. I broke down and bought a seat cover for the driver side this month because I was tired of the broken leather;
Our Brita water filter on the kitchen faucet so that it spurts water all over the place when turned on too high; and
The Audi's electrical something, a coil? that we got fixed for $1000 less than anticipated . . . but now it needs servicing, and a timing belt. Cool. Can't wait to spend more money on a car.
I guess that's it. Not too bad (another reason I love lists. Real Simple's recent issue is about lists - a magazine after my own heart), but in the midst of it, Monday night when we had no working toilet and a bathtub full of poop from the toilet, I felt like the world was coming apart. After all, it's just money. And it's just plumping. I am so fortunate to have indoor plumbing that breaks.
I mentioned that I might have a few blog posts to catch up on. So here's a quick Christmas catch up. My family had a wonderful Christmas together - another healing event for 2008 when we (me, Michael, Asher and Harper joined by Clare, Michael and Jaden) were all together, enjoying (not gritting teeth and waiting to escape but keeping it together as much as possible for the kids who knew something was up anyway but really too young to realize Christmas versus Saturday cartoon day - phew!) each others' company, sharing the many gifts and blessings of the holiday. What a day!
I have much to learn about how to have a fun but not overly exhausting holiday with my kids and Michael. I had Tuesday off before Christmas and daycare was open, so I dropped my kids off and spent much of the day grocery shopping, cooking and present wrapping. I cooked more on Wednesday, got more gifts ready, enjoyed a Christmas Eve celebration in Ft. Collins and Christmas in Longmont. I cooked more Christmas morning, enjoyed all the splendor of Christmas morning (and Asher's disbelief at evidence of Santa's visit) and time that day to just be together. Somehow, I lost site of my own energy levels, and when Clare and Michael left Christmas evening and our kids were in bed, I went into our bedroom and crawled under the covers utterly exhausted - that feeling of I can barely keep breathing much less think about being upright in any fashion.
Michael drew me a bath, prepared our one, small bathroom as much as possible to be kid-free/adult relaxing (i.e. hiding the toys in the sink with a towel), and I took a long soak. I couldn't even read. I just soaked. I relaxed and felt much better. Which leads me to the enduring question - how to have a fun, tradition-filled, all-the-things-we-love-about-Christmas filled day without turning into a puddle at the end of the day? Perhaps it's less cooking. Perhaps it's more naps. Perhaps it's taking a mental read on my own energy levels and taking something off the list. Perhaps it's knowing that it was all worth it.
I have a number of other posts that I want to add, but today trumps them all! A strange, frustrating day. Asher woke up at about 5:00 a.m. in my bed with, "Mom, my ear hurts," which generally is a sign that he has an ear infection. But since it was hours before the doctor's office opens, I tried to make him comfortable with drops (Asher asked me if I was a doctor when he saw the medicine case - sweet) and my warming pillow (one of the favorite things I own! A pillow filled with corn that my Aunt Adel gave me years ago - warms in the microwave), which was only semi-successful. While lying in bed, trying to sleep between Asher's discomfort and discussion about why he has an ear infection, I mentally tried to figure out how to manage the 4 meetings for the day (of course, all in one day when I rarely have meetings becaues I believe in Murphy's Law).
After having to switch everyone and everything to the Volvo (which has no heat) to the Audi (which had no electricity this morning because the damn fancy car doesn't turn its own lights off or tell you their left on), we dropped Harper off at daycare, which was hard because her brother wasn't there, and headed to my office, where it took me three tries to print a grant report due Monday (why? Because the lame ass computer tech guy who came in as a nice volunteer and became paid tech support ran off with 8 new laptops, 2 desktops, a variety of computer equipment last week without completing his job. Moral of the story? Always do a background check! And criminals don't introduce themselves as criminals) when come to find out I don't have two key pieces of information for the grant report. I did what I could to get something out . . . while entertaining Asher and telling him at least 10 times that we could read the new giant dinosaur book that appeared in our office later that afternoon (it's a REALLY cool dinosaur book!) and Asher running through approximately 43 flag post-its so he could flag all the dinosaurs he wanted to show me (took him 5 mintues). I left the office trailing a co-worker telling me she had one of the key pieces for me - I tried not to look too annoyed while assuring her that her program "wouldn't be in trouble," as she put it (insert lots of cuss words).
Got through Asher's doctor's appointment with a sub-doctor I wasn't too keen on (did learn Asher wants to see a woman doctor - funny kid) and his prescription (he only used the blood pressure machine in the pharmacy for about 10 minutes and figured out how to get both hands stuck in it at the same time - that was entertaining for both of us). At the doctor's office, I remembered that I had a Jamba Juice gift card and promised Asher a smoothy (look at me! What a fun mom!). So, we ran across town to Lowe's, which is near Jamba, to get a copy of a house key made. Took f-o-r-e-v-e-r - as in, does anyone work here anymore since the recession-we-shall-not-name? We ran over to Jamba and it was closed. Um, yeah. Closest location is in Boulder. After much crying and gnashing of teeth, we ran back across town to the other smoothy place and succeeded in getting a smoothy. We spent a few hours at home watching cartoons, playing , getting some work done, spending time together, venting to Ardis and recovering from a morning of 2 steps forward, 10 steps backward.
