Thank You Katie

I feel at home again.  Oh, and I wish you'd send me a long email soon.

New! Improved

All I wanted was an email subscription form. Now I'm yellow. Ish.

Change is hard.

Maybe a sister with some design talent and lots of time on her hands will tell me how to make it familiar again?

TMI

A blogger I read posted today about measures she is taking to protect the identities of her family, as well as shield the more pertinent details of her life (ie place of residence, favourite restaurants, local haunts) from any kooks out there who might be a bit more interested than they ought to be.

I hate it when people I admire do things that I have decided to pretend ought not to be done.

Protecting my privacy is not in my nature. I have very few thoughts that I don't share with someone. In fact, I'd be surprised to find out I have any unsaid thoughts. To write a few down and make them available to the world seems hardly dangerous: a person could probably figure out my life-story and PIN code if they eavesdropped on me waiting in line for the bathroom. I post photos of my children here and on facebook with their names and it wouldn't take Stephen Hawking to deduce their full names and birthdates with a little back and forth and checking of the archives. They'll have me to blame when they apply to university and find out they're already there in the person of a 54 year-old russian spy.

Probably being cavalier about this isn't wise. I did search my name in all its variations and it does not link to my blog at all. I also searched all four of our first names and our hometown and again, no link to the blog. Since the kids' birthdays are only on the blog and their names are on FB but not with middle names, I've decided to call us safe.

I realize I'm probably lying to myself, and to my future credit-declined children, I apologize.

To everyone else, should I be more worried about confessing to being a judgmental meany and a terrible wife so publicly? I could go back to blogging holiday highlights....

Yucky Mean Self

It will surprise few of you to read that I think fairly highly of myself. I am smart, witty, easy on the eyes, well-weighted, and of course, now a Writer. I am not without flaws, but most often leave a favourable impression. I know all these great things are true because were they not, how could I possibly have collected so many oddly wonderful people as friends? Yes, I am as they say, Confident.

One of the great things about me though, actually, my Very Favourite Thing About Me, is that I know myself well and have great insight into me. When I misstep, it takes hardly a moment for me to discern what precipitated the unfortunate error and to make whatever corrections are required to return to my otherwise Right Way.

As such, I end up with posts like Friday's where I explore a deep flaw like being a tad Judgy, and arrive at some Truth about it that reassures You, Faithful Reader that I am Aware and Working On It. Successfully.

You can imagine then, that when the Blog Looking Glass fails, it is a bit... upsetting.

I was innocently listening to CBC's radio program Asunder this morning, when the show's host Rachel Cave referenced John Gottman's thinking about marriage wreckers and then played him talking about two in particular, Contempt and Stonewalling. When you hear a person describe how a particular trait is an almost sure-fire guarantee of divorce, and then hear that person go on to describe exactly how you argue with your spouse, it can be, well... upsetting.

I have conceded for a long time, perhaps since the beginning of time, that I am argumentative. I like a good (word) fight, love a protracted debate, thrill at a verbal joust well thrown. I have further conceded that I may sometimes win said contests by drowning my opponent in eloquence rather than convincing him (or her) to join me on my Raft of Rightness. And as my married friends will know, marriage provides no shortage of opportunities to hone these skills, particularly if a person has chosen a spouse who is also perhaps just a tad argumentative himself.

Having read much on marriage, including John Gottman, I have been fairly comfortable believing that the quantity of conflict in our marriage was well within the norm, and that if we continued to practice not only conflicting, but also resolving in front of our children, all would be well. Or at least Well-ish.

It was devastating then, to realize quite suddenly that the quality of our conflict was in fact of the dangerous sort. Or more accurately, that the quality of my style of conflict was of the dangerous sort.

I am still unsure what to do next. I will probably browse through Dr. Gottman's site to see if he offers any Cures In A Quote that I can use. I am a bit assured to see that it follows on the theme begun in Friday's post: I like it when God is so leading and clear about what my soul needs and where the Spirit is busy in my world.

But mostly I'm a bit shaken in my Confidence, in my assuredness that I'm OK. It may be that my Yucky Mean Self is not just a funny line in a Esteem-Affirming Self-Assessment Blog.