Soon before we left to get Harper, I decided to try to get the Audi started. I downloaded eHow instructions on how to jump a car (there's a nice video of it) because I'd never done it myself and was a wee bit paranoid about killing myself. After 20 minutes of running the booster car, the Audi was no more alive. I went to take the cables off the batteries and the grounded negative end sparked, the Audi blinked some lights, and then . . . miracles! it started! Although, not without its say in the matter, deciding the hazards would not turn off and the alarm would go off randomly, so I drove it to daycare that way (finding that I could keep one blinker on and the hazards went off). I felt quite hilarious and thankful for the dark tinted windows. Getting home, the alarm and hazards would NOT stop, so I ran through the stupid, complicated fuse box until I pulled out one that took care of that (with Harper climbing around me and so prettily blocking the light). Ta da!
What a day! And yet, miracles all around - that I parked the Audi in such a way that I could jump it from the Volvo; that the Audi actually started; that I had both cars at the house so I could switch between them; that one of my meetings got rescheduled; and that I got to spend a day with my boy who much needed mom time . . . sigh. It's almost a full moon.
I last posted on October 13. Can't believe it! Where have I been? Somewhere between Halloween, working, getting office ready to move downstairs, getting ready for a trip to Alabama, thinking about kindergarten for Asher, working, volunteering grant writing services, beginning in a book club, going to Alabama, coming back to blown up (figurative) office in which I could not work for a week, coming back to office that sorely needed my organization skills, getting ready for Christmas . . . and now, here, sitting in my lovely office (all mine! I used to share).
I remember fun things in the last two months like getting my five mountain ski pass, researching schools for Asher, witnessing the approval of our district's Montessori charter school, getting to know a whole group of women in Boulder through a book club (which has been interesting when sprinkled with comments like, "Ooooh, I would never send my child to daycare. You must get a nanny or au pair" and having an argument about the religion behind Waldorf school. I'm so sure! And don't even test me on education philosophies!), trick or treating in 60 degree weather, taking Asher to his first swim lessons (the boy is fearless in water), navigating Michael's hours being temporarily reduced at work due to the economy and lack of bank lending, manning the home front while Michael has traveled stateside and to Haiti (and making Michael promise he'll take me some day soon), and enjoying Thanksgiving and the coming of Christmas.
We had one of the best trips we've ever had to Alabama over Thanksgiving. I enjoyed a wonderful feeling of homecoming (after I got over great anxiety of returning to the place where much yick started), being with a family I've known now for 13 years, and watching my kids with their many cousins and Behmer family.
The Thanksgiving trip continues a theme of healing in my life. Michael and I have had great (close to miraculous because only God could manage this) healing in our relationships and own lives as we figure out how to better love one another and more things to love. How much I enjoy our time as a family (though it's a bit crazy being pulled in three directions - wish I was more ADD) and the time I get to sit down with Michael over a pint or a good meal and talk on the heartside. Our continued trading of weekends with Clare have been a wonderful respite.
I was lying in bed last night (and not because our cat decided he must go outside in the below freezing weather) agonizing about Monday and returning to work. I've worked for the same organization for over 2 1/2 years (3 in March). This is the longest I have ever worked anywhere. While there isn't really any way to go up in my position, I do have the freedom to learn more about my position. Even so . . . I tend towards getting antsy and ready to move on. I start tossing around different scenarios for work and returning to my age old quest of figuring out what the hell my career is meant to be. So there I was, lying in bed, and starting to ask God where He wants me (because that's really what I want to know). A calm settled over me, and I came to understand He wants me in a place to heal. My work comes naturally to me so it's not overly taxing though enjoyable in how much variety I can bring to it. I can do this work, help support the family, and heal.
Last night, I started to think about the number of non-work projects I've taken on (volunteering for two organizations to do grant writing, talking about taking on two possibel paid positions in grant writing, continuing volunteering with the youth conference) and figured I needed to wrap some of them up and spend time healing. My body is worn out with two years of stress, and it's time to get physically healthy and mentally more healthy.
We'll see how that goes . . . I like things to be complicated (so much easier to focus on other things). Maybe I'll try light or color or energy or crystal healing. So many options in dear Boulder.
(Note: The tree is a healing tree! Gotta love it. I could try tree hugging heeling. Or ski healing.)