A Fine Line

Of the many good writers I read, one is Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project (referred to me by Katie many, many moons ago). Her most recent newsletter linked to a post about her hope to be less judgmental.

So, yesterday I'm sitting on the lawn at the West Van Rec Centre with friend Kate, surrounded by our bounty of unusually bright and attractive children. I turned to her and said, "I know I am a bad person because I have have thoughts like these and always say them outloud. I have to stop. But do you see that woman over there..." Kate interrupted and said, "I knew who you were going to point to as soon as you started talking," and we laughed and laughed because of course we are terrible people and the woman was our ideal target: awkwardly dressed but carrying herself in such a way that said, I dare you. And so we dared.

You can understand then, why Gretchen's post would be so appealing. Even I know that hilarious as my quick evaluations are, they probably aren't kind and might actually even be Wrong. Like, sin-Wrong. The difficulty has been that the act of judging and sharing said judgments is such pleasure, so often. How could I deny myself? Perhaps Gretchen and readers would have some ideas.

Of course, it is firstly gratifying to know that others share your disability and perhaps even have a more severe form of it. But then, it is sadly mortifying to discover that that initial evaluation is actually only proof of the severity of one's own disability. So all the more desperate was I to find the cure. And here, bulleted because my children sound all-too-awake, are the first thoughts I will be trying on as I begin considering rehabilitation:

• Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. -Plato
• Practice Acceptance.
• Knowing right from wrong is different than being right about everything.
• Is it true? Is it helpful? Is it good?
• If I'm not the solution, there is no problem.
• They are who they need to be.

Some offered as a solution trying to think of reasons to explain why the judgee might be doing something I consider judgment-worthy: "She's wearing all that spandex because all her other clothes were lost in a terrible housefire last night." However, when I think that way, I find it only entrenches in me a feeling of superiority that is as ugly as the judgment to begin with. Which made me realize that it's not so much the judgmentalism that bothers me, as the Yucky Mean Spirit in which it is made.

And so my next project will be figuring out a cure for Yucky Mean Spirit.

Lord. This may not go well.

I'm a Writer!

I found a new blog I love. Well, more like a new writer I love who has a blog. In fact, this has been a year of good-writing-finding, and has been part of my own re-wondering about writing. I so enjoyed the first post I read that I commented. And the writer commented back! And said, "You must be a writer too." And this of course sounds ridiculous, written as it is in the blog in which I write, but it was the very first time that I have every been called a writer and I've agreed. The last 48 hours, I've been pulling out the memory of the moment and checking in to see if I indeed still feel like a Writer. And I do!

The difficulty of course, is that I don't actually write. Or Write. Not with any consistency in regularity, content or quality. But oh, how I want to.

We are sneaking into Back To School season, my favourite time of the year, and I'm allowing myself to wonder if I'll be adding some writing to our new schedule for fall. Just wondering...

Empty Rooms

It has been difficult to shake the despair. Although that's not quite the right word. Bleakness maybe? Tired eyes, tired body, wandering mind. A difficult combination that seems fairly persistent and if held at bay for a time, reappears with surprising alacrity.

This morning's weeping was born of realizing how much life I'm not living because I'm absenting myself from it. I am becoming increasingly more at home in what I decided to call the Empty Rooms in my mind. I alluded to this in my Alternate Life post a while back: that AltLife lives in another part of my brain I guess and there is an empty room for each version of it. For a long time, I've kept the doors to those rooms closed but increasingly I find myself sneaking in and living in them for a bit. This seems dangerous to me, and yet I keep returning, bringing in a new piece of furniture or a knick-knack with me that makes it just a little bit more comfortable.

These other rooms are of course mostly appealing because they are not This Life. And I have run out of ways to make This Life more appealing.

I did have a sweet conversation with a friend today that clarified that all is not hopeless. We realized that much of this current stage of life is spent doing things that do not make us feel good or look good while living with someone who is also spending most of his time doing things that do not make him feel good or look good. It is a Misery Multiplier, this particular formula and it only makes sense that as it multiplies day after day, the Empty Rooms become increasingly appealing because a) I feel good and look good in them and b) I'm no longer sharing my space with someone who doesn't feel good and look good.

It made me realize why the most often offered solutions (Date Night! Get Away! Exercise!) aren't such great solutions for me: they aren't things that make me (or Scott) feel better or look better, even if they should, or do for other people.

So I spent some time remembering what situations do make us feel better and look better to ourselves and to each other, and I felt a tiny bit more hopeful. Maybe we'll have a Date Night! and compare notes to see if we can make our This Life a bit more appealing now that we have a new formula to play with.

How About Later?

I was walking home from a meeting tonight and passed a young, married couple walking their dog. My initial thought was, "Oh, I miss that." But happily, I let myself think a few minutes longer and remembered that actually, being newly married wasn't so awesome either: the first year or two was getting used to being married and buying a house and the next year or two was trying to get pregnant. It's only in the looking back, that the hand-holding, dog walking looks so ideal. At the time, it felt empty and difficult and often useless.

About a car length later I realized, I'm terrible at Living In The Moment.

I think I'll think about that. Writing seems unlikely tonight, but I thought I should point this out to myself.

OK Pizza

My first thought was that they probably should have invested a bit more heavily in branding and marketing: OK Pizza doesn't instill a sense of "must try it" that a pizza joint probably needs in this competitive Tofino market. As I mull further though, maybe they're brilliant. Expectation Management is surely the key to success in any endeavour, and I bet a lot of people leave OK Pizza thinking, "Well, that wasn't so bad at all. More than OK..."

After being assailed by my alternate life fears these last few weeks, I am toeing back towards contentment in this current life of mine. Of course, being housed next to the beach, listening to the ocean and wind while my children nap helps... I walked back up from the beach carrying a sleeping Nate this morning and turned the corner to see our new Pilot sitting in the parking lot, and I thought, "Oh yeah, that's us." Seems a bit silly, but coming to peace with the Pilot is a big deal - I was sad to lose the Jetta and all that I thought it told the world about who we were. I am pretty sure that the AltLife Crisis was probably largely induced by this change. Sad but true.

Anyway, that sense of There I Am then transmogrified into Scott Is Missing And I Am Better When He's Not. Again, perhaps a surprisingly obvious truth, but one that had slipped to the background these last weeks. The grind of daily life sometimes blurs the image and I see less clearly. A bit of distance and I am reminded fairly quickly that he is my truly Other Half and in his absence I am a bit Less: Less Me, Less Quiet, Less Sure, Less At Rest.

And in the remembering of that, I come back to the Quiet, Sure, Rest that my Me is OK. Not THE WORLD'S BEST!!! or Tofino's Finest! or #1A Top Favourite! or whatever it was that AltLife was offering... We're OK. I'm okay. It's all going to be okay.

Suddenly OK Pizza sounds pretty good.


*****

Writing has always been something I've done. School, university, work... writing has always been the easy part. However, since having kids, writing has been less possible. What free time was available already had so many demands on it and frankly, writing seemed useless and unhelpful.

But these last few months, I feel like a space has opened up for it again, and I am SO thankful. It has been so sweet for my soul to unravel the threads of thought that weave through my days. Amazing. I wonder if I'll find some daily, or at least more regular, space for this discipline. In case I do, I hope one or 2 of the one or 2 who read these ramblings will suggest some starting points. I might enjoy some "assignments"...

My Alternate Life

I've become a bit obsessed with my Other Life. It's the one I'm not living because I'm so busy keeping up with the one that wakes me up every morning. I should probably say Other Lives because of course there are several alternate paths I could have chosen along the way and each would have provided its own story I suppose.

But then really, what pains me is just the One Other Life. The one where I am not me, but instead a more butterfly-like, carefree, open-hearted freedom lover, full of whimsy and je ne sais quoi and courage and an uncanny ability to live in the moment. That me wouldn't have done anything as mundane as marriage and child-bearing. Or if she had, it would have been in a barefooted, art gallery loving, bohemian way. I think she would have also died young of a tragic illness...

She wouldn't be so anxious, that's for sure. And she wouldn't ever worry about her Other Life because one of the lovelinesses of Her Life would be her trusting certainty that she was living the Right Life.

I am terrified of Her.

I am so afraid she is going to arrive one day and announce that not only is she the Other Life, she is the Only Way to True Happiness and that I will find myself forced to choose between this wrong-headed First Life with all its work and dreary-ness and commitment and everyday-ness and My Real Self Who Has Been Waiting All This Time To Be Happy.

I assume she would show up in the form of another love, a Gateway Love to that new life where all is at it should be. But she could arrive in the form of a new passion (ha! I hope Brooke reads this), or an innocent trip abroad that takes me to my Dream Home that doesn't allow children.

I know I married well because Scott listened to my tear-full confession of this fear this morning and said, "I totally know what you're talking about." And we agreed that we might well find other people with whom we would have some great moments, but that we couldn't think of anyone else we wanted nearby for the shitty ones. When I am diagnosed with my tragic illness, it may be romantically lovely to gaze across the moors with my deep-set, bloodshot eyes warmed by the knowledge that I had lived the Only Right Life, but it will be infinitely more possible to live in This Life with Scott lying next to me...

My Other Life just got a tiny bit less scary.

No One Is Cleaning My Kitchen

Late on a Saturday night with husband at work, a wife ought to be returning the family home to some order and peace so that her children can wake to an oasis of calm in the morning and know they are in a safe place. So that her husband can return from a long night of rescuing the hurt and lonely and stupid and sink into the restful goodness of his own Home.

It seems unlikely.

I am far too busy cruising the interwebs and eavesdropping on people's lives, real and imagined, to do any useful work. And there are way too many thoughts banging around in my head to settle into the rhythm of tv-supported laundry folding. So we'll just let those thoughts bang themselves out and around see what happens.

We bought a car this week. It was difficult and stressful and annoying. Forty-eight hours later, I realize that it wasn't unusually so - it was a car purchase from a car dealer and it just is what it is. But in the moment, it all feels like more than that. I become strangely religious and start believing in a God who uses poorly-dressed used car salesmen to relay His Will On Car Purchases (which is always, in case you didn't know this, This Is a Bad Idea and Probably Sin). And suddenly the balance that holds me together day to day is lost and I am unhinged, thrown into a mess of guilt and fear and anger and sadness and all the other bad feelings that I mostly hold at bay the rest of the time. It made me realize that there is just very little in the way of bad that comes my way and when it does I have no resources for coping with it.

When bad hard things happen to other people, I have a great deal of faith that it isn't personal. Kids don't get cancer because their parents are bad people. Their houses aren't robbed because they have too many possessions. Their parents aren't killed in accidents because they didn't deserve love. God doesn't hand out goodies to his favourites and haze the losers. Or maybe what I mean is, we're all the favourites. And when bad things happen to us, it isn't because of us, because of some lesson we need to learn or some other higher goal God is trying to achieve that makes our okayness expendable. It's just because bad things happen. I tell people that the promise isn't that bad things won't happen. It's that we'll have a friend on our team to get us to the other side of them.

You know, I just read a friend's blog where she tells the story of her daughter being treated badly at a birthday party (didn't see this connection coming - I sure do miss writing). She was nearby at the same park with her other daughter and was able to intervene and coach her daughter through it, and debrief it with her later on. Imagine if the story was that Mummy sent Daughter to a party and then arranged for the other girls to be mean because she wanted her to learn that all humanity is sinful and the only person Daughter should trust is Mummy. It's ludicrous. Mummy taught that she was trustworthy by witnessing the pain, stepping in to participate and then making space for Daughter to work it out later, all the time telling her, You Are Dearly Loved. If a mother, sinful and earthbound though she may be, can love this way, does not our Father in Heaven do the same and even better?

So if that's what the Kingdom is really like, then the hard parts of the car purchase weren't set up by God to teach us to steward our money better or to steer us to another car that would be more Pleasing to The Lord. The hard parts were just hard parts and God was just nearby watching and jumping in with me when I turned heavenward and said "HELP!" And now, thanks to the miracle of the interwebs, we get to debrief it together and I get to be reminded that I Am Dearly Loved and that all will be well. Even if it is the wrong car.

Maybe the kitchen will get tidied now...

Good In An Emergency

Well, the hot water heater blew up. Or did whatever these things do when they give up living. Andrew came home from work and heard something not altogether right - sure enough, the utility room was full of water. Happily it is sunken and so water was prevented from running amok among his belongings and instead has just run under the sub-floor.

This is a moment when I am good in an emergency. No panic, no tears, just a phone call to the insurance company and Oreo cookies to sustain the menfolk while they take out the tank. Lots of soothing talk about how it's not a problem if money can solve it, and how we have money tucked away for exactly these moments anyway (or at least for an installment payment for these moments) and if no one is hurt then bad feelings are not required.

Unfortunately, me being good in an emergency did very little to make the boys feel any better. They're still frustrated and annoyed, as I suppose is to be expected when you spend 2 hours sucking water off the floor and removing tanks and doing whatever it is one does at a time like this.

Which brings us to tonight's theme: the uselessness of being Me.

Okay, that may be a bit bleak, to say nothing of inaccurate. But I have been thinking about how me being good and okay has a lot less sway than me being cranky and mean. It seems that it is much easier to be a force for evil than for good. And perhaps that's not just true for me. Maybe all of us impact others the most with our negatives, while our neutral and very good make very little impact.

I called a friend today to whine about an encounter with another friend. My feelings had been dinged and I wanted someone to say that it was extra terrible. The dinger is lovely and someone whom I enjoy a lot. I have yet to call anyone randomly on a Monday afternoon to tell them that though. I saved the call until I had a flaw to pass along. I'm sure it is a sad reflection on my character, but it also reminds me that it most often our short-comings that are noteworthy, that get passed along. Because they're what do damage, and damage does have to be reported. Just like our hot water heater.

This is juxtaposed against what also seems to be true - it is our good that lives, long after our bad has died. With very few exceptions, despite many, many difficult situations with room-mates, bosses, co-workers, church connections and friends (to say nothing of family and husbands), I carry in my heart only good memories of people. I mean, once we get a goodly distance away. A few years past some pretty dismal episodes with some important people who I thought I would dislike for eternity, I find myself instead full of fondness and goodwill when I think of them.

So our bad is our most vivid self in the present but our good is our lasting impression?

Huh. Not what I was thinking I'd write about, but there you go.

No Pictures.

The only time I'm motivated to post is when I'm in front of the TV while Scott is at work and I've got the laptop in my... well, lap. Then I don't post though, because I have no photos on this computer to add to the dialogue and I'm pretty sure most of you are checking in to see the children, and to make sure I haven't done any irreperable damage.

But tonight I think I am officially giving up on kid-blogging. I mean, picture-required posting. I need to do some head-clearing and soul-arranging and I have yet to find a tool that beats writing. If you need photographic evidence that both children are alive, kindly consider visiting facebook. If you find my self-involved self-reflection a mood-lifter for your own life, then do visit again. I'll try to be a bit more consistent and see if that evens me out.

The only sadness in this is that there will be no more record of my children's development. This was it for the first few years - maybe I'll have to take up scrapbooking, or at least print out my status updates on facebook and stick them in a box somewhere.

After this lengthy introduction, it turns out I don't have much to write about. This minute.

So maybe I'll come back with content later. But this is it, my commitment to trying.

But maybe quickly, my kids. Cause there should be a record.

Talia is smart. Holy shit, is she smart. She is of course, wordy and talky and all that she has been for a long time. But she is also a connection maker. She remembers and collects random ideas and finds ways to bring them together. It's quite amazing actually. One day the other kids will catch up to her and it won't be amazing, but right now, watching a not-quite-3-year-old process so quickly and accurately is kind of inspiring. She sings and makes up songs about what is going on around her and she counts and can write the first 2 letters of her name. These seem like less amazing skills than taking my rings in the bathroom and arranging 5 of them to overlap each other and then saying, "Look, the Olympics!" I mean, really, isn't that shocking?? It's not like we've ever pointed out the Olympic rings, or drawn them together... she just observed them, and then replicated them with 5 circles in a completely different context 2 months after the event had ended.

She is also very feeling-aware, and right now, a bit bowled over by some of the bigger ones, like anger and disappointment. Kind of like her parents, come to think of it. She is getting really sensitive about Scott and I having any kind of conflict. Since us *not* having conflict seems unlikely, we have been inviting her into it in a way, asking if she is worried about Mummy and Daddy, or asking her if she wants to check in to see if we're okay. We talk about how we're frustrated but about how we're going to keep using our words until we can fix it. This seems to take the edge off for her, but I worry about what it does to her little heart. Not enough to actually change myself or anything, but enough to be glad that I believe in a God who redeems exactly this kind of shit.

Nate is ... Nate. He remains so mellow, maybe with a tendency to morose. Not sad, but he can do downtrodden like nobody's business. He is so sweet-spirited right now too, and holds on to me lots. Picking him up out of the crib after naps is my favorite I think, when his little body is so warm and he holds on to both shoulders with each hand, tucks his head in and just eases his way back to conscious. He is a food-lover which remains a surprise to me after having first raised a less food-aware person. He has a big belly that he points to with delight when you ask where his belly-button is. He likes to laugh and it is a bit sad how fun it is to make him laugh. I think he's got a streak of mischievous that will get funnier over time too.

He may also be a bit of an adrenaline junkie. At least more than I am. He's all about the big experience - jumps and throws and tosses of all kinds. He spent 20 minutes at the pool today, jumping into Scott's arms and going straight under water. He just loves it - Talia tolerated it, but doesn't crave it the way Nate seems too. It's fun to watch and live next to. He talks and talks but has yet to make any sense. I think we've deciphered "What's that?" and "Talia" and "Ooohh". And "bar-bar" seems to mean food. Any kind of food, but it's always insistent, with lots of pointing.

Scott remains the best dad I know. He has a way with these two. I guess he has always had a way with kids (the nephews, the neighbours...) but with these two it's just sweeter. Every day, without fail, no matter where he has been, or how long he has been away for, when he walks in the door he says "Talia! Where are you? Nate!" and comes in with arms wide open to scoop them up for hugs and noses. What a wonder to be so delighted in by your dad. My dad's own brand was different in presentation but had the same effect I think - I knew I was safe and loved by that guy and now my own kids get the same thing and oh my, I didn't even know to ask God for that one. They both love him so much and I think of how central a loving Father is to having good faith with good love and just plain good living, I am so deeply thankful for the father Scott is being to them both.

In our own lives, we have to work really hard at contentment and gratitude. Most days, we feel the lack more than the abundance and it is so life-sucking. I imagine that struggle will take up a lot of the room on this page.

I think I'll leave it here for now.

And so it begins. Again.

Six months later and I finally get back to this. I am being tempted to start up a more regular blogging life again. Undecided if I do it here, or start a whole new one but for the time being, this can remain the Showing Off Children Spot.

This is Talia's first drawing of something. First time of "I am going to draw wheels" and then actually making shapes that match the intention. This seems like a moment and fun to have a video to keep track of said moment since drawing was done in such a temporary format. From now on, only etchings in plaster.

Enjoy.

All Done

Last week I lost my watch. I found it 2 days later in the bench next to the backdoor, carefully laid on top of the box marked "Stationary". Not where I would keep it, but a good hiding spot for a smaller person.

Although the watch was found, I never lost the feeling that something was missing. For days, I kept feeling that sinking incompleteness and would check my wrist, only to discover that the was watch was back in place, a sort of Groundhog Day meets Prodigal Watch.

Then Thursday I lost my keys.

The languishing lostness continues. It would seem the Universe is bringing me lostness and iss intent on me finishing the process. I wish It had taken something less critical though. Maybe a hat?

Because this morning I am done with this journey. I don't care what all this lost-ing should mean - I just want my keys and my All Is Well back.

Last night I dreamt that my dad announced he was leaving my mom. I dreamt that I was the kind of daughter that said all the angry things I had to say about that. It was one of those dreams where everyone is really them, not just dreamed up versions of themselves so I have had to spend the morning reminding myself that it was just a dream.

Somehow, it all feels connected, like the Force is yelling at me in every way It knows and I just can't quite make out what It's saying. What?? WHAT??

If you can hear better than I can, please fill me in. Otherwise, do you know where my keys are?