Last week was an unending whirl of activity - some fun and some stressful. I had four evenings in a row of fun activities and social gatherings and a three day week of work that included some not so fun situations to handle (I'm a peace lover and the idea of "confronting" anyone is possibly worse than the idea of sitting down to eat a steak but sometimes you just have to eat steak. With friends, of course). I woke up Saturday wondering where I had been all week, feeling like absolutely bushed. I spent much of the day on the couch. It was TGIC (Thank God it's cartoon day)!
Saturday is cartoon day in our house, which means that there are very, very few limits on how much television the kids can watch. If Asher knows that the next day is cartoon day, he has been known to get up at 4 to start watching cartoons, and we put it off until about 6 (but only if he goes BACK TO BED). Cartoons then play for hours on end. It's a great time for us parents - time to sleep, get a few things done around the house without interruption, spend time laying on the couch with the kids, have a cup of coffee together.
Unfortunately, television has a backlash effect on my kids. While they are so eerily sedate while watching, once the television goes off, the world seems more than normally difficult to handle. There are more tears, tantrums and less smiles and laughing. My theory is that while watching TV, life is very simple and pleasurable and once it goes off, my kids have to suddenly deal with the real world - pleasurable without a doubt but requiring more effort (like using actual words) and handling of a whole mess of emotions.
When I was little, my parents had a book called, "The Plug in Drug," which was about television. I never read it, but I clearly remember the cover and thinking about what the title meant. Watching my kids, I can see how television has a drug-like effect not only while they are watching but once it's off. They go through withdrawals.
Television has a place in my life and my kids (Asher is a HUGE fan of cartoons). I'm not always so happy about this and with little prodding could fall into a big "Kill Your Television" advocate. I still try to keep the tube off more often than not even as on a day like Saturday (with a day of rain), I took full advantage of cartoon day.
During my first fall in Santa Fe during college, a few friends and I drove up the road to the Santa Fe Ski Basin to check out the changing aspens. We had hit the peak of the leaf change, parked the car and walked into a grove of yellow aspen trees. Such a place is unbelievable - surrounded by leaves on the trees and spread all over the forest floor, that seem illuminated from within by a yellow light and that make a gentle, rustling noise in the wind as the leaves touch each other. Holding up all the yellowness are bright, white tree trunks, slashed with lines of black. Breathtaking.
Colorado is also home to aspen groves, which grow in a kind of family unit with many trees sharing a single root system. The last two years, I have been able to drive and see aspens at their peak again. A few weekends ago, on Michael and my trip up to Tabernash, we took a hike with friends and ended up in a few aspen groves. Walking off the trail, I walked into the middle of a grove and let the yellow light, the leaf rustle fall all around me. I breathed deeply.
Michael looked at me and asked, "Are you having a moment?"
"Yes," I answered. Indeed I was.
There was a time some year and a half ago where I felt like trees - among other things - were God's message of strength to me, messages to keep going and to continue hoping. What a joy to have messages of beauty now in these trees I love.
The day after I had Asher, hormones arush and crazy, I realized the profound love of a mother and wept for, as my postpartum mind put it, "all the babies without mommies." I thought of orphans all over the world who were born into a world without a mother's love, without a mother's touch, without a mother's voice (do they feel so lost, I wondered, not hearing the voice they "knew" in the womb?). My head was in a rather pitiful place.
To this day, stories of adoptions as well as a baby passing away can easily make me cry. Yesterday, for instance, I cried at church when the pastor talked about visiting his adopted daughters grave (she passed away at 6 weeks due to trisomy 13), cried while reading a story in Wondertime about an adolescent, blind girl adopted from China and cried - oh, yes, still more - while reading "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle" and the loss of Edgar's par
ents' baby (note that we had two days of overcast skies and rain in Colorado, highly unusual, and apparently not so good for my sense of happiness).
It is no surprise then, that on the happy occasion of our nephew's official adoption by his step dad that on entering the judges chambers and seeing a bookcase full of families adopting children from around the world that I teared up, and I teared up as the judge signed the final form making our nephew's adoption final. Such joy in seeing children happily united with a family - with a mommy and/or daddy. Such joy in seeing our nephew's dad officially recognized as his dad.
Explaining why we were going to see Jaden on the day of his adoption to Asher was interesting. I really didn't want to get into the biology of babies - yet how to explain that Jaden's stepdad was "becoming" his dad! When I told Asher something to this effect, he replied, "But Tio is already his dad." Wise words indeed. Sensing the joy of the moment, after Jaden received a certificate from the judge and an uncirculated quarter, Asher turned to Jaden with a big smile and hugged him. How did he know?
I woke up this morning with a small depression hangover from Sunday. The sun was just coming up - thank God! - as I drove to work, and I tried to work on being thankful for what I do have. Apparantly, practicing thankfulness can increase our happiness by something like 25% (whatever that means!). I looked in my rear view mirror and saw the blond heads of my two kids, and I felt thankful for them, for their place in my lives and for the unending joy I find in their lives. There is something unendingly mysterious - in the emotions and the journey - of parenthood.
I have a friend from work who has been through the grinding mill with her ex-boyfriend. Suffice it to say that they had very different ideas about commitment and sex. So for a second time in just under two years, my friend was flung out into singlehood after a six year relationship (and lots and lots of tears and yelling). Some time in the weeks following the break up, my friend had the following late night text message conversation with a male school counselor she had worked with at a school (purely - and I mean purely - professionally):
Guy: Hey. What's up? My girlfriend and I were thinking that you would be perfect to do a threesome with us.
Friend: This is xxxx xxxxx''s phone. Did you mean to text me?
Guy: Oh, yes. We think you'd just be perfect.
Friend: Go to hell.
Um, yeah. Niiiice (from a middle school counselor). Uncharacteristically, this friend, who has a huge heart for people and their potential and a small heart for her own gifts and what to expect from people, especially men, took the conversation to the director of school counseling. She complained. People listened. The male counselor had a big sit down with the three female counselors at his school - so embarassing - and he ended up leaving his position. My friend expressed new found power following her break up and actions that made her feel so grown up and like a powerful woman who just wasn't going to take the crap anymore.
As Michael and I are back together, how much I recognize my friend's new found power and developing that power myself. Following Michael's moves out, I felt like I first lifted myself up by my bootstraps and then was powered forward by a new found inner strength. Two things were symbolic of this - my new found ability to make appointments (I used to put off getting my hair cut or making ANY appointment because I didn't feel "old" enough or part of that world to do it . . . emailing for doctors appointments totally enables me) by phone and a pair of knee high black boots my mom and her husband bought me. I put on the boots one day for work and felt, quite suddenly, like a woman. Like an adult. Like part of the grown up world.
I have wondered as life moves forward, if getting married at age 22 changed how I "grew up," if being flung out on my own made me grow up in new ways or if just having a life crisis paved a path for new growth. As much as I'd have liked to skip over the last two years, I have learned, like my friend, to be more forward and more of a self-advocate. I take less crap and expect more from people. For this, I am thankful. And I am still ready to kick some more ass with my sexy boots (or at least get my hair cut).
I have a windowless room in my head, this guest house of being human, that I am trying desperately to swepp clean, if not get rid of. On my bad days (and when I'm PMS'ing) my thoughts enter this room and start bouncing around like a bouncy ball in a small space, pinging from side to side and gaining momentum as it bounces off the same thought walls over and over and over again - walls made of trauma memories from the last two years. The bouncing ball may start out innocently enough, set off by some object or impending date, and then turn into a sharp, spiny ball of destruction, causing increasingly piercing pain.
The ball started to bounce yesterday morning when I woke up from a dream crying. Because my dreams in the past have related to reality and have even revealed things I was not seeing, I can take my dreams too seriously. Throughout the morning, the ball gained its momentum so that I was impatient with my kids, crying off and on and desperately in need of a lobotomy to sweep the damn room. How I wish I could remove some memories and associations. How I crumble with the weight of them . . . some days.
By nap time, I was desperately in need of something to change my thoughts so I made tea (heal with water), I flipped through my dusty Bible to Psalm 143 and felt relief in reading,
"Therefore my spirit is overwhelmed within me;
My heart is appalled within me. . . .
Let me hear Your lovingkindness in the morning;
For I trust in You;
Teach me the way in which I should walk;
For to You I lift up my soul.
Deliver me, O LORD, from my enemies;
I take refuge in You.
Teach me to do Your will,
For You are my God;
Let Your good Spirit lead me on level ground.
For the sake of Your name, O LORD, revive me
In Your righteousness bring my soul out of trouble."
I prayed for God to take the room, to deal with those things I have no power over, and to give me trust in what He is doing in my life, and I took a nap. It doesn't always happen that scripture nor praying relieve my mind, but yesterday, so thankfully, they did.
I am noticing that I have definite, strong times of PMS, but rather than reject them as merely hormonal episodes, in the last two months, I have, as much as possible through the agony of it all (because really I want to do something like tear all my hair out and run through the next few days with a nice lie in), tried to give these feelings space to be felt and to have purpose and, perhaps, to be honored.
The following poem is aanother place to meditate, as things were indeed cleared for new delights later in the day (like Asher's birthday celebration with all four of us together as a family):
The Guest House by Rumi
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
(P.S. I'm going to start praying for just a light dusting of my rooms - who needs the violent sweeping!).
I have been asking that myself. Where I have I been that I can't find the time to blog? I will have to write more later (all these blogs post in my head and no time to blog!), but I have been undeniably absent due to:
